In India, the phrase “love is political” is a cliche you’ll hear often. But what does it really mean? It’s not just that politics controls love. It’s that the family, that sacred unit of Indian society, isn’t always a cosy nest of affection; it’s also a political fortress, a miniature dictatorship where parents, uncles, and that one cousin who’s always “just helping” wield absolute power over who you can love. 

To love someone outside your caste is to declare war, with no ceasefire announcements from Uncle Sam. 

The enemy here isn’t a stranger but your own relatives, neighbours, and the invisible countless eyes that watch you like CCTV whose power never goes off.

It’s because when you fall in love, you’re hopping onto a groovy train faster than the Vande Bharat Express, one that doesn’t stop at society-approved stations of caste, gotra, religion, or the thousand other filters that make Indian matchmaking a bureaucratic nightmare. 

This is why love in India often ends up as graffiti on the crumbling walls of an abandoned ASI heritage monument, where lovers tattoo their unrequited tales: Rohan loves Monika. Payal loves Amar. Birju loves Rupwati. Sometimes, love exists only in the disappearance of digital footprints. When families discover the affair, social media accounts that once flaunted love selfies are disabled, leaving only a cold notification: “User not available.”

Love in India, then, is a political act, a middle finger to the suffocating machinery of tradition. Yet nobody warns you that rebellion comes with a body count; a phrase that carries a chilling different meaning in a country where too many are “disappeared” for the crime of loving someone.

In that sense, love is a dangerous pursuit, not the dreamy escapade Bollywood has long peddled. Its love stories often reduce conflict to class, with dialogues like, “Unki kya haisiyat hai humse shaadi karne ki?” Or my favorite, from a film where the girl’s father sneers, “Meri beti ko kaju khane ka bahut shauk hai. Kya tumhari haisiyat hai ki use roz kaju khila paoge?” These cinematic flourishes suggest love is just about crossing a wealth gap. But they sidestep the deeper landmines – caste, religion, gotra – that don’t just test a romance but often detonate it.

Bollywood’s limited imagination can lure lovers into this conflict zone, humming 90s anthems like, “Pyar karne wale jeete hain shaan se, marte hain shaan se.” A relative of mine took that line too seriously, singing it during evening walks on the terrace, brimming with the borrowed swagger of movie heroes. Only after the girl’s family beat him in the garage of an abandoned shop in our hometown, Sikar, did he realise only the second line of the song is true. When he stumbled home, his face wasn’t red with the blush of new romance but with the flush of what love in India really feels like.

This is why a film like Dhadak 2 feels unusually brave. In a sea of cinema obsessed with upper-caste nostalgia and wedding playlists (many of which have come out from the same production house), it centers a Dalit protagonist, weaving in the suffocation, aspiration, and quiet ache of the Dalit subconscious. This is also rare for the times we live in. Let me explain.

Stands out amid sugary internet junk 

We are now in times where people online confidently declare, “The caste system never existed. We had varna, not jaati. Caste is a Western concept.” Meanwhile, phrases like “Brahmin genes,” “Rajput genes,” “Yadav brand,” and “Gujjar genes” are flaunted like designer labels.

Layered on top is the cultural cowardice of influencer content, mistaken for a generation’s voice. Instead of sparking new conversations or fostering critical thought, it’s a loop of skits like “Every UP Guy Ever,” “Every Bhopali guy” meme reviews, and reaction videos that shun anything real. This sugary internet junk, packaged as relatability, burying any possibility of cultural conversation under mindless noise.

In this context, Dhadak 2, from Dharma Productions no less, is a surprise. With imagery of Ambedkar, Buddha, and the Jai Bhim slogan, it tackles caste with mostly the right politics, placing Dalit suffering at the narrative’s core, not as a backdrop or plot device, but as the story itself. Compare this to Article 15, which I feel, despite its acclaim, wasn’t truly about Dalit issues. It was a thriller using caste as a setting, placing the Brahmin character in the centre blissfully unaware of his own caste. Dhadak 2 dares to center a Dalit hero, crafting a sympathetic gaze towards the Dalit politics that unravels how caste operates in society. But I also wondered if multiplex audiences even care about a Dalit hero navigating romance in an urban landscape. The audience’s reaction completes the film’s sociology, turning the theatre into a mirror of society. 

