National Identity In Bandit Queen

National identity, that sense of cohesion on a national scale as a unified whole, given to its people through culture, language, tradition; and of course varying depending on the different echelons of society within a nation. In the case of India these boundaries are set rather firmly in light of the social stratification known as the caste system. Caste in its simplest form being a system of social ranking that is determined by one’s birth. In the film Bandit Queen this is called into question, and if one were to critique the film in relation to this pieces outline, it would seem that rather than giving one a sense of any one dominant construction of national identity it opposingly, due to this form of social structure, gives the viewer a sense the countries lack of an explicit one. But then again perhaps it is our own western prejudice to think of a national identity as a unified whole rather than an assimilation of many subgroups of identities within a nation. As stated by Dr. Paul Readman of King’s College London, “—in some ways, I think the question do we need a national identity is based on a false premise, the false premise being that national identities are singular.” (kingscollegelondon, 2011) Undoubtably this is the case in this film due to the social implication and hurdles that the

Here the constructions surrounding national identities of the Mallaah are questioned, not by us, but by themselves. A reflective look at their own place in a society that considers them to be that of a lesser