Dissent and Displacement of Subalternity in Malayalam Cinema: A Cultural Analysis of Papilio Buddha by Jayan K. Cherian

Introduction

Malayalam cinema with its illustrious film makers, radical themes and rational audience has maintained a unique status quo, much discussed and deliberated upon by the academia and the common man alike. However, globalization and the growing capitalist trends are luring major conglomerates from the entertainment industry into the world of Malayalam cinema. The shift from realistic idealism to imaginative spaces has diminished the degree of social responsibility of the film maker in Kerala. Foreign co-production and crossover cinematic markets are now transforming the Malayalam cinema experience. There is a heightened indifference to ideological positions and callous negligence with regards to the civil responsibility of the citizens of the state. This is reflected in the production and distribution of cinema. Globalization has reduced cinema to a mere commodity, totally discounting its role as a producer of culture and, endorsing market sentiments with consumerism as the most vital element (During, 1997). The theme of subalternity with its inherent ramifications is yet to find favour among film makers in India and in Kerala. Progressive film makers of the 1960s attempted to address the theme of subaltern and dared to give the subaltern a voice, but they remained singular attempts. A pernicious middle class contempt for the Dalit question distanced it further from the popular cinematic discourses. Meta-narratives of the postmodern Keralite society refused to address the intricate complexities of Indian social hierarchy rooted in religious, economic, political and cultural discourses. Voices of the subaltern remained unheard and the expressions resembled the angst and alienation experienced by the diaspora.

Papilio Buddha, the film by Jayan K. Cherian, a member of the diaspora population, emerges as a significant cinematic expression in this particular social context. Analyzing it within the framework of cultural studies and subaltern studies raises compelling questions about representation of Dalit identity in the context of contemporary India. Jayan K. Cherian hails from Muvattupuzha, Kerala, is settled in USA and is a bi-lingual poet who writes in Malayalam and English. Papilio Buddha is his first feature film and explores the territory of Dalit consciousness, hitherto almost ignored by the diaspora.

Papilio Buddha depicts the struggle for land by Dalits in Kerala at different parts like Chengara and Muthanga. The name ‘Papilio Buddha’ is adopted from a butterfly which is of a species on the verge of extinction and found in the Western Ghats in Kerala. The recurring images of the butterfly and the multi-hued peacock suggest that the protagonist is exposed to a multifaceted sensual experience. The narrative takes the viewer to Meppara, a forest land occupied by Dalits, fighting for land, which is constitutionally their privilege. The lives of the leader, Kariyan, his son Sankaran who was educated at Jawaharlal Nehru University and hopes to reach the USA, and the others taking part in this struggle like the woman-auto rickshaw driver, Manjusree, who becomes a rape victim, are the protagonists in this film. The film is loosely based on real events and is structured in a blend of realism and fantasy.

‘Othering’ in the Indian Silver Screen

In India, Dalits and subalterns vie for space and voice in a land where their basic human rights are denied constantly and repeatedly by consecutive governments. Their silence is ensured in the cultural narratives through censorship and other suppressive measures. Papilio Buddha grabbed media attention before its release for being denied clearance by the censor board. Objections were raised for the derogatory remarks on Mahatma Gandhi and its blatant disapproval of state-sponsored (or venerated) nationalist icons and ideals. Tropes of nationalism and patriotism, carefully guarded by the state, were being challenged and the film maker fought against all odds for its release. ‘We are not inventing anything, but only trying to rephrase historical truths in the film,’ the director of Papilio Buddha opined in an interview given to The Indian Express (2012). The film explored a new identity—political uprising based on Ambedkarism gaining momentum among Dalits in the region. The film was later released with an ‘Adults Only’ certificate preventing a major section of film goers from watching it.

