‘Dhadak 2’ Is About Love, Death, and Caste in India

Boy meets girl. Cue: gentle breeze, the early hints of a tender ballad, a soft haze of light, the sounds of the world stopping in its tracks. Love, as many an Indian film has shown, is a showstopper. The blurring headiness of love has you doing the inane, the impossible, the jejune—even breaking out into song in the middle of the street.

But there’s no point in having love without drama—especially in Indian cinema. In a country where weddings are often a way of affirming social hierarchy (take last year’s Ambani wedding, a billionaire’s outlandish display of wealth, fame, and capital), love can be constrained.

That makes filmmaker Shazia Iqbal’s recently released debut feature film Dhadak 2 a mutinous undertaking, not just against a caste-divided Indian society, but against the time-and-tested trope of popular Hindi cinema where the coda to a love story is a happy marriage. A remake of the 2018 Tamil-language film, Pariyerum Perumal (directed by Mari Selvaraj), Dhadak 2 transplants the story of caste violence and prejudice from a town in Tamil Nadu to the heart of the Hindi heartland. While it’s common for Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, and Malayalam films to be adapted into other languages, it requires significant rewriting to fit the cultural and linguistic milieu—unsurprising given the diversity at play in a country like India.

Most notably, while Pariyerum Perumal restricted its leads to friendship, Dhadak 2 tackles inter-caste romance directly. The film’s name means literally heartbeat, an image that hints at both infatuation and suspense. 

Dhadak 2 explores the burgeoning relationship between an upper-caste woman and a Dalit man (who belongs to historically scorned lower caste) at law school. But unlike most Hindi films where courtship might be tough but marriage means happily ever after, Dhadak 2 chooses to consider the aftermath of love. What comes of intimacy in a society divided by notions of purity, superiority, and even who can and can’t be touched? In the subcontinent, where caste regulates access to education, progress, and assimilation—where Dalits are still punished with untouchability and violence—Dhadak 2 weighs the price of love.

To be sure, Indian film industries aren’t entirely averse to unhappy endings. Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet has been adapted many times, from K. Balachander’s musical melodrama Maro Charithra (1978) in Telugu, the yuppie romance of Mansoor Khan’s Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak (1988), which marked Indian movie star Aamir Khan’s breakout, to the explosively fatalistic Ram-Leela (2013) by Sanjay Leela Bhansali.

These films teased love as an all-consuming affair in the face of family apathy, but they also understood a deeply uncomfortable truth that has endured in the subcontinent: It is nearly impossible to consummate a relationship without family acceptance in India. The division between Capulets and Montagues—or the Rajadis and Saneras—makes an instinctive sense to Indian audiences.

But most Bollywood romances stick to the idea that sincere love can move mountains and even shift the stony resolve of an unhappy parent. Hindi cinema’s greatest love story, Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (1995), which continues to be screened at a dedicated movie theater in Mumbai today, is the tentpole here. Exploring tensions within the diaspora, the film valorizes family values, which are held as the absolute, grounding phenomenon in a society inching toward modernity—a sentiment shared by Sooraj Barjatya’s saccharine-coated romantic family drama Hum Aapke Hain Koun..! (1994), where young lovers Prem and Nisha forsake their relationship at the altar for the sake of their families.

Dhadak 2 is tougher minded, although it comes from Karan Johar’s Dharma Productions, a production house that has turned out plenty of routine romances. In the multi-star ensemble vehicles of Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham… (2001) and Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani (2023), set over 20 years apart, Johar and his company stuck to the traditional happy ending of a unified, upper-class family.

“In our society, we love only after considering caste and religion. It’s very disturbing. You’re negotiating with yourself because your parents have told you not to fall for somebody or marry outside our community. So even the ones that defy their parents by loving someone, they often just love within their communities,” Iqbal told Foreign Policy. “We wanted to deviate from that trope.”

From the very first scene in Dhadak 2, Iqbal is intent on squashing the sanguine pleasures of Bollywood romance. The adaptation moves the story away from the original’s small-town setting to an unnamed city in Madhya Pradesh. We see a couple in a humble apartment under a portrait of Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, the architect of the Indian Constitution and a prominent Dalit leader. In another movie, they would be the protagonists, but immediately after the young woman leaves, a nameless man (Saurabh Sachdeva) appears. He promptly kills the young man, ending a story before it begins.

