Director Shazia Iqbal’s Dhadak 2 may mark a bold step for Bollywood in portraying anti-caste and Dalit narratives, but it falls far short of what regional cinema, especially the Tamil film industry, has achieved.

The lack of metaphoric depth in the storytelling and major changes to both the core message and climax raise doubts about whether Dhadak 2 is a true adaptation of Mari Selvaraj’s powerful Pariyerum Perumal (2018).

In Pariyerum Perumal, the dominant caste heroine Jo (Anandhi) has the privilege to communicate her romantic interest to Pariyan, who hails from a Dalit community. But caste keeps him from not just reciprocating but even understanding the feeling of love. When confronting Jo’s father (G. Marimuthu), Pariyan bitterly says, “Before I could even understand what these feelings are, you have torn it all apart.” His words leave the audience in discomfort about the brutality of caste, even as Jo’s father offers a cautious hope for future change.

Pariyerum Perumal is not primarily about resisting caste discrimination for the sake of love but about how Dalits are denied the possibility of even imagining love across caste locations. Caste deprives Pariyan of the space to comprehend love.

Instead, Dhadak 2 offers a love story between dominant caste and lowered caste individuals. The audience’s attention is casually dragged towards the love between the couple, rather than the caste question.

Jo does not know if Pariyan loves her because the reciprocation never takes place. However, in Dhadak 2, Neelesh (Siddhant Chaturvedi) is given space to reciprocate and express his love. The question of inter-caste love continues. For instance, when he cuts himself off from Vidhi (Tripti Dimri), she visits him near his home and questions him about his feelings for her. He never disagrees with her claims of his love interest in her.

She simply replies, “So what if we belong to different castes, can’t we still live together?” Dialogues like this have been shallowly crafted. It’s not a mere ‘difference in caste’, but the hierarchy that needs to be reflected upon.

Neelesh replies, “We do leatherwork … we’re very different from your family … the dream that you’re seeing has no space for me…” He explains the caste barrier as the reason for him to stay away from her and the feeling of love. The negotiation and argument to keep the inter-caste love alive between Vidhi and Neelesh redirects the gaze toward a “forbidden love”.

Pariyerum Perumal was not a story of forbidden love. It's a story of a Dalit who is not allowed to imagine love. Dhadak 2 completely digresses from this idea and presents Neelesh and Vidhi’s relationship as a “forbidden love”.

Happy endings

This flawed understanding continues in Dhadak 2’s climax as well. Bollywood, particularly Karan Johar, is fixated on happy endings in love stories. Dhadak 2 was bankrolled by Dharma Productions, co-owned by Adar Poonawalla and Karan.

The climax of Pariyerum Perumal highlights that love between a Dalit and a dominant caste individual remains an unfulfilled aspiration, weighed down by casteism. Dhadak 2 distorts this by reassuring viewers that the relationship between Vidhi and Neelesh can endure, wrapping the narrative in an upbeat, hopeful tone.

Jo versus Vidhi

Unlike Jo, who is portrayed as exceedingly naive, Vidhi is given agency that is in keeping with that of a law student. Though she acknowledges her privilege, Vidhi remains unaware of the violence her own family inflicts on Neelesh.

In the film, Vidhi shares her past with Neelesh, recalling the loss of her mother at a young age and how her father had to take on both parental roles. Overcome with emotion, she kisses Neelesh. He initially withdraws. As she continues to cry, he then kisses her back.

This creates a narrative of Savarna victimisation and an empathetic Dalit character responding to the pain of the Savarna in the ways expected by the Savarna. In contrast, when Jo confesses her feelings to Pariyan outside the hospital where his father is admitted, he remains silent, underscoring how he cannot even envision love. No matter what she feels for him, she also says she wants to keep their friendship.

However, Jo’s insensitivity is highlighted as she remains unaware of the casteist consequences Pariyan and his family are going through at that moment. She speaks about her feelings and gets assurance from Pariyan that their friendship will continue, and leaves.

Jo’s privilege of remaining unaware of caste is constantly highlighted in the film in various ways. Vidhi is shown to identify that she is privileged, but she fails to live up to it. She is victimised through her past story, drawing the sympathy of the audience. In contrast, Jo’s background is not presented in a melodramatic fashion, nor is she victimised, though she tells Pariyan about her father’s importance, like Vidhi does.

Later, Vidhi also emerges as a saviour figure for Neelesh. While she is portrayed as outspoken, during the confrontation between Neelesh and her relatives, Neelesh asserts himself and resists caste-based oppression. Yet, Vidhi ultimately halts the fight, not through words, but by screaming and hugging Neelesh. Neelesh stands behind her. This positioning makes her his protector – a Savarna saviour – while reducing the caste conflict to the backdrop.

The scene mirrors a conventional love story resolution, where a couple triumphs over familial opposition. With Vidhi’s intervention, the caste dimension dissolves, weakening the narrative Neelesh had built.

Karuppi lives, Birju fades

Another striking difference is Karuppi, Pariyan’s beloved hunting dog. She is brutally killed at the beginning of the movie by the dominant caste community, simply because Pariyan and his friends use a public pool. The dominant castes view Dalits using public pools as a caste boundary violation, and Karuppi is punished for it by being tied to railway tracks and killed, establishing the film’s brutal tone of caste violence from the outset.

Karuppi remains a metaphorical extension of the casteism Pariyan and Dalits face throughout the film. She is not just a dog. She is an ideology, a face of caste oppression, resistance and resilience that thrives.

