Review: ‘Dhadak 2’ is a bold, powerful and often incendiary caste-crossed romance

In a North Indian city like any other unfolds a romance like few others. Neelesh and Viddhi have fallen in love. The knowledge of who they are, what they represent and what they must overcome to be together is not on the margins of Dhadak 2 but squarely in the foreground.

Shazia’s Iqbal’s bold, powerful and often incendiary adaptation of Mari Selvaraj’s Pariyerum Perumal (2018) brings into mainstream Hindi cinema the radical Dalit consciousness that has transformed the Tamil film industry over the past few years.

Selvaraj and Pa Ranjith are among the filmmakers behind proud assertions of Dalit identity and pathbreaking exposes of the injustice hardcoded into the caste system.

While Dhadak 2 stays largely faithful to the narrative beats of Pariyerum Perumal, Iqbal and co-writer Rahul Badwelkar make a few important changes in the Hindi version. Dhadak 2 lays bare conversations about caste that are largely absent from the average Bollywood romance.

When Viddhi (Triptii Dimri) first sees Neelesh (Siddhant Chaturvedi), he is playing drums alongside members of his Bhim Band at a function at her house. The chasm between them is not only economic. She’s upper caste, while he is Dalit – a truth reinforced for Neelesh when he joins the law college where Viddhi is also enrolled.

Neelesh’s nasty hazing by other students and a teacher is not generic....

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