by Jackson Plemmons
I. Introduction
A Tollywood global film phenomenon directed by S.S. Rajamouli, “RRR” (Rise, Roar, Revolt), turns the struggle of two historical revolutionary Indians, Sitarama Raju and Komaram Bheem, into a legendary story of friendship, strength, and resistance. RRR is unique in the fact that it reached a Western audience with wide-spread popularity: it maintained the top streamed spot on Netflix for two weeks, was nominated for multiple Oscars and Golden Globe awards, and even won the Oscar for best original song. Rajamouli is known for his garnered success in the Indian film industry. In 2017, he directed “Baahubali 2: The Conclusion”, the second-highest grossing Indian film of all time, and most recently the third-highest, “RRR”. Many film critics compare Rajamouli to the American director James Cameron, known for directing the box office smash hit “Titanic”, due to directing massive-in-scale films. The continual success of his films has resulted in celebrity status — and the many fans that come with it — that builds anticipation and excitement for each release, even inciting violence in the case of “Magadheera”.
Prior to its release in 2009, frenzied fans lined up outside the box office to purchase tickets and in the process climbed a parapet wall, which knocked down an electric pole and started a stampede, killing five people (Shankar 2022). In some ways, Rajamouli himself has become a divine figure in Indian culture, as exemplified by fans in the city of Hyderabad bathing RRR movie posters in milk. This practice is usually reserved for Hindu deities and massively popular South Indian celebrities (Shankar 2022).
Rajamouli’s films are centered around mythical story-telling, often depicting humanely impossible stunts, such as one man successfully fighting a crowd of thousands (link: police station fight scene), and a heavy emotional component centered around relationships. These two commonalities across his filmography are typically paired with prominent religious symbolism, perhaps a nod to the historical use of religion in the Indian film industry in the first quarter of the 1900s (Shankar 2022). Under the exaggerated action sequences, emotionally gripping stakes, bold religious symbolism, and depictions of colonial violence, lies a political storm of clashing post-colonial ideals unknown to the Western audience, but apparent to the Indian audience. RRR manages to display productive context for the modern experience of indigenous groups but falls victim to nationalist propaganda and religious silencing reminiscent of the colonial era.
II. Plot Summary
Set in the 1920s, RRR opens with a visceral, violent scene where British governor Scott Buxton and his wife Catherine “purchase” (steal) a Gond (native tribe of central India) girl named Malli because she had a beautiful singing voice. The abduction of Malli angers the Gond tribe and the tribe guardian, Komaram Bheem, is sent to Delhi with hopes of breaking into the capital building where Malli is held. Meanwhile Sitarama Raju, an officer in the Indian imperial police looking to gain a promotion, is assigned to find the Gond warrior (Bheem) and thwart his attempt to save Malli.
As both characters try to accomplish their mission, they meet when a small boy is in danger and both Bheem and Raju spring into action to save the boy. The identity of one another is unknown, and so, a strong friendship is formed. Soon after, a flashback sequence reveals (only to the audience) that the true intention of the Indian officer, Raju, is to climb the ranks in the police force to oversee the weapons department so that he can provide guns to the revolutionary movement fighting against the British. Eventually, Raju realizes that Bheem is the fugitive he is looking for and arrests Bheem.
Raju is forced to torture Bheem for his crimes, and he is finally promoted to oversee the weapon distribution in the imperial police force. At the flogging of Bheem, Raju tries to convince him to kneel in order to stop the flogging, but Bheem sings a defiant song and refuses to kneel. Bheem’s defiance to the throne inspires the crowd to rebel, which makes Raju realize his mistakes and he attempts to save Malli and free Bheem. In the process, Bheem misinterprets Raju’s attempt to free him and save Malli as an act of aggression and he bashes Raju over the head, rendering him unconscious, and escapes with Malli. Raju is arrested and held in captivity by the British.
Months later, Bheem and Malli are cornered by colonial officers and by chance, Raju’s distant fiancé, Sita, appears and convinces the officers that there is a smallpox outbreak, and they leave. Sita reveals Raju’s true anti-colonial intentions to Bheem, and he realizes his mistakes. Bheem successfully finds and rescues Raju from captivity, and they destroy the British capital building and kill the British governor and his wife. Raju and Bheem gather the weapons from the capital and bring them to the camp for rebels. Raju offers any wish to Bheem, and Bheem explains that his wish is for him and his community to be educated.
III. Recognition of Recursive Colonial Folds
RRR is three hours in length and covers many aspects of the colonial experience of the colonized throughout much of the runtime. As described by Brockway in “Science and Colonial Expansion”, the British occupation of India from the 1750s to the 1940s was an internal remodeling of land, politics, and human life itself to satisfy the desires of the empire (Brockway 2002). Inevitably, the monumental movement associated with the transformation of India into a cog in the British machine negatively impacted many Indians, especially those who were low in the caste system. Many were forced to leave their livelihoods and work for colonial plantations, producing resources for the insatiable British Empire.
