INTRODUCTION

Class and class struggle have been profoundly dealt with in Indian cinema. This theme featured in Indian cinema whenever filmmakers tried to depict power struggles or power relations, be it in blockbusters or those films that simply made it to the various film festivals. However, it is not always that Indian filmmakers while dealing with power, power relations or class struggle, strictly adhered to the Marxist notion that the ‘history of all hitherto existing societies is the history of class struggle’. Nevertheless, when it comes to critical analysis of these films, the Marxist perspectives indeed become ‘profitable lenses’, which help us differentiate depictions of class struggle in the ‘mainstream’ from those in ‘parallel’ cinema. While looking into those parallel films where the central theme is struggle, oppression, power, and so on, we encounter some conscious adherence to Marxist thinking. The notion of class struggle culminating in a proletarian revolution similarly features in these films, but stops short of propagating a full-fledged revolution, given the parliamentary democracy practised in India. The democracy practised within an essentially bourgeois state tolerates Marxian narratives only within the purview of the Constitution. Thus, filmmakers who venture into depiction of class conflict and class struggle need to abide by the golden rule of the futility of armed struggle against the oppressor and the ultimate faith in the supremacy of the law of the land even if that is appropriated by the bourgeoisie.

While discussing the plight of cinema vis-à-vis the Indian bourgeois state, Anirudh Deshpande draws upon the understanding of the Indian bourgeoisie as depicted by Marxist critiques of the Indian cinema. According to him, the Indian bourgeoisie comprises the lower middle class, the newly formed rich middle class and the traditional upper middle class. This division although utterly simplistic might give us an insight into the clientele of Indian films and the urge to depict the eventual futility of a protracted class struggle and a proletarian revolution. This desperation often leads the parallel filmmakers to end their films with a message of class reconciliation and the ‘righteous’ path of parliamentary democracy, where even communist parties can thrive and function.