{"id":5285,"date":"2016-07-15T20:35:23","date_gmt":"2016-07-15T15:05:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=5285"},"modified":"2026-07-17T21:33:54","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T16:03:54","slug":"satyajit-ray-anti-national-pather-panchali-new-india","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/?p=5285","title":{"rendered":"Would Satyajit Ray Be Branded an Anti-National if Pather Panchali Released Today?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><div class=\"container page-content\"><p><span class=\"dropcap\">T<\/span><\/p><\/div><p>he greatest stories ever told on celluloid are also the most deceptively simple. <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.arre.co.in\/pop-culture\/satyajit-ray-pather-panchali-bengalis\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Satyajit Ray<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2019s <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Pather Panchali<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u2013 first instalment of <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Apu Trilogy <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">that released in August 1955 \u2013 is one such example of how a five-line plot could transform into a staggering epic on the human condition. Funded by the government of West Bengal and based on Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay\u2019s eponymous 1929 novel, Ray\u2019s debut film took three years to complete. It chronicles <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">the rural childhood of Apu and Durga, siblings who grow up in the face of crushing poverty and the harsh inevitability of death.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\n\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For the longest time, we were not allowed to watch <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Pather Panchali<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> even though it remains one of the greatest pieces of art to have come from post-independence Bengal. It was considered \u201ctoo sad\u201d or \u201ctoo tragic\u201d and \u201ctoo realistic\u201d by the adults, who had wept through the seminal film. As a result, I grew up watching only snatches of the film \u2013 Apu and Durga running through a field of Kash flowers, next to a steam locomotive that ripped through the tranquil landscape; the dance of the grasshoppers in the village pond just before the first drop of rain created ripples in the water; the playful sequence of Apu trying on a <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.arre.co.in\/gender\/clash-with-stache-gender-women-body-hair-shaving-waxing\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">moustache<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and a paper crown as he joins his sister in yet another adventure that transforms their sleepy village into a magical kingdom.\u00a0<\/span>\n\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">These delicately mounted scenes acquired an added poignancy, partly due to Pandit Ravi Shankar\u2019s background score, that featured Bengali folk instruments, his inimitable sitar, and a plaintive <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.arre.co.in\/people\/krishna-janmashtami-vrindavan-nidhvan-gopi-kanhaiyya-raas-leela-gokul\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">flute melody<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> that managed to evoke the soul of the bittersweet film.<\/span>\n\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Over six decades later, there might not be anything new left to say about <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Pather Panchali<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, that continues to be dissected with frenetic admiration. But the marker of a true classic is in the way it connects with successive generations. Our parents and <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.arre.co.in\/first-person\/waiting-for-the-end-of-a-beloved-grandparent\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">grandparents<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> were closer to Apu-Durga\u2019s universe than we were, in space and time. They had lived through <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.arre.co.in\/columns\/india-pakistan-partition-punjab-jhelum-kinare-homeland\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Partition<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, migration, witnessed how poverty and untimely deaths ravaged families, and they knew drought and famines, a high child mortality rate even in urban homes. They did not want their children to watch a young girl \u2013 full of life and spunk \u2013 die. Yet, decades later, when I watch it over and over again, I find my own reality in every frame.<\/span>\n\n<blockquote class=\"quote--center\"><p><i>Pather Panchali<\/i>  was considered \u201ctoo sad\u201d or \u201ctoo tragic\u201d and \u201ctoo realistic\u201d by the adults, who had wept through the seminal film.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Harihar Roy, Apu\u2019s father, a middle-aged priest who is faced with the loss of livelihood, struggles to cope with the realisation that he may have to sacrifice his dreams of becoming a <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.arre.co.in\/people\/gulzar-birthday-poetry-song-lyricist\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">poet<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and playwright some day. His wife <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sarbajaya suffers social ostracisation for their impoverished state. Whatever social currency they may have earned by virtue of belonging to a higher caste and their learning, is lost in the pit of their financial distress. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Their story acquires a special significance in the backdrop of our <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.aninews.in\/news\/national\/general-news\/niti-aayog-vc-calls-for-extraordinary-steps-to-tackle-unprecedented-situation-in-financial-sector20190823095901\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">economy\u2019s worst performance in 70 years<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, with lakhs of skilled and unskilled workers losing their livelihoods. An age that will be defined by its farmer suicides, a testament to the inefficiencies of rural reform. It\u2019s also a period when the female mortality rates and child poverty statistics <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehindubusinessline.com\/news\/national\/in-child-poverty-india-next-only-to-sub-saharan-africa-report\/article26196097.ece\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">put us next to sub-Saharan nations<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. In fact, <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Apu and Durga\u2019s less-than-humble abode could have been in any part of the country that has been ravaged by drought, floods, communal, or political violence. The old, widowed grand aunt who barely manages to live off the scraps of the family&#8217;s generosity is that lonely, abandoned senior citizen we have all seen. Whose death, however inevitable, leaves us devastated. The antagonist in Apu-Durga\u2019s lives is not a person, but circumstances.