Bollywood needs an inclusion rider, so that Sikhs can have more than just one Diljit Dosanjh

A still from Diljit Dosanjh's upcoming Punjabi movie Rangroot | @DiljitDosanjh official Facebook page

The kind of impact that Diljit Dosanjh has made on the Sikh psyche will show its true reach in a few years, but it begs the question: what if such representation was afforded in larger amounts to more minorities?

“…I have two words to leave with you tonight, ladies and gentlemen: Inclusion rider.”

When Frances McDormand wrapped up her Oscar speech with this sentence, she knew exactly what she was doing. The internet went into a tizzy, with searches for ‘inclusion rider’ spiking and Merriam-Webster claiming ‘inclusion’ was its top-searched word for the night. People scrambled to understand what it means. It was a moment Stacy Smith, founder and director of the University of Southern California’s Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, had probably been waiting for since she conceptualised the idea.

The premise of an inclusion rider is very simple. If a big-ticket actor signs a movie, they’re usually given substantial amounts of negotiation room. They’re allowed to make demands and create an environment that’s conducive to their work. An inclusion rider, if asked for by the said actor, demands that the cast and crew of the film include a proportionate, representative number of women, LGBTQ individuals, minorities, people with disabilities, and every other demographic that’s underrepresented and shunned by the media.

It’s a real, tangible way powerful people can create space for, and cede platforms to, people who deserve the same. It’s also a concept Bollywood desperately needs to think about, especially in the case of minority representation.

Bollywood serves as the cultural ambassador of one of the largest populations in the world. Despite the incredible cinema regional industries are producing and creating history at film fests with, it is Bollywood that sets down the paradigms of media representations of Indians across the globe.

Bollywood made the Punjabi wedding the image of what ‘Indian weddings’ look like. Bollywood (looking at you, Karan Johar) projected karva chauth, a traditionally north Indian concept, as something all Indian wives do. Bollywood created an Indian identity that became a template every American sitcom harks to.

Bollywood, unfortunately, also did large swathes of its viewers and lovers an immense disservice.

Don’t get me wrong. I love Bollywood. It’s my favourite Saturday night plan, and it’s been my best friend on many occasions. But as a person from a Sikh family, I did not grow up seeing my realities anywhere on screen.

The Sikhs on screen were country bumpkins, punch lines, court jesters, sources of comic relief — nothing like how my family looked to me. It created an immense dissonance in how people perceived me when I told them I was Sikh. As someone who doesn’t wear any obvious religious markers (no long hair, no kada, no kirpan), I had the distinct (dis)pleasure of seeing people’s reaction to me change almost visibly at this revelation. Suddenly, they found in me every media stereotype they were ever fed, and my personhood found itself reduced to a patchwork of terrible characterisations that I never could relate to.

If I made a Venn diagram of the movies I truly enjoyed and those I found holistic Sikh representation in, I’d have few names in hand. If I tried to find movies in which a Sikh person played a fleshed-out Sikh character as well as had a decent storyline — nothing before Diljit Dosanjh’s excellent Sartaj Singh in Udta Punjab comes to mind.

Dosanjh, as an actor, is a brand new paradigm. He is the game-changer. He’s the first example of a Sikh man being quintessentially cool in the media. The man’s a triple threat — he acts, he sings, he dances. He knows how to laugh at himself, and has excellent comic timing. He’s also a Sikh man playing roles that could have been played by any other actor in mainstream media because he’s just that good. He’s the kind of representation that thousands of little Sikh boys with their judis and patkas look at and feel less other-ed, less different. The kind of impact that one single man has made on the Sikh psyche will show its true reach in a few years, but it begs the question: What if such representation was afforded in larger amounts to more minorities?

Imagine a world where ‘a character from the northeast’ is not just a token person with mongoloid features and a guitar in hand, but a well-rounded character with emotions informed by the cultural context to where they belong. Imagine a queer couple on screen that was not a blank template to underline tragedy on, but, well, a couple with dreams and hopes and pain. Think of a person from a demographic that has been persecuted and side-lined existing as a human being on screen. Imagine normalisation, and eventually celebration, of things that move away from a stratified status quo and challenge what we think of as ‘correct’.

US-based author Cesar A. Cruz once said, “Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.” Bollywood, with its ability to reinforce paradigms, has the potential to create them too.

But one can hope, right? One must. Maybe, one day, one of our own will be on stage and say ‘inclusion rider’ and the rest of the industry will agree. We’ll get there, eventually.

Maybe to expect contractual, structural changes to an industry that’s still incredibly sexist, bigoted and offensive in many ways is too much to ask for. But inclusion doesn’t always start with legislation. Bollywood needs to start with simply respecting the fact that its viewers are growing up and demanding better. If it doesn’t wish to lose the next generation of cinema-goers to its smarter, better informed counterparts, it has to grow up too. Quickly, inclusively, and immediately — riders or not.

Harnidh Kaur is a poet and feminist.