Through his genre of storytelling, Mari Selvaraj makes a compelling effort to understand the livelihood of the Dalit community, entangled within everyday caste violence rooted in rural Tamil Nadu, where any small act can lead to a conflict with dominant castes. 

In his recently released movie Bison Kaalamaadan, Mari shows a young Dalit man (Dhruv as Kittan) conflicted between retaliating against caste violence and becoming a national-level Kabaddi player. The reality of his life is situated in a complex landscape of caste violence. 

The protagonist is often provoked to choose retaliation, but he stays away from conflict when it is not his fight. The film progresses against the backdrop of an ongoing feud between a Dalit leader, Pandiaraja (played by Ameer), and a dominant caste leader, Kandasamy (played by Lal). 

Kittan’s father’s (Pasupathi as Velusamy) love for Kabaddi and his fear of Kittan getting entangled in caste violence regulates his son’s journey. The film shows how easy it is for one to pick up a knife and get trapped in caste conflicts.

Pasupathi’s fear underlines that this urge to retaliate must be consciously restrained. Kittan, being a fiery and focused boy, tries to transcend this conflict and his condition through perseverance in Kabaddi.

In his films, Selvaraj foregrounds the narrative that Dalit lives, regardless of their qualifications or accomplishments, are worthy of dignity. Dalits are often compelled to ‘achieve social acceptance’ through education and economic advancement. In this context, dignified living is not freely granted, but hard-earned through education, employment, lifestyle changes, and financial mobility. 

But how do we position their lives, deprived of all these conditional credibilities? This is not a debate about what should be considered emancipation. Education remains one of the most powerful ways of assertion for Dalits. Yet, the core of anti-caste politics and its struggles lies in the belief that irrespective of outward markers, one life is never less than another. 

Through his films, Selvaraj captures the layers of lives of those who may not possess socially enforced modes of credibility, highlighting the necessity to recognise their lived experiences and struggles, which itself is a political assertion in its own right.

Sports as a driving force in Kittan’s journey

Selvaraj uses sports as a driving force in the film to take the protagonist out of this conflict and guide him towards becoming something greater. Running for Kittan is more than just a coping mechanism – whenever he tries to make sense of the world around him and finds himself powerless, the scene transitions to him running. 

In a scene where he isn’t selected for the national team, he begins to run, revealing how running is not merely a form of training for him, but a means of expression in moments of agony and a way to channel his inner conflict.

Unlike other sports films, the focus isn’t on a specific opponent. Selavaraj doesn’t get into positioning Kittan’s opponent teams or players chosen over him. He doesn’t add any moral overtones to the opponents to justify why Kittan needs to defeat them.

The film underlines that Kittan is fighting his own battle, not against an individual or a team, but against the reality of his life. The identity of his opponents –  their caste, village or country – doesn’t matter to him or the story. The film features several Kabaddi matches, as Kittan moves from his school team to village and inter-zone levels, and beyond. Through it all, the focus remains on Kittan’s performance and his intention to perform better. His motivation doesn’t fluctuate based on whom he is playing against.

Kittan has to be extraordinary and prove his skills repeatedly to be recognised, become undeniable and be selected.

It is also important to note how the support that Kittan received from different people at various stages of his journey helped him become successful. When his father asks him why he came home when the village was burning in a riot, Kittan bursts out in frustration and anger. “They sent me back to go home. I came home, where else would I go?”. Leaning in with concern, Pasupathi asks, “Why did they ask you to go? Why wasn’t your name on the final list of the national team?” Kittan has no definite answer for this; his voice weakens and he says, “It could be anything – money, caste, religion, politics, anything.

Despite the riot, he refuses to leave; exhausted from running away since his childhood, to be seen as an equal, fellow human and to reach a place where no one can build a fence around him. When he was so determined not to leave the village, the phone call confirming his selection to the national team was the only way to take him out of that conflict-ridden space.

Even after going to the Japan Asian Games, Kittan was not allowed to play. When the final match between India and Pakistan is shown, Selavaraj explicitly denounces this fabricated notion of rivalry. His stance remains clear – it is not about the opponent, but about Kittan and whether after all his struggles, he would finally get the chance to play, thereby paving the way for others like him.

A quest for self-reflection and dialogue

What compels a Dalit to articulate their individual self – to themselves and to others? Is this act of explanation distinct from self-assertion? Does explaining oneself assert Dalit subjectivity, countering the existing dominant narrative?

It is evident from his writings, especially his book Marakkave Ninaikiren, that Selvaraj revisits his childhood and life experiences to engage more critically with them. This self-reflection is one of the biggest strengths of his storytelling that is mirrored in his movies, where all his protagonists reminisce about their childhood memories.

These memories form a base to understand the character, how a grown-up individual is an extension of what they had to experience in their childhood.

With each incident – from witnessing the first murder as a schoolboy, to having his hand broken by a group of unknown dominant caste men, to being suspected of killing Kandasamy (Lal), and his name being left out of the selection list, he was left unbearably shocked and filled with questions: “Why is all this hatred and caste difference fixed on an individual even before he is born, before his father and great-grand father were born?”. He keeps asking “why?” throughout the film, instead of arriving at a conclusion or taking sides. These questions asked by Kittan become unconventionally critical and compulsive.

Along with self-reflection, Selvaraj articulates his desire for a dialogue between a Dalit man and a dominant caste man with caste pride. He envisions this encounter as an exchange between two equal individuals, two standpoints facing each other on the same plane.

Though such a moment may appear idealistic or even impossible, Selvaraj still insists on it. The questions raised through this interaction in his movies may remain unanswered, and the reality of caste may remain unchanged, yet the act of asking these questions itself becomes vital.

It is significant that in the film, Selvaraj chooses not to show any interaction between Kittan and Pandiaraja, a Dalit leader who fights for the rights of his own caste group. Instead, he shows several exchanges between Kittan and dominant caste leader Kandasamy, encounters that may not be possible in the real world, conveying his vision of dialogue through cinema.

However, Selvaraj does not present dialogue as a substitute for retaliation, but as a step forward from it. Hailing from a caste-driven rural region, he offers a new framework of Dalit subjectivity which emphasises the importance of conversations between conflicted communities. In his previous film Karnan (2021), he makes it clear that retaliation is inevitable and that Dalits have historically responded to caste violence in multiple ways, often bearing the cost of that resistance.

He takes this further, urging the audience to ask what comes next, when a Dalit, who has lived through caste violence, begins to propose ideological dialogue as a means for social change. Dismantling multiple layers of caste oppression goes beyond mere dialogue, yet sustaining dialogue remains essential.

While Kittan struggles to understand why these injustices persist, the same questions are extended to every individual bound by caste pride, urging them to look beyond their caste identity and ask why such differences, hatred and conflicts among fellow human beings have been constructed and sustained. It is this longing for dialogue, however idealistic, that continues to be critical and defines Selvaraj’s cinematic vision.

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