For instance, in one scene in Article 15, Ayushmann’s character asks everyone their caste. A Dalit policeman claims he’s higher in the hierarchy than another Dalit policeman, prompting relieved laughter from the audience, as if comforted by the idea that even Dalits can be casteist. If everyone’s casteist, the twisted logic goes, then maybe no one is and we are free of our guilt of being a beneficiary of the caste system.

Casting a missed opportunity?

For most, Dhadak 2 is a very sincere film on the politics of caste. Though in terms of narrative its reliance on melodrama and occasional rhetorical flourishes dulls its edge. Had these been woven more subtly, it could have been far more compelling. 

The casting, too, feels like a missed opportunity. Siddhant Chaturvedi’s performance is decent, but it’s hard to fully buy him in the role. The same goes for the other lead Tripti. Yet, in smaller roles, Saurabh Sachdeva and Zakir Hussain shine. Spoiler alert in next line: I was surprised to see Zakir’s character subtly address the Pasmanda issue, a nuanced touch for a mainstream film.

Contrast this with Sairat (of which the earlier Dhadak was a remake), which masterfully blends caste and love with foot-thumping music and newcomer actors, achieving a cinematic triumph. But regional cinema like Sairat, or its Tamil counterpart Pariyerum Perumal – of which Dhadak 2 is a Bollywood remake – operates on a different plane. Their business models, budgets, distribution, and cultural contexts are worlds apart, making comparisons feel unfair.

Dhadak 2 faced heavy-handed censorship, with directors such as Anurag Kashyap publicly slamming the censors for their stifling constraints. Its opening disclaimer, one of the longest in recent memory, repeatedly stresses that the film is a pure work of fiction, any resemblance to reality purely accidental. Just weeks earlier, Phule, a biopic on Jyotirao and Savitribai Phule, was delayed, edited, and nearly derailed by outrage over scenes depicting caste humiliation. According to The Hindu, the CBFC demanded that the phrase “3,000 saal purani jaati pratha” (3,000-year-old caste system) be replaced with the more diluted “kai saal purani varna vyavastha” (a system of varnas that is many years old).

But at the same time to call Dhadak 2 a film about caste is to forget that earlier Bollywood films have also grappled with it, albeit differently. Years ago, on my podcast about caste in Indian stand-up comedy, Kaustubh Naik said, “If you want to understand caste then watch K3G, not Sairat.” It’s a sharp observation on how mainstream cinema, with its Singhanias and Malhotras, glorifies ‘khandani’ supremacy while erasing lower-caste characters entirely.

In fact, in one of the scenes in this movie I couldn’t help but compare it with Kabir Singh. There are similar scenes where the hero confronts the family of their girlfriends. In Dhadak 2, the hero struggles to explain to the girl’s parents why he even deserves to exist, let alone love her. In Kabir Singh, (remake of Arjun Reddy with a clear caste marker), the hero feels absolutely entitled to love. In a scene with her parents, he yells, “Main bloody surgeon hoon, koi roadside Romeo nahi,” and accuses them of having their “dimaag at their gittiya wich”. Later, he shouts, “You know what Priti, Imagine this is not 2019. Yeh raja-maharaja ka time hai. If at that time they (her parents) come between us, I’ll wage a war, lock them in a steel cage, and marry you in front of them, traditional style.” 

The contrast is glaring: one hero begs for his place and right to exist in society, the other demands love with godlike confidence. If you look closely then both are films about caste.

Hence Dhadak 2 is a remarkable departure. The fact that caste is no longer just subtext but part of the film’s narrative spine is not only a credit to the production house and director Shazia Iqbal. It also belongs to the countless voices (online and off) who kept pushing the conversation around caste to be included in academia, films, literature, pop culture, even when they were mocked, abused, ignored or sometimes threatened with police actions.  

Even with its flaws, Dhadak 2 stands apart by being an unusually brave film in these times. It’s a visible crack in the wall. And someone made that crack, very sincerely. I hope it grows wide enough for others to break through, so that many more storytellers from the community can enter and claim space within it.

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