Dhadak, the 2018 Hindi remake of the acclaimed Marathi film Sairat, tackles some profound

sociological themes around India's deeply entrenched caste system, honour killings, and the
consequences of defying regressive societal norms. While the original Sairat was bitter and more
hard-hitting in its portrayal of these issues, Dhadak still manages to shine an urgent light on the harsh
realities facing India's youth in the face of oppressive caste and class divides. The film centres around
Madhukar "Madhu" Bhagla (Ishaan Khatter) and Parthavi "Parthavi" Singh Rathore (Janhvi Kapoor),
two youngsters from starkly different backgrounds who fall hopelessly in love. Madhu hails from a
working-class family employed at a small restaurant run by local political heavyweights, the powerful
Rathore family. Parthavi belongs to this upper caste, land-owning Rathore family that prides itself on
maintaining its "pure" bloodlines and superiority over the lower castes. Their pure and innocent love
story develops amidst the backdrop of deeply rooted caste based discrimination, with the young
lovers largely oblivious to the harsh societal realities that will soon threaten to tear them apart. In
their youthful idealism, they naively believe that love can conquer the rigid boundaries imposed by
India's age-old caste hierarchies. Dhadak effectively captures the heady intoxication of first love, the
stolen glances, the breathless courtship rituals, the timeless desire to be transported into a magical
bubble where regressive societal diktats cease to matter. However, this fairytale illusion is shattered
in brutal fashion when Parthavi's family discovers her relationship with the "untouchable" Madhu. In
a powerful scene depicting patriarchal honour-based oppression, Parthavi's cold-hearted father
Ratan (Ashutosh Rana) callously berates her, slaps her violently across the face, and orders his goons
to teach Madhu a harsh lesson by viciously assaulting and humiliating him. This disturbing sequence
lays bare the deeply toxic masculinity and dehumanizing thought processes that fuel honour killings
and crimes in the name of preserving family "honour" in certain regressive sections of Indian society.
The caste discrimination and dehumanization Madhu faces is hauntingly portrayed. He is referred to
as merely a "kachra" (garbage), sub-human filth deemed utterly unworthy of mingling with the upper
caste elite, much less being in a relationship with one of their women. Despite being a hardworking,
good-natured person, Madhu finds himself at the receiving end of unrelenting castiest persecution
merely for daring to dream beyond his ascribed station. Even his own father Bhagwandas Bhagla
(Shridhar Watsar), a lifelong indentured servant of the Rathores, internalizes this oppression to a
heart-rending degree, quietly accepting the beatings and humiliation heaped upon the family due to
the tyrannical hold of the wealthy upper caste landlords. In the face of such unrelenting casteist
persecution that shows no signs of abating, a battered but defiant Madhu pleads with a disillusioned
Parthavi to elope with him, seeing it as their only path to escape the discriminatory brutalities
imposed by her regressive, honour-obsessed family. Parthavi, having had her naïve illusions about
love conquering all shattered, makes the agonizing but inevitable decision to turn herself into a
refugee with Madhu, turning their backs on their communities, families and homes. This daring
decision to elope sets off a thundering chain of events that sees the young couple go on the run,
grappling with poverty, betrayal, constant threats of honour killings, police brutality, and the ever-
present danger of being ensnared and exploited by human traffickers who prey on the vulnerable.
