Untouchables in Love: An Investigation of Rebellion Against Casteism in Nagraj Manjule’s Select Features

Abstract

The present article aims at analysing the revolutionary function of love in Marathi filmmaker Nagraj Manjule’s (b. 1978) selected feature films. The first two of Manjule’s feature films are set in a society ingrained in the vicious circle of the caste system. Fandry (2013) portrays the one-sided love story of a boy, and Sairat (2016) is based on the heart-rending story of Honour Killing in a realized love relationship between a lower-caste boy and an upper-caste girl. In contemporary India, the unprivileged people, whom the four-tier caste system addresses as untouchable, have been conditioned to eat, wear, work, and form human relationships in a particular manner that serves the purpose of casteism. The article will further explore how falling in love works as a constructive vehicle to carry forward the rebellion of both the protagonists against the inhuman norms of the destructive system. To discuss the nature of love in the films under discussion, the article takes the philosophical background from In Praise of Love (2009) by Alain Badiou, and The Radicality of Love (2015) by Srec ´ko Horvat, at the same time, it takes its arguments against casteism from the ideas of Jyotirao Govindrao Phule (1827–1890), Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar (1891-1956), and other alike thinkers in this line.