'Made in Heaven' makers deny Yashica Dutt’s claims

The second season of Made in Heaven released a few days back and the 5th episode, titled ‘The heart skipped a beat’ showcasing the marriage of a Dalit character played by Radhika Apte in the Buddhist tradition has become the cause of a controversy. 

Author of the book ‘Coming out as a dalit’, Yashica Dutt has penned down her thoughts about the incident on Instagram

“The scene where the Dalit author who is from Columbia, has written a book about ‘Coming Out’, and talks about how her grandmother ‘manually cleaned toilets’ (while wearing all blue as an homage to Ambedkar), asserts her selfhood with her life partner to-be, gave me chills,” Dutt wrote. “It was surreal to see a version of my life on screen that wasn’t but yet was still me. But soon the heartbreak set in. They were my words but my name was nowhere. What could have been a celebration of our collective ideas was now tinged with sadness. The ideas I cultivated, that are my life’s work, that I continue to receive immense hate still for just speaking, were taken without permission or credit.” her post read. 

The makers of the show have responded to the claim. Neeraj Ghaywan, director of the show also posted his side of the controversy on Instagram. 

“We categorically deny any claim that Ms. Dutt's life or work was appropriated by us.'Coming out' is a 1950's academic LGBTQIA term that was first used by Mr. Sumit Baudh in the Indian caste identity context in 2007. He used this in an article he wrote for Tarshi. A decade later it was used by Ms. Dutt in her book. This term has since become common parlance for reclaiming caste-identity.In the episode, the character, Pallavi Menke simply uses it in this context. The character does not attribute herself and neither has she been attributed with coining this term or being the pioneer of its usage in a Dalit context. In the episode Pallavi Menke mentions her

grandmother's back story. This narrative of cleaning toilets was included because it is a common history that came up recurrently in our research of the community.” his post read.