Indian cinema flourished from the culture of shadow theatre, puppetry, dance dramas and folk art forms with their large-scale contribution to a popular culture as opposed to the highly stylized classical art forms of the elite. As the medium captured the imagination of common man in India, cinema evolved to accommodate various modes of representation ranging from the unrealistic, mythological and deeply realistic social dramas to the surrealistic images in a few experimental films. Popular cinema was not always escapist; some of them adhering to the Parsi theatre tradition, addressed socially pertinent themes like communalism, gender issues, corruption and so on. While films like Jagte Raho (Maitra & Mitra, 1956), Sujata (Roy, 1959) and Achuut Kanya (Osten, 1936) represented these social dramas with a high degree of realism and social commitment, the rest of the industry churned out entertainers transporting audience to a land of fantasy and inaction. Socially obligated film makers were not always of the parallel film category, they also contributed to the mainstream cinema.

The socialist pattern of development and its ideologies had kept this spirit of social responsibility alive for some time. Later it disappeared giving space for massive entertainers that demanded huge budgets and hence financiers with very little appreciation of the intricacies of cultural networking that links cinema with the politics of power in society (Kellner, 2003). With shifting focus, popular cinema no longer had any social agenda but they deteriorated to another cultural commodity with heightened focus on capital investment and aggressive marketing strategies to retrieve that money along with a huge profit.

Despite major social transformations in Indian society over the decades, ‘Bollywood cinema remained dominated by upper caste normativity’ (Wankhede, 2013, p. 2). Parallel or art cinema with a social or moral consciousness turned away from the deep-seated moral depravity of cast-based seclusion resulting in social hierarchy. It was ‘showcasing the superficial populist stereotypes of the marginal lives and hardly entered into the core debate of social realities’ (Wankhede, 2013, p. 3). Unlike in the national scenario, in the regional cinema there are films that discuss Dalit identity in a sympathetic manner with the intention of greater participation of the Indian masses in the process of sensitizing them to the evils of miscegenation and exclusion.

Rainbow Spectrum in the Malayalam Screen

Malayalam cinema spread out to address socially significant themes and the adaptation of popular literary works resulted in the birth of such films. They tackled with progressive ideas and articulated against social crisis resulting from poverty, inequality, feudalism, agrarian crisis, urbanity and corrosion of values and so on. While feudalistic tradition was vehemently attacked, and modernity and progressive values were embraced by the film fraternity, Dalits remained marginalized. Dalit characters were minimal and redundant and reduced to being sidekicks to villains or unskilled labourers with no identity (Parayil, 2014, p. 69). Films like Ezhu Rathrikal (1978) by Ramu Kariat was another film on the downtrodden upper caste milieu which became the sought after one, with marginalized communities forced into stereotypes or as the others. Dalits remained as instruments to idolize the hero, to act as a contrast to the elite protagonist or as the poor helpless victims who offer the protagonist an opportunity to display his heroism. The voice and image of Dalits in popular cinema became momentary and easily forgettable.

As Azariah (1998) points out, ‘Dalits have been oppressed for more than 4000 years and the foremost problem is not poverty but their wounded psyche’ (p. 118). Malayalam cinema’s earliest history stands witness to this oppression founded on caste hegemony in Vigathakumaran (Daniel, 1930), first Malayalam language film. Vigathakumaran and its female protagonist suffered the chauvinistic oppressive treatment meted out by caste-based social institutions. The rigidity and rootedness of the system permeating Kerala society distanced even those film makers committed to social justice through their films critiquing class hegemony and economic inequalities. The ambivalent stance of political discourses on the subject of caste discrimination made it a risky terrain for film makers.

Dalit consciousness remains in a state of fluidity as the presence of several heterogeneous groups has made a simple unified identity complicated. This plurality of Dalit perspectives also makes it complex to streamline Dalit narratives and to trace the evolution of Dalit aesthetics. Identifying commonalities is an arduous task in this context yet one sees its evolution from the oppression, subjugation and centuries of remaining voiceless and marginalized. The Dalit consciousness helps awake a spirit of solidarity and identification among Dalit communities who are geographically and culturally scattered all over India (Shah, 2001).

