– Sathya Prakash Elavarthi & Vamshi Vemireddy

Introduction

The agitation for separate Telangana state brought to fore the language politics associated with Telugu cinema. As part of this agitation, Telugu cinema, which is dominated by people from coastal districts, has come under the active scrutiny of Telangana activists for denigration of Telangana dialect and culture. The most serious charge made against Telugu film industry is about its cultural insensitivity towards Telangana. There are quite a few films in which Telangana dialect and culture have been ridiculed and denigrated. In many Telugu films, Telangana dialect has been used as a tool to ridicule the nature of a character. This trend became distinctly visible after 1990’s with the release of Jayammu Nischayammu Raa (1990) and Mondi Mogudu Penki Pellam (1991). This period also coincides with the increasing migration of people from Andhra and Rayalaseema into Hyderabad and the complete relocation of the Telugu film industry from Madras to Hyderabad. As an increasing number of Seemandhra people came into Hyderabad, their anxieties of using and preserving their own dialect created complicated situations.

Meanwhile when the Telugu film industry shifted to Hyderabad in 1994 with active backing of N.T. Rama Rao’s regime, it was staring at Telangana as a different cultural space. Telugu cinema had to engage with Telangana, cinematically – as a distinct geographical, cultural and linguistic space. In this encounter, we do find a “secret fascination of otherness” as cultural studies theorist Stuart Hall observed (in another related context), which subsequently resulted in stereotyping of the region, its culture and its dialect. The constructed “othering” of Telangana manifested itself culturally and linguistically on the screen at various levels in the following decades. All through their prior existence, Telugu films used coastal Andhra dialects (Godavari and Krishna) as de facto standard and ignored other dialects including that of Telangana. However the representation of culture and language was not politicized until Telugu films started denigrating the Telangana Dialect in the 90s, after which it snowballed into a huge issue of self-assertion and identity. At this stage Telangana dialect ceased to be a question of ‘mere language’, and became an issue of identity and representation. As the movement for a separate state picked up steam, Telangana activists started projecting their dialect as a defiant statement of identity in the face of standardization and false homogeneity of the universal Telugu identity promoted by all media industries, including cinema.

Telangana Dialect in the 90s Telugu Cinema

As mentioned earlier, there have been consistent attempts to stereotype and to construct Telangana dialect and culture as the “other” after 1990’s in Telugu cinema. In Jayammu Nischayammu Raa, the actor Kota Srinivasa Rao speaks Telangana dialect to produce comedy. This character has the compulsive habit of narrating film stories to people in Telangana dialect. In this film, interestingly, except Kota’s character no one speaks in Telangana dialect, not even his son. Everybody else speaks the dominant coastal Andhra language. In addition, whenever this character speaks in the film, a donkey’s bray in the background adds to the comic element, by suggesting that the Telangana dialect sounds like donkey’s bray. In another film Mondi Mogudu Penki Pellam, Vijayashanti plays wife to a police officer. She is portrayed as a bubbly but ‘ignorant house wife’, who speaks Telangana dialect and does not know basic social etiquette. Except her character, no major character speaks her dialect in the film. Her behavior and language are ridiculed and used to generate comedy. Even though he loves her, her police officer husband is always ashamed of her language and makes sure that she does not speak in front of his colleagues and friends. When she speaks before a colleague in the first scene, he feels embarrassed and covers it up by saying, ‘she is doing research in Telangana Dialect’. Even a few months before the bifurcation, Andhra politicians and supporters of unified state were using the analogy of wife and husband to suggest that the dispute is internal and does not require outside intervention. The film is suggestive of the strange relationship between the two regions, where one region is ashamed of being with the other and wants to reform it to meet its standards.

These two films introduce the idea of Telangana in terms of its language cinematically to the other regions for the first time. The paradoxical anxiety and simultaneous indifference towards the “other” is remarkable in these films. Similar representation continued through various symbols, codes and metaphors; in fact these extended from Telangana comic characters to portrayal of evil using the characters that speak Telangana dialect. One finds this trend with the block buster film Nuvvu Nenu (2001), where in it deploys Telangana dialect for an important character. In this film, the heroine’s grandmother (played by Telangana Shakunthala) speaks Telangana dialect In this film, Telangana dialect is used to emphasize her cruel and villainous nature.. Even in this film, except the heroine’s father and her grandmother, not one of the characters including his daughter who is the heroine of the film speak the same dialect. Many other Telugu films deploy characters with Telangana dialect to generate two extreme emotions i.e., comedy and villainy. Telangana dialect is the primary premise on which the idea of ‘othering’ is constructed in all these films. Besides being the ‘other’, several traits like lack of manners and etiquette, unsophisticated language and expressions have been attributed to the characters that speak Telangana dialect. Such characterization of Telangana dialect and culture by Andhra filmmakers seems to stem from their perception that it is an inferior version of Telugu language and culture.

