Who Belongs to the Nation? : Gender, Caste, and Exclusion in Indian Cinema

-by Yusra Naqvi

Abstract

Indian cinema has long functioned as a cultural archive of the nation, often playing a role in the construction of an idealised national identity. However, parallel and independent films have disrupted this narrative by foregrounding caste oppression, patriarchal violence, and the systemic exclusion of marginalised women from both the symbolic and material processes of nation-building. This article examines Indian films such as Haq, Bandit Queen, Chiraiya, among others, to analyse how cinema critiques dominant narratives of nation, law, and community. Through a thematic framework of nationhood, gender, caste, and legal structures, the article argues that these films reveal how marginalised women are excluded from the imagination of the nation and challenge the legitimacy of its moral and institutional foundations.

Keywords: Indian cinema; patriarchy; caste oppression; nation-building; marginalised women; feminist film theory; subaltern studies

Introduction

The post colonial Indian nation has often been imagined through homogenising narratives of unity, sacrifice, and cultural purity. Cinema, as a powerful ideological apparatus, has historically reinforced these ideals by privileging upper-caste, hetero-normative, and patriarchal representations of womanhood, embodied in figures such as the self-sacrificing mother or the ‘chaste’ and ‘faithful’ wife. The idea of the Indian nation has been deeply shaped by what Partha Chatterjee calls the “inner”(spiritual, cultural) and “outer”(material, political) domains. Within this framework, women are positioned as bearers of cultural authenticity, entrusted with preserving the moral core of the nation. This symbolic elevation masks the material realities of exclusion and violence faced by women.  However, some films disrupt this framework by foregrounding the lived realities of women at the intersections of caste and gender.

While mainstream films reproduce the idealised figure of the ‘national woman’, movies and series like ‘Bandit Queen’ and the latest popular ‘Chiraiya’ move beyond the nationalist spectacle to expose the violence embedded within a woman’s home and surroundings. These address the gap between the idea of a nation and its material exclusions, particularly for Dalit, lower-caste, minority, or economically marginalised women. By situating women not as ‘tokens of power’ but as subjects of violence and oppression, such cinema reconfigures the discourse of nation-building and establishes women as symbols of resistance.

Bandit Queen: Caste, Nation and the Gendered Body

In Bandit Queen, the realities of the gendered society are exposed through the character of Phoolan Devi, who goes through caste-based sexual violence. Born into a Mallah family in Uttar Pradesh, where caste hierarchy dictated access to land, dignity, and bodily agency, she was married off as a child to an older man, and was subjected to sexual abuse within what was socially sanctioned as marriage. Her subsequent abduction and assault by a group of dacoits, particularly upper-caste men, was shocking for the community as she was publicly stripped and paraded in Behmai. This became central to both her personal transformation and later her politics.

Years later, she returns to Behmai with a gang and kills all those twenty-two upper caste men, which is often framed a revenge. However, the film portrays it in a critical framework, as a form of insurgent justice emerging from the complete failure of legal and social institutions that were meant to protect her and offer solidarity rather than trying to suppress her ‘violence’. Her surrender to the authorities in 1983 and her imprisonment without trial transformed her status from a dacoit to a figure of political and social significance. Her later emergence as an elected Member of Parliament complicates her narrative further. It signals a movement from subalternity to political representation, yet this transition is fraught with contradictions. Whether her entry into formal politics signifies inclusion within the nation, or it merely absorbs her into the very structures that once excluded her, is a question to ponder upon.

Cinematically, Bandit Queen presents her story with stark realism, refusing to romanticize either her suffering or her violence. The film’s visual language, lingering on her silences, and the brutality inflicted upon her forces the viewers to confront the uncomfortable truth that the nation is implicated in her oppression rather than being a protective entity. Phoolan Devi’s story thus becomes emblematic of a larger critique. The nation that celebrates women and women goddesses fails to protect the common marginalised woman, especially those located at the intersections of caste and class.

