ABSTRACT
In August 1947, two international borders were drawn through British India. The subaltern studies group of historians focus on the ‘fragments’, ‘oppressed voice’, and ‘silence’ in history writings trying to explore how memory of events was constructed and reconstructed by different groups of people. This essay deals with films on the ‘Partition-in-the-East’, produced both in West Bengal and in Bangladesh, made by directors who did not believe in the run-of-the-mill commercial productions of the time. One of Ghatak’s most complex films, it moves beyond the immediate problems thrown up by the Partition namely, unemployment, urban distribution, collapsing family ties. The film deals with the current state of affairs alongside the borders without directly referring to any particular side. Like many others on Partition it addresses communal issues and socio-economic problems that were born after that cataclysmic event of the past. .
