Directed by Satyajit Ray.
This film by Satyajit Ray, one of India’s greatest independent film-makers, is based on Rabindranath Tagore’s novel of the same name which he wrote in 1916.
The film is set in the heart of the British partition of the province of Bengal in 1905, which divided Muslims and Hindus of the region. In response to the colonial partition, a nationalist swadeshi movement emerged which demanded a boycott of all British goods. In this film we experience the swadeshi movement through the eyes of an emerging ‘modern’ Indian woman, and her relationship to her husband, a Western educated landowner, and his friend, a charismatic swadeshi leader.
In The Home and the World, there are no simple forms of resistance to the complex effects of British imperialism. On the one hand, there are the powerful nationalist arguments of the swadeshi movement, and on the other hand its economic consequences on the poor peasantry of Bengal who are largely Muslim. As British goods are sold and burned in Bengal’s markets, the film forces us to think about the transformations and divides that go on to shape anti-colonial struggles in the Indian sub-continent and beyond.
Presented by the Politics, Culture and Identity Program and the Global Security Program.
Location: Joukowsky Forum, Watson Institute, 111 Thayer Street.
