Author: Bharathy Singaravel

Rajesh Rajamani’s New Film Fixes the Gaze on the Self-Congratulatory, Liberal Savarna

‘The Discreet Charm of the Savarnas’ takes aim at the liberal and progressive upper castes who speak out about anti-caste solidarity but are far less forthcoming about their privileges.

Rajesh Rajamani’s newly released short-film The Discreet Charm of the Savarnas, with its Luis Buñuel-touch to the title, takes aim at a specific sub-group of upper-castes and Brahmins – the liberals and progressives, who speak out about anti-caste solidarity but are far less forthcoming about their privileges or the consequences of their do-gooding.

Rajamani is both a film critic, primarily covering Tamil cinema, and a filmmaker. He has often written critically on how he believes the Savarna-gaze informs the stories that are told.

As a director and scriptwriter, even in his first short film, that was all of two minutes, he desisted from making his story about violence or oppression. Instead, in Lovers in the Afternoon, a young man makes amends with his irate partner by cooking her beef for lunch. This declaration that a meal of beef is a gesture of affection, that it means warmth, belonging and shared joy, quietly cautioned what was under threat if one didn’t vote wisely. Without referencing lynch-mobs or saffron terror in other parts of the country, it reclaimed beef on screen for its significance to Tamil culture. The film was produced by Pa. Ranjith and released days before Tamil Nadu went to polls during last year’s general elections.

In The Discreet Charm of the Savarnas, Rajamani falls back to satire, a form he is familiar with as the creator of the popular Facebook pages ‘Inedible India‘ (political jokes repurposing Ravi Varma and Kalighat paintings and Mughal miniatures) and ‘Fictional Subtitles‘. His resolve while writing the script, was simple he says; “deflecting the Savarna-gaze back at them.”

The protagonists, Dilip, Aruna and Swaminathan, a trio of independent filmmakers, look for a last-minute replacement to their nameless “Dalit character”. Shot entirely in English, the film lambasts the privileged, upper-class, urban liberal world they so clearly come from. They squabble about political correctness, quote Angela Davis with ease, decide on a whim that a female-led film may be just as good as a male-led one, but befuddled by her looks, tell a Dalit woman that she’s too beautiful for the role.

They keep up a cascade of similar absurd conversations; their panic mounts as the deadline approaches and they grudgingly settle on an actor. Their film gets made. It’s plainly on caste. It’s shown at Goethe Zentrum. Suffused in the post-screening debates by cultural elites, they accept the adulation for the “boldness” of their casting-choice without self-examination.

Rajamani tells me why he felt the need to ridicule this group of Savarnas in particular:

“There’s not much to achieve in mocking those who assert caste hierarchies through open violence. There’s nothing to satirise there. With progressive or liberal upper-castes and Brahmins, there’s a damage they do, that is far-reaching. A Brahmin who speaks out about caste oppression, becomes a super-Brahmin. They’re elevated above their casteist communities, because they are known for being Brahmin and outspoken.”

The consequences, according to him, are that “they take up cultural and academic spaces and claim their positions amplify the cause. They’re rewarded for their actions, but they will also continue to amass the advantages of the castes they are born into. Their anti-caste solidarity gives them credentials. Their radicalism affords them popularity.”

This happens at the cost of edging out of Dalit, Adivasi and Bahujan voices and is distressing Rajamani explains; it creates a narrative in which the word caste itself becomes synonymous with communities that face discrimination. “It’s a very convenient position to focus on atrocities. Savarnas who do that can then occupy a moral high-ground. They’ve talked about the ‘the oppressed’. Why do they never examine instead, the people who actually keep the system of caste running?”

By dedicating, cultural and academic spaces that address caste, to spectacles of oppression, Rajamani tells me, that Savarnas end-up becoming upholders of the caste structure themselves. The comic incongruities that he throws into his film demonstrate the vast expanse between the world of Savarna liberals and progressives and the one they repeatedly declare solidarity with. This disparity becomes evident, in his view, particularly in cultural and academic circles where caste is discussed extensively.