Dalit narratives are voices of subversions and resistance, and echo the deep-rooted angst of the Dalit community. The attempt is to establish their identity as opposed to the ones thrust upon them by conservative casteist elite. Dalit narratives found little space within the Indian social hierarchy with Brahmanical Hindu culture occupying the centre, creating metanarratives of Indian culture and heritage. Dalit films remain in the periphery and fail to persuade the mainstream film industry to invest in them or to establish their presence as a powerful genre of cinematic expression. Dalit cinema with little viewership and limited resources cannot aspire to produce films of high technical quality.

Subaltern characters were once ubiquitous on the silver screen, they were the rural and urban poor, often famished and horribly deprived. They evoked sympathy and challenged the economic policies formulated by the nascent political structures, carefully ignoring the fundamental divide prevalent in the society and carefully cultivated and ingrained in the cultural identity of the community. Ara Nazhika Neram (Sethumadhavan, 1970) and Rarichan Enna Pouran (Bhaskaran, 1956) bear testimony to this tradition. Presence of Dalit characters in Malayalam cinema was kept minimal and the theme of Dalit marginality and the complexities of caste hierarchy was carefully avoided or kept in the periphery after a couple of decades of progressive cinematic experiences. Feudalism and its decadency and the economic aftermath were sensitively portrayed in films like Asuravithu (Vincent, 1968) and Murappennu (Vincent, 1965). The onslaught of modernity and its consequences and the nostalgic remembrance of rural simplicity became themes for numerous films during the next decade. Films like Aalkuttathil Thaniye (Sasi, 1984) and Thinkalazhcha Nalla Divasom (Padmarajan, 1985) fixed the spotlight on the corrupting values associated with modernization. G Aravindan’s Oridathu (1987) dealt with the same theme using electrification as a symbol for modernization and its destructive presence in a pristine remote village.

The films of 1970s and the middle stream cinema that emerged later sought to conveniently marginalize the experience of Dalits. Majority of them focused on the trials and tribulations following the decadency of the feudal structure [(Elipathayam, (Gopalakrishnan, 1981)] and the male protagonists’ struggles in a rapidly urbanizing world [(Swayamvarom, (Gopalakrishnan, 1972)]. The growth of communist ideology and the resultant transformations in the Malayalee psyche failed to respond to this grossly unequal and unjust hierarchical structure. Very few films addressed this abhorrent practice intricately patterned into the social, political, economic and cultural discourses. Vidheyan (1994) by Adoor Gopalakrishnan faintly addresses the issue by providing ‘a fascinating lens to view power and its resistance/surrender as converging through the conceptual categories of class and home within the milieu of feudal Dakshina Kannada’ (Menon, 2010, p. 73). Another noteworthy attempt was by P.N. Menon in his film Malamukalile Daivam (1983). The indigenous tribal community and their trials and tribulations against the backdrop of superstitions and ignorance, and their advancement towards modernity and enlightenment were handled poignantly by the film maker. Unlike these films, a few offbeat films deal directly with the dynamics of caste hierarchy but fail to attract the viewer. Chithariyavar (The Scattered, 2004) directed by Lalji George, is one such attempt and portrays the travails of a Dalit youth, the issue of reservations for backward communities and the identity of the Dalits in a caste-infested India. Counter-hegemonic narratives failed to attract the attention of the film maker and the audience.

Later developments including the superstardom and the superhuman characters created for the superstars refused to consider neither the political nor the social space of the Dalits. Meena T. Pillai writes about this thematic shift:

The emergence of Brahmanical rituals and signs on the celluloid (…) points to the return of the hegemonic order. Extreme caste loyalties in marriage, growing ritualization in the public and secular spheres, re-articulation of a Hindutva ideology, feudal nostalgia, all crystallize in Malayalam cinema in the images of hegemonic masculinity mostly embodied through the superstars Mohanlal and Mammotty. (2013, pp. 109–110)

Popular cinema during this age of superstardom tackled the issue of Dalit presence in an interesting manner. The rise of a Dalit actor, Kalabhavan Mani, into the stature of a hero demanded structural re-adjustments in the narrative patterns. His hero characters were mentally or physically challenged in order to gain the acceptance of the upper caste majority. His popularity thrived on his folk Dalit songs which helped fix his identity as a Dalit (Sujit Kumar Parayil, 2014, p. 72). So we have him blind in Vasanthiyum Lakshmiyum Pinne Njanum (Vinayan, 1999), as a bear in My Dear Karadi (1999), mentally challenged in Karumadikuttan (2001) and a stray dog catcher in Akashathile Paravakal (2001).

