Changing portrayal of indigenous communities in the Hindi entertainment space Premium

Entertainment industry adjusting gaze towards tribal communities, exploring nuanced debate on identity & survival, dismantling stereotypes & cliches.

At a time when the Bharatiya Janata Party’s tribal outreach is paying rich electoral dividends, the entertainment industry is also adjusting its gaze towards a segment of society that constitutes around 8.5% of the population.

Over the years, the depiction of indigenous communities has been marked by cliches and stereotypes. Often portrayed as barbaric people who kill indiscriminately to save their atavistic customs, they have always been shown to need the civilisational embrace of the hero. Their women are shown to be gullible, who easily surrender to the status and masculinity of the city-bred male protagonist.

The portrayal of tribal people is often sexualised to suit the urban gaze and a perception has been built that when it comes to cultural communication, indigenous communities either break into a ‘Chadh Gayo Papi Bichua’ or jive to the rhythmic gibberish of ‘Jhinga Lala Hu’. From Madhumati (1958) and Talash (1969) to Carvan (1971) and Shalimar (1978), there is a long list of films where indigenous people are reduced to caricatures or cardboard characters where men and women are dressed in attires laced with beads and feathers.

Even Satyajit Ray was guilty of perpetuating the stereotype in Aranyer Din Ratri (1970) where Simi Grewal’s face was blackened to make her fit into a stock tribal character who gives in to the charm of the sheheri babu, the bhadralok. With hardly any role in the running of the industry and only limited consumption at the box office, the pushback has been meek.

A glorious exception has been Mrinal Sen’s Mrigaya (1976). Released during the Emergency, it is about the rule of law in unequal societies. When the lustful moneylender kills a tribal rebel he is rewarded by the colonial master but when the young tribal protagonist beheads the beast to save his wife from his clutches, he falls prey to the British rule of law. The film’s message goes beyond the clash of cultures. It talks of resistance against a system that indemnifies the perpetrators of injustice.

Four decades later, S.S. Rajamouli came up with one of the most problematic profiling of indigenous communities in Bahubali where the film suggests that those who adopted the Hindu way became civilised and the rest remained in the ‘dark ages’.

Of late, the entertainment space has finally been engaging in a more nuanced debate on issues of tribal identity and survival. Writers seem eager to portray tribal characters as the driving force of a narrative as generic tales give way to more lived-in experiences. The naivety is no longer romanticised and female characters have more heft. Like in most cinematic trends these days, the push has come from the south when the tribal woman in Jai Bhim (2021) stood up to power and refused to be crushed without a fight within the ring provided by the Constitution. Rajamouli also made amends with RRR (2022). The Gond girl Malli becomes a symbol of the natural wealth of the tribals that continues to be ravaged by those in power for their vested interests.