Questioning the ‘Telugu’ in Telugu Cinema

Mamidi Harikrishna in his article titled ‘Noorella Therpai Telangana Atma’ (The soul of Telangana on hundred years of Screen) charges that there is no Telangana in Telugu cinema. He argues that mainstream Telugu cinema was not able to reflect and capture the soul, struggles, and diversities of Telangana, despite speaking the same language. He further argues that the special ways of life and conditions in Telangana have influenced and contributed to parallel and cross-over cinema in India. He lists Ankur (1974), Nishant (1975), Baazaar (1982), Mandi (1983), Susman (1987), Hyderabad Blues (1998), Angrez (2005), Hyderabad Nawabs (2006) and how despite being made in non-Telugu languages, they reflect the region, its uniqueness and flavor.

The Telangana movement problematised the issue of representation and language not only in cinema but at various levels. Discrimination in school text books, state sanctioned cultural festivals, active endorsement of certain kind of Telugu in administrative activities while ignoring the heterogeneous nature of Telugu language were raised. Telangana movement primarily responded to Telugu cinema by attacking the hegemonic structures of the industry, and its links to the political apparatus dominated by Seemandhra. Activists argued that film Industry was given prime land at heavily subsidized prices, besides production subsidies, soft loans and tax incentives by successive governments to facilitate the shift of the industry from Madras to Hyderabad. Telangana activists pointed out that by using these subsidies some coastal Andhra filmmakers not only increased their assets manifold but also discriminated against the locals by denying equal opportunity. The newspaper, Namaste Telangana ran a series of accusatory articles (titled “Bomma-Borusu”, November, 2012) on the handful of big Andhra families that dominate Telugu film industry. The articles charge that film stars and studio owners close to political parties have made more wealth by acquiring real estate in Hyderabad than through film business. The articles also make very specific allegations of occupation of valuable government lands in Hyderabad, doing other business in lands assigned to build studios, and getting favorable “Re-use” Government Orders for the subsidized land assigned for film studios. The articles also charge vindictive attitude of these film families towards Telangana film producers, directors and artists by controlling the vital aspects of the industry.

‘Dialect’ical challenge to Telugu cinema

The dialect which was denigrated in various ways in Andhra dominated media was consciously chosen as the language of resistance by Telangana activists. Coded in the ‘ethno-aesthetics’ of Telangana, this dialect produced cognitive dissonance in the speakers of ‘standard’ language. Through constant use in the movement, Telangana dialect was aesthetisized positively to a great extent. Student groups, cultural troupes constantly produced new arguments and rhetoric against the alleged cultural aggrandizement of the Andhra Telugu culture. It was developed into a special art, mostly in song as the movement progressed. The Dhoom dhams and other cultural festivals gave enough spaces for creative usage and development of new aesthetics based on Telangana dialect.

These platforms created a huge body of literature of resistance which also critiqued the media industries. Faced with this creative resistance, the standard language had started showing signs of weariness. Once Telangana based print and television news media organizations started using the dialect, the de facto power of the standard language started crumbling. The film industry too could not continue in the same mode, while under attack from the Telangana activists. Whenever the Telangana activists felt misrepresented, or when they felt the members of the industry were supporting United Andhra, they protested. These activities ranging from burning of the film reels, gheraoing film stars on location, vandalizing the film theaters and offices of film companies, burning of effigies, police complaints, to demonstrations put a lot of pressure on the film industry.

This situation pushed the film industry to re-think and re-articulate its position on portrayal of Telangana dialect and culture. Film industry started looking for positive portrayal of Telangana and for providing at least token representation for Telangana artists and themes. As a result film heroes, who were speaking Andhra dialect all through on screen, started speaking in Telangana dialect. Sometimes the story was set in Telangana regions to suggest that the hero is from Telangana. Telugu cinema finally yielded to the onslaught. The grand narratives of Telugu cinema and the hyperbole of the Andhra hero were easy target for the vibrant and people centered Telangana movement. The movement seems to have deconstructed every idea of Teluguness (culture, language, aesthetics). Political resistance centered on Dialect had been raised to the form of an art during Telangana Movement, while Telugu cinema was found wanting in all ways. Telugu cinema stood as a sore example for the cultural supremacy thesis of Andhras. When it was attacked it was hardly in a position to defend itself and all it stood for.

 

Sathya Prakash teaches in University of Hyderabad and Vamshi Vemireddy teaches in NIT, Rourkela.