A Voice for the Voiceless: A Subaltern Reading of Vetrimaaran’s Asuran (2019)

Abstract

This paper is a subaltern reading of Asuran (2019), placing the film within the critical discourse of the subaltern studies and Dalit aesthetics. Based on Antonio Gramsci’s idea of the subaltern; Ranajit Guha’s critique of elite historiography and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s theoretical intervention within the idea of representation in Can the Subaltern Speak? Based on these theoretical frameworks, the paper analyzes Asuran in terms of dominion of caste through land acquisition, institutional complicity and everyday terror. It suggests that the movie functions as a subaltern text because it focuses on Dalit lived experience, disrupting and destabilizing hegemonic discourses of order and justice, and acts as a site of agency not just by means of vengeance, but also through educating and raising political awareness. Even though the movie is on the verge of romanticizing violence, it is eventually able to assert the subaltern voice that represents the livelihood of the Dalit people. To be a process of transitioning from violence to socio-political awareness.