Papilio Buddha and Dalit Narratives

The subaltern in Papilio Buddha is not a beastly or inhuman character nor is he a mentally or physically challenged person to be sympathized by the audience. He is an ethical being placed in moments of history with a voice and a conscience that operates at a higher level of existence. These subalterns occupy those liminal spaces where articulation and action remains impossible. Jayan Cherian made this bold venture when mainstream cinema persistently demonstrated the multifarious ways in which hegemony gets enforced through oppression and humiliation. Cinema like other cultural discourses reflects the social construction of subalternity and Papilio Buddha qualifies for a discussion since it subverses popular narrative structures and emerge as a counter-narrative.

Subaltern is not a monolithic entity but a heterogeneous one permeating spaces within the power structure (Rao, 2009). Relations of power define their space within the social structure. Dalits as a subaltern entity is caught in a web of hegemonic powers, exercised by political, religious, economic and social institutions. Their backwardness has been reinforced in the socio-cultural and hierarchical structure with modernization and globalization making it more convoluted. Dalits occupy a differential space without any access to the possibilities of social mobility. Papilio Buddha has this community facing denials from power centres and feeble endeavours at self-expression get crushed mercilessly. State metes out harsh measures of repression against Dalits who squat on the controversial forest land Meppara demanding constitutional rights. Kariyan, the leader of the Dalits, repeatedly reaffirms this right over land, thereby demanding space and acceptance. Dalits thus encounter the rootlessness and alienation of the diaspora in the host country. The paradox strikes the viewer when this ordeal of othering happens to the Dalit within his homeland. Nation fails in its role as a protector ensuring fair treatment for citizens within a democracy. The Dalit community thus experiences the alienation and othering characteristic of diaspora communities across the globe. In Beginning Postcolonialism, diaspora spaces are defined and discussed thus: ‘Discourses of power which seek to legitimate certain forms of identity and marginalize others by imposing a logic of binary oppositions remain operable and challenge new forms of identity from emerging’ (McLeod, 2000, p. 225). Dhananjay Keer has quoted Ambedkar’s conversation with Gandhi (14 August 1931) in his work Dr. Ambedkar: Life and Mission. ‘I have no homeland…. How can I call this land my own wherein we are treated worse than cats and dogs, wherein we cannot get water to drink? No self-respecting Untouchable worth the name will be proud of this land’ (1962).

While early Marxian theorists adhered to the theories of economic base and super structure and relegated the role of super structure in social segregation and stratification, later Marxist theorists shifted the locus to culture and similar institutions. Antonio Gramsci (1971) stressed on the active participation of institutions in manufacturing consent for the hegemonic structures. In Papilio Buddha, Shankaran and others have attained a certain measure of self-realization and perceived the exploitative nature of cultural narratives. They repeatedly challenge officially sanctioned iconic images like that of Gandhi and seek to expose the shallowness and hypocrisy of dominant ideologies. The Gandhians in the film proclaim non-violence and employs brute force to assert the righteousness of their method. Their acts of subversion of history and tradition are reactions to this cognizance. They seek replacements and re-readings in cultural codes and idols are replaced. Religious affinities change as an act of defiance. A complete metastasis in religion and faith reflects a historical moment of Ambedkar’s conversion to Buddhism. The film details the process of conversion by the displaced Dalit community.

