Bengali Refugee Life as shown in Bengali Cinema
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.66853/hnh.v1i1.05Keywords:
Partition of Bengal, Refugees, Bengali Cinema, Communalism, IdentityAbstract
In 1947, undivided India was partitioned into two nations—India and Pakistan. Bengal was also divided, and with it, Bengalis who had nurtured sharing the same land, water, air, language, and culture were separated. This division brought a horrific catastrophe for minority Bengalis, accompanied by communal riots. As a result, countless people from both sides of Bengal were forced to leave their homeland and adopt a life of displacement as refugees, losing their roots. Innumerable Hindus from East Bengal fled their ancestral lands to West Bengal, while many Muslims from West Bengal migrated to East Bengal. Numerous Bengali cinema have been made depicting the misery, hardships, and struggles for survival of these refugees. Several renowned filmmakers from both West Bengal and East Bengal have masterfully portrayed the hardships and survival struggles of uprooted refugees in their cinema. Directors such as Nimai Ghosh, Ritwik Ghatak, Rajen Tarafdar, Tanvir Mokammel, and Akram Khan have portrayed the painful realities of refugee life so skillfully that their films have repeatedly stirred deep emotions in the hearts of audiences.
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