Filmmaker Ritwik Ghatak’s family objects to BJP’s use of his films to promote CAA

The West Bengal unit of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has decided to use legendary director Ritwik Ghatak’s partition trilogy films, which depict the tragic consequences of largescale human displacement, caused by the vivisection of the Indian subcontinent, to defend the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). The BJP said that the CAA is aimed at benefitting the refugees who have come from across the border to India over the years, but the law’s opponents claimed that it is discriminatory to Muslims.

Ghatak’s Subarnarekha, ,Meghe Dhaka Tara and Komol Gandhar poignantly recreate the plight of people who were forced to migrate to India after the partition in 1947. The BJP’s youth wing, Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM), has made a six-minute video using footages from these three films of Ghatak, with an objective to showcase the trauma of post-partition years and make people understand the need for the CAA. According to BJP leader Shamik Bhattacharya, the video begins from the Great Calcutta Killings of 1946 and stretches into the present times, up to the granting of citizenships to the uprooted people now. 

However, the move has triggered protests from family members of the director, known for his Leftist political views. They claimed that Ghatak was “secular to the bone” and his works should not be used for a “discriminatory” legislation. Among them is well-known actor Parambrata Chattopadhyay, Ghatak’s grandson. Chattopadhyay said that as a family, they do not want Ghatak’s name and work to be used for anything which violated the fundamental principles that he stood for. 

Moreover, West Bengal’s ruling Trinamool Congress took a dig at the BJP for turning to Ghatak in desperation. “Those who insult Amartya Sen, make oblique comments about Abhijit Banerjee winning the Nobel Prize, are now turning to such a personality. This is the biggest example of political bankruptcy,” said Trinamool Secretary General Partha Chatterjee. On the other hand, Bhattacharya added that Ghatak’s political identity is not important in the present context. “The pain of people during the partition has come up repeatedly in his films. This is what we are highlighting,” he said.

In a statement, relatives of Ghatak, including his nieces and nephews, objected to the use of video footages from his films, divorced from context, to support the CAA.