Ambedkar, concerned with Dalit identity, questioned the use of the term ‘harijan’ and denounced it as denigrating and abusive upon the realization that within the folds of Hinduism, there was no respectful authoritative space for the Dalit. He realized the need for separate nomenclature and an identity in the public domain as a free citizen in a nascent democracy (Keer, 1962, p. 56). Conversion ‘to Buddhism was a radical step in order to ascertain a position in the socio-political context since he understood that within the folds of Hinduism, Dalits would always remain outcastes’ (Omvedt, 1994, p. 67). In Papilio Buddha, state control manifests itself in forms of repressive forces like the police as well as coercive mechanisms like the Gandhians. The roles forgo their distinctive characters in the final scenes and coalesce into one with the state brutally suppressing the voices of dissent. The peaceful chants of the Gandhians reverberate while visuals of police brutality against the Dalits, including women crowd the screen. The act reinforces Gramsci’s concept of hegemony (1971) as a negotiation actualized through coercion and consent. This is similar to what Chatterjee (2012) in his essay ‘After Subaltern Studies’ says,

Let us distinguish between two aspects of mass politics in contemporary Indian democracy—one that involves a contest over sovereignty with the Indian state and the other that makes claims on the Governmental authorities over services and benefits. (2012, p. 46)

When the established processes are challenged as in Papilio Buddha, the state can intervene and provide corrective measures. It can also consider such a protest as challenging or posing a threat to the sovereignty of the state, and in such situations the nature of the state turns oppressive and violent. It acts against its own citizens, abuse them and drive them out of their home lands. Dalits in Papilio Buddha are forced to migrate when the home land abases them into refugees and their marginalized status gets reinforced. Silenced beyond recognition, the community is compelled to seek new identities and new spaces. The lengthy shot of their exodus and their movement over hills destroyed through illegal quarrying becomes a powerful expression of dissent. They are evicted from their home land but they carry with them their mythical and linguistic identities which are invoked in nostalgic narratives.

The film sensitively renders the failed attempts by the Dalit community to establish and assert their identity in a repressive social framework through a demand for their fundamental rights as citizens of a nation. But their ideological self-assertion as a community conflicts with that of the hegemonic elite of the Hindu Brahmanical social structure, thereby their actions for social acceptance gets rejected and condemned by the socially dominant groups. Any act proclaiming their identity is deemed deviant and regressive. It results in recapitulating the marginalization of this subaltern community. Stuart Hall commented thus: ‘One of the ways in which ideological struggle takes place and ideologies are transformed is by articulating the elements differently, thereby producing a different meaning, (i.e.) breaking the chain in which they are currently fixed’ (1981, p. 31). Dalits in India strive to annihilate mediated constructs of cultural hierarchy by demolishing the cultural baggage that keeps them under subjugation. J. Devika explained the nature of this struggle using a Dalit organization as a prototype.

As Sekher (2008) posits, the intellectual legacy of Ambedkarism in this context is not a twentieth century development but a culmination of more than two century old indigenous resistance against cultural colonizations. An obvious revelation of this protest can be identified in the challenge of Buddhism against caste and Brahmanism, the pre-Buddhist Kapila, Charvaka and Ajeevaka traditions (Sekher, 2008). While Benedict Anderson called nation as ‘an imagined political community and imagined as both inherently limited and soveriegn’ (1991, p. 7), E. J. Hobsbawm defined nationalism as ‘invented tradition’ (1990, p. 7). This leads to exclusions and subcultures or counter cultures who raise their voices of protest or rebellion (Hobsbawm, 1990, p. 7). Nationalist tropes are abandoned and replaced not merely as rebellious acts against the nation but also as acts of assertion of identity and expression of collective identity. Papilio Buddha portrays this rebellious act of self-expression when statues of Ambedkar, Ayyankali and Buddha are used repeatedly to affirm their identity as Dalits within the nation (Navayan, 2013). When Gandhi is replaced by Ambedkar and national icons are challenged by the Dalits, ruling elite feels threatened and intimidated. The burning of the effigy of Gandhi strikes as a statement of assertion and defiance. Dhananjay Keer commented on this phenomenon: ‘These acts of symbolization drew new objects and icons into an existing semiotic field that was organized around Ambedkar, the originating point of Dalit history and a political figure increasingly deified as community icon’ (1962, p. 183). The repeated presence of the pictures of Ambedkar, Ayyankali and the Buddha in most of the visual frames accentuate the subversive nature of Dalit revolt and its attempt to replace existing tropes of domination and oppression.