Also Read: The Anti-Caste Film in English Is a Genre in the Making

Caste, hierarchy and violence

“Why does talking about caste, like in cinema for example, always mean talking about manual scavenging, honour-killings, sexual assault on Dalit and Adivasi women, without focusing on the communities that enforce this violent hierarchy. Hierarchies are enforced by those higher up, so the gaze should be on them,” says Rajamani, adding that he wanted his film to symbolise the people who endorse such a skewed picture; one that is too often self-congratulatory, and moulded by the vocabulary of upper-caste radicalism.

These are hard-hitting concerns that he tempers with farce in his film. Dilip – who is obsessed with African-American writers Toni Morrison, Ta-Nehisi Coates, James Baldwin – languidly extols: “How he [Baldwin] shaped the social alienation of the protagonist” in Giovanni’s Room, but grumbles in his cab about traffic jams and “fringe-groups”, oblivious to the Ambedkar Jayanti celebrations on the streets.

Aruna is so stricken by her fervour for political correctness, it verges on fanaticism. Yet she unfazedly wonders aloud if her friend at TISS “doing his research on Dalits, may know a Dalit?”

Their film – only the poster of which we get to see featuring the “Dalit character” in brownface – is titled Mahanagar Din Ki Ratri. The laborious double-reference to Satyajit Ray seems a snide remark on the ways lived-experiences of caste are feverishly intellectualised in some spaces. And how disengaged such academic rigours are.

Rajesh Rajamani. Photo: By arrangement

On the decision to respond to these concerns with biting comedy, Rajamani says, “The little discourse there is, is always grim. Why not satirise the problem, instead?” Given the 200-odd comic panels he’s made for his Inedible India Facebook page, its influence has seeped into his scriptwriting, he admits, both in tone and in the choice of whom he chose to mock. The posts for Inedible India were not only about the Narendra Modi-regime. “It’s futile beyond a point to make fun of the right-wing. They’re already a joke. Even with Inedible India, I wanted to question how those who project themselves as having progressive views reacted to caste. This is the same reason I did not make the film about upper-caste conservatives.”

The comic form is also what he became comfortable with, for making characters talk to each other and respond to a situation. When it came to writing the script for The Discreet Charm of the Savarnas, he actually began by putting the story together as comic-panels.

Savarna gaze and misinterpretation

A few reviewers have misinterpreted The Discreet Charm of the Savarnas as a comment on stereotypical representations of Dalit people in popular culture. “The film couldn’t be more explicit in declaring whom it is about,” laughs Rajamani. “Almost all of the screen-time is taken up by these upper-caste/Brahmin characters. That caste is equal to Dalit is ingrained in the Savarna gaze, in the narratives that are constantly spun to establish this equation, so even contrary to the indications on the screen, that’s all they can see.”

The response to the film in general has been overwhelmingly positive, and this has surprised him. “I was expecting more polarised reactions, but maybe since the film is a humorous take on a serious concern, with its light-hearted music, it seems to have resonated with the people it ridicules, at least those who are trying to understand their own roles in caste hierarchies. I don’t know if those who would strongly disagree with the politics of the film have watched it, so I wonder what they’d have to say, if they do,” Rajamani says.

The Discreet Charm of the Savarnas released on September 26 and is available for viewing on the web-channel Neelam Social and is a Neelam Productions film, both initiatives founded and led by film director Pa. Ranjith.

Bharathy Singaravel is a culture reporter and interested in the overlaps between Tamil cinema, protest music and politics.

‘His Name Will Last for as Long as His Songs Do’: Cinematic Community Remembers SPB

“SPB is no more.” The text message I received as the news broke left me frozen.

Last evening MGM Healthcare, the Chennai hospital where legendary playback singer S.P. Balasubrahmanyam was being treated, issued a statement that his condition had deteriorated in the preceding 24 hours, warranting maximal life support. He had tested positive for COVID-19 and been admitted to hospital on August 5, then tested negative on September 4, but had required continued medical care. He was 74.

All this considered, one would assume each of us grieving him would have been at least prepared for the echoing sense of loss we feel at his passing. As disbelief jostles with sadness and many of us turn to his song list (a formidable 40,000 in 16 Indian languages including Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada and Hindi), I tried to grasp how those in the cine-music field remember SPB or Balu – two nicknames by which he was fondly known.

