In the glitzy glamorous world of Made in Heaven Season 2, with big fat Indian weddings and blushing brides and bridegrooms, two things are making waves. The portrayal of a Dalit Buddhist wedding in the fifth episode, The Heart Skipped a Beat, and Dalit bride Pallavi Menke’s insistence on a Buddhist wedding. These portrayals lay bare the caste chasm in popular culture. And while this is being hailed by prominent Dalit voices across the world, it has upset one — Yashica Dutt, whose life is reflected on screen.
Neeraj Ghaywan, a Dalit filmmaker himself, publicly acknowledged the various sources he referred to while making the show, including author Yashica Dutt for her book Coming Out. But, it was too little, too late. It does little for the millions of global viewers of this Amazon Prime show.
And in the very next episode, the plot zooms in on Shehnaz (Dia Mirza), a Muslim woman who happens to be a card-carrying supporter of the Uniform Civil Code and whose husband Wasim (Parvin Dabas) wants to remarry simply because “it is not illegal”.
Both episodes have people interrogating identity, tradition, prejudice and representation of minority and marginalised communities in popular culture. But both are not without controversy.
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‘Everything is politics’
In the ocean of big-scale weddings with oodles of flamboyance, Ghaywan’s depiction of a Dalit wedding on screen stands out for its authenticity and relative simplicity. But while it successfully tries to change the way Dalits are showcased on screen, it fails to credit the very person who inspired the scene of the character ‘coming out’ and asserting her selfhood.
Dutt has slammed Amazon Prime Video and the showrunners for using her life without permission.
“The Made in Heaven episode is stunning in its portrayal of a Dalit woman and her Buddhist inter-caste wedding. It also unfortunately erases my contribution to my own ideas,” she said.
The past few days have been overwhelming. I continue to support @ghaywan’s excellent work, now with Made in Heaven and earlier with Geeli Pucchi on Netflix. But this needs to be said. pic.twitter.com/tU1xro3QzC
— Yashica Dutt (@YashicaDutt) August 14, 2023
But the scene where Menke, who is from Columbia and talks about her grandmother manually cleaning toilets while wearing all blue, asserting her selfhood, gave Dutt the chills.
“It was surreal to see a version of my life on screen that wasn’t but yet still me,” she said in her post.
The episode drew positive reactions from Dalits across India, including Prakash Ambedkar, grandson of BR Ambedkar. He appreciated Pallavi’s assertion, defiance, and resistance as a Dalit woman. It will go down in history as a reminder and example of why representation matters and how it changes the way a subject is treated.
A common grouse, though, was that the character of Menke wasn’t played by a Dalit actress, showing there’s still room for progress.
For many viewers whose idea of a wedding is groom on a horse or a veiled bride in a white gown, the inter-caste wedding was an eye-opener. In a nod to years of stigmatisation of Dalits around access to water, Pallavi walks through the pools of water as ‘buddham saranam gachami’ plays in the background.
https://t.co/hsE6iW1qZX pic.twitter.com/ubtGxsTCth
— Neeraj Ghaywan (@ghaywan) August 14, 2023
Before the couple begins wedding rituals in the presence of Buddhist monks, they pray to a portrait of Ambedkar, kept next to one of Buddha. The moment shook many with joy and surprise, because it acknowledged that Dalit customs are not the same as Savarna wedding rituals. Some even hailed this moment as a rise of a “new India” where asserting rights and inclusivity are not merely an obligation under the constitution.
I'm so happy to see a dalit wedding depicted in such a beautiful way in a popular, so-called high end television series. This is a new India where asserting your rights is the modern-day development and where inclusiveness is not merely an obligation under the constitution. pic.twitter.com/HyzDSF9Bbi
— Abhay Rajput (@abhay63902552) August 12, 2023
“Everything is about politics,” says Pallavi in the show. The episode’s reception, both good and bad proves it.
Also Read: UCC could be around the corner, but divorce still comes in many colours in India
Soft propaganda?
The next episode, Warrior Princesses, on the other hand, appears to reinforce Muslim stereotypes.
Wasim, a Delhi-based affluent Muslim man, wants to marry again, despite being married to Shehnaz (Dia Mirza) and having two young sons. Shehnaz, visibly upset, expresses her discontentment by trying to kill herself on the day of the wedding. After Karan (Arjun Mathur), the wedding planner, saves her life, she decides to fight to change the law and make polygamy illegal.
“I am not only a Muslim. I am a citizen of this country,” says Shehnaz when her husband said that he had not done anything illegal by remarrying.
The segment is a hat-tip to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government’s Uniform Civil Code push.
But it’s not just Muslims who have multiple wives in India. According to the recent National Family Health Survey (NFHS) data, 1.9 per cent of Muslims practice polygamy, compared to 1.3 per cent of Hindu women who admitted to being in a polygynous marriage in 2019-21.
The rest of Shrivastava’s episode peddles outdated stereotypes related to adaab, shararas, and Roohafza. A story that could have easily highlighted the plight of Muslims in the current polarising climate was content in displaying its lopsided liberalism.
Either the showmakers have turned a blind eye to the prevailing ground reality of Muslims in the country, or it is just lazy writing devoid of research. Developing authentic Muslim characters is not a taxing task. An earlier episode Love Story, directed by Zoya Akhtar and Reema Kagti, also features Muslim characters, but religion never becomes a point of contention. The story, depicting a wedding of two major Bollywood stars, focuses on the tropes of what it means to be a woman in a cut-throat industry and the gaze never shifts to its main character’s religion. Many called out the show for its hypocrisy and undercurrent of propaganda.
This illustrates the state of filmmaking and writing in India. Even as Muslims confront unparalleled violence, with homes being razed, minors and young adults being subjected to arbitrary detainment, and discrimination prevalent in employment and housing…3/n
— kalim (@akhmxt1) August 13, 2023
Some pointed out that prominent Hindus, like Dharmendra and Hema Malini, have converted to Islam to be able to practice polygamy legally.
I actually don’t know a single Muslim in India who is married to more than one person. Not a friend, not anyone’s parents.
The only ones I hear about are weird Hindus converting to enter into bigamous marriages like BJP MP Hema Malini and Dharmendra https://t.co/w9WeJO5iHW
— Sarayu Pani (@sarayupani) August 13, 2023
This is not the first time Shrivastava represented the Muslim community in a lopsided manner. In her controversial film Lipstick Under My Burkha (2017), Muslim men were criminalised and were reduced to a symbol of oppression and misogyny.
At a time when makers mostly rely on popular social media chatter to draw conclusions on what is sellable, Made in Heaven Season 2, despite having a robust line-up of directors, falls prey to its own template.
Views are personal.
(Edited by Theres Sudeep)