HAQ: Law, Community, and the Denial of Justice

The movie Haq released in 2025 shifts the viewer’s attention to the domain of rights, legality, and justice, interrogating whether marginalised women coming from religious minorities can truly claim their legal rights. The narrative foregrounds women’s struggles to assert their claims over their bodies, property, dignity, or justice, within systems that are structurally biased against them. The law appears as a formal mechanism of empowerment, yet in practice, it is mediated by caste, class, and gender hierarchies. The movie critiques postcolonial democracy, where the promise of equal citizenship coexists with deeply unequal social realities.

In Haq, the act of demanding justice is itself portrayed as transgressive. Women who speak up are seen as disruptive, or morally suspect. This reflects a broader cultural logic where women’s suffering is normalised, but their resistance is looked down upon. The community, rather than supporting them, often becomes complicit in silencing them.

From a Spivakian lens, the film Haq raises an important question. Are the marginalised women truly heard when they speak up for their rights, or are their rights filtered through institutional frameworks that dilute their demands? Shah Bano is able to ban ‘Triple Talaq’ and gains alimony and maintenance for her children, setting an example for the common Muslim women. For most other women in India, justice and legal recognition is still partial and conditional.

Chiraiya: Domesticity, Silence, and the Unseen Nation

The recently released series called ‘Chiraiya’ is set within the seemingly apolitical space of the home, yet it is precisely this space that reveals the foundations of patriarchal nationhood. The title itself, meaning a small bird, becomes symbolic of fragility, containment, and the illusion of freedom. Women in the narrative are not overly imprisoned, but their movement, speech, and desires are quietly regulated.

The protagonist goes through marital rape and takes haunting steps to resist it. She is later supported by the women of the household. From a cinematic perspective, the film ‘s use of stillness, confined spaces, and minimal dialogue reinforces the suffocation. More importantly, Chiraiya also complicated the idea of resistance. Unlike Phoolan Devi’s violent assertion of agency, resistance here is subtle, with glances, refusals, and acts of withholding. These gestures may appear insignificant, but they reveal cracks within the seemingly stable structure or patriarchy. However, the nation does not register these forms of resistance, marital rape is still not criminalized in India, and therefore, these women remain outside it’s narrative of progress.

Conclusion: Nation and the Politics of Exclusion

Together, the films compel us to rethink the Indian nation as not only categorised by integration and diversity, but also as a deeply stratified entity structured through exclusion of marginalised groups, especially women. These films reveal that the nation is materially produced through institutions of family, law, and community that systematically marginalised certain bodies while privileging those in the higher strata.

In dominant nationalist discourse, the figure of the woman is elevated as a symbol of purity, sacrifice, and cultural continuity. Yet, as the story of Phoolan Devi in Bandit Queen makes starkly visible, this symbolic reference collapses when confronted with caste and gender realities. On the other hand, Chiraiya and Haq demonstrate that exclusion is not always visible, it is often embedded in everyday life. They highlight that the nation depends on the labour, bodies, and symbolic value of women, yet excluded many of them from recognition, representation, and justice. Marginalised women, in particular, remain outside the imagined community of the nation and its institutional benefits.

Therefore, these films offer a perspective to look at the nation from its margins and from the vantage point of those who are denied its promises. In doing so, they unsettle the coherence od nationalist narratives and reveal the extent to which exclusion is visible in the project of nation-building. Until the voices and experiences of the marginalised women are not represented and acknowledged, the idea of the nation will remain incomplete.

References:

• Kapur, Shekhar, director. Bandit Queen. Kaleidoscope Entertainment, 1994
• Streaming series (various sources)
• Haq, Indian film (various sources)
• Chatterjee, Partha, The Nation and its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories.Princeton University Press, 1993
• Menon, Nivedita, Seeing like a feminist. Zubaan, 2012

Spivak, Gayatri Chakraborty. “Can the Subaltern Speak?” Marxism and interpretation of Culture, edited by Cary Nelson a