As if Mohan G’s Draupathi (2020) wasn’t enough of a casteist, violent, propaganda film to suffer through, he seems all set to come back with yet another tale on the righteousness of dominant caste men and the “evil” specter of inter-caste, inter-religious love and social justice activists who are of course in his view, morally bankrupt and power-hungry. His upcoming Rudra Thandavam, the trailer for which released recently, stars Richard Rishi, Radha Ravi and Gautham Vasudev Menon among others.
Tamil cinema has had an unfortunate dimension of propagating caste pride for a long time. A trend that took form in the mid-eighties and became even more prevalent in the nineties when land-owing intermediate castes, usually the Thevar caste cluster and Gounders were depicted as heroic protectors of “maanam” (honour) and “veeram” (valour, embodiments of martial skills). The people who worked the land had little to no agency, always shown as submissive and in awe of these men.
At the very beginning of the Rudra Thandavam trailer, fishermen are shown as drug smugglers, shrieking for mercy in front of an unforgiving Rudra (Richard Rishi). The portrayal isn’t new in Tamil cinema. A community still fighting against the systemic failures, people who have been at the forefront of aid-work (Chennai floods) and protests (Thoothukudi, Kudankulam), who in areas like Rameshwaram, Nagapattinam work with the constant risk of being shot by Sri Lanka’s navy or coast guard, deserve better representation than as the people who bring drugs that eventually result in date rapes. Gautham Vasudev Menon's character is then shown in a montage, thrashing different people before saying “Inga yaar endha arasyil pesanumnu naandha mudivu pannuven”. Only I will decide who will speak what politics. In a room that is adorned with red flags bearing the symbol of a raised fist. As the trailer gathers what it mistakes for momentum, it reaches a point when Rudra's effigies are burnt and his wife (one guesses) cries to him that the whole town is calling him a “jaathi veriyan”. Unsurprisingly, the trailer goes on to explain that he is only seeking truth and justice and it’s the activist-gangster villains who’ve falsely implicated him as such.
With the films of Pa Ranjith and Mari Selvaraj within the last decade, mainstream Tamil cinema saw a certain redemption from its problematic past. They told stories of assertion, systemic injustice, and strength. What upper-caste Tamils sidelined as “impure”, “low class” and exploited—the parai, oppari, gaana, Ranjith showed as things of beauty and fierce, joyful defiance. The critical role that “Beedi” Rayappan played in Sarpatta Parambarai might be the most respectful portrayal yet of fishing communities in a mass Tamil film.
Watch: Trailer of Rudra Thandavam
Mari Selvaraj in his Karnan, subverted the Mahabaratha—a monument to caste inequality—into an anti-caste retelling. In Kaala, Ranjith made Ravanan the hero, in keeping with the anti-caste ideology that claims the so-called “demon” king as a Bahujan leader, while Ram represents the Brahminical systems of oppression.
They not only firmly established a place for themselves in cinema, they have been able to incisively point out the very building blocks of a caste society.
It’s a small wonder that dominant castes find it hard to stomach this. The fragile masculinity that went into the scores of films, set in rural Tamil Nadu where the martial strength (veeram) of the landowning dominant castes were shown as unmatched, where the hero from those communities was always righteous and the women were both property and mere vessels to carry the “maanam” (honour) of the whole caste, rears its ugly head again in films like Draupathi and Devarattam.
Speaking to TNM, Damodaran talks about how in the late 1980s Tamil cinema witnessed a change towards films centred on nativism and neo-nativism He also reminds us that there were many socialist films in the mid-eighties that spoke about unemployment or challenged the authority of landlords. Later, as more and more films about the countryside came out, such as say, the films of Bharathiraja, they uncritically showed Thevar lifestyles, the village panchayats, a just hero, but they weren’t in the same level of unflinching glorification that a film like Thevar Magan does, he says. “We also have to look at the political changes in the nineties. Jayalalithaa came to power for the first time. The Gounders and Thevars were gaining political clout, just like they had dominance in the cultural sphere. Mohan G is a reflection of political realities now. PMK's S Ramadoss has repeatedly tried to drive a wedge between Dalits and intermediate castes. His is a politics of hatred. What he does in the electoral sphere, Mohan G seems to be trying to do in cinema. Neither has gained much traction, but it does result in spreading hate," notes Damodaran.
