Mayank Shekhar: Can pop-cinema address caste?
Updated On: 13 June, 2018 07:17 AM IST | Mumbai | Mayank Shekhar
Yes, if the voice is from those who can feel the subject from within

A still from Acchut Kanya (1936)
The dazzling, hazel-eyed Devika Rani plays the 'untouchable' girl in Acchut Kanya (1936)—widely considered the first film to directly address caste-discrimination in Indian or, at any rate, Hindi cinema.
You might be aware Ashok Kumar — no, he was not born a geriatric —played her young, upper-caste love-interest in the film, produced by Himanshu Rai's legendary Bombay Talkies studio, written by the elite, influential freedom-fighter Bipin Chandra Pal's son Niranjan, directed by the German Franz Osten, who probably had no clue about caste, let alone Dalits, Brahmins, or 'untouchability'.




