I watched Mandela (Tamil) recently on Netflix and it gave a glimpse of the caste politics and violence in Tamil Nadu (a South Indian state). The whole movie is set in a village named “Soorangudi” where the people are divided between two caste lines – North People and South People. The leader of the village – Periya Ayya (means senior leader) is a follower of Periyar and has married two women belonging to the two competing castes of the village. He maintains equal distance from both the castes and ensures that there is some harmony in the village.
Spoiler alert: I am discussing the whole story of the movie, in an attempt to illustrate its relation to law, sociology and politics. If you are intending to watch this movie, kindly do not proceed reading this.
Toilet Politics
During the inauguration of the public toilet, the two competing castes fight over who gets to use the toilet first and end up destroying the toilet. During this inauguration incident, we are introduced to the protagonist of the movie “Smile” (played by Yogi Babu) who is usually called as “Jackass” by all the villagers. He is the barber in the village and belongs to a lower caste. He is called to do shaving work, but then he is asked to clean the toilet, which he agrees and does. A car is sent to pick him up, however, he is not allowed to get into the car, because of his caste. When Smile’s assistant asks why the car was sent in the first place, when they were not even allowed to get into it, Smile answers satirically, “maybe the driver doesn’t know to drive when there’s a passenger in the back seat.” This evokes laughter, but also one of the many examples of how Smile accepts the inequalities. Smile and his assistant run behind the car – this scene shows the ridiculous things done due to the ingrained caste codes.
Smile Becomes Mandela
Smile is not paid fairly for his services. He and his assistant do random jobs given by the villagers. He saves whatever money he earns inside a tree hole. Smile saves every rupee to realise his father’s dream of opening a saloon in that village. Smile does not have a saloon space. He and his assistant sleep below a banyan tree and visit people’s houses to offer their services. The money he saved is stolen and someone tells him that he can safely keep his money in the post office. A new post office staff (Thenmozhi) arrives in the village around that time. The post office is in a dilapidated condition. Smile approaches the post office, to realise that he does not have an identity card required to open the account. There is one interesting scene here. Smile searches for the backdoor of the post office, because all these years he was never allowed to get into anyone’s house from the front door, due to his caste.
First he is asked to get one Aadhaar card. When he enquires, he is told that he should first get a ration card for it. But he does not have a ration card. When he enquires how to get a ration card, he is told that he should first get a voter ID. To get a voter ID, he is asked to get an Aadhaar card. This is like a never ending cycle of problems which are faced in many communities in India who do not have any document to prove their identity.
When Thenmozhi asks his name, he tells he is referred as Smile or Jackass. Thenmozhi decides to give him a new name. She starts with Gandhi, Netaji and finally decides to name him as Nelson Mandela. For those who are not aware, many people in Tamil Nadu have the practice of naming their kids after political leaders like – Stalin, Lenin, Karl Marx, Gandhi, Abdul Kalam etc. For instance, the name of the present Chief Minister is Stalin!
Thenmozhi shows a stamp of Nelson Mandela and tells him that Mandela too fought for the identity of his people, so that name is apt for Smile. But for Smile, he feels nice that Mandela looks and has hair similar to him. Now Mandela feels that his name sounds like an upper caste name! There is a scene later in which a person tells him that by changing his name, his caste will not be changed. Do check this interesting study on names and caste relationship in India. In one scene, Mandela is asked if he is an Indian – seems like a reference to CAA and Citizenship issues.
Crucial Election
Periya Ayya (senior leader) who is the current president of the village does not agree to allow a factory in the village. Apparently, the factory project would give a kickback of several crores to the MLA and to the future village president. The MLA of the area succeeds in convincing the two sons of Periya Ayya to contest the upcoming village panchayat election. The two sons identify themselves with two different castes of the village, going by the lineage of their mothers.
Periya Ayya is faced with the challenge of whom to support in the election. In an attempt to choose the suitable one, he asks what the two sons would do if they won the elections. One says, he would deposit Rs. 15,000 into the bank account of each villager – a famous election promise in India during the 2014 Parliament election. Both the sons say that they would compete in giving money to the people and distribute liquor. Seeing how bad both his sons are, Periya Ayya decides not to support both the sons. The two sons decide to contest election against each other.
In the process of checking the electoral rolls, the two candidates realise that the number of votes are equally tied on both the sides. The whole village population is equally divided on the basis of caste. At a crucial time, arrives an officer carrying the voter ID card of a new voter. And that new voter is – Smile aka Nelson Mandela. Now both the factions approach Mandela to gain his support.
One Man One Vote
From here, the movie reminds the quote “one man, one vote” from the Constituent Assembly Debates of India. After India’s independence, we gave the basic voting right to every citizen. This is the starting point and it needs to continue in the social and economic sphere. However, in India, even now the one man one value is still a distant reality. All this is so well portrayed in this movie. In this movie, Nelson Mandela doesn’t even have the basic right to vote. Interestingly, he gets all the rights and extra privileges due to his crucial vote. The two contestants of the election, who used to call him Jackass now call him as “Mandela sir”! Mandela sleeps on a cloth tied to the banyan tree. While he is about to get down from the tree, he is asked to step on the roof of the same car, in which he was not given a seat earlier! One vote made all the difference!