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\n\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">According to Nobel laureate Kailash Satyarthi, the kind of <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.arre.co.in\/politics\/rahul-gandhi-congress-minimum-income-general-elections-2019\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">poverty<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> that we continue to live in today, affects the female child more than the male. In the film, when the feisty Durga is subjected to abuses by her affluent <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.arre.co.in\/social-commentary\/know-thy-neighbour-why-we-need-to-reconnect-with-our-padosis\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">neighbours<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, is beaten up by her hapless mother or chastised for her rebellious streak, you cannot help but wonder if her suffering is aggravated because of her gender. Even her most carefree moments are underlined with a deep sense of foreboding. Decades later, our culture still has little or no space for the free-spirited girl from an impoverished family. It\u2019s why when she dies, you are left with a sense of collective guilt: We had failed Durga back then and we continue to fail our Durgas even now.\u00a0<\/span>\n\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1566881078.jpg\" alt=\"pather_panchali_satyajit_ray\" width=\"650\" height=\"366\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-53806\" \/>\n<figcaption>\n<p>Decades later, our culture still has little or no space for the free-spirited girl from an impoverished family. It\u2019s why when Durga dies, you are left with a sense of collective guilt.<\/p>\n<p>Aurora Film Corporation<\/p>\n<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ray was sometimes criticised by mainstream film personalities for presenting this face of India to the world: His films, starting with <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Pather Panchali<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, held a mirror to the other India; one that the upwardly mobile India did not wish to acknowledge. Even at its most subtle, it made for uncomfortable viewing at a time when we were keen to take our place in the world.\u00a0<\/span>\n\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Two years after <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Pather Panchali<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> was released to critical acclaim around the world, Mehboob Khan\u2019s <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Mother India<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, dressed in Eastman colour extravaganza, high on histrionics, mounted on a lavish scale, and starring the top matinee idols of the time, made a bold bid for the mascot of Indian cinema in all its new-found glory.\u00a0<\/span>\n\n<i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Mother India\u2019s<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Radha had little in common with <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Pather Panchali\u2019s<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Sarbajaya, other than her suffering and her sacrifices, which were ironically dressed up in calendar art kitsch and replete with song and dance routines. Although, like <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Pather Panchali<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, this \u201cBollywood\u201d film spoke about <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.arre.co.in\/social-commentary\/domestic-workers-suicide-protest-whats-app-wives\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">social inequalities<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and exploitation as well, in spirit, it was more reality TV than reality itself. It\u2019s no wonder that we seemed overeager to share this cinematic achievement with the world. It was after all, a sugared-down version of suffering that was palatable dramatically.<\/span>\n\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Which begets the question, had Ray\u2019s <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Pather Panchali <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">been made today and if its unflinching, visceral gaze on economic inequalities be feted globally for its lucid realism, would he be branded an <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.arre.co.in\/politics\/hindu-mahasabha-mahatma-gandhi\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">anti-national<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">?\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\n\n<blockquote class=\"quote--center\"><p>Ray&#8217;s films, starting with <i>Pather Panchali<\/i>, held a mirror to the other India; one that the upwardly mobile India did not wish to acknowledge.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">After all, <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ray offers no hope, no triumph, no poetic justice. We are left moist-eyed at Sarbajaya\u2019s helplessness as a <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.arre.co.in\/first-person\/missing-mother-daughter-kolkata\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">mother<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> who suffers the worst kinds of indignities to keep her family afloat and the film ends with the bereaved family leaving the village in a bullock cart, a haunting gaze in their eyes, as a \u2018house snake\u2019 takes over their decrepit home &#8211; an artistic metaphor for decay.\u00a0 There is no chest-thumping space mission to celebrate, no Pakistan or China to defeat at the border, and no cricket or hockey matches to be won.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\n\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Harihar Roy and his <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.arre.co.in\/social-commentary\/bali-tourists-family-indian-tourists-civic-responsibility\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">family<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> belonged to the mostly marginalised, disenfranchised India then, but they would fit right into the narrative today. But in an era of spin doctoring, of twisting statistics and data and rewriting history to fit the narrative of New India, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Pather Panchali<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> is exactly the kind of story we would want to distance ourselves from.<\/span>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Satyajit Ray\u2019s films, starting with Pather Panchali, gave utterance to the suffering that the other, invisible India was going through. In an era of spin doctoring, of twisting statistics and data and rewriting history to fit the narrative of New India, Pather Panchali is exactly the kind of story we would want to distance ourselves from.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":320,"featured_media":5288,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[82],"tags":[2878,4921,5190,9013,9014,5094,9015],"class_list":["post-5285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pop-culture","tag-anti-national","tag-bengal","tag-mother-india","tag-new-india","tag-pather-panchali","tag-satyajit-ray","tag-the-apu-trilogy"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Would Satyajit Ray Be Branded an Anti-National if Pather Panchali Released Today?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Satyajit Ray\u2019s films, starting with Pather Panchali, gave utterance to the suffering that the other, invisible India was going through. 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In an era of spin doctoring, of twisting statistics and data and rewriting history to fit the narrative of New India, Pather Panchali is exactly the kind of story we would want to distance ourselves from.","og_url":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=5285","og_site_name":"Arr\u00e9","article_published_time":"2016-07-15T15:05:23+00:00","article_modified_time":"2026-07-17T16:03:54+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1520,"height":850,"url":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1566880648.png","type":"image\/png"}],"author":"Chandrima Pal","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_title":"Would Satyajit Ray Be Branded an Anti-National if Pather Panchali Released Today?","twitter_description":"Satyajit Ray\u2019s films, starting with Pather Panchali, gave utterance to the suffering that the other, invisible India was going through. 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