An Indian audience immediately understands this is an honor killing, where young people are killed by their own families for loving outside their caste or religion. This nightmare scenario quickly underscores that Dhadak 2 is a very different kind of movie.

 “For the adaptation, our idea was to root it in the Hindi heartland. The city could be Bhopal, Patna, or Jaipur. Rather than this being a story of a small place being restricted by its geography, we wanted to expand it in scope, appeal to a wider audience that this could be happening just about anywhere in the country,” Iqbal said.

Then we meet the actual stars. Neelesh Ahirwar (in a brilliant turn from young actor Siddhant Chaturvedi) and Vidhisha Bhardwaj (Triptii Dimri) meet at a wedding. But this is far from the typical meet-cute. While Vidhisha—Vidhi to her friends—is in the thick of wedding festivities, Neelesh is at the wedding as a drummer in a band called the Bhim Baaja Dhol Boys. His troupe is made to stand separate from the celebration, a metallic gate concretely segregating Neelesh and his bandmates from the festivities. Vidhi dares to cross the threshold—she wants Neelesh’s number so he can play the drums at her sister’s upcoming wedding. There is an undercurrent of flirtation, but the lines of social status have already been drawn.

“There is a misconception people have that caste doesn’t operate in urban areas. But that’s not true,” Iqbal said. “There is a dialogue in the film, ‘Those who don’t experience it don’t know that it’s happening.’ In villages, there is a clear separation in how upper and lower castes interact or keep away from each other. People accept it as a way of life. But in urban areas, with more mobilization, the discrimination happens in a more invisible way. So, it was a conscious choice to adapt the film in an urban setting, to tackle the insidious ways caste operates in this milieu.”

Neelesh and Vidhi meet again, this time at a government law college. They’re equals here; education is meant to level their playing field. But such equality is far from accessible. On the first day of class, students introduce themselves with their full name—which, for Indians, contain an instant set of caste markers; a smattering of names like Bhardwaj, Agrawal, Rastogi, Gupta, Verma, and Upadhyay tells Neelesh he’s surrounded by largely upper-caste classmates.

From the onset, Neelesh is singled out for earning his seat via India’s version of affirmative action, the long-standing government program of reserved places at top schools for members of backward classes. Despite having the smarts to be a lawyer, Neelesh is also alienated by the rigorous expectations of English-language education—his education so far has been in Hindi—and is virtually the only Dalit student in most social environments

In this atmosphere, Vidhi seeks Neelesh’s friendship at first, and later his love, slowly becoming his one confidant. Vidhi, the outspoken daughter of a family of lawyers, is naturally argumentative. She’s a woman of the moment, au courant with the latest internet buzzwords. “Toxic masculinity” she blurts out, when Neelesh asks her why her previous relationship ended. “But you don’t have that illness,” Vidhi assures him. Why would he? He’s studying at a college where he’s told repeatedly that he doesn’t belong. Far from confident in his place in the world, he’s just trying to get by.

This resignation also impedes Neelesh’s friendship with Shekhar (Priyank Tiwari), a Dalit student activist on campus, which is an alteration to the original film’s story. (While Dhadak 2 remains loyal to its source material, there are a few significant changes in the screenplay by Rahul Badwelkar and Iqbal.) Shekhar’s character is conceptualized as an ode to Rohith Vemula, a Dalit PhD scholar at the University of Hyderabad who died by suicide in 2016, after claiming institutional harassment related to his anti-caste activism. Shekhar is an outspoken student leader who is unafraid to take on upper-caste bullies on campus. While Neelesh is clearly in awe of Shekhar, he resists activism, choosing instead to go under the radar.

But Neelesh’s closeness with Vidhi doesn’t go unnoticed. It earns him the ire of Vidhi’s family. Vidhi’s character is also a surge forward from the original film, in which the young woman is a passive, reluctant observer of the humiliation the protagonist is put through. While Vidhi comes-of-age in her blossoming relationship, she is yet simple-minded to the closeted intentions of her family, particularly her doting father. She invites Neelesh to a family wedding, frustratingly ignorant to their family’s deep sense of prejudice; here, her family roughs up and humiliates Neelesh far from the prying eyes of the celebrations. Vidhi slowly awakens to her own family’s culpability in the horrors afflicting Neelesh—in doing so, Neelesh and Vidhi are brought closer. Dhadak 2 strays from the original film by affording Neelesh and Vidhi a romantic track—a decision that earned the movie some flak for “Bollywoodizing” the story.  

