Lost Home, Shattered Hope, and the Dynamics of Gender Discourse in Ritwik Ghatak’s Meghe Dhaka Tara, Komol Gandhar and Subarnarekha

Abstract

The trauma and suffering people were subjected to during the partition of India were immense and unforgettable. Several narratives of partition hinted at the politicised role of the divide and quit, which made it look like a successful attempt to avoid war. But the devastation remains a horror to numerous people who have witnessed the trauma of leaving one’s land. Cinema has always been an effective way to capture the different discourses in the course of history. The present paper aims to trace the complicated cultural conflicts in the context of the partition of Bengal and their inevitable effect on displacement and identity crisis among those who are the worst victims of this power division. Though partition has been presented through various cinematic representations, the partition of Bengal is a much ignorant phenomenon, as only a few Bengali filmmakers have demonstrated it through their films. Ritwik Ghatak is one such filmmaker whose Meghe Dhaka Tara, Komol Gandhar, and Subarnarekhan have represented how, in the aftermath of partition, it is not only physical abuse that the gendered bodies are subjected to. Rather, after partition, gender discourse takes a completely new turn. Exploring the women characters, this paper intends to investigate an entirely new dynamics of gender discourse in the said films.