By Poojil Tiwari
In one of the most intense scenes from TVF’s latest success Aspirants, the characters are all at their regular jaunt—one of the many famous tea stalls around which Delhi’s student life is centered. The protagonist Abhilash has been unsuccessful in his last attempt at the Civil Services Examination. His best friend Guri is trying to cheer him up, telling him how the exam is irrelevant, they can always go and work in his ancestral farms, and the like. Annoyed, Abhilash goes up to Guri and screams in his ear, “quota ka hai isliye chance mil raha hai, varna tu deserve bhi nahi karta, behre” (You belong to a category with quota which is why you are getting a further chance, otherwise you don’t even deserve it, you deaf person).
Watching the scene made me tremendously uncomfortable, and yet by the time I went online, the scene had reached legendary status for its intensity and poignancy. It does after all depict a very real apprehensiveness and aggression regarding reservations that most people from savarna backgrounds grow up with. There is a widely accepted notion that the seats reserved for quota candidates have somehow come at the cost of their more deserving counterparts. The scene, therefore, could be, and is, lauded for its depiction of reality. And yet Abhilash faces no questions, no ramifications for his ableist and casteist statement. His act is also in some sense, equated in its criminality to Guri eventually marrying Abhilash’s former girlfriend. And yet the two are vastly different: one is a personal affront, the other is a structural crime that till today results in acts of violence and the death of the affected community members.
The last decade has seen the OTT sector boom in India, and the pandemic has further established them as a primary source of content consumption today. They are more accessible when it comes to medium and cost, and are often lauded for the originality of their content. In fact, platforms like TVF Play and MX Player are free for users. OTT is also generally, seen as the more progressive form of content in India.
Over the years they have dealt with a wide range of issues that had till now, been reserved for independent small-budget cinema. The lack of censorship, at least prior to the 2021 Digital Ethics Code, meant that OTT platforms were ahead in their politics, depiction of bodily autonomy, sexism when compared to their cinematic counterparts. Amazon Prime’s Made in Heaven dealt with an openly gay protagonist and the systemic violence he has to face. Shows like 4 More Shots, Bombay Begums and Girls Hostel feature an all-female cast, an extremely rare phenomenon in Hindi cinema. And yet, the OTT landscape seems to have entirely reproduced the casteist hierarchies that have been upheld and perpetuated by Bollywood.
In an episode of Anurag Verma’s podcast, which often deals with the intersection of marginalised identities and culture, Srishty Ranjan, an anti-caste voice on Twitter spoke about how the lack of censorship has to some extent normalised the usage of casteist slurs on OTT platforms. “OTT platforms are so openly casteist. In Jamtara, Netflix, they had used a casteist slur, which is unparliamentary. Two-three of us had raised this point on Twitter, and they had to remove it.” She also goes on to talk about the aforementioned scene from Aspirants, and problematic “quota shaming” that was normalized.
“Everything is institutionalised”, says Balram Vishwakarma, an associate with OTT media platform All Things Small. It is his 2020 study on the caste and religious backgrounds of web series’ protagonists that inspired me to write this piece. Balram speaks about the problems with writing rooms today, “The problem with most of the writers is that taking up of writing is a very privileged profession. Because between the ages of 18-24 you basically earn no money. Most people take up commercial writing early on in their careers. So only the privileged people, whose families can support them (continue writing). For most people from underprivileged backgrounds, they have to earn, pay the rent in Mumbai, and do everything else, and so they don’t have the time to do mainstream writing. And you write about what you are surrounded by. Most mainstream writers have never had the exposure to these sections of the society, and so they write what they know.”
The dichotomy operates on two levels. Characters from marginalized backgrounds are often chosen for stereotypical roles such as when the movie is actively talking about caste, poverty, or backwardness. At the same time, they are completely erased from cinema that deals with the world at large. A space where Dalit characters are shown as doctors, teachers, engineers does not exist. And therefore, their character growth remains limited to their experiences of these social identities.
Kareema Barry is creating history as one of the handful of mainstream Muslim content creators today. One of her more popular stints is as a sketch artist on the Netflix India Youtube channel. “As a kid, I remember reading textbooks and never seeing a Muslim name casually mentioned, unless and until it was something like ‘going to the mosque’ or the chapter on religion. I think I try to include it (Muslim characters) a little bit. One of my (off-screen) characters is Zainab, and a lot of people have been asking me to introduce Zainab. My intention is to introduce this character as just another girl, without restricting her personality to being a Muslim.”
In his original study, Balram had excluded characters belonging to the same family as the lead, given they were to have similar caste backgrounds. However, I felt that these shows raised an important point about when we include characters from marginalised backgrounds. You would be hard-pressed to find a show about the trials and tribulations of family life that features characters from lower caste backgrounds or minority religions. The ‘sitcom family’ which faces generic family problems and eventually surpasses them with the love and support of each other is the Hindu, Savarna family. Even Kareema feels the apprehensiveness when it comes to creating family-centered content. “I’ll see a lot of people do sketches on Punjabi Moms or the typical Indian parent, but that Indian parent is usually a North-Indian, mostly Hindu. And I feel like if I ever made a video saying ‘My Muslim Dad Does That’, it just wouldn’t trend the same way.”
However, the line between portraying people from marginalised identities leading normal lives and invisblising their problems is a thin one. Ask Kareema how she balances navigating her identity in the midst of all this debate, she has a simple, straightforward answer. “Even me existing in this sphere is very political. It is very very very political act. Minorities are allowed to exist without talking about their struggles and oppression at all times. Because you are more than that and that is also a big part of the struggle. Constantly saying that you are allowed to be ordinary.”