Bheem and his tribe, the Gond, are a real indigenous community located in the jungle of central and south central India. Throughout the film, Bheem’s appearance is noted to be different from the Delhian Indians, and often described as “brutish” or “savage”. The descriptions of indigenous tribes in India by high-status caste members are common in modern day India, such as they were common in colonial India. In many ways, the colonial past of India and its many ideologies, materials, and systems of power fold into the present. Michelle Murphy, in “Alterlife and Decolonial Chemical Relations”, highlights the historic industrial dumping of chemicals in and around Lake Ontario, and the common appearance of PCBs — man-made organic chemicals consisting of carbon, hydrogen and, chlorine atoms — in everything from rainwater to human bodies in the present (Murphy 2017: 494). A form of colonial recursivity, PCBs have harmful effects to modern human and ecological health and are a result of the colonial fueled industrial revolution, similar to how the British system of belief still persists in modern India. The remains of silencing culture, religion, and indigenous populations from the colonial era appear in the current Indian government.
The British justified the invasion of India as a method of modernizing the “savage”. As noted by Chatterjee, “as late as ten years before Indian independence, a British historian of the development of state institutions in colonial India began his book with the following words: ‘It was the aim of the greatest among the early British administrators in India to train the people of India to govern and protect themselves… rather than to establish the rule of a British bureaucracy’” (Chatterjee 1993: 14). The British perception of the Indians effectively justified the actions, violence, and exploitation by characterizing them as savage, uneducated, and stuck in the past. The same sentiment that justified the colonial invasion of India appears in modern India and is brought-to-light through the lens of Bheem and the Gond tribe in RRR.
Modern India has thousands of diverse cultures, religions, dialects, and people, which comes with discrimination and marginalization of minority groups in an attempt to modernize. The concept of modernization and a people that must be “enlightened” from the colonial era bleed into the present day experience of indigenous communities in India. Just as Bheem is described as savage and uneducated, and even asks to be “educated” at the end of the film, modern developmental projects in India aim to modernize indigenous communities with an ideology similar to British colonial justification. For example, a news article published in an Indian news outlet on April 23rd, 2023, “The Telegraph Online”, details a tribal community, Adivasi Adhikar Mahasabha, and their plans to march in protest against the proposed coal mine at Deocha-Pachami in the Birbhum district. The community cites the negative environmental impact and invasion on their land rights as reasons for their march (Chakraborty 2023).
The recursive parallels of the British colonial invasion and the marginalization of indigenous communities in favor of modern development in India are very apparent, with movements such as the Deocha-Pachami coal mine protest. In a dramatic way, the marginalization and exploitation of indigenous communities is highlighted in RRR through the abduction of Malli and Bheem’s experience in Delhi, which opens an opportunity for movie-goers in India and around the globe to recognize modern mechanisms of colonialism in a supposedly post-colonial world.
IV. Socio-Political Context of RRR
Though RRR is an effective medium for the recognition of colonial pasts and its recursive elements in the present, the nationalist political atmosphere surrounding the director is problematic. Rajamouli structures the film around his Hindu-centric nationalist beliefs, with multiple musical numbers about one nation of India held together through Hinduism, and even scenes depicting the character Raju as the Hindu Prince Ram, an embodiment of virtue and courage. The religious nature of the film is not problematic in itself, but it amplifies the forced narrative of one nation under Hindutva rule.
An influential Hindu text, The Ramayana, features the banished Prince Ram in his journey across the sea with a band of monkeys to rescue Princess Sita. The Utopia of Ramrajya is described as a kingdom of Prince Ram, a perfect society where every person achieves happiness. In present day India, the term Ram-Rajya (a descendant of the term Ramrajya) describes the well-fare state. During anti-colonial movements, political leader Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, presented his idea of Ram-Rajya as a “political arrangement leading to social happiness” and a just democratic society. (Gupta 2017: 140).
In a thrilling action scene of RRR, Raju uses the bow and arrow from the temple of Prince Ram to break out of his captivity, and appears with long hair, unmistakably resembling Prince Ram. Raju’s first name, Sitarama, resembles the name Prince Ram, and furthermore, his fiancé is named Sita—after the Princess Sita. Indian film critic, Karthik Shankar, describes several scenes as having a “slightly chilling quality to viewers living under the constant threat of Hindutva authoritarianism” due to the use of the Utopia of Ramrajya as a symbol to “galvanize the political agenda of the Indian ruling party—the BJP” (Shankar 2022).
The BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) is the current ruling party of India, with a mission to unite the country under nationalist principles of the religion Hindu, as opposed to the historic secular government of India. India’s constitution after independence in 1947 stated that a “principled distance” between the church and the government should be maintained in order to unite the many communities of different religions (Vaishnav 2019). In contrast, the current Indian government (BJP) has set out to unite the nation under the religion of Hindu, and in the process has tried to silence other religious communities in India.
