Staging Caste: Dalit Feminist Identity,Love and Intersectionality in Natchathiram Nagargiradhu

Abstract

This article examines how Natchathiram Nagargiradhu (2022) reconfigures Dalit subjectivity by politicizing intimacy. I ask: How does the film mobilize love to contest caste and gender governance? Using qualitative film analysis with scene segmentation and thematic coding of dialogue, mise en scène, sound and metatheatrical address, I analyse moments of caste confrontation, romantic negotiation and collective performance. The analytic lens combines Crenshaw’s structural and political intersectionality with Sharmila Rege’s Dalit feminist standpoint; findings are triangulated with peer-reviewed scholarship. The analysis demonstrates that the film reframes love as a counter-public practice that challenges caste discipline, deploys metatheatre to expose the performative production of purity and stigma, and articulates Rene as an agentive Dalit feminist subject rather than a liberal victim figure. I analyse how a Dalit standpoint reorganizes cinematic form and address, contributing to debates in ethnic and racial studies on representation, intimacy and minoritized publics. The study advances methodized film analysis of caste and speaks to comparative conversations on caste, gender and media.