Bangladeshi Cinema: What Does It Say About the Subalterns

Generally in popular or so called commercial cinema the rich and famous are central while the picture in alternative cinema is the opposite. There the poor communities, the subalterns are given importance. Indian writer and film teacher in the United States Jyotika Virdi states this view in her book ‘The Cinematic Imagination’. I would like to begin this discussion by partially disagreeing with the statement of Virdi. It is not correct that popular cinema generally speaks of the rich and that in her words, the subalterns are central in ‘alternative’ cinema. Because subalterns are also present in popular or commercial films, not occasionally, but in almost all of them. Countless examples can be given. From the Bollywood film ‘Coolie’ to the Hollywood Bollywood film ‘Slumdog Millionaire’, even to the Dhallywood film ‘Beder Meye Josna’. But an important difference is always present there. In this discussion how the subalterns appear in the two streams of cinema is important, and it is also necessary to determine whom the term subaltern actually refers to, whether the subaltern of Antonio Gramsci, or the subalterns of Ranajit Guha, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, that question also requires resolution. Because we want to understand whom cinema actually speaks about. And who are left out.

Since the audience of commercial films in Bangladesh generally belongs to the lower class, their representatives are often seen there. Rickshaw pullers, taxi drivers, even an ordinary Bede girl all appear in important roles on the silver screen. Love between the poor and the rich: this seems to be an extremely common event in Dhaka cinema. This sign can also be seen in Hollywood films of the silent era, such as ‘Metropolis’ released in 1926. Many commercial films also show that the poor hero or heroine is actually the child of a rich family but was somehow separated in childhood. Again some films repeatedly show a corrupt rich villain being beaten by a hero from a slum. The audience in the theatre then bursts into cheers. The poor working person is content simply by seeing his own representative in the film. An ordinary working person feels that every gain of that representative including the taking of revenge is his own gain. After that he becomes inactive with satisfaction and sinks into his lived life like any other day. He considers the good and bad of the owner to be his own good and bad, he too begins to think like the owner that improvement of the factory means his own improvement, he begins to regard the chains of labour as an abode of happiness. When Henry Ford introduced in his automobile factory in America the practice of slightly increasing the wages of workers and lowering the quality of products so that workers could buy the goods they made, while continuing the exploitation of workers it was seen that the workers worked with twice the enthusiasm. In his prison writings Gramsci named this ‘Fordism’. Addressing the workers Gramsci says, the subaltern force must be “manipulated” to gain freedom from this exploitation of capitalism. So that they can build resistance. Gramsci also mentions that the dominant force will create a counter resistance. In Bangladeshi cinema it is mainly the ruling group that exercises this authority. The subalterns are present there but the words of the masters are echoed through their voices. These cinematic subalterns are creations of the masters themselves. Although porters labourers peasants workers and other marginal groups are present in films their enemy is shown as only one person. The administration is again the friend of the subalterns. Institutions or the institutional system are on their side. Think about it, countless examples will come to mind, where in the final scene the police arrive in force and take away the villain and his followers. In the end the hero wins in court. These films do not challenge the social system in any way. It is said that only a handful of wicked people bring this fate upon the poor. And the will or unwillingness of the Creator is of course also connected with being poor. Seeing this construction by the ruling group the subalterns of reality find a kind of consolation within themselves.

But in the words of Jyotika Virdi this matter is not brought to an end at the point of self satisfaction in ‘alternative’ cinema. Rather a sense of unease is inserted into the mind. For example ‘Dahan’ by Sheikh Niamat Ali. Under socioeconomic pressure a lower middle class young man is directionless, the story of that young man ends with a freeze shot. There he is seen entangled in barbed wire, he searches for a path to freedom but he is alone, an isolated person has no power to tear through that barbed wire and come out. We see ‘Pratidwandi’ by Satyajit Ray end in a similar ‘unfinished’ state. The main aim of ‘alternative’ cinema seems to be to shake the world of thought. Virdi says that the subalterns are presented with importance in this stream of cinema. Although there is no mention of exactly whom she means by subalterns Virdi uses the word ‘subaltern’ while discussing the politics of rape besides the presentation of women as vamp characters on the silver screen and therefore it can be said that the subaltern of Virdi is not the subaltern of Gramsci. What then is the subaltern of Gramsci?

In the introduction to the book ‘History of the Subaltern Classes’ Partha Chatterjee who is a scholar of Subaltern Studies says, Gramsci used the Italian word subalterno or the English word subaltern in at least two senses. In one sense it is used directly to mean the ‘proletariat’. Gramsci called the working class of capitalist society the ‘subaltern class’. Opposed to this class is the hegemonic or dominance seeking class, or one may say the bourgeois class. A more general use of this word ‘subaltern is also seen in the writings of Gramsci. Partha Chatterjee says, apart from capitalist society the arrangement of power in other historical phases of class divided societies also has two poles. At one pole is the dominant class or the ruling class and at the other is the subordinate class or the subaltern.

