Poverty is not a thing to be but a thing to make. The acute poverty which we observe today must have its origination back in the historical period when might was right and when zamindars were everything. They were the open mafias; to provide the debt when they had nothing to eat and to confiscate everything when they accumulate something out of it. The monster beneath them was masked with something that the villagers could hardly notice the time when they were robbed and even they noticed their voice went in vain since law was blind and authority couldn't go against the power. It was the birth of poverty and is not dying even till today. Poverty thus cannot be comprehended unless we understand the history
At least the spectators were deep down absorbed computing the history and stories in do bigha zamin, a film shown in martin chautari this Thursday. A neo realistic film on the premise of land confiscation was really full of pathos. It was the depiction of how the zamindar plays poly tricks and catches the poverty stricken villagers in its trap. Now starts the story how a poor family struggles to retain it. The farmland was a mother for the farmers, indeed how can they forgo their own mother? They enter the city with expectations to earn some amount. Calcutta but was developed so, how could it shelter the undeveloped farmers. How can the one survive in the world that recognized nothing but money?
The innocence of child and maturity was really captivating. I prefer to say a matured child and an innocent youth. He has no fault of his own but still is compelled to endure the hardship and work by all his labor. He possesses that sight to see the catastrophe the family is suffering though his eyes are small and he has that endurance to toil though his body is tiny. Such is the fate of poor. At a long last no ways out. It had to occur as long as the as the zamindars exist.
Wealth is theft. Perhaps it may be true. It may be true in case of zamindar who steals the wealth on the part of farmer, for nothing at all. Wealth is theft perhaps for the modern capitalist in Marxian language for the surplus value they tend to create every other step. Wealth is theft perhaps we all are stealing property of some kind or other if not directly money. Zamindar in case of film was the symbol of this very irony. And we steal just to survive. Nonetheless the purpose for which one does so determines the justification at the end of it all.
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Is theft a crime again? At least we cannot say yes after we see the film. A child is aware that he should not steal but what to do if there is nothing but to save the dying father. What's the significance of laws made for the qualitative survival when there is no guarantee of life itself. Theft is thus not a crime but a result of crime committed by autocratic authority, zamindar here in film. The film in this regard is a solid description on how social evils rise and mounts. This fact can be better perceived with the existentialist's viewpoint though the film does not say anything on its own. It stays silent and just lets us speak the rest.
No ideas whether it can be equated with modern day or not but development stood as the means by which zamindars inflated his pocket. Establishment of mill in blank sense can be the matter of welfare but what about the compensation to the farmers for whom the land is the only means of survival. Development without understanding other attached elements is just a naïve, a cry for moon. The film thus prances ahead and furthermore puts questions to us–how development ought to be multifaceted concept, likewise how can the cultural values be integrated in development, since the stereotype put before female can also be traced as the reason behind poverty. To simplify, female should not work outside earned the dominance and if I am not mistaken it in many ways triggered their poverty to much more level.
The film anyways was convincing. Sometimes the hall erupted into laughter and sometimes it was pin drop silent the film after all made us ponder and killed us with questions. We cannot answer because it's not we but our history that created questions. We are just following the trend; waiting for some angel to break it once and for all.
