Mukti Chai

1977 55’ b&w Bengali d/p Utpalendu Chakraborty c Sanjay Brahma, Shekhar Tarafdar

Chakraborty’s debut was a strident denunciation of the Indian State from a CPI(ML) position. It argued that the laws of the colonial regime, against which India’s nationalists fought their freedom struggle, were then duplicated by the Indian State, culminating in the Emergency and its MISA (Maintenance of Internal Security Act) ordinance. Along with Patwardhan’s and Gautam Ghose’s early films, this is one of the major documentaries to emerge from the Emergency experience.

Film