In the essay ‘History of the Subaltern Classes’ in the same book the well known scholar and pioneer of Subaltern Studies in India, Ranajit Guha attempts to define the subalterns in colonial India. That definition includes urban workers, the poor, the middle class except the highest ranking bureaucrats, rural agricultural labourers, poor peasants and the near poor. Within the circle of this definition Guha also gives a place to relatively prosperous middle peasants and rich peasants. Guha also makes it clear that their position is complex and that they are guided by the interests of the elite. Guha attempts to go deeper in order to understand the basic structure of the arrangement of power in British ruled India. He says, the economic and cultural character or inequality of different regions differs, and for that reason the nature of mutual relationships from one community to another or from one class to another is also diverse.

The author of another famous essay ‘Can the Subaltern Speak’, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak extends the idea of the subaltern in Gramsci and Guha toward the question of where women stand in a patriarchal society, and directs the discussion to that question. At one place in that essay she says, the subalterns already have no history, they have no narrative and if this subaltern is a woman then her position lies in deep darkness. Spivak further says, when a woman in capitalist and patriarchal society is imprisoned, is a patient in a hospital or is homosexual then the darkness in the life of that woman seems to double. At the end of the essay Spivak declares that the subalterns are mute. That means there is no one to hear them or within the hegemony that exists in society the voices of those subalterns either disappear or finally merge into the voice of the elite. Because due to this hegemony these subalterns learn to think (if they are workers) that an increase in the income and prosperity of the owner means an increase in their wages, from childhood they continue to learn (especially women) that men are the principal driving force of this society and so on.

That is why women are seen being humiliated at the hands of men in many places in Dhaka cinema. A great deal of research has also been conducted in Dhaka on violence against women in cinema. Again poor suffering workers are heard saying, ‘They are poor because of the fault of fate.’ On the other hand through the virtue of that fate a child raised in a slum returns to his rich parents. The rich and the poor are brought together. Taken together where are the subalterns in these films? The position of women is even worse. In the films of the 1980s and 1990s there would inevitably be a rain soaked heroine in the songs. Alongside that rape had become an almost regular scene in cinema. Although these matters have decreased recently the presentation of the body of women as an object of consumption has not stopped.

On the question of nationalism I would say that the Indigenous peoples of this country are subalterns. That is why they are voiceless and invisible as well. From the time of independence until now no film has presented even their ordinary way of life, let alone the suffering of Indigenous peoples. Despite their important contribution to the Liberation War of Bangladesh they are remarkably absent from films about the Liberation War. As though there are no Indigenous peoples in this country (the Government of Bangladesh has suddenly begun repeating this claim), and even if there are they had no role in the Liberation War. But history bears witness, many Indigenous people were martyred in the Liberation War of 1971.

In Bangladeshi cinema, as I said earlier poor people are present but in the end they are transformed into the discourse of the elite. There they are unable to preserve an independent existence. In the introduction to the book mentioned above Partha Chatterjee writes, subaltern consciousness seeks in one way or another to preserve its distinctiveness, individuality and existence and it is capable of doing so. And as a result we historically see the political expression of class conflict. It is not false but historically true that, class interests exist in a class divided society and therefore conflict appears. But in Dhaka cinema no conflict is visible except for trivial matters such as gaining the right of the poor to fall in love with the rich. The central message of these films seems to be that everyone regardless of rich or poor has the right to fall in love with everyone else. Where there is no discussion of economic emancipation, where there is no direction toward cultural emancipation can that be called the cinema of the vast population? Rather such films can easily be called deceptive works of the ruling class meaning the work of a handful of people for the vast population.

Regarding the statement of Spivak in her essay “The Subaltern Cannot Speak”, I would say that they too will be able to speak, if we follow the path shown by Gramsci (although according to the thinking of Spivak whenever the subalterns begin to speak they no longer remain subalterns.). That means work must be done at the various levels of society where hegemony exists, where intellectuals play an important role, through action at those levels. In an effort to capture a state the state power must first be captured, but to bring about a cultural revolution it is necessary to capture or bring under our own control those intellectuals scattered across every level, who exercise ideological dominance over society, who influence the thoughts of ordinary people. Gramsci says, one section of intellectuals acts upon the subalterns as the ‘deputies’ of the ruling group through social hegemony and political government. Gramsci calls them organic or own intellectuals. That means those who work with the state apparatus, in favour of the existing social system. They try to obtain ‘spontaneous’ consent by imposing decisions on ordinary people in society. Outside the organic category Gramsci names artists, poets, philosophers, literary writers, as traditional intellectuals. But the intellectuals of this category are not above class, covertly some of them are in one way or another swallowed into the belly of the ruling group. But to speak in the true sense on behalf of the subalterns (in the account of Gramsci workers are the subalterns in capitalist society) it is essential that intellectuals emerge from within the subalterns themselves. This subaltern belongs not only to Gramsci, but also to Guha and Spivak. The intellectuals who emerge from the subalterns will create another dominance or hegemony. Through their own ideology they will influence the traditional intellectuals of society. And in time they will become the organic intellectuals of the transformed and desired social system. Whenever intellectuals are produced from within the subalterns through the historical process the subalterns in cinema will also be able to speak about themselves in their own voices, in fact they will then no longer be identified as subalterns. Then a new hegemony will also be created in cinema, the hegemony of the majority.