Director Krish is well-known for his marvellous works like Gamyam, Vedam and Krishnam Vande Jagadgurum. He owns a style in portraying characters. He usually showcases real-life problems in his movies. In Kanche, he used World War II as a backdrop to the love story between the leads. He showed that Love and War are indistinguishable.
Kanche shows how lower caste Haribabu and upper-caste Sithadevi fell in love and had to fight to stay together in 1936 and how Nazis attack the Indian army in the Italian camp among whom Haribabu is a soldier in 1944. The 1936 and 1944 scenes go simultaneously, without any chaos. The film begins with Dhupati Haribabu writing a letter to Rachakonda Sitadevi, his love about the conditions of war and camps. Parallelly, he keeps recalling how their love flourished, how they got married and what happened aftermath.
With the changing times, people evolved. Many social evils like Sati Sahagamana, female foeticide were eradicated and people were very happy. But little did they know that the Caste system the most vicious social evil is still going to prevail till the very end. As Haribabu said, “Bandhalu bathakadaniki perlu pilavadaniki”, we don’t need to see qualifications and caste of a person to converse or establish a relationship with them. But we as people fight over land and water, race and community, language and dialects. We keep bringing out evil in ourselves that the good in us die eventually. We demarcate ourselves from the rest. The caste system not only separated people but also changed people’s perspectives. This exactly what the social evils does to people. This point is excellently written and portrayed in the film.
Before Hitler, during 1900s many interpreted Aryan race to be pure and noble and there used to be hatred towards others based on religion. But Hitler introduced Anti-semitism, a racial hierarchy putting Aryans at the top and Jews, Gypsies at the bottom. The hatred based on religion drifted to hatred based on race. Similar to the case of Jews in Germany, Dalits, lower-caste in India suffered untouchability and were excluded from the four-fold varna system. Racism is recent in human history but the caste system is ancient. Dalits in India and Jews in Germany suffered similar pain. The problem in both places is identical and director Krish used this aspect to show that differences in people can only cause destruction, be it a life of one single person or an entire nation.
When Eshwar, Sitadevi’s brother finds out about his sister’s love with lower-caste Haribabu, he goes to such an extent where he insults and degrades her. He along with his father sparks fire among villagers to rise caste issues to kill Haribabu without them involving. He uses the caste differences between villagers to build a fence. After the leads marry, he starts a fight with Haribabu during which he kills his sister accidentally. In comparison to this scene, Nazis decide to kill a little girl because a German doctor married a Jewish woman which is against their rules and sets a search-party. Haribabu with the help of fellow soldiers saves the little girl and also Eshwar who was captivated by the Nazis. Haribabu then compares both the situations and tells that what happened in Devarakonda with Sithadevi is similar to what is happening to the little girl. He also adds that Devarakonda was fenced with caste issues, Germany is fenced with religion and community issues. He also enlightens Eshwar about how differences increase the distance between people and how love brings people close together. He says no caste is inferior just like any religion. While Eshwar fights against the Germans, he relates what he did to Haribabu and the village to what Germans are doing to Jews.
When Eshwar realises his mistake, he repents and orders to remove the fence. Then his grandmother quotes, “Annam mudhalaa unde ooru methukulu laa vidipoindhi. Manushulu kalisi undali, kanchelu vesukuni kaadhu”. From minor fights in a small village to a major war in between countries, differences between people is the main reason. This key point is highlighted throughout the movie. Krish clearly showed that the entire human race is the exploitation of others and is an exercise in mutual destruction through Kanche.
