Visualising the Invisible

Abstract

How the markers of caste are being framed within the cinematic narrative is a question which is still bereft of considerable academic discussion. Boasting of caste pride and hurling casteist slur at a particular caste are two such markers of caste which I will engage herewith in order to decode them. There is a naked display of boasting of caste pride—sometimes in the form of publicly showing janeyu or sometimes in the form of glorifying one’s caste name or family clan like ‘Brahman’, ‘Rajput’, or ‘Suryavansh’—which reeks of deep-rooted caste supremacist attitude of the high castes. On the other hand, the articulation of the casteist slurs like ‘Chamar’, ‘Chandal’, ‘Kachra’, and ‘Dhobi’ bear a dehumanising undertone characterised by humiliation, community-bashing, and verbal atrocity. Caste pride, which is employed to apotheosise the higher castes, is here in a symbiotic relationship with the casteist slur, which is used as a modality to derogate the lower castes. And there are scarcely any better cultural texts than Bollywood films in bearing a testimony to this case. Through an analytical study of dialogues, songs, and expressions tinged with casteism in Bollywood films, this chapter will explore the incorporation of these markers of caste into the cinematic language and how the cinematic representation of these markers of caste do contribute to constructing a deviated ‘Other’ on the basis of caste. Through unearthing these subtle metaphors of caste, this chapter attempts to visualise what Gyanendra Pandey calls ‘universal prejudice’.