Subaltern Subjugations

Regarding the Dalit consciousness seeking to redefine with the help of new cultural tropes, Ranajit Guha felt that the subaltern consciousness is a politicized one. India’s journey to colonialism is also a shift from feudalism to capitalism (1988). This shift happened as a series of confrontations and was signalled by a functional change in sign systems. Spivak evaluated the subaltern consciousness and its complexities in her seminal work ‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’ (2013). She observed that the subaltern has no history, no voice and no language and the heterogeneity and the lack of a well-evolved collective consciousness make it impossible for the subalterns to speak for themselves (p. 524). The shift from in-itself to for-itself (Sartre) as a community does not happen and hence the hegemony of the ruling elite remains unchallenged (Guha & Gayatri, 1988, p. 279). The consolidation of the Brahmanical power was assisted by the British who gradually established the idea in Indian society that the Brahmans have the same intention as the British (Spivak, 1988, p. 523). The colonial project thus weakened the cause of the subaltern to the point where a collectivity became an improbability. Since historiography was by the elites the subalterns remained without a history. Since no collective consciousness was allowed to evolve they remained devoid of a voice and a language to express their counter-hegemonic expressions of defiance. The politics of language is brought out in the film when Shankaran speaks in English language to the police officer who gets infuriated since he comprehends English language as the symbol of empowerment. Meena Kanthasamy, the Dalit writer and activist made this observation about English language in an interview given to Ramanathan Vai: ‘English represents an inner circle of power and privilege that for a variety of reasons remains inaccessible to particular groups of people in India. Specifically…out of the reach of lower income and lower caste groups and push them into outer circles’ (1999).

Dalit writers and activists sought to establish their identity as distinct from the one scalded on to them through years of oppression and social conditioning. Attempts to redefine their aesthetic selves led them to penning their life narratives. Their expressions of rebellion prompted them to interrogate fundamental social structures that were exploited to the advantage of the misogynist patriarchal Brahmanical class.

Identity and Acceptance

Om Prakash Valmiki in his autobiography, Joothan: A Dalit’s Life, writes about the Dalit presence in Indian society and the crux of the issue.

Sankaran in Papilio Buddha finds himself in a similar predicament. His Dalit conscience is a symbol of the unpleasant alien diasporic self from which he seeks to flee. His education in India’s premier institution does not guarantee him protection from the repressive machinery of the state. He is told repeatedly ‘A pulaya (Dalit) is always a pulaya’ by friends and foes alike (Papilio Buddha). Attempts to escape the oppressive situation land him in a complicated position which demands his self-realization as an untouchable. Sankaran’s friends, a group of youngsters involved in organizing welfare activities, non-Dalits, who claim themselves to be the ‘voice of the voiceless’, help in the process of self-identification. The rude voice of the privileged class identifies Sankaran as the pariah and the realization that even an escape to Christianity will not ‘wipe clean’ his subaltern status. The state and the society shrink his identity to that of his subaltern status. Manjusree the Dalit woman who drives an auto, who is spiritually and intellectually awakened with an ability to emerge as a leader is brutally raped and violently abused by auto drivers who feel threatened by her tenacious presence both as a Dalit and as a woman.

Later Dalit activists and writers such as Kancha Ilaiah, Sharankumar Limbale and others made concerted attempts to dismantle the social identity subscribed for the Dalits by the elites and forge new ones with new role models and icons and stereotypes from within the Indian cultural tradition (Rao, 2009, p. 98). The film creates an alternative history for the Dalits and the brutal suppression and later exodus does not destroy the insurgent spirit within this community.