Karuppi carries multiple layers of meaning. In the Tamil film Agraharathile Kazhutai (1977), a donkey, initially despised and killed by perceived upper castes, later returns as a deity to be worshipped. Similarly, Karuppi in Pariyerum Perumal, and the young girl in Karnan (2021) with the head of a village deity, all signify victims of caste violence who re-emerge as protective spirits or deities. Karuppi’s constant presence beside Pariyan, especially when he is placed on the railway track like her, ultimately saves him.

She also serves as a metaphor for Pariyan himself. In the song ‘Naan Yaar’, when Pariyan is bound to a chair, Karuppi appears beside him, her blood-red wounds visible. As he breaks free, both are shown in blue, running together, a visual metaphor for resistance. They become faces of those who have been victims of caste violence, questioning the injustices of caste killings and reflecting stories of Illavarsan, Gokulraj, the 1968 Keezhvenmani massacre and others.

The song ‘Karuppi’ is another powerful expression of her being symbolic of Pariyan’s life, a face of victims of the casteist structure.

Through these layers, Karuppi becomes a symbolic protagonist, a Dalit protector deity and a face of resistance. Her presence extends far beyond death.

This depth contrasts sharply with Birju in Dhadak 2. Birju’s story surfaces only after 37 minutes, when Neelesh recounts it to Vidhi, accompanied by a brief burial scene. Unlike Mari’s elaborate detailing of Karuppi’s death, rituals and symbolic blue imagery, Birju’s narrative feels rushed and stripped of significance. Birju significantly reappears in the film only when Neelesh is laid on the railway track to be killed. The symbolic blue artistry signifying resistance embodied by Karuppi is absent from Birju, reducing Birju’s role to a superficial presence.

Dalit folklore

Dhadak 2’s music and folklore are weak too. Pariyerum Perumal is deeply rooted in Dalit cultural expression. Pariyerum Perumal also gives us a sense of geographic Dalit folklore. Karuppi’s funeral ceremony includes the parai (a traditional one-sided circular drum usually made of calf skin) and the dhapaan koothu (a folk dance performed by Dalits at mournings and celebrations), and the blending of oppari (a folk song tradition) in the song ‘Karuppi’ brings Dalit cultural elements to life.

The therukoothu (a folk street theatre – ‘theru’ means ‘street’ and ‘koothu’ means ‘dance/performance’) performed by Pariyan’s father (Nellai Thangarasu) is another instance of Dalit folkloric expression in Tamil Nadu.

None of these nuances are present in Dhadak 2. Although Neelesh mentions that his family works with leather and plays drums, the film misses the opportunity to include a song centred on drumming – an art form that carries the rich legacy of Dalit folklore.

The film lacks a clear geographical grounding. While it is largely set in Madhya Pradesh, the folk dance performed by Neelesh’s father (Vipin Sharma), Launda Nach/Lavanda Nach, is actually performed by the Bhojpuri lowered-caste communities. This creates a blurred sense of place, making the inclusion of Launda Nach feel random or forced, an attempt to adapt elements from Pariyerum Perumal without contextual coherence.

Artistic exploration

Mari uses colours and visual representation with great intent. This is largely absent in Dhadak 2, except for a few scenes where, after Shekhar (Priyank Tiwari) is seen wearing a blue stole or post Shekhar’s death, blue paint is seen on the wall and on a couple people's faces.

The intricate work with blue drives a blue revolution in Pariyerum Perumal. In Pariyerum Perumal, the dog is painted blue, the faces of resistance are marked in blue and the screen is awash in red and blue when ‘Naan Yar’ plays. These artistic choices carry layered meanings of questions in the filmmaker's mind, about violence, struggle and resistance.

When Pariyan is bound to the chair, snakes, scorpions, rats (animals that bite and infect), etc. are present. A passing montage of violence and humiliation inflicted on Pariyan is portrayed in a web-like frame, indicating the traps of casteism. The screen is red, indicating the violence against and the rage of the Dalit community, reflected through Pariyan.

However, when Karuppi appears, these animals are not seen, indicating the entry of a protector. While he struggles to unbind himself, Karuppi and he are red. Once he starts to unbind and releases himself, they appear blue. He unties himself from the chair and picks up a lit torch and burns the chair, an indicator of caste barriers and caste weapons used by dominant castes to kill Dalits. It's symbolic of Ambedkar burning the Manusmriti, which has been the biggest weapon of caste oppression, microdictating innumerable ways of oppression. With the torch and face painted blue, Pariyan runs towards the sun.

But Dhadak 2 overlooks this visual representation completely, exposing the lack of research invested in reimagining an already powerful film.

Institutional casteism

The character of Shekhar could have been a valuable addition. His character is symbolic of the institutional murders of Rohith Vemula and other Dalit students. However, the gaze of victimisation has been reinforced. It is plainly narrated that he protests, and therefore, his fellowship has been withheld. There is no explicit depiction of caste structure as the root cause for these occurrences.

Shekhar’s sloganeering on Jai Bhim, etc, explicitly presents him as a Dalit student revolutionary, but the exploration of systemic casteism that causes injustices to him remains insufficient.

Dhadak 2 may be a noteworthy step, contributing to the still-nascent anti-caste discourse in Bollywood. But when compared to the original, it is a weak copy. If Bollywood hopes to build anti-caste conversations, a more sustainable and stronger beginning is required.

The omissions in the remake strip away the raw power of the original and dilute its anti-caste and Dalit politics. The nuances of Pariyerum Perumal have been oversimplified and spoon-fed to Dhadak 2’s audiences, reducing it to a palatable melodrama.

Apeksha Singegol is a research scholar in the Department of Sociology, Christ University, Bangalore. Her interest areas include caste and Dalit studies, the sociology of media and popular culture. She is currently working in the field of caste and cinema. Opinions expressed are the author’s own.

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