ABSTRACT
Instead of underlining the failure of the postcolonial Indian state to provide even the bare minimum for the majority of its citizens, Ketan Mehta’s 2015 film Manjhi—The Mountain Man presents its eponymous protagonist as the longing lover. Suraj, in Prakash Jha’s Rajneeti: Politics and Beyond (2010), unwillingly plunges into democratic politics to counter his interminable humiliation and finds himself taken advantage of by his half-brothers. Anubhav Sinha’s 2019 feature Article 15 not only sidelines the alternative discourse of the radical Nishad but also portrays the Brahmin police officer Ayan Ranjan as the messiah who brings about caste and gender equality in Lalgaon. This chapter argues that Manjhi, Suraj, and Nishad are symptoms of the malaise that afflicts the representation of Dalit subjectivity in Bollywood. It seems therein that the Dalit subject can never be at home in the Indian democratic set-up. The chapter also suggests that such representation need not set the tone for the future as Dalit discourse possesses the ability to imagine democracy and citizenship even in situations where (majority or majoritarian) nationalism fails the community.
