Satyajit Ray's Marxist Past
nkdat...@my-dejanews.com
Sunday 2 May 1999
Portrait of Ray as a young Marxist
Sanghamitra Chakraborty
NEW DELHI: India's only Oscar winning film-maker Satyajit Ray - he would
be 78 today - has been the benchmark for understatement in his art. His
voice was so restrained, his message so subtle and his ideology so
finely blended in his script that he was often mistaken for a political
fence-sitter and a wimp. Particularly when seen against the works of the
Leftist film-makers Mrinal Sen and Ritwik Ghatak, for whom cinema was a
vehicle for Marxist ideology. However, an essay written by Ray in a
little-known magazine called Marxbadi in 1949, seems to reveal a side of
his personality that is known to few of his friends or admirers.
The essay, running into almost 2,000 words, written in stilted Bangla
and titled, ``Struggles in the Fields of Literature and Philosophy'',
which appeared in a Marxist propagandist journal, betrays his passion
for Marxism. Written in a prose that would be the envy of any Communist
Party card-holder, young Ray made a fervent appeal to all artistes to
fulfil their social obligation by making a choice - between the
proletariat and the bourgoise.
His friend, long-time associate and writer R P Gupta is stunned by the
text of Ray's essay. And logically so. For Ray writes, ``It is simpler
to understand why the class-struggle must be highlighted in literature.
Every progressive writer must be informed clearly that he has to take a
side - either for the proletariat, or against it. If he is for the
proletariat, it is the reason for the battle that must matter the most -
on the battlefield there is no right to be whimsical or to cling on to
the vestiges of the enslaved mentality of weakness about the enemy. If
this means unmasking some so-called `progressives', that is just what is
desirable. It is in the very context of today's world order, where the
day of the final battle between the camps of the progressives and the
reactionaries is nigh, that Andre Zdanov has given the battle-cry for
waging uncompromising war against bourgeois influences in literature,
art and music....''
``This is quite extraordinary,'' says Gupta, ``Manikbabu (Ray) never
screamed. He usually whispered, but when he did it was louder than a
thunderburst. This language and emotion just does not seem to be his,
but it's not beyond the realm of the possible.''
When Ray talked about the ``retaliating'' Marxist, ``Class enemies
distort the past and use it as their weapon. The Marxists'
responsibility is to unmask that distorted image and use it as a weapon
of retaliation...'', he was foretelling his future humanist steak. Says
Soumitra Chatterjee, the actor who performed in most Ray films, ``Ray
never wore his leftism on his sleeve, but like many people of his
generation his ideology sprang from an innate affinity for humanism.''
Chatterjee does not remember Ray making any reference to his Marxist
past during their personal interactions.``However, I remember him being
quoted in interviews, where he admitted that he was strongly influenced
by his Marxist friends.''
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Rama Krishna Pidaparti
That the communists used art to propogate their ideology, including Ray...
In article <7gfpnr$fgf$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>,
Arnab Gupta
>
The tone is indeed surprising. That he always sympathized with
an ideology that's left of centre is well known. He said that
many a times in his interviews. He also said that he would never
be comfortable in a communist state, he's too individualistic
for that.
>That the communists used art to propogate their ideology, including Ray...
Really ? Which films of Ray propagate communist ideology ?
Thanks,
Arnab.
progra...@gmail.com
Indrani majumdar
(endu.m...@gmail.com)