Global Journal of Human Social Science, C: Sociology and Culture, Volume 22 Issue 6

Understanding Scenario of Casteism in Twentieth Century India through Satyajit Ray Film Sadgati Abir Mondal Abstract- This article tries to emphasis the actual scenario of Casteism in twentieth century of India solely on the basis of Satyajit Ray’s film ‘Sadgati’ (1981). Although this article doesn’t focus on film theories and criticism of ‘Sadgati’ as a film but on sociological aspect of castesim in India. ‘Sadgati’ is a Hindi movie but in this article the dialogues of the movie as per requirement is translated by author. The original story was written by Premchand but here we try to focus only on the film made by Ray based on that story. This theoretical study focuses on how was the scenario of Casteism which includes higher caste’s oppression, suppression, marginalization and exploitation towards lower caste with reference to ‘Sadgati’. Simultaneously, we try to analyze the relevance of Ray’s portrayal in the movie with the actual scenario. For that we have taken some secondary sources as evidence of fact. Keywords: casteism, sadgati, satyajit ray, film. I. I ntroduction hat is Casteism? According to R. N. Sharma , “ Casteism is a blind group loyalty towards one’s own caste or sub-caste, which does not care for the interests of other castes, and seeks to realize the social, economic, political and other interests of its own group ” (quoted in Rao, 2017). So in simple word we can say Casteism is a caste’s interest towards its individuals and oppressed others who are inferior to them. It’s a basic caste-wise discrimination which has been practicing since the ancient period in India. In the Indian society it cannot be ignored. The relationship between Caste and Society is significant. Caste is a factor behind social stratification which in simple word, the social division of the society. By the definition of Bottomore it can be cleared, “ social stratification is the division of society into classes of strata, which from a hierarchy of prestige and power ” (quoted in Pal, 2016). Actually, social stratification characterized by endogamy, hereditary transmission of a style of life which often includes an occupation, ritual status in a hierarchy, and customary social interaction and exclusion based on cultural notions of purity and pollution. The Hindu religion has castes that range from Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas, and Sudra. While the Brahmins are the highest caste, they enjoy all the amenities which the lower caste person isn’t allowed to. People are not allowed access to certain things solely because of their caste. This creates a lot of division in Indian society. So from societal aspect casteism is very crucial element for social stratification. In this article we will try to understand the caste based oppression in twentieth century of rural India with reference to the legendary film director Satyajit Ray’s movie Sadgati . Originally this movie is based on a short story of same name written by Munsi Premchand . This story was first published in 1931 in volume 4 of Mansarovar , the collected stories. This Hindi story was translation into English by David Rubin appears as the title story of Rubin’s Deliverance and Other Stories . Satyajit Ray made this film in 1981 produced by Doordarshan. Ray in his book The Chess Players and Other Screenplays called this story of a poo r Dalit “a deeply angry film ... not the anger of an exploding bomb but of a bow stretched taut and quivering” (1989) where Sourodipto Sanyal d escribed as “It is not the worst manifestations of physical violence meted out to lower castes, but the everyday exploitation they face, which is cinematically represented. The issue of caste is also linked to the superstitious practices of Hinduism in the film” (2016). This film was telecasted first on Indian television (Doordarshan) in 1981, and subsequently on Channel 4 in the UK. II. C asteism S howcasing in S adgati Being a Bengali Kayasthas (in the ancient Chaturvarna system 2 nd height caste after Brahmin) Satyajit Ray don’t believe in this caste system. Even he criticizes the higher caste’s negative attitude towards lower caste. In a Bengali dialogue of his movie Jana Aranya (The Middleman) he sarcastically emphasizes that which I try to translate as “being a Brahman decent you can do begging on road but how can you peddle anything?”(37:12-37:15). Actually he criticizes the values of higher caste where they proudly can do beg on road but not do laborious works which gives them little earning but provide self-respect. In Sadgati this caste based discrimination is rather more prominent. The main characters of this film are Dukhi (a tanner) played by Om Puri , Jhuria (Dhuki’s wife) played by Smita Patil , Dhania (Dukhi’s daughter) played by Richa Sharma , Ghasiram (a Brahmin) played by Mohan Agashe , Lakshmi (Brahmin’s wife) played by Gita Siddharth . The story is roaming around the life of Dukhi and his misery which was described by Upadhyaya as “ Dukhi is so completely grounded under the weight of tradition and Brahmanical superiority that he considers himself a non-entity before the spiritual might of the Brahman. He is so laden with his consciousness of W © 2022 Global Journals Volume XXII Issue VI Version I 65 ( ) Global Journal of Human Social Science - Year 2022 C Author: Visva-Bharati University, India. e-mail: abir1294@gmail.com