When the Red Flag Fades

Srijit Mukherji is arguably the most prolific filmmaker in Bengali cinema. His prodigious output inevitably raises questions about his versatility and creative consistency, just as his impressive tally of awards invites scrutiny of his artistic credentials. Yet his recent films, Shotti Bole Shotti Kichu Nei and Padatik, a bio-fiction on filmmaker Mrinal Sen, demonstrate his creative range and assured choice of subjects. With Winkle Twinkle, Mukherji reinforces his standing as one of the more...

min read

Srijit Mukherji is arguably the most prolific filmmaker in Bengali cinema. His prodigious output inevitably raises questions about his versatility and creative consistency, just as his impressive tally of awards invites scrutiny of his artistic credentials. Yet his recent films, Shotti Bole Shotti Kichu Nei and Padatik, a bio-fiction on filmmaker Mrinal Sen, demonstrate his creative range and assured choice of subjects. With Winkle Twinkle, Mukherji reinforces his standing as one of the more distinctive and enduring filmmakers in Indian cinema. Sixteen years after his directorial debut, Autograph, a personal take on Satyajit Ray’s Nayak, he continues to experiment with form and subject. Like several of Mukherji’s films, Winkle Twinkle draws inspiration from a celebrated Bengali play of the same name, written by Bratya Basu and staged in 2002. Basu, a formidable figure in Bengali theatre before turning to full-time politics, had drawn on Washington Irving’s Rip Van Winkle, first published in 1819. Irving’s protagonist falls asleep and wakes up years later to discover that the world has changed beyond recognition while he remains essentially the same. Mukherji and screenwriter Padmanabha Dasgupta transpose this premise to contemporary Kolkata, turning it into a sharp political allegory. Sabyasachi Sen, a committed Communist activist, is presumed killed in police firing during the Emergency in 1976. His body is never found. In reality, he falls asleep and awakens in 2002, physically unchanged but confronted by a world that has moved on without him. The shock begins at home. His wife has aged, and his children have grown up. His son, Indro, who idolised Che Guevara alongside his father as a child, has become an active supporter of the Trinamool Congress. He has little patience for his father’s unwavering allegiance to the CPI(M), a party whose ideological universe has been shaken by the collapse of the Soviet Union. His daughter, born after his disappearance, studies at Indira Gandhi University, a name that evokes for Sabyasachi only the prime minister associated with the Emergency. Posters announcing Mamata Banerjee’s rise confront him on Kolkata’s streets. The political landscape has changed beyond recognition, but Sabyasachi cannot accept that the movement to which he devoted his life has lost its former certainty. Technology bewilders him. More distressing, however, is the discovery that an old party comrade has become a leader of a new political formation and amassed wealth through dubious means. The revolutionary’s world has not merely changed; its moral foundations appear to have crumbled. His wife, once his comrade and fellow traveller, offers him refuge, welcoming his return with affection. Their son, however, refuses to accept him readily. The father-son conflict becomes a confrontation between two political generations: one shaped by ideological conviction and sacrifice, the other by a more pragmatic politics of power. The film moves back and forth through time, mirroring Sabyasachi’s bewilderment and drawing the audience into his confusion. Politics, technology, education and popular culture have all changed, often in ways he cannot comprehend. Some of the sharpest moments are also the most humorous. Sabyasachi recalls filmmaker Ritwik Ghatak marching in a Marxist procession, unaware of how cinema has changed and that another Hrithik — Roshan — is now the more familiar name. When a man at a tea stall expresses astonishment that he has never heard of Sachin Tendulkar, Sabyasachi walks away, explaining that the only Sachin he knows is Sachin Dev Burman. A particularly telling image captures the film’s political imagination: a street magician’s scarf changes from red to green. The symbolism is unmistakable. The red of the Left, once dominant in Bengal, gives way to the green associated with the Trinamool Congress. The cinematography is equally impressive, particularly the transition from colour to black-and-white when the narrative revisits the past. Ritwik Chakraborty is outstanding as Sabyasachi, convincingly conveying the bewilderment and stubbornness of a man unable to reconcile his convictions with reality. Anasuya Majumdar as his middle-aged wife and Sohini Sarkar as her younger self provide strong support. The sudden violence in the father-son confrontation is perhaps the film’s principal weakness, disrupting an otherwise nuanced exploration of ideological estrangement. Yet, Winkle Twinkle remains one of Mukherji’s finest films. Its central insight is both poignant and political: Sabyasachi’s tragedy lies not simply in having lost years of his life, but in discovering that history has moved on without him and that the revolution he believed would change the world has itself become a relic of the past. (The writer is an National Award-winning film scholar.)

After the Spectacle

Abhijit Joshi

4 hours ago

4 min read

While Maharashtra’s rival Dussehra rallies offer political drama aplenty, the state’s voters today are looking for real results.

