Chennai: More than 30 years ago, a neatly dressed six-year-old boy in school uniform in a village on the outskirts of Chennai was advised by his mother to keep his caste a secret.
Her words remained etched in his young mind as he went to a post office in Karalapakkam village one evening.
However, even her advice couldn’t prepare him for the harsh reality of caste discrimination when he wasn’t allowed to drop a letter in the postbox.
“I was not allowed to touch the postbox then. I was asked to hand over the letter to my classmate standing there to drop it in,” movie director and political activist Pa Ranjith told ThePrint as he recalled his childhood. “Despite being a first rank student, I wondered in what way I wasn’t at par with my classmate and what gave him the privilege to touch the postbox.”
Ranjith says he only understood his childhood struggles after he read social reformer and political leader B.R. Ambedkar during his early college days.
Today, 41-year-old Ranjith is one of the most successful Dalit filmmakers in the Tamil film industry, nicknamed Kollywood, and has also been at the forefront of the fight for Dalit empowerment through his films and activism.
He’s made a string of game-changing movies with strong Dalit characters and stories about the lives of oppressed communities that have put anti-caste issues front and centre in Tamil Nadu cinema. He is also making his debut movie in Bollywood this year.
Ranjith has come a long way from when he was a young man standing outside a theatre screen in Chennai introducing himself to a YouTube channel as the director of his first film in 2012, “I am Ranjith, director of Attakathi (Carboard Knife) movie. By this movie, I am introducing myself as the director.”
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Building a Dalit political movement
Cinema isn’t the only way Ranjith is championing the rights of oppressed castes in India.
Outside the big screen, he has also been building a wider Dalit political movement inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement in the United States under his Neelam banner.
As part of his efforts to empower the Dalit community and create awareness about Dalit oppression, Ranjith has launched a slew of forums including a library and a bookstore for Dalit literature. He has established a publishing house for Dalit writers and poets, and has a YouTube channel on Dalit lives.
He has also developed a cultural space called the Neelam Cultural Centre in Chennai that organises a host of activities from musical performances and films to seminars based on Ambedkar’s philosophy of social equality.
But now the question that many are asking lips is: Will Ranjith take the plunge and enter mainstream electoral politics?
Speculation began swirling when the activist-director got involved in a mainstream political movement for the first time following the murder of Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) state president K. Armstrong in July.
Ranjith and his supporters organised a rally to protest the killing and demand justice for the Dalit leader, saying his death was a political murder. Police said the Dalit leader’s murder was a “revenge killing”.
For the moment, Ranjith says he is undecided. He says he isn’t sure about entering electoral politics as he wants to strengthen the political movement he is building under the Neelam banner.
“I think it is a process, which will eventually happen. But, as of now, I have not decided about it,” Ranjith said. “I will not say I will not enter electoral politics. But I have not taken any decision on it for now.”
However, Ranjith has also been criticised for what some call his inconsistencies in handling mainstream politics. Writer and activist Shalin Maria Lawrence felt Ranjith lacked political clarity, although he had a strong vision in Dalit arts, culture and literature.
Ranjith says he doubts he can fulfill everybody’s expectations but he accepts constructive criticism and will work on it.
Politics of Pa Ranjith
Ranjith has been pushing boundaries with his activism.
The graduate from Chennai’s Government College of Fine Arts aggressively questioned Dalit MPs and MLAs in the state for not speaking about Dalit issues on the stage outside Rajarathinam Stadium in Egmore, where the rally seeking justice for Armstrong’s murder ended on 20 July.
“Henceforth, when Dalit MPs and MLAs elected by reservation don’t speak up for Dalit issues, we will protest. How long will you continue to disappoint us?” Ranjith asked.
Though this wasn’t the first time Ranjith had spoken aggressively at a public forum, it was the first time he had spoken so loudly about mainstream politics.
Ranjith told ThePrint he felt compelled to speak as none of the Ambedkarite parties in the state stood up for justice for Armstrong.
“I should not have been in a place to talk for him (Armstrong). There are a lot of Ambedkarite parties and leaders, who were supposed to have spoken for him. Since they all gave up, I was forced to take it upon myself,” Ranjith reasoned.
Despite being angry with Dalit MPs and MLAs, Ranjith believes electoral politics is the way to change people’s lives.
Ranjith might not be ready to throw his hat into the electoral ring yet, but that hasn’t stopped him from taking on Tamil Nadu’s political parties.
He has been appealing to Ambedkarite parties such as Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi and Puthiya Thamilagam Katchi to unite against the two Dravidian majors to liberate Dalits from the clutches of caste.
However, Ambedkarite parties, mostly founded in the 1990s, disagree with Ranjith. They believe it isn’t possible to win elections with just Dalit votes.
Though they support Ranjith, Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi general secretary and MLA Sinthanai Selvan told ThePrint the idea would not work in the present electoral system but would only pave the way for a divided society.
Activist journey
Ranjith’s activist journey began about six years ago when he first raised his voice on social issues after an inter-caste couple was killed for defying caste restrictions.
The bodies of 25-year-old Dalit N. Nandish and his 21-year-old wife S. Swathi were recovered from a river in November 2018. Nandish belonged to the Adi Dravidar community, a Scheduled Caste, and Swathi came from the Vanniyar community, a Most Backward Caste.
“At the time of recovering the body, Nandish was seen wearing a T-shirt with Ambedkar’s picture. It disturbed me a lot,” said Ranjith.