Playback singer Chinmayi Sripada told me, “His life was a celebration. He celebrated everything, and he was celebrated. He was never restrained by the mould that a singer should only sing. He did everything. Shone. Thrived. He’s probably dancing away and singing in the heavens, entertaining the gods.” Sripada was referring to his screen appearances from as early as 1969 in Telugu, Tamil and Kananda films and TV programmes, his attempts at film production, music direction and even voice acting. She added that he “would live on through his music” and that “his music is not connected to his mortal body”.

Life, more than death, seems to be on the minds of those I spoke to. Film and indie music director and also band leader of The Casteless Collective, Tenma said, “Maybe some part of every SPB fan died today, but not his spirit. He occupies a historic space in the transition from theatre to cinema in Tamil Nadu. Like T.M. Soundarajan, he was the partial voice of the ‘Raja-part’ [a Tamil theatre term from the 1930s, for the lead-protagonist or hero]. He came in during the modern time when cinema became a popular medium, but even think of the intro songs he did for Rajini later on. When he sang, he exhibited all the characteristics the hero must demonstrate.”

On a personal note, he added, “Every music director has a checklist. For several, SPB would have been on that list, as he was on mine. It’ll never happen now…”

Also read: S.P. Balasubrahmanyam – the Inimitable Impressionist

Another young music director, Anirudh Ravichander who composed the music for Rajinikanth’s last two releases Petta and Darbar, both of which SPB sings in, tweeted about his time in the recording studio with SPB.

For most Rajinikanth fans, SPB is an alternate voice for the Superstar, having sung, as Tenma pointed out, many of his intro-songs (the track that introduces the hero in each film). It became a long lasting Tamil cinema tradition, broken only rarely. In memory of this, Rajini posted a two-minute video to his social media handle in Tamil, saying, “Today is a sorrowful day. There cannot be anyone in the country who has not enjoyed SPB’s voice. Yet, those who knew him personally, loved him more than they did his music. His humanity, the way he treated everyone fairly and without prejudice, were the reasons for that. He was a loving man. A hundred years from now his voice will still reverberate in our ears, but it saddens me deeply that the possessor of that voice is gone.” He also extended his condolences to the family.

But there is a duo, iconic and unforgettable in cine music: the era of Raja-Balu. As ‘Isaignani’ Ilaiyaraja swept to irrefutable popularity by the early 1980s, upstaging the hold of predecessors like MSV with his unabashed mixing of western music including even funk notes with Tamil folk music, SPB, his friend even before Raja entered the industry, would become a steadfast presence in his compositions. In those years Raja’s eclecticism shone, as did SPB’s versatility in delivering what was required of him.

They have had over 2,000 songs together. Though the two have had intermittent bitterness in the time that has passed, going by their public appearances and mentions of each other, their friendship has endured for five decades. In the early days of SPB’s illness, Raja released a video for him. His words “ezhunthu va, Balu” – that I translate here inadequately as “Get up. Come back to us Balu” – became a catchphrase for those who love the music the two of them created.

Condolence messages from cinema personal have poured in. Kamal Hassan, for whom too SPB has sung, said in his video statement, “Few receive the acclaim due to them in their lifetimes. My annan SPB was one of them. Of the fans who bid him farewell in a downpour of praise – I am one of them…I say my thanks to this brother who allowed me a small share in this praise showered upon him…he reigned as the voice of four generations of heroes, for seven generations to come, may his name last.”

I reserve the last memorial statement for someone who must be feeling SPB’s loss the keenest, his son and film producer S.P. Charan. In an emotional address to the press in both Tamil and Telugu (SPB was from Konetammapeta in present-day Andhra Pradesh) he thanked fans and the staff of MGM Healthcare. He said, “SPB belongs to all of us. His name will last for as long as his songs do. As long as each of you are remain, we still have our father.”

To single out one SPB song from his life’s work is hard. For those still processing his death, I leave you here with ‘Madai Thirandu’ from Nizhalgal, 1980 – a Raja-Balu number and a personal favourite – so we may remember him in defiant celebration.

Bharathy Singaravel is a culture reporter and interested in the overlaps between Tamil cinema, protest music and politics.

Pa. Ranjith: My Courage Comes From Babasaheb Ambedkar

In a wide ranging interview to The Wire, the director talks about resistance to caste discrimination, what it can learn from Black cultural expression in the US and symbolism in his movies.