Each year, as the autumn heat settles over Maharashtra, it turns its gaze to the theatrical ritual of the Dussehra rally. Thousands gather under sweltering canvas tents to wave party flags, roar approval at well-rehearsed cadences, and parse the prognostications of their political chieftains. Beneath the spectacle lies a serious barometric test for Indian democracy. As society evolves and voter expectations sharpen, how do legacy political institutions remain relevant?

The political landscape this Dussehra was dominated by three distinct gatherings: rival factions of the Shiv Sena competing over the ghost of its founder Balasaheb Thackeray; the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) marking its centenary year in Nagpur; and Pankaja Munde addressing her hereditary flock at Bhagwangad in Marathwada. Distinct in history and intent, these gatherings together offered a clear portrait of Maharashtra’s fragmented political soul.

Nativist Anxiety

The story of the Shiv Sena’s Dussehra rally began in 1966, when Balasaheb Thackeray convened the party’s first mass assembly at Shivaji Park in Mumbai. He tapped into a potent mix of nativist anxiety among Marathi-speakers concerned about jobs, identity and rapid urban flux. Over time, the Sena’s muscular local presence, channelled through neighborhood shakhas (local offices) and fused with a broader Hindutva agenda. An alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) projected the party from municipal kingmaker to state power.

Yet legacy is a brittle inheritance. The political earthquake of 2019, which saw Balasaheb’s son, Uddhav Thackeray, break with the BJP to partner with the Congress party and the Nationalist Congress Party, shattered traditional alignments. The subsequent 2022 split, led by Eknath Shinde, transformed the annual rally from a victory lap into an existential custody battle.

Marking 60 years since the original gathering, October’s parallel rallies laid bare this fault line. Uddhav Thackeray occupied the sacred turf of Shivaji Park, framing his struggle as a defense of original ideological purity against state overreach and democratic backsliding. Shinde, holding court at the NESCO grounds in Goregaon, brandished the apparatus of government. Possessing official party recognition and a majority of lawmakers, Shinde pivoted from heritage to administration, using his platform to announce relief measures for drought-afflicted farmers.

For the ordinary Shiv Sainik, however, allegiance is no longer a binary choice. Some remain bound to the Thackeray lineage by sentiment; others align with Shinde out of pragmatism or a desire for state patronage. Yet crowd sizes mask a deeper question: does the local party infrastructure still serve the citizen? In an era where power is increasingly centralized around a few charismatic figures, the foot-soldier risks becoming a mere prop in a televised spectacle.

Institutional Continuity

Further east, in Nagpur, the RSS offered a different study in institutional continuity. Marking the culmination of its centenary celebrations, the Hindu-nationalist volunteer organization used its annual Vijayadashami address to outline its ideological compass. RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat spoke of social harmony, self-reliance and the perils of digital addiction, while warning against movements that erode trust in state institutions.

Though distinct in structure from its political offshoot, the BJP, the RSS sets the intellectual weather of the Sangh Parivar. Its annual address is scrutinised by ministers and apparatchiks alike for subtle shifts in focus. Yet reading the RSS’s pronouncements purely as executive instructions misses the broader point. The organization faces its own demographic reckoning. India’s youth, hungry for formal employment, quality education and economic mobility, require more than calls for discipline and social cohesion. They demand material results, transparent governance and the space to express dissent. The challenge for the RSS is to convince a generation facing modern economic pressures that a century-old worldview remains relevant to their aspirations.

A similar tension between dynamic change and inherited loyalty played out in Beed district. At Bhagwangad, Pankaja Munde continued a rural tradition established by her late father, the BJP leader Gopinath Munde. Addressing a region battered by agricultural distress, her speech touched on drought mitigation and community harmony, while announcing plans to adopt a local village for development.

Her gathering illustrates the persistent force of caste, community and personal charisma in rural India. Yet here, too, political inheritance faces diminishing returns. Voters may honour the memory of a regional patriarch, but with the shadow of a terrible drought looming over the state, their immediate concerns are irrigation, crop prices and rural credit. No caste bloc or regional electorate votes in perpetuity. As economic realities shift, dynamic performance inevitably triumphs over sentimental nostalgia.

Taken together, these rallies highlight the friction between political tradition and contemporary governance. For the young job-seeker, an impassioned oration provides no livelihood. For a farmer eyeing ruined crops, executive promises are meaningless until relief reaches the bank account. For the party faithful, attending a rally must yield tangible civic influence rather than empty rhetoric.

Dussehra traditionally celebrates the triumph of righteousness over adversity. In modern statecraft, however, no single speech or rally settles the political question for long. Public trust is not an inheritance to be claimed, but a currency that must be continually re-earned. Leaders may command platforms, historical symbols and formidable machinery; but as Maharashtra’s voters weigh these grand spectacles, it is they who will ultimately decide which legacies endure, which promises carry weight, and which leaders truly speak to the future.

(The writer is a political observer. Views personal.)

When the Red Flag Fades

After the Spectacle

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