Sharma 1

Bio-note

Hemant Kumar Sharma holds M.A. and M.Phil. degrees in English and has been engaged in

teaching English literature to undergraduates at the University of Delhi since 2001. His areas of

interest include Womens Studies and Aesthetics. He is currently working on a collection of poems

and a novel.

Abstract

This paper intends to examine representations of Islamic rule and culture in India in Satyajit Ray's

film based on Urdu/Hindi writer Prem Chand's short story Shatranj ke Khiladi . Language is deemed

to be a vehicle of culture and ideology and is far from being a neutral medium. I have therefore

chosen for my analysis the English translations for the above mentioned works. I would like to argue

beyond the great merits of both these works of art, that both Ray and Prem Chand are susceptible to

colonial readings of Muslim rule in India in that they in their very attempt to recreate the latter

sympathetically and creatively succumb to the prejudices that taint colonial misrepresentations. This,

I contend, ultimately happens not so much through their direct handling of the characters of Nawab

Wajid Ali Shah or the narrative and the plot but more so through the subtle and invisible interplay of

bias and cultural exoticism giving the lie to the artist's negative capability to look beyond his-story

and dominant cultural paradigms. In the end I shall attempt to link this failure of the artistic project

with the imperceptible sway of English education and attitudes over colonized selves irrespective of

ordinariness or creative and imaginative genius. The paper will further attempt to show how political

and social decadence which function as stereotypes of Islamic rule in India besides violence and

brutality in stock commonplace perception do equally well as existing stereotypes in academically

 Sharma 2

informed and creative engagements with Islam in context of pre and post English India.

Keywords:

Post-colonialism, Muslim identity, Orientalism, History, Popular culture, Cinema.

Hemant Kumar Sharma

Bharati College, Delhi University

India

2 February 2014

Referencing Islam: Colonial Perspectives in Satyajit Rays The Chess Players.

Noted Indian film director Satyajit Rays widely acclaimed film Shatranj ke khiladi or The

Chess Players was released in 1977 and was nominated for the Golden Bear award at the Berlin

International Film Festival the same year. For Ray, an English educated modern who desperately

tries to fight off racial, communal and colonial bias in pursuit of historical and psychological truth

the path is full of self-deceptive colonial attitudes, cultural prejudices and linguistic divides. Despite
 Sharma 3

best intentions, the film betrays perspectives that have roots in a communal collective subconscious

tainted by the imperial gaze. Edward Said perceptively delimits a mythology of creation, in which

it is believed that artistic genius. . .can leap beyond the confines of its own time and place. . . .

(Said 202) This paper shall attempt to bring out these tensions not only through a discussion of

characterization but through the representations of Islamic culture in Rays film; misinformed by

popular but erroneous notions as well as by colonial attitudes these misrepresentations lead to details

in concepts, settings and action that could be disturbing to a Muslim reader/audience.

Francis Pritchett in her well-researched article on Prem Chands short story (the original on

which Rays film is based) writes about the cultural (and communal) bias inherent in Rays source:

Throughout the story Prem Chand is more interested in condemning

Lucknowi culture than portraying it. His use of language contributes

to this effect of distance and hostility. . . . Prem Chand conspicuously

rejects most of the Perso-Arabic words actually used in Nawab Wajid Ali

Shahs Lucknow in favour of pointedly Sanskritic ones. . . . in fact the

narrator carries his aversion to Perso-Arabic words very far. (69, italics mine)

One need not be reminded that Prem Chand the great Indian novelist began his writing career in pre-

partition India and started writing in Urdu before succumbing to the language politics based on

communal ideas introduced by the British since soon after the great revolt of 1856. Needless to say

such shifts in sensibility and affiliation were seen in several eminent Indian thinkers, writers and

philosophers. Another radical shift was seen in the great Muslim theologian, philosopher and poet

Muhammad Iqbal who wrote the national song still sung in India before he started advocating the

two nation theory that led to the partition of India in 1947.

Though the Hindi version of Prem Chands story was published a few years before the Urdu
 Sharma 4

version, Pritchett opines that this cannot be taken as proof for the Hindi version predating the Urdu.

Pritchetts article ends with a very valuable observation: There is no hint in the Hindi story that the

British have acted in a particularly shabby or unexpected way. The idea of the fall of Lucknow to

the British as poetic justice is thus pronounced and absolute in Prem Chands Hindi version. The film

certificate for Rays film shows the language of the film to be Urdu. In making it clear that the

incoming British themselves are exploitative the film does comes closer to Prem Chands Urdu

version. The film too was called Shatranj ke Khiladi after the Urdu story. For our analysis, we shall

rely on the English sub-titles to the film while commenting simultaneously on the language politics

in Prem Chands originals. Pritchett further recognizes the tendency to generalize when he writes in

the same vein: Prem Chand once again interrupts his immediate story to make sweeping judgments

about the state of the whole society. (italics mine) Moreover, Pitchetts arguments show

conclusively that in the story Prem Chand is judging a whole culture in a way which seeks to

compel our consent.