“I felt that if we allow Neelesh to fall in love, then his journey becomes far more complicated. In the original film, Pari [the analogous character] is beaten up at the wedding, despite not even loving the girl,” Iqbal said. “When we switch that in the adaptation, when Neelesh is told he has to keep away from Vidhi because that could spell death for both him and her, the stakes are much higher.”

Dhadak 2’s scenes of intimacy and its romantic ballads are lovely, and for Neelesh, they’re also dangerous and freeing. As he grows closer to Vidhi, Neelesh is maturing politically thanks to characters like Shekhar and the college principal, a member of a lower-caste Muslim community almost never seen in mainstream Hindi cinema. There is an imbalance even in the way Neelesh and Vidhi approach each other. While Vidhi feels entitled to Neelesh’s space and company, Neelesh is restrained, thinking before reacting. Vidhi pursues him, while Neelesh shies away—much more aware of the real-world dangers that Vidhi’s internet-coached progressivism overlooks.

“People have noticed how the film has a very strong feminine gaze, not just in worldbuilding but also in the way the characters that have changed from the original,” Iqbal said. “There is a certain way Neelesh operates—it’s not very masculine or assertive.”

Neelesh’s mother is a former political leader, cautious of her son’s new friend. His father (Vipin Sharma, in an empathetic turn) is a traveling drag performer, himself vulnerable to the kind of violence he fears for his son at a big law college. The experience of terror informs their every gaze, gesture, and cautionary word of advice.

In contrast, the first time we meet Vidhi’s family, they’re arranging a marriage proposal for their elder daughter. There is some confusion—both families trade back and forth to determine if their castes are compatible; if they’re the kind of Brahmins who “fit.” When Vidhi invites Neelesh to her sister’s wedding, her family’s fear is two-fold: the idea of having to cavort with a Dalit man, and the prospect of their outspoken daughter potentially bring dishonor on their family name through an inter-caste relationship. The contract killer from the first scene of the film appears several times, carrying out honor killings in the background. He is the predictive thread of the film—however sophisticated Vidhi’s family might seem, his presence suggests that they might not be above hiring his services.

This portrayal shatters the illusory appeal of Bollywood cinema’s happily-ever-after. By exposing the fractures inherent to dominant caste family dynamics and institutions—where women are allowed freedom to study but not choose their partners; where the household is curated with domineering male figures and compliant women; where violence is a recourse to having one’s way—Iqbal salvages love from the social consummation of family. After decades of posturing harmless, even idealistic, upper-caste families, Dhadak 2 dares to rupture the sophisticated veneer of the happy family.

That the film chooses to end with Neelesh and Vidhi in the classroom, taking an exam, rather than at the marriage altar, is also a subversive rejection of the quintessential Bollywood climax.

“This is that kind of forbidden love, right? You’re fighting the parents, you’re fighting the society,” Iqbal said. “The conflict there is often class and rarely caste, and eventually they either convince the parents and live together or die in the end. We wanted to deviate from that but also end on hope. There are caste killings happening throughout the film, so it is tethered to harsh reality. But we wanted to give the audience some hope for the future. It’s not a resolution; the fight isn’t over yet.”

Dhadak 2 earned its title as a spiritual successor to Dhadak (2018), which was itself a remake of Sairat (2016), a gripping Marathi-language romantic drama directed by Nagraj Manjule that tackled caste hierarchy and violence. But Dhadak softened its story, whereas Dhadak 2 hardens it. Not everything works: The instinct to brand the film as part of a caste cinematic universe feels contrived, as do some of the aesthetic choices, like making the lead’s skin darker to convey that he’s Dalit, feeding into centuries-long misconceptions about skin color and caste hierarchy. But these are rare sour notes in a grippingly effective portrayal of caste and an indictment of the industry’s own complicity.

“There is a certain erasure that happens when you stop talking about where people come from. Identity gets tacked on to us, and in India, it’s not possible for everyone to rewrite their identity,” Iqbal said. “Somewhere Bollywood has moved past it. Because I think people in the industry come from a certain privilege, they are telling their own stories of where they come from, and unfortunately, where they come from, identity does not operate in the way it does in a more underprivileged community. That’s why these stories have been lost in the last few decades.”

At a time when mainstream Hindi cinema is about reclaiming lost Hindu glory, with films either centering the dominant caste experience or actively rewriting history, Dhadak 2 registers defiantly. It asks us to consider the cost of love in a deeply fractured state, and the fight for survival.

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