The celebration of 100 years of Bollywood needs to be reviewed from a subaltern perspective. The general assumption that cinema is a normal mode to produce anecdotes to satisfy the entertainment quotient of the people should go through a critical scrutiny. Films as artistic expression cannot be devoid of their politico-ideological objectives. Hence, from a Dalit perspective when one enquires about their space during the past one century of the film world, only a handful of non-decrepit, obscure examples are presented. Caste as a peculiar Indian reality is an acceptable fact but it is often cast away by the Bollywood filmmakers.
Bollywood’s first decade after Independence responded quite significantly to the modernist-socialist outlook. The rich and social elites were presented as insensitive towards the poor, selfish in their endeavours, greedy at their core and also violent with animalist instinct. The poor, city dwellers and village commoners were lovable, honest and stood in defence of ideals. Raj Kapoor as the humble city dweller of Awara (1951), Dev Anand as the unemployed charming youth in Kala Bazaar (1960) and Dilip Kumar as the rustic and raw struggler of the village in Naya Daur (1957) became the mascot of the common people’s aspirations.