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Bollywood movies and caste depiction

Have you heard that in any masala flick of Bollywood leading caste named Rahul Chamar or Prem Bhangi or Vijay Deenanath Kanjar. Yuck! I know standard response, these name doesn’t sound macho. My question is which part of these name look odd for leading character First name Vijay or Last nameKanjar. Amitabh played Vijay many times in his 5 decade old carrier but never played a character having last name as Kanjar, Chamar, Bhangi or for point sake any dalit caste.

Can’t be love and praise character having lower caste last name?

It is said that Bollywood shows mirror image of Indian society. But I was shocked to realize how narrowly the characters are portrayed. We have seen diversity in terms of class but never in terms of caste which I think is much deeper. The main character of movie irrespective of class (economic status) always belong to upper caste.

DrishyamAnand

The caste identity is so deep that even in fiction we can’t imagine Chulbul Kori beating goons and playing half Robin Hood. Why is this only reserved for likes of Pandeyji. I’m not debating that character having lower caste last name are not shown in good light. There are movies where lower caste character played significant role like Kachara was only spinner playing for Bhuvan. But we hardly see movies where lower caste protagonist plays the central role.

What restricts our imagination to name our leading character a dalit last name?

S.No

IMDB Rating

Movie

Actor

Name

Caste

1

8.9

Airlift

Akshay Kumar

RanjitKatyal

Kshatriya (Upper)

2

8.9

Anand

Rajesh Khanna

Anand Sehgal

 Kshatriya (Upper)

3

8.9

Anand

Amitabh Bachchan

Dr. Bhaskar Banerjee

Brahman (Upper)

4

8.7

Drishyam

Ajay Devgn

Vijay Salgaonkar

kshatriya

5

8.7

Drishyam

Tabu

I.G MeeraDeshmukh

Brahmins (Upper class)

6

8.6

Hera Pheri

PareshRawal

BaburaoGanpatraoApte 

Brahman (Upper)

7

8.5

Taare Zameen par

Aamir Khan

Ram Shankar Nikumbh

Rajput

8

8.5

Taare Zameen par

Darsheel Safary

 IshaanNandkishoreAwasthi

Brahman (Upper)

9

8.5

Sholay

Sanjeev Kumar

Thakur Baldev Singh

Kshatriya (Upper Class)

10

8.4

A Wednesday

AnupamKher

PrakashRathod

Rajput

11

8.4

3 Idiot

Sharman Joshi

RajuRastogi

Vaishya

12

8.4

Khosla Ka Ghosla 

AnupamKher

Kamal Kishore Khosla

Khatri

13

8.4

Queen

Kangna Ranaut

Rani Mehra

Kashyap rajput

14

8.4

Munna Bhai M.B.B.S

Sanjay Dutt

Murli Prasad Sharma

Brahmins

15

8.4

Rang De Basanti

R. Madhavan 

Ajay Rathod

Rajput

16

8.4

Rang De Basanti

AtulKulkarni

LaxmanPandey 

Brahmins

17

8.4

Rang De Basanti

Siddarth

Karan R. Singhania

Vaishya

18

8.3

Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar

Aamir Khan

Sanjaylal Sharma

Brahmins

19

8.3

OMG: Oh My God!

Paresh Rawal

Kanji Lalji Mehta

Brahmins and Khatris (Upper Class)

20

8.3

Swadesh

Shahrukh Khan

Mohan Bhargava

Brahmin

 
RDBTaare Zameen Par
Shah Rukh Khan Swades
MunnaBhai M.B.B.SHera Pheri

In this sample survey I have not included movies which are based on real life or inspired by real life incident. Movies like Andaz Apna Apna hasimaginery last names like Bhopali and Manohar while in movie Udaan last name was not mentioned.


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I am shivam Pal author of this blog helloshiva. Professional working as an SEO Consultant, I observe google algorithm update and implement rules for client’s services. Hire me for SEO Services.

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