Ritwick Ghatak makes CPM nervous in Kolkata

• “Let’s see,I believe from my heart…power is power. Power kills you. And it also justifies killing. That’s the irony of power.”

This is a dramatic exchange between two actors — one playing legendary filmmaker Ritwick Ghatak and the other the avant garde Tagore exponent and Communist dissenter Debabrata Biswas — in a theatre production based on Biswas’s work Bratyajoner Ruddha Sangeet (Stifled Songs of the Outcast).

Opening just before the Lok Sabha elections,the play,with its stinging indictment of the CPM establishment in the state,has tapped into a fierce debate between intellectuals in the run-up to voting next Wednesday.

The play has created ripples across the political and cultural spectrum especially after a report in CPM party organ Ganashakti last month suggested that artists critical of the state government were “under watch.” That prompted the forum of intellectuals against the CPM to issue a statement against the “veiled threat” by the ruling Marxists.

The play strives to capture what it calls the “ruthless domination” of cultural personalities in West Bengal under a repressive Communist regime. And what has touched many a nerve in the comrades is that its dramatis personae includes,among others,real-life characters Jyoti Basu,Promode Dasgupta and their adversaries like Ghatak,Suchitra Mitra,Salil Choudhury and Biswas himself.

At the heart of the play is Biswas. Born in 1911 in Mymensinha (now in Bangladesh) in undivided Bengal,Biswas was a party cardholder who became disillusioned with the Communists and began to sever his links in the mid- 1950s. Just before his death two decades ago,Biswas expressed his anguish with the party in his autobiography Bratyajoner Ruddha Sangeet.

The play,by the same name,is scripted and directed by Bratya Basu,a Bengali professor in a city college. Since its launch on March 20,it’s playing to packed galleries at the Academy of Fine Arts. Its sixth show is scheduled for this evening.

Said a senior bureaucrat of the Information and Cultural Affairs department who has seen the play: “It needs courage for the author to present leaders who are still living. But I have reservations about the Ritwick episode in the play. It has been reported to Buddhababu. Many in the government are not happy. Action,if any,may follow after the polls.”

That’s a reference to a scene in the play when Ghatak had to face a Communist party commission on 23 counts of misconduct that included “cheating,drinking,moral degradation,instigating workers to break strike.” The scene of the commission chaired by Jyoti Basu,Promode Dasgupta and Nirmal Ghosh captures a gripping verbal duel between the trio and Ghatak. It ends with Ghatak shouting at Dasgupta: “Comrade Promode Dasgupta,I am Ritwick Ghatak…I am telling you,you are feudal. You consider party members as your own bonded labourers.”

When contacted,Ramala Chakrabarty,wife of Subash Chakrabarty,CPM Minister for Sports,and the chief patron of Pather Panchali,a socio-cultural organisation,said: “We have heard that Jyotibabu and other senior leaders of our party have been cast in a poor light in the play. Bratya (the director) is a wasted talent. He’s trying to gain cheap popularity and has joined the civil society bandwagon that’s seeking change.”

Veteran actor Soumitra Chatterjee,believed to be close to the Left,ducked the issue. “I have not seen the play,” he said,curtly. “I do not intend to see it ever.”

Bratya Basu is a known CPM-baiter. He staged another play Winkle Twinkle regarded as a remake of Rip Van Winkle in which the author sought to portray the “broken hopes of a promised revolution” through a protagonist who wakes up after a 26-year slumber. The cast in that play included a character called Buddhadeb Bhattacharya — a not-so subtle reference to the Chief Minister — who is put in the dock and reminded of the “failed revolution.”

However,the new play comes against the backdrop of a sustained campaign by a section of the city’s artists since the Singur land acquisition and the Nandigram police firing. That campaign now has a new twist timed for the Lok Sabha elections: “Vote for Change.”

Said Shaonli Mitra,a renowned theatre personality: “There is a suffocating pressure from the ruling party in all spheres of life. I have personally toured extensively in the past two years to see the ground reality for myself. It is pathetic. We are not regimented,we do not want to be in anyone’s good books. We want change.”

In fact,this intellectual pressure group even released a poll manifesto with signatories including author Mahasweta Devi,Shaonli Mitra,filmmaker Aparna Sen,playwright Bivash Chakrabarty,academic Sunanda Sanyal,former bureaucrat Debabrata Bandopadhyay,singer Pratul Mukhopadhyay and artists Jogen Chowdhury and Suvaprasanna.

Releasing the manifesto,Mahasweta Devi said: “State terror has been let loose from Keshpur to Nandigram and from Singur to Lalgarh. These people (read the Communists) do not believe in democracy. Decade after decade,they have been running an autocratic single-party rule. They have entangled everything like an octopus… we need to change this. We need to change this for the sake of a healthy society,culture and for humanity. Let us open a new chapter.”