How caste bias has shaped Malayalam cinema| Adoor | LME 86

At a film conclave in Kerala this week, Adoor Gopalakrishnan — one of Indian cinema’s most celebrated directors — stood before an audience and delivered a speech laced with casteist and elitist remarks.

He criticised Kerala’s decision to fund a few chosen Dalit and Adivasi filmmakers with Rs 1.5 crore each — 

saying the money would lead to corruption, 

and that the amount should be slashed to Rs 50 lakh so they understand the “difficulties of making a film.”

Women, he added, should also not be funded unless they’re trained enough.

He then reminisced about how workers from Chala once tried to sneak into a theatre to catch “a scene of sex” 

— and how that moment led him to support higher delegate fees, to keep “those who can’t appreciate cinema” out of film festivals.

All this was neither a slip of tongue, nor a joke. It was caste prejudice — said plainly, into a mic, at a state government event.

And this isn't the first time Adoor has courted controversy with such statements. 

Even in 2023, he had sparked outrage while speaking in defense of the former director of the KR Narayanan Institute, Shankar Mohan, who was accused of casteist behaviour.

At the time, students even used an edited still from Vidheyan, the film Adoor directed, replacing the cruel landlord’s face with his, horns and all. 

The man who made Vidheyan, a critique of feudal caste oppression, was now accused of embodying it. 

This clash of art and authority was deeply revealing. And it didn’t come out of nowhere. 

This wasn’t a break from Malayalam cinema’s legacy. Rather, it was a return to its beginning.

Because caste has always shaped Malayalam cinema, not just in who gets to act or direct, but whose stories are told, who gets erased, and who gets to decide what counts as “good cinema.” 

Of course, that doesn’t mean there haven’t been efforts to challenge it — there have. 

But the fault lines have always been there, from Malayalam’s very first film, Vigathakumaran, to the present day.

Let me explain.

When a legendary filmmaker says only the “cultured” deserve cinema, it’s not just a careless remark. It reveals how deeply caste and class shape who gets to create and consume art.

More diverse voices are entering the industry, but exclusion still thrives. The silences are loud and deliberate.

At The News Minute, we believe journalism should confront those silences, not ignore them. We report what others overlook and spotlight voices pushed to the margins.

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First, let’s go back in time for a bit.

Malayalam cinema’s first film was made by a dreamer. In 1928, JC Daniel, a dentist with no studio or backers, sold his wife’s jewellery to make Vigathakumaran – The Lost Child. 

And he made a radical choice — casting PK Rosy, a poor Dalit Christian woman, as the lead, playing a Nair woman on screen.

Of course, this was enough to spark outrage. 

At the theatre, the dominant caste audience pelted the screen with stones. They couldn’t tolerate a Dalit woman acting as a so-called “high-born” heroine.

And it didn’t stop there.

Rosy’s home was set on fire, and she was forced to flee the state. 

The film was destroyed and the reels disappeared. 

And PK Rosy, the first heroine of Malayalam cinema, was erased.

So when Adoor Gopalakrishnan today argues that women and SC/ST filmmakers need “intense training” before making films — that funding them directly leads to corruption — he is not speaking from a vacuum.

He is drawing the same line that forced PK Rosy out of cinema nearly a century ago — the line between who gets to tell stories, and who must first be trained, filtered, and kept in their place.

Adoor’s words sting because they come from someone often described as the conscience of Malayalam cinema. 

A master of realism. A Dadasaheb Phalke awardee. A man whose films are taught in schools.

But here, what he defends is not art. It is exclusion.

Now, of course, all of this is not to say there haven’t been artists from marginalised communities in the industry. But their journeys have rarely been smooth.

The late Thilakan, one of Malayalam cinema’s most towering actors, often spoke of a “Nair lobby” — a network of influence he believed controlled opportunities in the industry and subtly kept out those from lowered-caste backgrounds.

Despite his immense talent, Thilakan alleged that a powerful lobby within the industry sidelined him, cost him roles, and punished him for speaking out.

Still, he carved his own path. 

And in a quiet, ironic twist, the roles he came to embody — the proud patriarch, the Brahmin priest, the feudal landlord — were often the very symbols of caste power that the industry once tried to gatekeep from people like him.

But not everyone could push through like Thilakan.

The late Kalabhavan Mani, an extraordinary artist from a Dalit background, was poised for a similar ascent. 

With his mimicry, his singing, and his deeply rooted charisma, Mani was adored by audiences — not just in Kerala, but across south India. His talent was never in doubt.

He was cast in comic or villain roles, or in characters that were “rustic,” “loud,” or somehow peripheral. 

The industry rarely let him be the sophisticated romantic hero.

When he did land lead roles, they were often low-budgeted productions.

These experiences reflect a deeper structure — one in which caste operates not only through outright exclusion, but through quieter forms of containment. 

Some artists are celebrated, but only within limits. Others are embraced, but not fully. And many never make it in at all.

In fact, for decades, Malayalam films didn’t just ignore caste, they glorified it.

