India has never been a casteless society. No matter how hard we pretend to have to move past it, this elephant in the room always confronts us. From supposedly progressive stand up comedians to Bollywood movies, pretty much uses caste as a punchline to get some vague point across.
Case in point, Ranveer Singh’s 83, a film about the Indian Men’s Cricket Team’s 1983 World Cup win, where K Srikanth’s character uses a reservation system or as it is availed by NRIs in the USA and many other countries across Europe, affirmative action.
People have since been calling it out, asking questions to the stars of the film Ranveer Singh and Deepika Padukone.
At this point, it’s just safe not to expect Bollywood writers and directors to have any sort of average human intellect to understand their privilege and empathise with the victims of a 4000-year-old system of human subjugation that is somehow still thriving in this country.