Since then, Ranjith has not missed any occasion to speak out against caste discrimination and caste killings in the state.
“My only thought is to stand up against any issue based on caste. Let it be social discrimination or inter-caste love, I would stand by my people,” Ranjith said.
However, Ranjith has also faced criticism for his stand on many issues including last month’s Supreme Court verdict approving internal reservation in the Scheduled Caste category.
Ranjith welcomed the Supreme Court’s order but was against the court’s call to exclude the “creamy layer” from Scheduled Caste and and Scheduled Tribe reservations.
Political activist Lawrence cited this as an example of a lack of clarity in his political stand.
“Soon after the court order, he welcomed it with a sense of urgency. But a day later, he backtracked and condemned the observation on creamy layer. This shows that he was struggling to take a stand on certain issues,” Lawrence said.
Ranjith responded to the criticism by saying he still supported internal reservations as he thinks from the perspective of the Arundhathiyar community, a sub-sect in the Scheduled Caste category, which has benefited from internal reservations.
“Arundhathiyars, who are at the lower rung of Scheduled Castes, are still deprived of a lot of rights. And reservation is needed for their social and educational upliftment. So, it was a conscious decision. I took the stand thinking of myself as a person from the Arundhathiyar community,” he said.
“There are a number of Dalit voices that exist now. So, everybody would want us to talk in their favour and their stand. But, backed by Ambedkar’s views, I take a stand based on an issue and the situation,” he said.
Ranjith is no stranger to controversy. In 2019, he criticised the Chola era king Raja Raja Cholan and termed his era as a dark age for Dalits. A case was filed against him for this speech in Thanjavur, but the Madras High Court quashed it in November 2021.
Pa Ranjith on-screen and off-screen
But Ranjith hasn’t been deterred. His roots in the creative arts literature have driven him to make Dalit-centric films.
He looks at literature through a critical lens and raises many questions that influence his films.
“In the Mahabharata, why did Ekalavya lose his thumb? Why did Aravan sacrifice himself to the goddess Kali for the Pandavas’ victory in the Mahabharata war? Thes were some of the questions that rose in my mind,” he said.
These questions motivated him to pursue untold stories about the lives of Dalits.
Kicking off his movie career as a director with Attakathi in 2012, Ranjith then brought the lives of people living in government-built housing units in North Chennai to the big screen in 2014 through Madras, regarded as one of the most important anti-caste Tamil films.
The commercial success of the first two movies gave him a ticket to direct Kollywood superstar Rajinikanth, not once, but twice in two back-to-back blockbusters – Kabali and Kaala (Black).
Kabali is the story of a Dalit who raised his voice against the oppression faced by Tamil labourers in Malaysia. Kaala shows the protagonist fighting for the people of the Dharavi slum settlement in Mumbai and protecting them from politicians and the land mafia.
His latest movie, Thangalaan (Son of Gold), explores the history of Dalits and their oppression by landlords and British colonial rulers through a fictional story of Dalit gold miners set against the backdrop of the Kolar Gold Fields.
Ranjith’s colleagues credit him with being politically correct in his movies.
“Not even in one place can you see him go wrong. There will be no misogyny, no gender bias in his movies,” film director Vetrimaaran said in a roundtable discussion on a YouTube Channel.
“In Kaala, the rowdies will remove the pants of a girl. When we were expecting that she would pick her pants, she would pick a rod and hit them back. ‘You cannot weaken me with this’ is what he means there.”
The consciousness of being politically correct, Ranjith said, stemmed from his creative background and vast reading about Ambedkar.
“Even as an art student, all my paintings were concept art, talking about the liberation of Dalits and the caste system in society,” said Ranjith, who is often seen flanked by books on Ambedkar and his philosophy.
Though Ranjith is now being identified as a filmmaker, he was originally a poet, story writer, artist and playwright who staged four modern plays on the “regressiveness” of humans and liberation of humankind.
“I don’t believe in just the aesthetic sense of art forms,” Ranjith said.
Nevertheless, the scope of telling stories through the big screen was limited since cinema is essentially a business.
That is when Ranjith decided to go beyond cinema and build an off-screen political movement inspired by the Black Lives Movement in the United States.
“The Black rights movement did not see art and activism separately. They expressed their happiness, sadness, celebrations and everything through their art form),” Ranjith said.
Ranjith now has dozens of forums that bring talent from music, art and literature under one umbrella for what he calls the common cause of “Dalit and humankind liberation”.
“Malcom X was an activist and Muhammad Ali was a boxer. But they shared a common stage for a common cause. I wanted to create such a common platform in Tamil Nadu,” said Ranjith.
People who have worked with Ranjith say he never preaches about what he reads but he practices what he says and reads about Ambedkar.
Screenplay director Thamizh Prabha, who worked with Pa Ranjith in two movies including Thangalan, said Ranjith has consciously chosen to speak for the empowerment of the Dalits.
“It is a basic thing for everybody to treat every other person equally. It is not something big to ask for. But, since a lot of them don’t do it, I see this as one of his great qualities,” said Thamizh Prabha.
With his political activism, Ranjith has been the main voice of a counterculture opposed to Tamil Nadu’s mainstream, culture.
“He is a disruptor just like Muhammad Ali who was part of the Black rights movement. This was the cultural and social space where the Ambedkarite movements started in Tamil Nadu but so far have failed. And Ranjith has rightly picked the path,” said Shalin Maria Lawrence.
(Edited by Sugita Katyal)
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