For the next few minutes, you can witness how one vote can make all the difference. Mandela gets every right, which he was deprived of all these days. He is allowed to get into the people’s houses from their front doors! He gets all election freebies. At some point, Mandela doesn’t feel like working, because he has sufficient food delivered to him. This seems like a reference to how election freebies have made the people lazy to work. The two candidates compete with each other to give Mandela everything he needs. But Mandela doesn’t decide to whom he would vote. After a few days, Mandela doesn’t get any customers, because they feel Mandela now has got better privileges and they cannot accept it. Mandela is shown the process of voting and he says, “is voting so simple? And people are lazy to do this simple work?”
Election and Corruption
On the advice of the MLA, the two competing candidates decide to auction the vote of Mandela. In this situation, one person asks, “isn’t it illegal to auction a vote?” and the other replies, “what about you people buying the votes by bribing the voters?” This seems like a reference to the “whataboutery” that is more prevalent these years in the Indian political discourse. Both the candidates invoke their “caste pride” to keep their communities intact. When the auction starts, both the communities keep everything as stakes for the auction. The election official exclaims that the assets they have put on stakes for the auction is many time higher than their declared assets. This is a direct reference to the reality of black money usage in Indian elections.
Limits of the Vote
All these days, the two candidates offer every possible luxury to Mandela. But when Mandela’s assistant is in need of medical help, the two candidates do not help him. In fact, one of the candidates threatens to kill the assistant, because Mandela seeks medical help from the other candidate and promises to vote him! The question asked by one candidate is, “what is the age of the boy?” When he realises that the boy is 15 years old and does not have voting right, both the candidates do not care a bit! This scene exposes the reality of how the human life would not have even a bit of value in the absence of a voting right! Mandela gets the voting right, but that doesn’t ensure his social rights. The villagers decide to boycott him and not offer him any work.
The two candidates refuse to save Mandela’s assistant boy. Thenmozhi takes the boy to the hospital and saves him. Disappointed that his vote had no use, he throws away the away his voter ID card.* He is about to end his life and he realises that somone is around. He realises that the women of the village visit that place for their nature call at 3am in the morning, because there are no toilets in the village. One woman requests Mandela to ask for toilets in the village using his voting power. Mandela overhears the conversation between one candidate and the MLA, that the stake of Mandela’s vote is 30 crores. Mandela becomes powerful once he gets to know this information. Surely a reference to the power of “Right to Information.” It goes on to say that the voting right with right to information can prove to be far more powerful! This is such a good example to support the case of Union of India v. Association for Democratic Reforms.
Power of one Vote
Mandela demands one candidate to build a swimming pool for him. In that process, he asks the old tank in the village to be filled with water. It results in the whole village getting water in the taps. He soon demands the two candidates to build roads and put street lights. Mandela even asks the candidates to revamp the school building. The candidate asks, whether Mandela would become a scholar if the school is revamped. Mandela asks, that his next demand is that he should be made a scholar! The candidate is shocked. The same candidate spends lakhs on the luxury demands of Mandela, but finds it an impossible task to get education for Mandela! Speaks a lot about the priorities of the politicians. In another scene towards the climax, Mandela advises his assistant to get educated. For the rich and privileged, education doesn’t make much sense, but for people like Mandela, education is the only way to get liberated. We can reflect here about the realities of the Fundamental Right to Education (Article 21A).
On the voting day, the people realise that they have got many of their genuine demands fulfilled already. So, they return the bribe taken to vote. This is surprising to both the candidates. When one of the candidates wants to get Mandela killed, slowly the villagers assemble to come for his protection and save him. In the end, the announcement is made that a rarity has happened with the election results and “the people of Soorangudi have won by one vote!” It is such a strong statement – that the long standing demands of the people of Soorangudi were realised by the one single vote of Mandela. I guess this is the most powerful tribute to the famous statement “one person one vote” made by Ambedkar in the Constituent Assembly.
For me this movie is such a good material that can be used while teaching – Constitutional Law, Election Laws, Politics and Caste issues. Within Constitutional Law, we come across the aspects of Citizenship, Right to Equality, Right to Education and Right to Information. Update: I used this movie while teaching banking law – to explain the problems faced by the underprivileged communities to get a bank account.
Apart from the aspects discussed above, there are many more interesting aspects that demand a mention. None of the characters seem artificial. There is a lot of reality infused across the movie. The female lead of the movie isn’t fair skinned and even her grey hair is highlighted and Mandela dyes it in the end. Yet another movie to show that Indian Cinema is not equal to Bollywood. If you want to watch the best content, look to the regional cinema. To the debutante director Madonne Ashwin – such a good attempt in his first movie. Deserves many awards. And deserves to be watched by all Indians. The last song that comes along with the end credits is performed by South African singers. Thanks to my friend Vasundhara for recommending this movie. Next on my list is Super Deluxe.
(*This scene reminds me of one Kannada movie “Ondu Muttina Kathe” directed by Shankar Nag and featuring Dr. Rajkumar. In “Ondu Muttina Kathe”, one uneducated fisherman (played by Rajkumar) finds a precious pearl. Many selfish people try to snatch it from him. Rajkumar’s kid is ill and needs medical help, but the cruel banker doesn’t help. Frustrated by this, Rajkumar decides to throw the precious pearl back into the sea.)
This article was originally published on my Law and Popular Culture Blog. It is being cross posted here.
