Police guard Indian actor (Saravanan Sivakumar aka Suriya) after hit film sparks caste furore

[MenInG]

Chennai (India) (AFP) – The star of a hit new Indian film tackling the oppression of marginalised communities was under armed police guard Thursday after threats of violence.

"Jai Bhim" is a legal drama based on the true story of an activist lawyer fighting for a tribal woman whose husband was wrongly arrested and killed in police custody in 1993.

The movie is the latest to highlight the plight of India's millions of tribal people and low-caste Dalits -- "untouchables" -- at the bottom of the Hindu caste system.

The film, released on Amazon Prime, has received rave reviews and unusually for a Tamil-language movie has been successful right across the vast country of 22 official languages.

"Jai Bhim" was briefly the highest-ranked film on movie database IMDb -- owned by Amazon -- beating Hollywood classics such as "The Godfather" and "The Shawshank Redemption".

But it has also angered many people in the southern state of Tamil Nadu where it is set, in particular the Vanniyar caste community who say that the film portrays them in a bad light.

Vanniyar Sangam, a body representing the community, has issued a legal notice to the filmmakers seeking damages and demanding the removal of certain scenes.

A member of a local political party even offered 100,000 rupees ($1,340) to anyone who physically attacks the main actor Saravanan Sivakumar, better known as Suriya, who is also the film's co-producer.

Police have since opened an investigation into the politician, and Suriya's home in Chennai is now guarded by five armed officers and the actor -- a major star in Tamil cinema -- has additional security when he travels.

This and other threats to Suriya have prompted an outpouring of support for the actor, with the hashtag #WeStandWithSuriya trending on social media.

"Can't express in words how thankful I am for the trust & reassurance you all have given us," the 46-year-old said on Twitter.

© 2021 AFP

 

[rhony]

Watched it on Prime. Amazing movie. Just incredible direction and acting. Learned a lot of things about India as well where some weaker sections eat rats for survival. Another gut wrenching scene was where they release prisoners from a jail and book them again on false cases based on their castes.

 

[street cricketer]

A bit of background on the issue. The new age Tamil cinema has seen a deluge of Ambedkarite Dalit empowerment movies like Madras, Kaala, Kabali, Asuran, Karnan, Pariyerum Perumal, Sarpatta parambarai and this has been the latest in the genre. Almost of these movies have been huge hits and this one getting the biggest acclaim of them all. This has rankled the OBC class, primarily one particular caste because often the caste violence when it happens or it happened in the past is OBC on SC/ST violence where the SC and ST are Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, otherwise called as Dalits. And often a character symbolises a person from the OBC caste as the villain doing the atrocities, and this has censured that particular caste community as them being misrepresented on screen.

After the huge success of this movie, party leader belonging to the OBC caste wrote a letter to Suriya to kindly avoid misrepresenting their caste. But it has been trending on twitter lately where tensions have run high on social media. A few dimwits have called for bashing the actor Suriya, and that's why the police protection. Not that people took them seriously because he is a very popular and actually a very good actor and has the full support of the people except a few dim wits.

I would advise the posters here to watch it, if possible. Not sure if the Pakistanis can relate fully to a film on inter-caste dynamics or a tribal/Dalit empowerment movie with Ambedkarite and Marxist ideology (because I'm not sure if the tribal/adivasi population exist in Pakistan), but it's a really good film, available in hindi as well on amazon prime. It's based on a real incident on mistreatment done to the tribals and how justice was finally achieved after a long struggle by a lawyer who himself was from the oppressed class.

 

[jaisan]

Surya is responsible for the problem.the film by the way is fantastic but surya would have easily avoided this situation.it was unnecessary to show that the policeman (main vilan) belongs to one caste (hindu)who in reality was a christian. The injustice had been done to koravar tribes in reality and the film depicts it as irula tibes. Surya has donated 1 crore to some non existent irula ngo who has no relation with the real events the movie about and the movie is credited with some christians relating to irula welfare groups.
The previous movie surya acted was about the real life events of an entrepeunar who belongs to brahmin caste and was shown in the film as staunch anti brahmin.
In short surya and karthi (his brother) who acted majority (90%) in the movies produced by their own caste people for the last 10 years are now fighting for social justice.

 

[MenInG]

Chennai: Actor Suriya's critically acclaimed film 'Jai Bhim' is inspiring many youngsters in Chennai to pursue law. Directed by T. J. Gnanavel, the legal drama is based on a true incident in 1993 which involved a case fought by Justice K. Chandru and revolves around the lives of a couple from the Irular tribe.

Set in Tamil Nadu, the film portrays the power of a lawyer and their responsibility to defend human rights while touching on themes of the inequality in society and oppression of the marginalised sections.

Persuaded by the film, A Shrawan, a commerce student from Chennai has decided to study law. Mr Shrawan said that although he liked the field of law prior to watching the movie as well but the Suriya-starrer helped him in making the final decision.

"I want to bring justice to sexual abuse victims as I feel they are stigmatised and punished for no fault of their own," the law aspirant said.

For Sharanya Sathyanarayanan, a class XII student who plans to pursue MBA, the film's message of doing something to help and empower the marginalised communities was pertinent.

Talking about her aim to help the less-privileged sections of society, Ms Sathyanarayanan said, "I want to skill them first and help them to get jobs. Once they are able to earn regular income, they will be automatically empowered in so many ways."

Retired judge Justice K Chandru who fought the case on which the movie is made, sees the film as "meaningful cinema." Justice Chandru helped in bringing justice to an Irular tribal woman whose husband was tortured and killed in police custody. On the film, Justice Chandru said, " The film shows that correctional mechanisms are available. A fighting lawyer with the help of good policing and sensitised judiciary can help in bringing justice to the victims."

NDTV

 

[jaisan]

The director of the film has given his apology. All this furore will be gone in 2 days.