4 - Satyajit Ray's Political Vision of the Doubly Colonized

Summary

To the private Bombay Ray circle who, along with me, were colonized convincingly by Ray: Rafique Baghdadi, Rashid Irani, Derek Antao, the late Abdullah Abbas, and Viji & Ahmed Bungalowalla

The Tradition of the Doubly Colonized in India: A Critical Introduction to the Hegemonic Structures of Hinduism and Colonialism

Ray was often criticized for averting his face from political issues in India. When a critic suggested to him that he did not sufficiently commit himself in his films, Ray responded that he committed himself to human beings and making statements, and that, he thought, was a good enough commitment for him.

In 1976, Ray decided to make his first non-Bengali film, Shantranj-ke- Khilari (The Chess Players). This project was in many ways a major departure for him. Professionally, it was a step into unknown territory: the language (a mixture of Hindi [India's national language] and Urdu), the milieu (Lucknow), the period (the 1856 annexation of Oudh by the British), and the scale (his biggest budget). Structurally, it was also a radical departure, with its simultaneous unfolding of strands of fiction adapted from Premchand's famous Hindi short story and historical facts painstakingly researched and re-created from Indian archives and British/Muslim documents and sources. Here was a Bengali filmmaker setting out to portray Indian aristocratic feudalism and British colonialism through the conflict that developed between two very distinct and different cultures: the effete and ineffectual Indian versus the vigorous and malevolent British.