Papilio Buddha (film)

Papilio Buddha is a 2013 Indian feature film written and directed by Jayan K. Cherian. The film focuses on the atrocities committed against Dalits, women and the environment. It features Sreekumar, David Briggs and Saritha Sunil in the lead roles while Padmapriya, Prakash Bare and Thampy Antony play supporting roles. Kerala-based Environmentalist Kallen Pokkudan appears in another important role in the film which also cast 150 Adivasis. The film was completely shot from Wayanad in Kerala and the cinematography has been done by M J Radhakrishnan. The story deals with discrimination against landless Dalits and the politics of suppression of their struggle against the upper castes and other powerful elements locally.

The film unfolds in fictional space, in a Dalit settlement called Meppara. It explores the life of a group of displaced Dalits in the Western Ghats of India and probes the new identity politics based on Ambedkarism, gaining momentum among the Dalits in the region, in the milieu of an ongoing land struggle. A band of displaced untouchables in Western Ghats of India embrace Buddhism in order to escape from caste oppression. The on-screen happenings are from the perspective of a youth Sankaran, a Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) dropout, whose insecurity and reticence are in stark contrast to the deep-rooted faith and conviction of his father Kandal Kariyan.

Shankaran (Sreekumar), a young Dalit man, befriends a white gay American lepidopterist Jack (David Briggs), for whom he helps catch butterflies, including the rare and beautiful Papilio buddha, and it turns out the two men are romantically involved. While to the displeasure of Shankaran’s elderly father, homosexuality is of little consequence among this Dalit community.