Cinema of Bangladesh: Absence of 1947 and abundance of 1971

Abstract

Bangladesh got liberated from Pakistan through a bloody war in 1971. But the country was also a victim of 1947 Partition of India. The Partition not only split India also divided Bengal and Punjab. The East Bengal with Muslim majority got a new name East Pakistan. However, the country Pakistan with two wings with 1200 miles of Indian territory in between, could not stick together for long. In the memory of Bangladeshi people 1971 is relatively fresh and in the contemporary Bangladeshi politics 1971 still matters. The winding political trajectory of Bangladesh has influenced the discourses of cinema – making less films on 1947 Partition and more films on 1971 Liberation War. Different art forms have portrayed both 1947 and 1971 – the two historical incidents that heavily shaped the political and cultural nature of Bangladesh. This article will investigate why there is scarcity of 1947 films and abundance of 1971 films in Bangladesh. The article will also scrutinize how dominant historiography engulf the body of the films and discard alternative historiography. In examining these queries, the method would be a historical account of film production and its content and a few cases would be studied to get the picture in depth.