Despite their passionate love and desperate efforts to forge a life together against all odds, Madhu
and Parthavi find themselves tragically being reduced to rhinos in a sense - solitary, hunted creatures
perpetually seeking the next watering hole to camp at, however temporarily. Amidst this roiling
sociological turmoil, Dhadak makes some keen observations about how systemic oppression and
poverty are inextricably interlinked. Coming from an underprivileged background and having
witnessed exploitation firsthand, Madhu is keenly aware that the caste system remains a tool for
economic subjugation as much as a means of safeguarding manufactured notions of ethnic "purity"
and bloodlines. "The differences between us are not just of status, but also of bread," he laments in
one particularly gut punching line. For Madhu, the societal segregation imposed by the caste system
is fundamentally an economic order that keeps the majority disadvantaged, landless and
impoverished while allowing the minority elite to hoard resources and maintain feudal-era control
over the populace. His attempts to break free from this cycle of oppressive poverty see him grappling
with desperate, high-risk expedients like transporting illicit goods - paths that only lead to further
exploitation and dehumanization at the hands of criminal overlords looking to take advantage. The
film's narrative trajectory takes some disheartening but realistic turns, departing from the
predictable formulas of mainstream Bollywood melodramas. Dhadak resists taking the easy route of
having the young couple's defiant love ultimately remake the world and upend centuries-old
oppressive societal structures in a pat, simplistic ending. Instead, it depicts how their best-laid plans
and youthful optimism run aground against the harsh ground realities and intractable,
multigenerational divides that have plagued the Indian social fabric for centuries. There are no
simplistic heroics or unbelievable resolutions, merely a young man and woman ground down to a
nub by relentless ostracization, lack of economic opportunities, constant life-or-death struggles
against human predators, and the looming shadow of their honour obsessed families ever nipping at
their heels. In soul-crushing fashion, Madhu and Parthavi are gradually stripped of their dignity,
finances, safety net and even basic joys - their fairytale romance devolving into a scorched-earth saga
of survival against insurmountable odds. The climactic tragedy that befalls the couple appears almost
inevitable, the inescapable price to be paid for daring to transgress India's rigid codes of caste,
gender, sexuality, and societal control. Their individual acts of youthful rebellion, as impassioned as
they are, prove insufficient to shake the deeply ossified foundations of an unjust social order
designed to crush such dissent from the margins. In a powerfully symbolic moment, Madhu
confronts his own father Bhagwandas, berating him for his lifelong complicity in accepting debasing
oppression from the upper castes rather than rebelling. This intense exchange crystallizes how
entrenched mindsets on both sides of the divide serve to reinforce the caste status quo across
generations. Dhadak's most biting social commentary comes in the form of its nuanced portrayal of
how these multigenerational cycles of discrimination and regressive thought patterns are
perpetuated across both the oppressed and oppressor classes. The upper caste, land-owning
Rathores are themselves victims of sorts - not of oppression per se, but of patriarchal thought viruses
that have been passed down over generations. The film makes it clear that while misguided, their
brutality and pathological determination to extinguish Parthavi and Madhu's relationship at any cost
arises not from individual malice, but from a deep-rooted indoctrinated belief in casteist concepts
like "purity of blood", twisted obsession with controlling women's sexuality, and draconian
patriarchal "honour" codes designed to subjugate female autonomy. The character of Parthavi's
father Raunak is the living embodiment of these fossilized, archaic values. Despite his air of suave
menace and polished urban affluence, he remains a proponent of the ancient, discredited
Manusmriti laws that established the iniquitous caste hierarchies. His relentless pursuit of Madhu
and obsession with neutralizing the perceived "stain" on his family's caste occurs not because he is
inherently evil, but because centuries of social conditioning have hard-wired such regressive thought
codes into his psyche. On the other end of the spectrum, the character of Madhu's father
Bhagwandas is a heartbreaking embodiment of how the oppressed, having internalized their own
oppression over generations, can become complicit in upholding the very same regressive systems
and power structures that dehumanize them. Despite the routine abuse, humiliation and destitution
he faces at the hands of the Rathore. It is this self-perpetuating, multi-generational nature of
oppressive societal coding on both sides of the class/caste divide that makes Dhadak's conflict so
poignant and existentially tragic. As the young protagonists grapple for something as fundamental as
the right to choose who to love without death threats, the viewer is reminded that they are mere
sacrificial pawns in an ancient, deeply embedded battle of regressive mindsets, obsolete but
obdurately persisting feudal power structures, and hopelessly outdated notions of caste purity,
honour and bloodline supremacy. While Dhadak makes some notable departures from the hard-
hitting authenticity and unflinching brutality of the original Sairat, it still does a reasonably admirable
job of holding up a mirror to some of the most deep-seated sociological fault lines in Indian society.
The film does not shy away from depicting honour killings, caste-based violence, patriarchal
oppression of women, youth struggling against regressive family beliefs, poverty's inescapable
quicksand-like grip, and the very real threat of human trafficking that preys on the young and
disenfranchised.