Page 20 - THE CHANGING WORLD OF RAY

entrapment within the false Ray further devel-

premises of the modern age. oped the feeling of entrap-

Despite Ganguly praising ment in contemporary so-

Ray for taking the ‘woman’s cial issues, as portrayed in

point of view’, he highlights his ‘Calcutta trilogy’: Sunil

Charu’s ‘precarious priva- Ganguli’s Pratidwandi (‘The

cy’: ‘we sense how [...] her Adversary’, 1970-1), and
space is invaded constantly’ Sankar’s Seemabaddha

(Ganguly 2000: 66, my em- (‘Company Ltd’, 1971), and

phasis). This emphasis on a Jana Aranya (‘The Middle

woman’s precariousness is Man’, 1975). Pratidwandi

in essence what stereotypi- was produced four years af-

cally defines ‘women’. In this ter the Naxalbari uprising in
context, despite the emanci- 1967 in West Bengal. It an-

pating theme of the film, the ticipated a decade of political

‘forbidden gaze’ does not give and economic turbulence,

agency to Charu, but rather the wars with Pakistan and

confirms the stereotypical China, and the polariza-

division of space in terms of tion of India in political ex-
‘female’, internal, and pri- tremes, from ultra-national-

vate spaces, and ‘male’, ex- ists to Maoists. This period

ternal, public spaces. This of terror culminated with

re-affirms the conventional the betrayal and assassina-

framing of ‘women’ as rep- tion of Indira Gandhi by her

resenting ‘the privacy of the Sikh bodyguards, who were

group’ on the cultural basis fighting for a separate state
of sexuality and gender as of Khalistan, in October

manifested in terms of pri- 1984 (Rashiduzzaman 1989:

vate and public spaces (as in 128, and in Boise and Jalal

Caplan 1987: 15). 1997: 182, 185, Shah 2011:

333, among others). Ray’s

Politics of Inequality
Politics of Inequality films portray these times of
collective disillusionment
with the unfulfilled promises