In the film, Raju’s father tells him that “every hand will have a weapon”, which is thought to promote paramilitary groups in India such as the RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh), whose mission is to militarize Hindus. Even more striking, the conclusion of the film features an entertaining musical number full of nationalist propaganda, including images of many influential Indian figures in the background. Surprisingly, three main figures are intentionally left out: Gandhi, who promoted secular and nonviolent Hinduism which is in opposition to the BJP; Ambedkar, a leading figure in the protests against the caste system and father of the Indian constitution; and Nehru, the first prime minister of India who is in opposition to the current prime minister (Shankar 2022). All of these figures have one thing in common… their political presence is at odds with the political agenda of the BJP.
V. Colonialism in a New Form
The coloniality of the BJP’s political regime is best understood through the lens of modernity and colonial rationality of nature emphasized by Quijano in “Coloniality and Modernity/Rationality”. Quijano describes the distinction between the western perception of being modern and being savage, and how this system of belief allowed colonizers to exploit the colonized (Quijano 2007). Under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the BJP has cemented its hegemonic political power based “on the premise that Indian culture is coterminous with Hindu culture” (Vaishnav 2019). The BJP’s perception of Hinduism as the only religion of India reinforces the idea that Hinduism and its values are superior to other religions, creating that distinction between Hindus and “the other”, “the savage”, and “the uneducated”. The Nationalist Hindu belief system creates an opportunity to otherize religions different from Hinduism, and in the process, marginalize minorities similar to colonial invasion.
Under the BJP regime, hate speech and violence against religious minorities has become common and indirectly encouraged by the government. In December of 2021, Prime Minister Modi blocked a Christian organization, Missionaries of Charity, from receiving foreign funds. Denying funds to minority religious groups has been an initiative of the BJP, utilizing the “Foreign Contribution Regulation Act to restrict external funding to nongovernmental organizations it has deemed critical” (Ganguly 2021). The denial of funds effectively silences the religious minority groups, orchestrated through Quijano’s distinction of modern and unmodern in the context of Hindutva Nationalism. The refusal to acknowledge religious hate speech and silencing further emphasizes the hegemonic coloniality of the BJP’s system of governance.
VI. Conclusion
RRR is a fantastic film worth viewing for entertainment value and social commentary among other reasons, but as western viewers, I encourage us to recognize the silenced and be aware of the hegemony of political power. The impact of hegemony is recognized through the critical frameworks defined by: Murphy and the material remains of PCBs; Brockway and the technologies of rule; and Quijano and the colonial perception of modernity. Hegemonic power poisons the industries of society, exemplified through nationalist BJP propaganda in RRR, and in a broader context, the film industry. The film industry is influenced by money, and consequently, sacrifices must be made to please systems of power. Recognition of the interplay of these systems and its effects are a small, yet meaningful step towards dismantling hegemonic power dynamics.
Citations
Abrams, Simon. “RRR Movie Review & Film Summary (2022): Roger Ebert.” movie review & film summary (2022) | Roger Ebert. Accessed April 23, 2023. https:// www.rogerebert.com/reviews/rrr-movie-review-2022.
Brockway, Lucile. 2002. Science and Colonial Expansion. Yale University Press.Ch.2.
Brody, Richard. “The Netflix Hit ‘RRR’ Is a Political Screed, an Action Bonanza, and an Exhilarating Musical.” The New Yorker. The New Yorker, June 2, 2022. https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-front-row/the-netflix-hit-rrr-is-a-political-screed-an-action-bonanza-and-an-exhilarating-musical.
Chakraborty, Snehamoy. “Adivasis to March to Calcutta against Coal Mine.” Birbhum – Adivasis to march to Calcutta against coal mine – Telegraph India. Telegraph India, April 7, 2023. https://www.telegraphindia.com/west-bengal/adivasis-to-march-to-calcutta-against-coal-mine/cid/1928043.
Chatterjee, Partha. 1993. “The Colonial State” in The Nation and Its Fragments. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 14-34.
Ganguly, Sumit. “India’s Religious Minorities Are under Attack.” Foreign Policy. Foreign Policy, December 30, 2021. https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/12/30/india-religious-minorities-under-attack-christian-muslim-modi-bjp/.
Gupta, Neerja A. “Utopian State, Concept and Need of Ramrajya: A Literary Study.” SSRN Electronic Journal, October 2017, 140–46. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3086066.
Murphy, Michel. 2017. Afterlife and Decolonial Chemical Relations. Cultural Anthropology 31(4): 494-501.
Quijano, Aníbal. 2007. Coloniality and Modernity/Rationality. Cultural Studies. 21:2-3, 168-178
S.S. Rajamouli. RRR. DVV Entertainment, 2022.
“RRR.” IMDb. IMDb.com. Accessed April 23, 2023. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8178634/plotsummary/.
Shankar, Karthik. “’RRR’ Is the Blockbuster of the Summer, but Mind Its Dicey Politics.” Thrillist, June 10, 2022. https://www.thrillist.com/entertainment/nation/rrr-indian-movie-politics-explained.
Vaishnav, Milan. “The BJP in Power: Indian Democracy and Religious Nationalism.” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, April 2019. https://carnegieendowment.org/2019/04/04/bjp-in-power-indian-democracy-and-religious-nationalism-pub-78677.