Shashank Khaitan's Clarification on Showing Caste Difference 'Subtly' in Dhadak is Unconvincing!

Just amid the debate of liking or not liking ‘Dhadak’, director Shashank Khaitan has dropped a major explanation on it. Janhvi Kapoor and Ishaan Khatter’s debut film turned out to be the adaptation of critically acclaimed Marathi film ‘Sairat’ directed by Nagraj Manjule. Well, as feared by many, the film is at the receiving end of all the bashing done by those who have watched the original film. Revolving around the subject of caste difference and honour killing, Sairat touched the sensitive subject with grace and beauty. However, Khaitan begs to differ! He probably thought that underlining the burning issue of caste difference would be like throwing it on the face of the audience. Also, he could not withstand the fear of facing the threats like how Padmaavat makers faced. Hence, he made Dhadak with ‘subtle’ caste difference in it.

In his interview to Pinkvilla.com, the Badrinath Ki Dulhania maker said, “There is a major caste angle that happens. Janhvi belongs to the royal family of Udaipur which are like the Rajputanas whereas Ishaan belongs to the Mewari family which are regular Rajasthanis. That itself is a sub-caste to caste difference. Beyond that, there is a clash and economic structure. I chose not to keep spelling things in the film because I did not want to keep pointing fingers and say 'yeh Rajput hai yeh non-Rajput hai'. I think it is visually very clear.”

His explanation continued further like, “Also, there are pressures when you make a Hindi film. Censorship acceptance and the way fingers at pointed at a Hindi film is very different. We have all seen what happened with a Padmaavat. So there are certain restrictions on to how you want to make a film, how you want to pinpoint things and brings them in the open. I chose to bring it out in a subtle way. It is not just class angle but there is a very big caste difference. However, what we did is, we did not kind of bring it in your face, and I think some people have gotten it, some haven't and related it to class. But I think, when it is a story like this, caste also plays a very important part.”

It can be noted that Sairat too, mentioned the caste difference like water caste, panchayat system, village politics and upper caste pride, all in a SUBTLE manner. In fact, it was Dhadak in which it was mentioned and thrown into the face of the audience through dialogues like ‘wo oonchi jaat ke hai’ twice to thrice! Well, how we laud Padmaavat makers for standing proudly by their script despite the threats! Do you agree with Shashank Khaitan?

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jul 24, 2018 12:04 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).