years? A static, preservationist and revivalist stream has dominated our thinking on art. We are publishing this article in the hope that a fresh look at our traditions, their value, and their distortion will be initiated. That is the objective of this journal.
The anti-imperialist movement and particularly it3 leader Gandhi are the subject of the much acclaimed film by a British filmmaker. It is the Raj paying its compliments to its annihilators or so it appears. The annihilators were the masses. One does not know why they are being given this history in a package. Rajadhyaksha attempts an explanation of this startlingly celebrated phenomenon of partially false cinema and, of course, of partially false history.
Ritwik Ghatak was perhaps the greatest filmmaker this country has produced. In his work there are the myths and rituals of our people. There is Bengal. There is the partition of Bengal There is also a firm rejection of the view that art is some kind of a mystique. Art springs from the people and it has to end in them. The article on Meghe Dhaka Tara, focussing on the use of myth and ritual in that film, gives one dimension of the brilliant filmmaker. We also publish a review of the path breaking book on Ghatak and his work from a Marxist perspective.
Hopefully the articles we publish in this issue will make clear the world of discourse this journal wishes to claim as its own, a world that is outlined in terms of the issues, controversies and conflicts we have outlined earlier. GPD
Journal of Arts and Ideas 3