Through the ‘80s and ‘90s, some of the most iconic, mainstream films — Dhruvam, Aryan, Adiverukal, Mahatma — didn’t simply feature dominant caste characters. 

They celebrated caste pride. They framed reservation as a burden, and they demonised marginalised communities.

And no one questioned it.

But of course, that was then.

In the pre-social media era, criticism was slow, decentralised, or simply impossible. 

But the internet now, particularly the Malayali cyberspace, has become a site of reevaluation.

Old films are being rewatched with sharper eyes. Memes, trolls, critiques, and essays have exposed the biases that went unquestioned for decades. 

No filmmaker, perhaps, has faced this retrospective more than Priyadarshan.

Audiences are now asking — why do his protagonists almost always belong to the privileged Nair caste? Why do certain dialogues glorify caste while mocking others?

Take Chandralekha, where Mohanlal's character says he’s a Nair from a “good family,” prompting Innocent’s character to respond that at least he doesn’t belong to a “venomous” caste.

What is that venom? And who decides whose blood carries it?

These are uncomfortable questions. But they’re necessary.

And they’re possible now because the industry itself is changing.

The rise of digital platforms, new production models, and a growing fatigue with formulaic superstar vehicles has opened the door for different voices — younger, sharper, and more rooted in lived experience.

This decentralisation has allowed stories from the margins to come to the fore. 

Films like Kammatipadam, Ee.Ma.Yau., Thondimuthalum Driksakshiyum, Kumbalangi Nights, and Pada don’t always name caste outright — but they centre the lives of people who were long pushed to the edges of cinematic narratives.

And in some films, caste is finally confronted head-on.

In Puzhu, directed by debutant Ratheena, Mammootty plays a privileged caste police officer consumed by paranoia, caste pride, and control. 

It’s a shocking turn — a superstar portraying not a heroic patriarch, but a fragile, bigoted man unable to accept his sister’s marriage to a Dalit man.

But of course, not every film that features Dalit characters offers liberation.

Naayaattu, a tightly crafted political thriller, is a striking example. 

It follows three police officers, two of them Dalit, on the run after an accidental death is pinned on them for political gain. 

At first glance, it seems like a searing indictment of a broken system. But look closer, and a troubling pattern emerges.

The film frames Dalit political assertion as dangerous and opportunistic. 

Dalit protesters are shown to be volatile, and easily manipulated. In trying to appear neutral, the film ends up reinforcing caste stereotypes.

Of course, change has been slow in Malayalam cinema. Especially when you compare it to what’s happened in neighbouring Tamil Nadu.

Over the last decade, Tamil filmmakers like Pa Ranjith, Mari Selvaraj, and Vetrimaaran have brought anti-caste politics to the forefront of popular cinema. 

Movies like Vaazhai, Pariyerum Perumal, Karnan, Asuran, and Jai Bhim didn’t just talk about caste — they centred Dalit characters, histories, and resistance. 

These weren't just powerful films. They also shook up how caste could be represented on screen.

But this wave has also been met with resistance. 

Films like Draupathi and Rudra Thandavam pushed the opposite narrative, glorifying dominant caste pride, spreading hate, and attacking inter-caste love and affirmative action.

So even though Tamil cinema has made bold steps in representing Dalit lives, it also reveals just how deeply caste is rooted, and how hard it fights back when it’s questioned.

Take Maamannan, for example, directed by Mari Selvaraj. It’s meant to critique feudal caste power, centred on a Dalit MLA facing oppression from his dominant caste rival, Rathnavelu. 

But instead of rejecting him, some dominant-caste online groups celebrated Rathnavelu as a symbol of caste pride. 

They shared fiery edits of his character with mass hero music, despite him being the villain of the film. 

It’s a reminder that even in films built to dismantle caste, the gaze of dominant caste audiences can still flip the script.

And that contrast matters, because it shows that even when Tamil cinema brings caste into the open, cinema itself can’t guarantee anti-caste progress. Context and reception still matter.

Meanwhile, Malayalam cinema continues this moment of reckoning slower, more quietly.

And in that shift lies the reason why initiatives like KSFDC’s SC/ST and women filmmaker funding are so crucial.

The KSFDC scheme Adoor criticised was not random largesse. 

It was one of the few state-backed efforts to make filmmaking accessible to those historically excluded. Women, Dalit, and Adivasi filmmakers — many of them first-time directors — finally had a path in.

And some of the films that emerged from this program weren’t just technically competent. They were bold, experimental, and politically sharp. Several of them also went on to win prestigious awards.

Adoor, with all his stature, could have welcomed this moment. He could have recognised it as part of cinema’s evolution.

Instead, he asked for the funds to be slashed. He called the filmmakers untrained. And just like that, the idea of opening the gates was recast as a threat.

But maybe that’s the real discomfort for the old guard. Not that these filmmakers are unprepared, but that they no longer need permission.

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Producer: Megha Mukundan

Editor: Nikhil Sekhar ET 

Script: Lakshmi Priya

Camera: Ajay R

GFX: Dharini Prabharan