Bollywood film is deemed untouchable By James Fontanella-Khan in Mumbai and Akanksha Awal in New Delhi From F.T.Com
The painful legacy of India’s caste system has collided with Bollywood after a new movie highlighted long-running discrimination against the country’s Dalits, or untouchables. *Aarakshan*, which means reservation or quota, has been banned in three Indian states. Protests ahead of its release on Friday sparked fears of social unrest and highlighted the enduring divisiveness of Hinduism’s millennia-old hierarchy system. Please respect FT.com's ts&cs <http://www.ft.com/servicestools/help/terms> and copyright policy <http://www.ft.com/servicestools/help/copyright> which allow you to: share links; copy content for personal use; & redistribute limited extracts. Email [email protected] to buy additional rights or use this link to reference the article - http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/31089468-c4e6-11e0-9c4d-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz1UzUpK600 Starring Bollywood star Amitabh Bachchan, the Hindi-language film focuses on the quota system established at the time of independence, which set aside a proportion of university places and public sector jobs for the country’s most underprivileged castes and tribes. The caste-based affirmative action<http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/2ecabe4a-24e3-11e0-895d-00144feab49a.html#axzz1Uir4RmBU> policies were aimed at redressing inequalities generated by Hinduism’s caste system, which divides society based on traditional occupations. Critics say that *Aarakshan* depicts upper castes in a bad light for the way they mistreated Dalits, while at the same time ignoring how the quota system helped lift many people out of poverty. “While the overall theme of the film is not objectionable, it is loaded with anti-Dalit and anti-[quota] dialogues,” P.L. Punia, chairman of the National Commission for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, said. “*Aarakshan* has failed. It is likely to create communal tension.” The film, released just days before India celebrates the 64th anniversary of independence, was banned in Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Punjab. Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state with 180m people, is ruled by Kumari Mayawati<http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/a3b6c50c-650c-11de-a13f-00144feabdc0.html>, the country’s most powerful lower-caste politician. In Mumbai, police were deployed to guard cinemas and protect Mr Bachchan and the movie’s other Bollywood stars amid fears of attacks by extremists. Mr Bachchan wrote on his blog <http://bigb.bigadda.com/?p=8400> that the decision to ban the film infringed India’s freedom of expression laws: “I am saddened that India’s destiny, the dispenser of which rules the minds of all people, has no effect on those minds that sit in the most august houses of our legislative assembly.” Prakash Jha, *Aarakshan*’s director, said it aimed to explore the problems of the quota system, which many believe has failed to create a more egalitarian society. Sunalini Kumar, an assistant professor at Delhi University, says that quotas’ impact on social mobility has been limited since their introduction more than 60 years ago. “A recent survey of professional occupations by caste in Mumbai shows that around 98 per cent of the sweepers, municipal workers, sewage workers . . . are Dalits,” Ms Kumar said. “Around 97 per cent of journalists and media professionals in the country belong to upper castes.” However, Ms Kumar, who is broadly in favour of reservations, adds that affirmative action policies aimed at uplifting Dalits “provide a foot in the door. Without quotas, the marginalised of this country lose even that.” This view is shared by several academics. Amaresh Dubey, a professor at Jawaharlal Nehru university in New Delhi, says that quotas remain the best way to address India’s social divisions: “The ethnicity and caste-based discrimination has been widely researched. . . Affirmative action or positive discrimination has to be the way to go.”