He also speaks about how the films of Mari Selvaraj, for the first time in mainstream Tamil cinema, gave us a different version of the southern districts. “Until then, according to cinema, the south was a violent place and mostly the Thevars were heroes, their violence was heroic and for a just cause. Selvaraj changed that narrative.”
Writer and activist Shalin Maria Lawrence also points out how such caste pride films peaked in the nineties. “Chinna Gounder or Nattaamai and other such films were full of uncritical praise for land-owning castes that now call themselves ‘aanda parambarai’. Or Thevar Magan that has song lyrics like ‘pottri paadadi penne, Thevar kaal addi manne’ (sing in praise my girl, of even the dust beneath the Thevar’s feat.) The films were directed and produced by people from dominant castes and they glorified the atrocities they committed. It should also be noted that these films came out at the same time as large-scale anti-caste uprisings in the southern and northern districts of Tamil Nadu," says Shalin. She further adds that the recent slew of anti-caste Tamil films served as an antidote speaking for land rights, constitutional rights and inclusivity instead. “When they [directors like Mohan G, for example] watch these films, they come up with their own that carry out propaganda against anti-caste cinema.”
Jeny Dolly Antony, Pa Ranjith's longtime assistant director who also worked on Sarpatta Parambarai, explained eloquently in an interview to Aran Sei how little value the notion of “maanam” holds, pointing out that it is a concept entrenched in misogyny. “Periyar has given as a beautiful term called ‘suya mariyaathai” (dignity, self-respect) instead. In Sarpatta, it is only when Kabilan raises his fist, does a fight that was for maanam until then, become a fight for dignity instead," she says.
Caste society murders Dalit men for even growing moustaches, riding a horse or sitting on a chair. Leaders like PMK chief Anbumani Ramadoss vilify them for wearing T-shirts and sunglasses, with wild allegations of trying to “lure” dominant caste women, not dissimilar to the equally vile accusations of “love-jihad” in the Hindi-belt. The celebration of masculinity in films like Karnan or Sarpatta Parambarai defy all this. As the popular Instagram handle @1916tamilcinema explained in a post about these two films, theirs is an empathetic heroism that has place for the larger community and even those whom the heroes defeat.
Is it this uninhibited assertion of masculinity among other defiances in their films that a director like Mohan G finds intolerable? Does he, in the tradition of select filmmakers in the eighties and nineties, think “veeram” belongs only to dominant caste men?
Damodaran, while speaking to TNM, draws out the marked difference in the autonomy and independence that women in a Pa Ranjith film have, as compared to films that glorify the valour of dominant caste men who are always ready to take it upon themselves to "protect" the women who are themselves compliant and with little agency.
It’s the same fragile masculinity that manifests again in the poisonous duo of veeram and maanan; this also forms the justification for the caste killings depicted in Draupathi and who knows what other fresh hell in Rudra Thandavam. The protagonist played by Richard Rishi in Draupathi was also called Rudra, as if to say the heroes are on some divine mission. At the end of the trailer of Rudra Thandavam, Richard Rishi again, rails that people have branded him a “jaathi veriyan”. He seems to be a cop in this film on a mission to root out some nefarious plot beneath inter-caste and inter-religious romances (no, obviously it’s not love.). From what we can gather, his excesses led to his dismissal and we’re supposed to see him as a tragic-hero.
It’s a thandavam all right, just not by a god, but by an overgrown man-child unable to accept any challenge to a caste status quo or the criticism he’s faced for Draupathi. The only aspect of the trailer that begs disbelief even more is Gautham Vasudev Menon pretending to be a socialist leader (or so one gather from the red flags and symbols). The hypocrisy of the director who bagged a plum opportunity for a Netflix anthology film like Paava Kadhaigal, directing, acting and profiting from a supposedly anti-caste series that questions notions of "honour", couldn't be more evident.