Who can forget the stories that followed that fateful midnight in 1947 when British India was split? The partition of Bengal and Punjab on the basis of religion resulted in the largest displacement the world had ever seen—with lakhs of people killed, crores rendered homeless, women disgraced and families rendered penniless overnight.
The stories of this great man-made tragedy were difficult to tell at first. What followed was a deathly silence sitting heavy on hearts and souls. Yet the stories had to be told. Writers, poets and filmmakers of a whole generation took it upon themselves to relate the painful tales lest they happen again. Thus Partition became a recurring theme in Indian cinema—the struggle for survival and the resilience of survivors.
In this milieu appeared a trilogy of Bengali films by the talented Ritwik Ghatak, playwright, actor, screenwriter and director. Born in 1925 in Dhaka, he is still remembered for the three classic films that depicted the catastrophe through various voices. These were Meghe Dhaka Tara (The Cloud-Capped Star, 1960), Komal Gandhar (A Soft Gandhar, 1961) and Subarnarekha (The Golden Thread, 1962)—all of them focusing on the lives of those who had suddenly become refugees.
The story of Nita, the protagonist of Meghe Dhaka Tara, enacted unforgettably by Supriya Devi, has lived in my heart for a long time. I watched the first during my college days in 1970s’ Chandigarh, at a festival organised by the Film and Television Institute of Pune. It’s the story of a girl, the sole earning member of an uprooted family, who is exploited by her own dear ones. The selfishness born of the dependence is so startling that her own mother encourages the younger sister to woo away the older sister’s lover, lest the family loses the breadwinner. In one scene, the mother asks Nita to hand over the gold bangles she had bought for her own wedding to the younger sister.
The story was all too familiar for the denizens of Chandigarh, built to accommodate refugees from East Punjab. Many women in the city, who entered the workforce to support their families, could not choose their own lives.
Around the time I watched Ghatak’s searing depiction of a woman’s struggle, another classic dealing with the impact of Partition on the other of the nation, Punjab, hit the screens and the nation’s consciousness. Garm Hava (Scorching Winds, 1974) portrayed the betrayal of a girl by her dear ones, cousins who promised her love and marriage, driving her to depression and suicide.
Based on an Urdu story by Ismat Chughtai and directed by M S Sathyu, it was a masterpiece showing the resistance of a Muslim family in staying on in Agra, while all their relatives had migrated to Pakistan. The main victim is the daughter of the house who loses her childhood love, the first cousin who migrates with his parents to Pakistan.
There, a typical migrants’ tale unfolds when his parents force him to marry an influential man’s daughter, so that they may rise in stature and money—about how old-world graces and vows are forgotten in the rush to make it big anyhow. Meanwhile Amina, played by Geeta Kak with heart-wrenching intensity, is betrayed again. Yet Salim Mirza, the father portrayed with subtlety and authenticity by Balraj Sahni, refuses to leave his ancestral roots and migrate.
This June saw the successful return of the theme on the big screen. Imtiaz Ali’s Main Vaapas Aaunga (I Will Return) traces the lingering impact of Partition in present times, with Naseeruddin Shah in the role of an old man suffering from dementia recalling the pain of leaving after promising his love that he would return—words that could not be kept. Interestingly, the film did well in both India and Pakistan. Diep Saeeda, a peace activist based in Lahore, posted on Facebook: “If you have access to Netflix and have interest in the Partition of Punjab, Main Vaapas Aaunga is worth watching. It offers a moving perspective on one of the most defining and painful chapters in our shared history.”
And this week saw the release of Rajkumar Santoshi’s Batwara 1947, produced by Amir Khan and based on another classic work, Asghar Wajahat’s play Jis Lahore Nai Vekhya, O Jamyai Nai (One who hasn’t seen Lahore isn’t born). This is a common metaphor among Punjabis for whom Le Corbusier’s Chandigarh could never compensate for the loss of Lahore. The story is of a Muslim family that migrates to Lahore and occupies a Hindu evacuee’s home, to find the departing family’s grandmother hiding beneath the stairs. And a new relationship is born.
These were not the only films on Partition over the last several decades. There were plenty of another kind of storytelling—for example, Gadar: Ek Prem Katha, Border and Bengal Files. Whether they succeeded commercially or not, they could not connect to hearts around the world as they peddled hatred. The ones that survived the test of time are those that told the most human of tales about witnesses to this bloodiest of events. They are the portrayals that got closest to the truths forged in the tragedy.
Nirupama Dutt | Senior journalist and cultural writer based in Punjab
(Views are personal)