However, Dhadak 2 doesn’t give caste a cursory glance or pretend that it doesn’t exist as has been the norm with Hindi cinema. Instead, the Shazia Iqbal film, based on Mari Selvaraj’s 2018 Tamil tour-de-force Pariyerum Perumal, places the thorny and the unpleasant front and centre, making it impossible to look away anymore.
It’s fascinating that among the well oiled, sufficiently populated cohort of influential filmmakers hobnobbing the high halls of the Bombay film industry, it would be Johar who would spell the horrors of caste for his largely upwardly-mobile, matcha-drinking audience that’s too busy re-sharing pro-Gaza posts on Instagram to know what’s been happening in their backyard for generations.
It’s his traditional Poo-worshipping audience’s absolute refusal to acknowledge what doesn’t concern them in the immediate that makes Dhadak 2 such a powerful watch. Written by Iqbal and Rahul Badwelkar, it’s as much of a love story as Kill was. Like Nikhil Nagesh Bhat’s 2024 gore-fest, love is not the story here. It’s a mere catalyst that sets the ground running.
The difference between Neelesh (Siddhant Chaturvedi) and Vidhi (Triptii Dimri) is on the nose from the second we see them and they see each other. She’s a wealthy Brahmin enjoying festivities at her residential bungalow. He’s one of the Dalit dhol walas her family has hired to play in the background. They have no business meeting again but they do, education being the great equalizer that it usually is in the case of such ill-fitting matches. They are both enrolled at the same law college. She wants to be a lawyer so she can carry forward her family’s legacy. Meanwhile, he wants to study what Babasaheb did so he can fight for his and his brethren’s right to live just like him.
Despite the many cuts forced by the censor board after a long-drawn battle, an unending disclaimer at the beginning that’s read out loud lest you get offended, and the inescapable, inevitable Bollywoodization of a blistering tale of oppression and resistance, Dhadak 2 hits like a speeding train. Iqbal doesn’t wince a moment to expressly show the unpleasant, the ugly and everything in between that is lived by countless Indians across the country every single day.
Chaturvedi returns to impressive form as a sincere, disadvantaged young man who’s been raised to believe that he needs to keep his head down if he doesn’t want it cut off. In spite of the tone-deaf, distracting decision to tan his face so he looks the part, the actor nails Neelesh’s complex interiority, his simmering rage, reluctant physicality, and tumultuous narrative arc without missing a beat. Chaturvedi’s own position as an outsider in Hindi cinema lends itself beautifully to create an underdog you want to see win.
He finds a worthy companion in Dimri, who by now can take a masterclass in how to portray both strength and fragility in the same moment. She plays out with great skill the central conflict of a woman who knows enough to see beyond but not enough to see around. Although Dhadak 2 is primarily Neelesh’s story, the way Gully Boy was Murad’s and Masaan Deepak’s, Vidhi is just as essential as Safeena and Devi were to their films.
Not just the lead pair, the supporting characters also leave an indelible imprint. Take Neelesh’s parents, for instance. His father (a terrific Vipin Sharma) is a transvestite stage dancer and his mother (Anubha Fatehpuria) a community leader. Then there’s Zakir Hussain as the law school dean Ansari, that rare Dalit who managed to climb out of the bottomless pit he was assigned to at birth.
There’s also Shankar (a bone-chilling Saurabh Sachdeva), an assassin on the loose whose only agenda in life is ethnic cleansing. Finally, there’s Priyank Tiwari, who plays Shekhar, a Dalit student activist at Neelesh and Vidhi’s law school, closely fashioned after Rohith Vemula, the late PhD scholar at University of Hyderabad who killed himself on campus in 2016, sparking nation-wide outrage over caste oppression.
At 146 minutes, the film is bathed in blue, the color of the Ambedkarite movement. Right from Neelesh’s name to the walls of his basti, the stoles that hang around the necks of Shekhar and other campus comrades and the paint he uses to write verses of protest that finally colors Neelesh’s face and his soul irrevocably.
Picture this. There’s a wedding in Vidhi’s family. She is dancing. As Neelesh watches her, he imagines himself dancing with her. But even in his daydream, he appears in the same ordinary clothes he’s wearing at the moment, he dares not show the audacity to conjure up a look more festive. That’s how deep-seated his disenfranchisement is. And it’s one of the milder scenes where it’s only hinted at ever so slightly. It’s heartbreaking.
Another shot at clever play is the layered characterization of Vidhi’s father, essayed with sly duplicity by Harish Khanna. He’s the kind of single parent that has it in him to raise an outspoken, confident daughter who questions everything, but so deeply embedded is caste hegemony that he cannot help it despite the best of intentions. Good men, we call them.
After Saiyaara, Dhadak 2 is the second film that demolishes beyond recognition the wildly popular, well-honed aesthetic of the studio behind it. It’s hardly surprising, though. When Yash Raj Films initiates, Dharma cannot remain far behind.
However, Chaturvedi’s winsome performance aside, I wonder if I would live to see the day when Dalit parts go to actors from the community and not Savarna heroes. Or is that too much of an ask? Baby steps, I get it.