Globalization and modernity accentuates the extent of oppression and subjugation extended to the Dalits in India (Rao, 2009, p. 56). The polymorphous nature of the caste system adapts itself to social transmogrifications, thereby ensuring status quo in social hierarchies. Authoritative and persuasive institutions like media support the dominant elite when expressions of resistance from subaltern communities surface and threaten the hegemonic powers. The oppression of these communities is part of the Indian collective identity and the media prefers to air the values of the upper class (Lakha, 1999). Media seeks to reinforce the existing social structure and cultural icons like the image of the Gandhian occupying a privileged position in a story of the Dalit uprising. The camera and its immense possibilities surface as another mechanism to exploit and subjugate the others. Manjusree refuses to be a ‘subject’ when the NGO tries to capture life in the illegal settlement. The voyeuristic pleasures of the masses are thus satisfied while issues of the gravest importance remain unattended or are grossly misrepresented.

While thematically the film captures the angst and helplessness of the Dalit community due to social segregation, attempts are made to reaffirm and restate the same structurally as well. Images of Dalit bodies are realistically presented—dark skinned, short stature and curly hair. Mainstream Malayalam cinema fictionalizes Dalits as clothed scantily in a distinctly unique manner adding to the discrimination (Parayil, 2014, p. 75). Papilio Buddha presents realistic picturization of the community and has successfully created typage through repeated use of black clothes especially for the leaders, calling attention to the Dalit leaders of the Dalit Human Rights Movement in Kerala. The film uses an earthy colour tone throughout the narration further suggesting the deep-rooted affinity of these people to the land which heightens the sense of agony when they are evicted from their homeland.

Representing the ‘Other’

Papilio Buddha is a counter narrative of Indian social history told from the perspective of a Dalit, raised as an Indian citizen yet denied his fundamental rights and privileges for being a Dalit in a segregated society entrenched in Hindu Brahmanical tradition. Very few attempts to delineate their plight as alienated citizens in a land that denies their identity were made before Papilo Buddha in the Malayalam cinema. This compels the question of representation since the film has as its creator a non-Dalit, a middle-class representative, a member of the diaspora and an upper caste Christian by birth. When subaltern cinema is imagined and created by others, the vital question of its representative nature of this voice of dissent becomes problematic, since voices of resistance originate from lived experiences. The film’s glorification of victimhood accentuates this aspect of representation by a non-Dalit. Images of police brutality and violent abuse of women by state machinery as well as the upper caste social groups deluge the screen evoking pity and sympathy in the viewer which the Dalit who struggles to assert his identity in his homeland abhors and rejects. The images of Sankaran in the police station where Dalits are subjected to the severest cruelties are visualized through the transparent glass container holding the rare butterflies, Papilio buddha.

The story of Dalit resistance is also the story of the emergence of a new leader, Sankaran. While creating alternate cultural codes and history, shifting allegiances from the traditional patriarchal caste hegemony, the film maker reveals an unwillingness to let off his cultural conditioning. Sankaran, who goes through a transformative process from an irresponsible and insensitive educated young man to a strong, authoritative Dalit leader bears the name of immense cultural significance. The film focuses on the multiple levels of meaning associated with the name Sankaran. It is initiated through the visual of a picture of E.M. Sankaran Nampoothiripad, renowned Communist thinker and politician from Kerala. The picture has in its corner a small picture of the protagonist Sankaran as an infant. Sankara is the god who was originally of Dravidian origin and later sanscritized into the Aryan tradition, from Siva to Sankara. Image of Siva surfaces again and again in the film. The auto rickshaws that belong to the rapists of Manjusree also have pictures of Siva. The protagonist’s name symbolizes the elitist spiritual seeker, Adisankara, whose journey towards the concept of Advaita is an epitome of elitist Hindu culture, consolidating the hierarchical pattern in Indian society. Sankaran also reminds the audience of the powerful presence of E.M. Sankaran Nampoothiripad, the first Communist Chief Minister of Kerala, the Brahmin Communist leader adulated by the subalterns and later disenchanted by his stance on issues of caste and subalternity. The film repeatedly makes references to these suggestions, openly and subliminally, when Jack the foreigner seeks clarifications regarding the name. Sankaran thus symbolically reminds one of the elite classes and this is reinforced through references to his education at Indian’s premier institutions. He refuses to be part of the Dalit struggle and prefers to live the life of an upper class bourgeoisie.