From the absurdist Attakathi (2012) to his blockbuster hit Kaala (2018), director Pa. Ranjith has won both critical acclaim and commercial appeal. He also has his detractors. His directorial debut Attakathi broke mainstream Tamil cinema’s formula for romantic stories. Madras (2014) became sharply more political and is centred around the culture of political graffiti, a practise widespread in Tamil Nadu.

Speaking labour rights in Kabali (2016) and land reform in Kaala (2018), both starring Rajinikanth, have made him a well-known name outside of Tamil cinema’s usual viewership.

His Neelam Productions has released documentaries (Ladies and Gentlewomen, Dr Shoe Maker and others) and feature films (The Last Bomb of WWII, Pariyerum Perumal).

In an interview to The Wire, he speaks about ‘mass films’, caste discrimination and Dr B.R. Ambedkar.

Though Tamil mainstream cinema is often political, there is a radical ideological shift in your own films. What importance do “mass” films have and what has changed?

Of all artistic mediums, cinema is deeply embedded among people. In Tamil Nadu especially, it has a crucial place. Cinema fuelled the spread of the Dravidian movement because they didn’t think of cinema as mere entertainment. Dravidian filmmakers created a space to state their mandate, the struggles they stood for and to foreground Tamil culture, land and language pride.

In later years, many films on land identity [particularly rural narratives, which were popular] became about the pride of dominant castes, under the cover of ‘celebrating Tamil culture’. When I, as a Dalit, watch these films, I have to ask: “Where am I in these? Where is the justice for my community? If they’re speaking of Tamil culture, why isn’t my culture depicted?”

Also Read: How Tamil Filmmakers Are Making a Mockery of ‘Social Consciousness’

The representation of Dalit characters was painful. Either they were written out, or just their inclusion in the story was considered ‘revolutionary’. The films excluded the discriminatory practices of those dominant communities.

In this context, I had to reflect on what my stories could say. I wanted to show that my culture itself is based on discrimination and violence. Also ask, why were the ways through which Dalits assert their identity through clothes, food and music erased? Today, directors are more conscious when they write Dalit characters. There appears to be greater clarity.

What informs your own writing of Dalit characters?

First, I place myself in these stories and ask, ‘Where do I stand in society?’

More than anyone, Babasaheb [B.R.] Ambedkar has been my icon. He opposed Gandhi and the Congress when he thought they did not address the issues of Dalits. Despite that, after independence, he welcomed the means to legislate change as India’s first law minister. While I looked at him as inspiration, I realised how characters that I write already live in every Dalit community. My brother was the first to go to law school in my village. He helped bring about change.

That’s where resistance comes from and so does the idea for characters that I write. I don’t need to dwell only on degradation. Cinema has enough of that. There is a stereotypical victim: barely clothed, unable even to protest against atrocities done to them. A hero has to save them. That image needed shattering because that’s not how I am. I can stand for myself. My courage comes from Ambedkar. To depict such characters in cinema is a type of counter-culture. A model that I can point to is Spike Lee’s portrayals of black lives—a counter to the Hollywood format.

B.R. Ambedkar. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

B.R. Ambedkar. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

There are recent mainstream films vocal about caste oppression, but violence and spectacle are a huge part of the story. Your views?

I don’t doubt the intentions of these filmmakers. They seem to want to speak out, but there has to be a discussion after such films release. You can’t depict the violence done to my community but refuse to register the way they stand up to that violence. It sets up a politics which tells Dalits that you must be a silent victim and only certain others can save you. As a director, I don’t want to graphically show the atrocities that occur. Re-creating them with explicit detail is itself another layer of violence. I don’t agree that this is the only way to evoke an emotional response from the audience.

Speaking of counter-narratives, you refer to anti-caste ideologies in the form of Ram the aggressor, Ravanan the hero in Kaala. In Kabali—the name used for dark-skinned, dispensable, servile, henchmen in old Tamil films is now the hero. What impact does this have?

The point was to bring whoever stands in the margins, as just accessories to the hero’s righteousness in established narratives, into the centre. To make them the heroes. Ambedkar talks about the appropriation of Buddha into the Brahmanical system. He’s also spoken of what dark skin tones are made a signifier of, how lifestyles have made us the villains in the stories of the vedas. In the face of that, I have to state that these are not my stories.

