Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Class’ On Netflix, An Indian Remake Of ‘Elite’ That Brings The Caste System Into Focus

The Spanish series Elite became a huge hit for Netflix because it had teenage sex and drug use layered with an undeniable “rich vs. poor” vibe. The series has been remade in India under the title Class, and class is most definitely a big part of this version.

CLASS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A teenage girl lies dead, a pool of blood around her head. A teenage boy is questioned by police.

The Gist: Dheeraj (Piyush Khati) starts telling the story about how he is in this place, with the dead girl just outside the door. His school in the lower-class neighborhood of Nurpur Khatola in Delhi burned to the ground, and people blamed Ahuja Builders, who managed the building. They responded by paying scholarships for the remaining students to go to other schools around the city.

Three are chosen for Hampton International School, the most prestigious school in Delhi. There’s Dheeraj, whose older brother Neeraj (Gurfateh Pirzada) is at the forefront of the protests against the Ahuja family; Saba (Madhyama Segal), a Muslim who wants to be a diplomat and is informed of the “Hampton Gold” scholarship; and Balli (Cwaayal Singh), a crummy student who hacked his way in, has lots of followers on TikTok and Instagram, where he twerks while shirtless.

During their first day of school at Hampton, they’re immediately looked at with derision, called insulting names like “beggars”, “waiters” and others that indicate what the upper-class caste that populates the school think about the lower-class caste the three scholarship students are in.

One person takes a liking to Dheeraj: Suhani (Anjali Sivaraman), who is in the same grade as her younger brother Veer (Zeyn Shaw); their dad is Suraj Ahuja (Chandan Anand), the head of Ahuja Builders; during a party for the students at Hampton, he announces that he’ll rebuild the school in Nurpur, along with a massive building that looks like a rec center for the exceedingly wealthy.

Shuhani is close to being shunned by her family; she’s not just rebellious, but she’s been treated for mental health issues that have made her dependent on drugs. She thinks her parents have been overbearing with how they’ve dealt with it, but they’re tired of her embarrassing the family with her antics, which includes talking to someone like Dheeraj.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Class is a direct remake of the hit Spanish series Elite, and the first episode has a lot of the same story beats as the first episode of the original series. But there’s one major difference between the shows, which we’ll detail below.

Our Take: We went back to our first-episode review of Elite and noticed that Class‘s first episode more closely followed it than we realized. Veer’s girlfriend Yashika (Ayesha Kanga) becomes a direct rival to Saba; Saba is told by the principal to take off her hijab; Koel (Naina Bhan) takes a liking to Balli, and her boyfriend Sharan (Moses Koul) doesn’t seem to mind. Dhruv (Chayan Chopra), the principal’s son, gets high with Balli’s drug dealer Faruq (Chintan Rachchh), whom he’s insanely attracted to, but he’s completely in the closet.

Each and every one of those plotlines, including the murder that kicks things off, is from Elite, as is the disdain the upper-class scions have for the three lower-class scholarship students who enter the school. But the caste system is still prevalent in India, despite efforts to desegregate and do away with biases against lower castes. The undercurrent of those strong biases is prevalent when the privileged students of Hampton make fun of the scholarship students’ accents, grasp of English and even how they dress. To them, these people are no better than beggars and should be treated as such.

There’s also a much stronger anti-Muslim sentiment running through the students’ interaction with Saba in particular. At the party, for instance, Yashika tells Veer that Saba “shouldn’t even be in this country,” and hatches a plan for Veer to take her virginity. Now, we know that Saba is hiding where she’s actually from (Pakistan, maybe?), so that part of the story will be intriguing at some point. But those feelings, along with the specter of the caste system hovering over all the interactions the scholarship students have with the rich kids makes the show’s conflicts have higher stakes than just teenage shenanigans.

It’s why, even though you may be a fan of Elite, you may still want to watch Class. We’re not sure at what point the show may veer away from its source, but just the strong undercurrent of classism that’s evident in this Indian version of Elite makes it compelling — they didn’t change the name to Class for nothing.

Sex and Skin: Sharan has under-the-covers sex with Koel; he has a grand time, and she just stares at the ceiling. Yashika and Veer have sex in one of their cars, which Saba inadvertently catches sight of.

Parting Shot: “If I hadn’t come to this school, she might have been alive today,” Dheeraj tells the cops. Then we go back and find out exactly who it is that died (though it’s not a huge surprise).

Sleeper Star: We like Anjali Sivaraman Suhani, especially when she screams at the dinner table that “you think I’m mad!”, mainly to drive her parents nuts.

Most Pilot-y Line: “Are you going to… wear this to school every day?” The principal says to Saba about her hijab. Oy.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Class takes the Elite formula and layers on commentary about a class system unique to India, shifting the tone of the series just enough to make it distinctive from the original version.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.