Author – Priyadarshan Kempraj 

Article 15 is proclaimed to be one of the best anti-caste movies in recent times. It made close to 70 Crores in the Box office within 2 months of its release and is highly celebrated. The major problem with the movie is that it suffers from the Upper Caste Gaze and is thereby counter to what it claims to stand for.

So what is the Upper Caste Gaze?

The Upper Caste gaze is the innate ability to show Lower Castes the way Upper Castes want them to look like – Uneducated, Helpless, Dark, Rural, Poor and Shabby. The Upper Caste takes it upon himself and feels that he has to be the savior and pull these people out of their misery.

Consider this — In English television news channels, more than 75% of the anchors, panellists and the writers are Upper Castes. So either Lower Caste people’s stories are not covered or misrepresented in the way Upper Castes want to showcase them (1) Ravish Kumar from NDTV, won the Magsaysay award in 2019 for “Giving voice to the voiceless”. This is pretty ironical, as NDTV has an overwhelming representation (58.8%) Upper Caste Panelists even while debating issues related to caste. (2) It’s imperative to understand that Lower Castes are not voiceless but their voices are being muffled by Upper Castes.

Highlighting the major reasons as to why Article 15 suffers from the Upper Caste Gaze:

1. An Upper Caste Savior in Ayan (Ayushmann Khurrana) wants to take up the mantle and lead the Dalit struggle, stripping off Dalits’ agency despite the fact that they have been fighting the system for ages. This conveniently ignores the Upper Castes’ role in forming and propagating the caste system. In the entire length of the movie, the protagonist makes it look like the systematic oppression formed by itself.
2. Ayan, on-screen and Anubhav Sinha, off-screen admit to not knowing their caste. Only Upper Castes have the privilege of not being aware of the caste. For, Lower Castes have to face this reality every day. The movie shows Ayan completely unaware of his caste when he has clearly benefited from the system.
3. A pivotal moment in the story is when Ayan puts up a copy of Article 15 on the Police station door. The effect of the scene is shattered to pieces when, in the next few moments, a Dailt worker goes into the sewage pit to clean it. The sewage would be overflowing for a few days prior and despite there being a big workforce at his disposal, Ayan would wait for the Dalits to break a strike, to come and clean it up for him. This scene reinforces the social norm that only the lowest form of society should do the menial jobs.
4. To find the missing girl, Ayan does not get into the pond considered to be ritually impure till the last scene in the movie. He will ask Nishad (A Dalit leader role very likely to represent Chandrashekhar Azad) to call off a strike when Ayan has at least 10–15 people available to get into the pond. When he finally steps into the pond, it would be made to look like it’s a great big sacrifice for a Brahmin to get inside the pond.

A perfect counterexample to movies like Article 15, is Pa. Ranjith’s Kaala. The movie creates a discourse on how Upper Castes have been instrumental in establishing the Brahminical order and what it takes to break it apart. A very powerful scene that encompasses the essence of the struggle is when Hari Dada (Nana Patekar) comes to Kaala’s (Rajni) house. Kaala’s daughter-in-law would say that Hari Dada is dressed in all white and seems to be a good man. Upon hearing this, Kaala’s wife rightly points out that he did not even drink the water offered by her due to the fact that Kaala is from a lower caste. This shows how the Brahminical order is maintained and how the oppressed go about breaking this in the remainder of the movie. The onus is taken by the Lower Castes to destroy that order. I may have disagreements with Pa. Ranjith for having a protagonist whose political views are out in the open and whose views are completely contradictory to Ranjith’s, but for a Dalit Bahujan ideology, this is the best mainstream film out there.

In the name of spreading awareness, the director of Article 15 has pulled back the caste struggle and has disempowered several people who have been fighting the caste pyramid. He claims that the protagonist goes through an internal journey. The actual internal journey comes with the understanding that it is indeed the very same Upper Castes who have disallowed and disenfranchised Lower Castes.

Without breaking the Brahminical order and challenging the Brahminical hegemony, Article 15 comes across as a movie made by the Upper Castes for the Upper Castes to feel good thinking that they have contributed to the anti-caste movement.

References:

1. https://scroll.in/article/932660/in-charts-indias-newsrooms-are-dominated-by-the-upper-castes-and-that-reflects-what-media-covers
2. https://www.oxfamindia.org/sites/default/files/2019-08/Oxfam%20NewsLaundry%20Report_For%20Media%20use.pdf