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[Full title: Folklore and Genres of Indian Cinema (7) Ethnicity in Indian Cinema and Filming the Tribes]

In 1941, the prestigious production house Wadia Movietone had produced Raj Nartaki (Dir. Modhu Bose), India鈥檚 first English language talkie. The story of the film was set in the early 19th century Kingdom of Manipur, where a Raj Nartaki or Court Dancer has to struggle for gaining respect in the society. After a series of entertainment laden films, Raj Nartaki established J. B. H Wadia's reputation as an intellectual filmmaker. However, this kind of projection of ethnic societies from different corners of the country did not gain much momentum during the later decades in mainstream Indian cinema.

In many Bollywood productions, tribal societies have been portrayed as marginalized groups residing in some mountainous region, where the hero figure visits as the Chief Guest of a local festival, and is welcomed by the tribal Chieftain. Drinking of wine, dancing girls coupled with drummers, are commonplace in such films. However some films tried to showcase the migratory nature of tribes through groups of 鈥榖anjaras鈥� who perform magic or other game shows for a living. These kinds of films never looked through the lives of the marginalized societies, and used the tribes only as elements of entertainment in their stories. Tribal societies have not been largely portrayed in Indian cinema to showcase their struggle for existence. As such, stories filmed around the domains of exploitation of tribal communities by the high-castes, their aspirations for a better future and the protests against social tyranny in varied forms are very less in number.

The cause of the ethnic castes and tribes came to the fore mostly through the works of filmmakers of the Parallel cinema and in the regional film industries. Films like Mrigayaa (1976, Dir. Mrinal Sen) and Ankur (1974, Dir. Shyam Benegal) dealt with the cause of exploitation of the lower castes in a strong yet sublime manner. Set in British India during the 1920s, the hunting-gathering way of life of the forest dwellers has been well projected through the critically acclaimed film Mrigayaa. On the other hand, Ankur has been filmed on a plot wherein a humble village in Andhra Pradesh is suffering in the hands of the landlords. The sufferings of the Dalits have been strongly portrayed in the film apart from raising several social issues like child marriage, dowry and alcoholism. To add local flavour, the filmmaker has put Dakhni language on the lips of some of the characters. Dakhni is a variant of the standard Hindi-Urdu spoken in southern India. It is worth mentioning that Shyam Benegal always laid importance on the use of local dialects in his films, instead of the standard Hindi language. Apart from Ankur, he used a dialect of Saurashtra in Manthan, Urdu in Junoon, Konkani in Bhumika, and Bengali in Aarohan.

Ethnicity has also been reflected in the films based upon plots of Indian folk performing arts. Buddhadev Dasgupta鈥檚 Bagh Bahadur (1989) is the tale of a man who does odd jobs in a town throughout the year, only to come to a village in Bengal for a month for the yearly festival. The man paints himself as a tiger and dances to the beats of drum.

People wait throughout the year to watch the subtle dance moves of the man, lovingly called 鈥楤agh Bahadur鈥� by the villagers. Not only did this folk art practice give him peace of mind, but he also made a handsome earning from the same. Tension begins for him when suddenly a circus group enters the village with a real tiger and people turn towards watching it, rather than the human-tiger. The film beautifully portrays the struggle of the traditional art practices in the era of modernization. On the other hand, Marathi language film Natarang (2010, Dir. Ravi Jadhav) is based on a poor labourer's dream of working as an artist in Tamasha, a popular folk theatre form of Maharashtra.

The protagonist here had to struggle with his family, friends, society and even the Tamasha group to realise his long cherished dream. Once a man with strong masculine stature, he is even bound to break down his body into a lean eunuch鈥檚 structure, to add a humour element for the sustenance of the theatre group. Natarang presents the irony of theatre artists who have to face societal dismay as well as financial crises throughout their lives.

Speaking about the mainstream theatrical releases, National Award winning film Newton (2017, Dir. Amit V. Masurkar) focussed on a tribal pocket disturbed by naxalites inside the forests of Chhattisgarh in Central India. The political turmoil of the area has been reflected through the hardships faced by an honest government employee Nutan (Newton) Kumar who is assigned election duty at a small polling centre inside the forests. Newton however fights against all odds to finish the democratic process in a free and fair manner. The film projects the life of the Adivasis in a very crude form through its narratives. The film was selected as India鈥檚 official entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 90th Academy Awards. Similar initiatives have been taken up by the New age filmmakers, who are focussing on the aspects of ethnicity in cinema, which is a good sign for the industry at large.