In the powerful film Court, directed by Chaitanya Tamhane, the protagonist Narayan Kamble is a Dalit lok shahir, a people’s poet
Bant Singh, from the Dalit community, was attacked by upper caste Jats after he filed a case in court against the men who had raped his daughter. Pic/AFP
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In the powerful film Court, directed by Chaitanya Tamhane, the protagonist Narayan Kamble is a Dalit lok shahir, a people’s poet. He tours Mumbai’s devastated mill areas, singing revolutionary protest songs, exhorting the people to rise above their caste and class. A revolutionary protest singer may sound like a wry anachronism in post-truth 2017. But last week, I had the opportunity to meet and interview protest poets and singers from different parts of the country who, unconcerned about getting their poetry published or invitations to poetry festivals, actively use their poetry and songs for social reform, to awaken Indian society about how the Other India lives, and to encourage their own people to stand up and be counted.
The Kochi-Muziris Biennale 2016 is a staggering, intoxicating international art event in Kochi, Kerala. I had curated and presented The Die is Caste for the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, a package of films and music performances on caste from all over the country. They explored burning caste issues, including inter-caste marriage, education, landlessness, religious conversions and superstition; why caste continues unabated in a modern, globalised India, and the future of caste in India. The films included Bikas Mishra’s Chauranga (Four Colours, Hindi), Nagraj Manjule’s Sairat (Wild, Marathi), BV Karanth’s Chomana Dudi (Choma’s Drum, Kannada) and John Abraham’s Agraharathil Kazhuthai (Donkey in a Brahmin Village, Tamil). The music performances, by artistes from marginalised communities nationwide, were Bant Singh from Punjab, singing revolutionary protest songs, Manimaran’s Buddhar Kalai Kuzhu from Chennai, which played, sang and danced the Parai, and PR Remesh’s Karinthalakoottam troupe from Thrissur, Kerala, singing folk songs about untouchability and discrimination. In the case of Bant Singh, upper caste Jats had gang-raped his daughter Baljit Kaur, then a minor, and when he filed a court case seeking justice, they hacked off his hands and a leg; he spends his life as a torso in a wheelchair, unbowed and singing feistily. Manimaran, a ‘6th standard fail’ who grew up playing the Parai with his family at funerals, is proud that his son Samaran, 16, is now in the 10th standard, the highest anyone could study in his family. The Karinthalakoottam troupe from Thrissur, Kerala, led by PR Remesh, a former bus conductor, uses folk music to achieve the respectability society otherwise denies them.
The more modern India becomes, the more savage Indians become. India’s Mangalyaan space probe is orbiting Mars, our software giants have conquered the world, and our 220 million smartphone users have surpassed US figures. Yet, the daily newspapers are full of reports of caste atrocities, like Rohith Vemula, the Dalit scholar who committed suicide following oppression by upper castes. Indian parents routinely arrange honour killings when their children marry into the ‘wrong’ caste; villages are burnt, and authors like Perumal Murugan are suppressed. Fifty eight thousand crimes were registered against the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes in 2014, with a low conviction rate of 28 per cent, according to the National Crime Records Bureau.
Two contrasting images are seared in my brain: the climax of Sairat, in which an honest, hard-working, inter-caste couple is slaughtered, and their baby — the next generation —flees, its tiny footprints red with blood. On the other hand, the limbless Bant Singh, sitting in his wheelchair, told me, “They cut off my hands and legs. But as long as I have a head and a tongue, I will sing.” All these local Bob Dylans are rarely acknowledged: they are generally not hip enough for urban India. Yet, the full houses and rousing reception to their performances at the Kochi Muziris Biennale showed me another India that was heartwarming.
Meenakshi Shedde is South Asia Consultant to the Berlin Film Festival, award-winning critic, curator to festivals worldwide and journalist. Reach her at meenakshishedde@gmail.com
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