In the tradition of careful symbolism in Tamil cinema, you repeat certain colours within the frame. Red, blue and black stand out. Their significance?

I wasn’t conscious about colour in Attakathi. The film was mainly about peeling away at the popular idea that “love is pure”, about how young people struggle with this concept. The film was a way of exploring these concepts from a Dalit perspective, like a love scene featuring beef.

What I’d been too afraid to say in Attakathi, I could in Madras. That’s where the wall became a metaphor for politics in Tamil Nadu and blue a symbol for Dalit identity. Sometimes, too much gets read into the colours, which is both interesting and saddening.

In Kaala, I very carefully used colours as symbols. Getting to the roots of why black means something lowly, and white means dominance. In the climax scene of Kaala the blue, black and red coming together was my statement: Ambedkarism (blue) and the ideologies of both Periyaar (black) and the Left (red) need to converge to defeat oppressive regimes.

Also Read: Kabali Destabilises the Established Idioms of Tamil Cinema

In Kabali and perhaps for the first time in mainstream Tamil cinema, there are images of Chinua Achebe and Malcolm X.  Can the fight for racial justice still inspire anti-caste civil rights movements in India?

Caste and racial oppression have huge likenesses, though they don’t have entirely similar histories. Segregation is something I too had to live with as a child. Being banned from entering a shop through the main door, the owner handling my money only with a small stick, never letting me touch and test a toy before buying it.

There is so much to learn from black cultural production. From celebrating their blackness to speaking about issues that ravage their communities, they’ve done it well. They’ve made themselves towering figures within the mainstream. The impact of this cultural victory, especially in terms of music, is immense because it helps foster global solidarity. Today’s Black Lives Matter protests have international support, even white people are standing beside them.

If only caste resistance here could accomplish the same through culture, whether music or cinema.

A Black Lives Matter protest in the US. Photo: Reuters/Peter Nicholls

A repeated criticism of you is casting Rajinikanth to play a Dalit hero. In a state where cinema and politics are enmeshed this could have complex consequences, do you think?

I agree that once something is in the public space, there will be scrutiny regarding intentions and the effects it can have. In the case of superstar, he asked me what the story was and he liked it. To him, cinema is cinema. He’s completely dedicated to it as a vocation. For me, cinema is an opportunity to talk about changes that need to happen. He was supportive of what I wanted to speak about in the two films we did together. Certainly, there is no connection between his general politics and mine. Neither do I put them into my films. I haven’t compromised on my own ideological beliefs. I view him as a director’s actor. If he likes the story, he’ll work at it until the director is content.

The representation in Indian cinema of working class and Dalit characters as criminal is a concern you yourself have. Why then in Kabali and in Kaala, are the heroes gangsters?

No, in Kaala he’s not a gangster! The idea was to show someone asserting his right, by whatever means he could, against an aggressor. There are people like that in real life. I can’t accept that resisting oppression the way Kaala does makes him a gangster.

In Kabali, the story was about the history of Malay Tamils, from working in the colonial-era plantations as indentured labourers to current ethnic gangs and the Tamils’ relationship with the Chinese population. Even Madras has been called a gangster film, which isn’t true. Is everyone who stands up to violence done to them a gangster? If someone from a dominant community does the same, they’re a revolutionary. If an oppressed person does it, they’re rowdies. Well, society is responsible for that image.

Also Read: Seeing India Through the Black Lives Matter Protests

You’ve announced your first Hindi film. A biopic on Birsa Munda. In your view, what is the current space in Bollywood like, when it comes to social justice?

I can see that there are some recent efforts to make films on these issues. Masaan is an example. Sairat is a film I like, but that’s Marathi. Article 15 has happened now. Let’s see how it works out. In my understanding, Bollywood is very capitalist. They make movies on what will sell. To try and move away from that, towards focusing on what the people face, needs to happen. There is a slow inclination towards that now.

Filmmakers who’ve influenced you?

Alejandro González Iñárritu who made Birdman, The Revenant, Amores Perros amongst others. I love how he captures the range of human emotions. There is also a degree of spiritualism in his films, which are his beliefs of course.

Aside from him, I love the films of Andrei Tarkovsky and Spike Lee.

Bharathy Singaravel is a culture reporter and interested in the overlaps between Tamil cinema, protest music and politics.