Assimilation through Oppression in Rajamouli’s Rise! Roar! Revolt!

Director S.S. Rajamouli’s film RRR (Rise Roar Revolt) (2022) is a fictional retelling of the stories of revolutionaries Alluri Sitarama Raju (Rama) and Komaram Bheem, set during Indian resistance movements in the 1920s. In the film, Rama is depicted as a British officer, concealing his intention to secure firearms and provide them to the Telugu people, while Bheem is an auto-mechanic who veils his identity as a revolutionary protector of the Gond tribespeople. Throughout the film, Rama’s primary operative as a British officer is to apprehend the “hunter targeting the Governor” [1], and in pursuit of that quest, he encounters Bheem. The two of them develop a friendship which Bheem characterizes as “more precious than my life.”[2] However, the two are thrown into inevitable conflict when Rama realizes that Bheem is the “hunter” he is tasked to apprehend, and the two are pitted against each other in battle. Bheem is captured, but is later freed by Rama, and the two revolt against the Governor to free their peoples. Throughout the film, Rama and Bheem are forced to conform their ethnic identities to British standards to pursue their revolutionary goals. However, in doing so, they adopt aspects of the colonial culture they rebel against, even when they have no need to conceal their identities. To what extent does their forced adoption of British norms and practices change the way they treat their colonial oppressors, their own people, and themselves? I argue that, while Rama and Bheem’s revolutionary goals never change, their assimilation into British culture complicates their sense of identity, leading to alienation from their community as they attempt to reconcile the differences between their native ethnicity and their adopted culture. [1] RRR (Rise Roar Revolt), directed by S.S. Rajamouli (DVV Entertainment, 2022), 0:27:02. https://www.netflix.com/search?q=rrr&jbv=81476453. [2] RRR, 1:21:20