The film often trivializes the intensity and depth of the Dalit conundrum forgetting the fact that it addresses complicated issues dealing with the polyphonic ethnicities of Dalits across the country. By creating binaries of simplified images and frames, the film maker aims to capture the complex web of signification processes involved in the question of Dalit identity and Indian social structure. Substitution of cultural narratives are aplenty in the film—folk songs with new lyrics, replacing Gandhi with Ambedkar, statues of Buddha, polluted man and pristine nature, black clad Dalits and white clad Gandhians, peaceful chants and violent acts are just a few examples. The film builds itself through dichotomies, and creates a simplistic universe of right and wrong. These dichotomies are created using binary codes that negate stereotypes and culturally iconic figures of Indian society.

Gender relations are circuitous in a subaltern community with women double oppressed and occupying the liminal spaces within the caste-entrenched patriarchal society. Gayatri Spivak in her phenomenal essay ‘Can the Subaltern Speak’ is concerned about the position of women in the subaltern historiography. She says, ‘the ideological construction of gender keeps the male dominant. If … the subaltern has no history and cannot speak, the subaltern as female is more deeply in the shadow’ (Spivak, 2013). Papilio Buddha sympathetically portrays the travails and struggles encountered by Dalit women through the character of Manjusree, a bold, conscientious and courageous Dalit auto rickshaw driver who is a ‘doubly-effaced woman’ (Spivak, 2013). Manjusree’s life of constant struggle for survival with dignity is poignantly captured. She is intuitive, self-reflective and participates eagerly in disseminating the ideology of the Dalits. She is outspoken and confident of herself even though her questionable lineage relegates her further into the periphery. She resists social oppression and acts as the beacon for Sankaran. Her role as an activist shifts to that of a spiritual guide and later a priestess who ritualizes the ascension of Sankaran to the role of the leader. The visuals are eloquent with the statue of Buddha and Sankaran as the leader placed adjacent to one another, suggesting the coronation of Sankaran as the leader, scaling down the relevance of the character of Manjusree, reminiscent of mainstream Malayalam cinema’s relegation of women from the centre. Hence Manjusree and her travails remain marginalized in this tale of Dalit oppression.

Conclusion

Representation of subalternity is persistently problematic with questions of authenticity of representation challenging the artist if he is a non-Dalit. The political correctness of the whole exercise raises doubts and Dalit critics often respond harshly to the visual representation of Dalit suppression. They mistrust the sympathetic stance taken by the film maker. Papilio Buddha becomes a site of contestation with the film maker being a non-Dalit. The authenticity of the voice as the representative of this collective becomes questionable in this context. Moreover, the celebration of victimhood in the film further alienates the film from a representative position since Dalit narratives condemn such glorification and prefers to speak through subversive realistic narratives. Artistic expressions on Dalit experiences by non-Dalits are often discourses of pity which Dalits abhor since they classify their own works as subversive which defy the canonical techniques employed in evaluation. The semiotics of filmic narratives captures the essence of the counter hegemonic narrative which is loosely structured around the land struggles of this alienated, displaced diaspora population within their homeland. J. Devika writes: ‘The post-millennium decade in Kerala has been marked by the rise of intense struggles for land by Dalits and tribals’ (2013, p. 7). She further adds, ‘…, the politicization of the “land question” in Kerala by Dalits and adivasis does not involve the simple assertion of pure identities, emerging from a long period of obscurity. Rather, …, multiple streams of political and identity—shaping processes are at work’ (2013, p. 9).

The complexities of this identity which is an entity trapped within several oppressive social structures and divided from within by regional, linguistic, religious and similar divisive discourses makes it difficult for a sympathetic film maker to capture the angst and turmoil of this community. While other diaspora film makers used Bollywood conventions extensively and explored the diasporic experience of an NRI and the challenges faced due to cultural hybridity, Jayan Cheriyan chose to articulate in a different language foregrounding the displacement and dislocation of another intensely diasporic experience.