TW: Major Spoilers Ahead
The 2018 film Tumbbad is among the best and most visually spectacular Indian films. Many of us know that. At the same time – what is less known – it is also one of the best Indian movies ever on caste. There is much to learn from Satish Deshpande’s work on how the privileged in India have succeeded in “amputating” the full meaning of caste to simply mean “lower caste”, thus “leaving the upper castes free to monopolise the ‘general category’ by posing as casteless citizens.”
The elite have always reduced the gargantuan history of caste to discrimination and reservations. However, it is the persistent power and privilege of the so-called upper castes, more than anything, which defines and sustains India’s caste system. This needs to become our common sense. The film Tumbbad is important because it makes these points about privilege subtly but nevertheless relentlessly (within the usual mainstream confines of cinema and ‘culture’, of course) throughout its scintillating two-hour run.
At the start, we are told through the Gandhi quote on greed that the film is about greed, entitlement and power and within five minutes, we are shown, through the powerful lingering of the camera on Sarkar’s face, that the film is about a Brahmin family and broadly Hindu caste elites.
Tumbbad depicts caste privilege broadly, as well as specifically in early twentieth-century Maharashtra. To quote from Howard David Ingham’s review: “Of course, the Raos are Brahmins…who would be entitled enough to ignore the injunction of the gods…and consider themselves entitled to a stolen treasure. Vinayak is the sort of guy who assumes he’s got a right to his decaying ancestral pile, and the gold, and by extension India, since he is at the top of the caste pile.”
In debates on reservations, we have been bombarded for decades with the elite-caste claim that Dalits, Adivasis whose parents have government jobs are now sufficiently “privileged” – with no acknowledgement of the centuries-long history of inherited privilege the former possess. In Tumbbad, we vividly portray such generational caste-based privilege and entitlement. Despite knowing that their use of the treasure has virtually destroyed the village through constant and incessant daily rains and no sunshine, the Rao family is relentless and unrepentant.
Apart from this more general portrayal, there are many delightful specific displays of the life and thought of caste elites in early 20th century India. For example, Raghav’s attempts to bribe the white officer and secure an opium permit (i.e., get rich through corruption and collusion with the British). Then the snarky comments against Gandhi and the Congress-led Independence Movement – an absolute staple of many elite caste communities in Maharashtra and India during that time and a hallowed tradition even today.
There’s also a powerful and disturbing portrayal of Dharmashastras-ordained patriarchy (“Brahmanical patriarchy”, as Uma Chakravarti described, after the people who made and propagated shastras as divine law). For example:
- Vinayak “keeps” a mistress, and his wife has to deal with it.
- The men are aghast at “women empowerment” and the idea of women being independent and making their own decisions.
- More sinister is the deft portrayal of how the little boy in the family also learns and absorbs the “hidden curriculum” of patriarchy.
Among the strongest undercurrents in the film – which has so much relevance today – is the elite privilege of committing offences and crimes at will, with little worry about punishment, like the Raos claiming the forbidden treasure with no accountability towards the village. This scene shows how historically, caste elites have always, when it suited them, flouted the so-called “Hindu” laws which they themselves created & still continue to impose on others, even punishing the latter for flouting (because that “hurts” their religious “sentiments”).
Tumbbad is a spectacular film on so many levels, and its depiction of caste privilege has few comparisons. I searched a lot for Indian reviewers who might have analyzed this substantial caste content of the film in their reviews. I found none. So many reviewers emphasized that the film is about greed – but missed to say that in the historical Indian (Hindu) context, only a few are even “allowed” to nurture any kind of ambition, let alone of wealth.
Maybe I have missed some good reviews. But it is unsurprising that these aspects just completely bypassed the radar of elite mainstream film reviewers in India. Not unlike how the crystal clear “Brahmin” on the board here bypassed (and was invisibilized by) the subtitles person.
The second half of the movie portrays the organized efforts by elite Hindus in the early 1900s to undermine the liberal, even radical ideas and currents which threatened their not-achieved-through-“merit” hereditary privilege and their shastras-facilitated divine authority.
One of the ways in which these efforts expanded was when elites like (the fictional) Vinayak Rao of Tumbbad lazily threw away a little of their humongous wealth toward the conservative (and even violent) Hindu organisations which were coming up then.
Tumbbad’s overt story provides closure: we see that the cycle of greed is broken. But does Tumbbad’s covert political-historical story also provide any closure? It’s hard to tell since there are multiple storylines involved. But considering that the film begins with a Gandhi quote that undergirds the whole story and that the greedy, entitled protagonist named “Vinayak” is the ultimate loser despite having a good run for a while – maybe there’s something to extrapolate there?
Anyway, there probably are many caste elites in India and abroad who would indeed like to understand further and introspect about privilege. There are a lot of resources out there. For now I’ll leave Dadi’s little aphorism here: विरासत मे मिली हुइ हर चीज पर दावा नही करना चाहिये
The article was originally published as a twitter thread here.