Kantara, Chomana Dudi, and the cultural trajectory of Panjurli

Two distant cinematic events, somehow related, have become accidentally relevant for the moment. Apart from ‘Kantara: Chapter 1’, a prequel of the hit 2022 film, due for release on October 2, the year marks the 50th anniversary of B V Karanth’s ‘Chomana Dudi’ (1975). The latter is a Swarna Kamal winner for Best Film and one of the most important Kannada films ever made. Both ‘Kantara’ and Karanth’s film invoke Panjurli Daiva a deity from the coastal belt that takes the shape of a boar though in different ways. There was some criticism of ‘Kantara’ from liberal circles accusing it of appropriating tribal belief on behalf of mainstream Hinduism, in the ascendant since 2014. I don’t think this criticism was pertinent because ‘mainstream’ Hinduism is itself an accretion of various practices, m