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By:

Shoma A. Chatterji

21 August 2024 at 4:19:40 pm

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...

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 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.)

Trouble in the House of Shinawatra

Writer: Ruddhi Phadke
Ruddhi Phadke
Jul 2, 2025
3 min read

Thailand’s youngest prime minister stumbles as scandal, street protests and economic woes collide.

Thailand’s youngest and second-ever female prime minister, Paetongtarn Shinawatra, has found herself at the heart of a familiar storm: scandal, instability, and whispers of yet another coup. Just a year into her historic premiership, the 38-year-old scion of Thailand’s most polarising political dynasty has been suspended from office following the leak of a phone conversation with Cambodian strongman Hun Sen. The conversation, reportedly centred around a long-simmering border dispute, was explosive not for what was said but how it was said.


In the leaked clip, Paetongtarn appears to take a conciliatory tone on the cross-border tensions, which flared into deadly clashes in May, leaving at least one Cambodian soldier dead. That she referred to Hun Sen as “uncle” and called a senior Thai military commander her “opponent” only added fuel to the fire. Critics have accused her of betraying national interests; protesters have taken to the streets of Bangkok in droves. Her coalition, once touted as a phoenix-like return of the Shinawatra machine, has begun to crack. The defection of Deputy Prime Minister Suriya Jungrungreangkit, now acting as interim leader, is a blow that may prove fatal.


Few families have loomed as large over a democracy as the Shinawatras have over Thailand. The dynasty began with Thaksin, Paetongtarn’s father, a billionaire telecom tycoon who became prime minister in 2001 and governed with populist flair until he was ousted in a military coup in 2006. Since then, the family has remained both omnipresent and embattled. Thaksin’s brother-in-law briefly became prime minister in 2008, followed by his sister Yingluck, who met the same fate as Thaksin: deposed by the military in 2014. In 2023, Paetongtarn led the Pheu Thai party’s election campaign while heavily pregnant, only to fall short at the ballot box. But after the removal of Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin by Thailand’s Constitutional Court in August 2024, she was anointed by the ruling coalition as the compromise candidate. Her premiership, ratified in Parliament without contest, marked a generational handover - but one laced with peril.


Paetongtarn, or Ung Ing as she is affectionately known, was groomed for power in the shadows of Thai politics. At eight, she followed her father into foreign ministry corridors. At 20, she sheltered with her family in a safe house during the 2006 coup. Two years later, she watched her father flee into exile. But if these traumas left scars, they also instilled steel. Educated in Thailand and Britain, she worked in the family’s business empire before plunging into politics in 2021.


But the once-iron grip of the Shinawatra clan on rural and working-class voters has slackened. The 2023 general election marked the first time in over two decades that their party failed to dominate. In power, Paetongtarn has struggled to assert herself amid factionalism, elite suspicion, and rising public discontent. Her signature policy - a much-hyped digital wallet scheme to inject stimulus via cash handouts - remains undelivered. Meanwhile, the country’s economic woes have only deepened.


The SET stock index has plunged over 20 percent this year alone. Foreign investment is now fleeing in response to political instability and unresolved trade disputes. A volatile border and diplomatic faux pas with Cambodia will hardly help. Analysts worry that critical negotiations with the United States on tariffs and investment could be derailed. Businesses are in limbo. The public is losing patience.


The political arithmetic is no more encouraging. Paetongtarn’s suspension by the Constitutional Court has triggered a 15-day window during which the court will decide whether to dismiss her permanently. A no-confidence motion looms in Parliament. If it passes, it could precipitate an early election or a cabinet reshuffle that further sidelines the Shinawatras. The military, though officially aloof, is watching. Thailand has seen a dozen successful coups since 1932. In a country where uniforms often trump ballots, the risk of another is never far off.


What makes Paetongtarn’s position especially precarious is not just her youth, or even the dynasty she embodies, but the toxic polarisation of Thai politics. Royalists, old-guard generals, and conservative elites have long viewed the Shinawatras as interlopers, manipulating democracy to serve populist ends. Meanwhile, her supporters see her as the best hope for modernising the country and ending the cycle of coups and court interventions. But neither camp is ascendant today.


As Thailand edges closer to the precipice, Paetongtarn faces a brutal lesson: in Thai politics, it is not enough to inherit a name. One must also survive it.

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