We shall now see if similar strains are to be discovered in Rays cinematic version of Prem

Chands story. The dilated narratorial commentary at the beginning of the film has a brief section

dedicated to a (sardonic) description of Moslem culture in India: After the passing of the great

Moguls in Delhi, Lucknow became Indias bastion of Moslem culture. Not all their games had the

elegance of pigeons or kite flying. That notable culture had its cruel side, too. With the sarcastic

undertone and the accompanying visuals the message is loud and clear. Within the space of three

lines we are shown groups of betel chewing Muslim men engaging in kite flying (the kites bear the

symbols relevant to the scene and its subtext - a star and a crescent) and manic cock fights. All this is

referred to as tehzeeb1 ( in the sarcastic Urdu dialogue) and in the English sub-titles, with very

1 The Urdu word for culture.

 Sharma 5

anglicized spelling as Moslem culture. The Mughals too are written as the familiar anglicized

Moguls. Their greatness, of course, lies in their passing as the narratorial voice informs us. The

sub-titles leave no room for mistakes. The elegance of pigeon flying in the decadent Delhi nobility

is as much a symptom of social disease and political decadence as is the cruel and sadistic practice

of betting on cocks in the notable culture of cities which had both been Indias bastion of Moslem

culture.

The gentlemen are no better. At the beginning we are told, with the same lingering sarcasm, to: look

at the hands of the mighty generalsWe do not know if these hands have ever held real weapons

You may ask Have they no work to do? Of course not! Ray goes a step further in emasculating the

nobility which Prem Chand deplores as vilasi (pleasure seekers) but not cowardsthere was no

lack of personal courage. Prem Chands Mir and Mirza do not care much for Nawab Wajid Ali in

real life but they die protecting their chess queens. They are true to the courtly tradition of chivalry

at least in the make believe world of chess though they fail in the real world. In Rays film their

courage and noble decent is caricatured.

In the scene where Nandlal informs them of the East India Companys advancing troops,

Mirza asks Mir to take down his ancestral sword displayed on the wall. Even Mir is amused at

Mirzas sudden interest in swords. Swords have become things of the past - relics meant to decorate

the guest room. This is again in contrast to Prem Chands "It was the time of the Nawabs2; everyone

wore sword, dagger, poignard, etc." (279-80) Pritchett tells us that the effect is obviously one of

being armed to the teeth. Mirza then proceeds to give an account of the extraordinary valour of

their (his and Mirs) great-grandfathers in recognition of which the Nawab Burhan-ul-mulk granted

2 An honorific title dating back to the Mughal empire in India. It is derived from the Arabic word
naib (deputy in English) and was awarded by the Mughal emperor to his highest ranking generals
and nobles.
 Sharma 6

them estates. This appeal to blue blood rings hollow given the present state of affairs as well as the

narrators wry comment on the scene: While the descendants of Nawab Burhan-ul-mulks officers

fought bloodlessly. Rays narrator begins by doubting if the two gentlemen had ever held real

weapons. Later, before leaving for the outskirts of the city to play chess in a secluded place they

decide to carry pistols. Perhaps in Rays scheme of things swords would be too demanding for their

delicate hands more accustomed to shifting light pawns of chess. Besides, with pistols, they can

ward off danger from a safe distance. The thought of fighting against the British never crosses their

minds.

The directors take on the Nawabs administration finds indirect expression in Mirzas

comment: Those who roam around unarmed (said with deliberate and sarcastic pompousness) in the

kingdom of Nawab Wajid Ali Shah, dont come back home. Earlier in the scene, Mirza breaks into

a fit of laughter when he sees his nervous friend pace across the room fearing forced enlistment into

the ranks of the Nawab. This scene is devastating in its irony. Mir freezes in the middle of the room

to look quizzically at his friend twisting and tossing with laughter. In the background is an array of

displayed medieval weapons - swords, heavy axes of formidable sizes and shapes -meant to hack

and cut an enemy to death, arranged like the plumage of a dancing peacock or the many hands of a

warlike demigod. Mir completes the irony by suggesting to run away to a quiet placethe

quietest safest place imaginable.

Ray begins the Nawabs portrait with defining vignettes of life -personal and public - dressed

as Krishna and dancing, mourning during Muharram, lost in contemplation of beautiful women in

his harem, and later rebuking his ministers for inaction, disloyalty and corruption. He vacillates

between self blame and blaming others. He is dignified at all times but the camera moves in a way

that makes this dignified demeanor more of a performance. Ray makes Nawab Wajid Ali a king in
 Sharma 7

performance and by highlighting this aspect, especially in the scene where he hands over his crown

to the British Resident, he strips the Nawab of all real dignity. