Bollywood No Longer A Dream Too Far for India's Lower Castes

By Emily Wax
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, April 27, 2008; Page A01

MUMBAI -- With a résumé listing his acting gigs in rural folk theater and a handful of slightly out-of-focus head shots, Birendra Paswan arrived in this crowded city from his rural village in Bihar, one of India's poorest states, and asked, "Where's Bollywood?" Paswan, 33, is a Dalit, a member of India's most ostracized caste. Dalits are often cobblers, street sweepers and toilet cleaners, but they are rarely actors in the world's largest film industry.

Still, as he stood that day beneath towering billboards showing Hindi film stars hawking expensive watches and cars, Paswan decided Bollywood was for him. "Part of me felt: 'How can I stand in this glamorous world? I don't have the right manners or surname,' " said Paswan, a talkative man with large almond-shaped eyes. "But I wanted to make it so badly in the Hindi movies."

It is not easy for Indians to shake loose the cages of caste, a 3,000-year-old pecking order in which professions and social status are inherited like eye color or height. But Bollywood, like Mumbai itself, is a place where young Indians are increasingly finding opportunities to reinvent themselves.

Today, a trickle of actors, dancers and screenwriters from India's lower and middle castes are trying to break into a formerly impenetrable star system, full of actors from Bollywood royalty and other insiders hailing from high-caste families. New drama schools are training Indians from all castes. And Bollywood is starting to tackle more serious plots that could potentially star low-caste actors.
"Will you get more attention if you have the right surname and are part of an entrenched star family? Of course," said Anupama Chopra, a film critic and author of several best-selling books on Bollywood. "But there is increasing space now for a booming Bollywood film industry, and there's a feeling that if you are talented enough, well, maybe you will get noticed, no matter what your family ties are."

Across India, Dalits and members of other low castes are struggling to gain access to quality education and better-paying jobs. The economy is booming, and Indians of low caste -- often identifiable by their surnames, birthplaces or parents' status -- want to share in the wealth, or at least the opportunity.

Some aspiring actors from low castes say their confidence is growing. There is more social mobility than ever before, they say, and Bollywood is experiencing its share of change.
"It's something new in the air for young people in some parts of India," said Trisha Karmakar, 24, a member of a lower caste who moved to Mumbai from the poor, densely populated state of Uttar Pradesh. "It's a feeling that at least there's a small chance for lower castes and not just for the star kids who have their godfathers and always get the callbacks." Karmakar, speaking one recent day in a neighborhood of acting and dance schools, beauty parlors and pawnshops, said she has yet to land a role. But she said she is close to breaking into TV soap operas. "Even if the chance is tiny, we are here, and we are dreaming big Bollywood dreams," she said. "We are no longer just desperate beggars, ragpickers and rickshaw pullers. Now we are desperate to be dancers, singers and melodramatic lead actresses."

Aspirations and Challenges

Going to the air-conditioned cinema is a popular national pastime without parallel in this country, especially for low-caste laborers who work under India's unforgiving sun -- in construction, in farming, as cow herders and as fruit vendors. For Indians, most of whom subsist on less than $2 a day, the masala mixes of drama and dance are the ultimate escape.

So beloved are Hindi film stars that there are Hindu temples named after matinee idols. Political rallies always include a Bollywood starlet. Some political leaders are former actors. And in small-town theaters, audiences are so personally involved in the melodramas -- often four hours long -- that they whistle, clap, imitate dance moves and sing along with the songs.

"India is really a special place for film. It's second only to religion in the way it occupies people's minds and dreams," said Barry John, a longtime drama teacher who recently opened an acting school in Mumbai. "It's going to be very hard for people from poorer backgrounds to break in, almost impossible. But the point is that there is now hope."

Because film is such an important part of Indian life, it has the power to change ideas and, often, provide a space for the nation to digest those changes, Dalit activists say.
"Dalits don't find a place in the film industry, except as viewers," said M. Swathy Margaret, a Dalit from Hyderabad who is working toward her PhD in Indian film studies. "In films, lower castes are not the protagonists. They're only on screen to witness the ups and downs in the lives of the upper castes."

Stereotypes of lower castes still haunt the industry, especially in the portrayal of Dalits, formerly known as untouchables. Lower castes are loyal and long-suffering servants. They are unsavory rickshaw pullers. They are forbidden lovers, deserving only of pity, if they are mentioned at all.

In Bollywood's Film City, a huge compound of warehouses full of movie sets, some directors insist that caste doesn't matter. They say it's simply a vestige of ancient India and that actors are never asked about it.
One of Bollywood's most beloved stars, Shahrukh Khan, is a middle-class Muslim with no film industry connections. He is often cited as an example of how charisma and sex appeal can trump connections and religious background in a country where Muslims are a minority.
But others say that pretending caste is no longer a factor fails to acknowledge the social filters that prevent many members of lower castes from even coming to the door of a film studio or an expensive acting school.

"There's a feeling among the urban upper castes that the majority of India -- meaning the rural, lower-caste India -- is no longer important and can be totally ignored," said Shyam Benegal, the father of Indian art-house cinema, known for his award-winning caste-based films. "To me, it's an exaggerated sense of self-esteem to claim that there is no poverty in India. It's a serious denial problem when these plots aren't making it into films. Cinema is so powerful and is very important in teaching empathy."

After Mohandas K. Gandhi's efforts to end caste discrimination in the 1930s and later during the 1970s, there was a trend toward serious caste-based films. But those movies became an old chapter in Indian cinema as soon as the country opened its markets to the world in the 1990s. Consumerism exploded, and plots about nonresident Indians living abroad became the vogue.

"It's the American dream turned into the Indian dream that's really seen in our aspirational cinema," Benegal said. "People in huts want to see films about people living in mansions. The stories end up in never-never land, with some rich Indian family living in Scotland or who knows where. But if anything, that just cements caste. It's not forwarding social change."
A Tinge of Optimism

At Barry John's acting school, lower- and middle-caste students are among those aspiring to become Bollywood's next stars. Already, they have had to make sacrifices. Before coming to Mumbai, many said, they changed their names, because surnames in India are like business cards for caste. Others have used skin-lightening creams, because fair skin can denote high caste in parts of India.

During breaks from class, when high-caste students head to Cafe Coffee Day, the Indian version of Starbucks, the low-caste students go to the cheaper chai stand, they said. They save money by taking the bus, while their classmates arrive in auto-rickshaws or taxis.

Despite the challenges, there is a tinge of optimism among the lower castes. On a recent day, a group of them gathered in a bright rehearsal studio. They were a mix of castes and classes from across South Asia, including the tropics of Goa, the deserts of Rajasthan and the streets of Hyderabad. There was also one student from Pakistan.
The Goan student said he was so inspired by the diversity and so put off by the constraints of caste that he had changed his name to incorporate the region's three faiths. He now calls himself Vishal John Khan.
"For the first time in Indian history, our generation has a lot more hope to break down things like caste," he said, sitting beneath Indian movie posters. "We have to keep trying. And if anything can unite India, it will be our cinema."

It wasn't so easy for Paswan, the Dalit from Bihar state. After arriving in Mumbai, he spent months being turned away from offices in Bollywood. "I would wait and wait and wait, for days even," he said. "But not a soul would take my ideas or hear my talents."

Determined to press on, he started working as a writer and actor in Bhojpuri films, a regional movie industry run out of Mumbai, but popular in his home state. In recent years, Bhojpuri films have become so popular that even Bollywood actors have started to appear in the profitable, big-budget Bihar industry.

Paswan recently got a telephone call.
"The Hindi movie director wanted me to come work and write for Bollywood," he said recently, his voice cracking with emotion. "I was very proud."
He has started writing scripts and dialogue for several Bollywood movies, including an upcoming comedy. Last month, he decided to start the first-ever support group for young Dalit actors arriving in Mumbai. The group will also track their careers and serve as a networking association.
"I want the future to be better than the past for the Dalits," Paswan said.
Helping other Dalits break into Bollywood would be like "realizing a lifelong dream." he said. "They just need to meet the right directors. I feel that if Bollywood and Indian cinema recognizes us, then India itself will grow to respect us, too."