An Era of Darkness: Satyajit Ray’s Anticolonial Project

Abstract

Satyajit Ray’s films are enriched with ideological concerns and engage with the issues of colonialism and the crisis of nationhood. His post 1970 films present an artist’s anguished response to the betrayal of the Nehruvian dream and to the anachronism of his own cherished values. It was also in this period that Ray turned to India’s colonial past and critiqued the dynamics of power relations. This essay studies how Shatranj ke Khilari (The Chess Players, 1980) assesses the reasons for colonization of India and its culture by the Britishers and how, in Ashani Sanket (Distant Thunder, 1973), he criticized the Raj, the mercenaries and the complexities in Indian society where he denounces the Bengal Famine of former times.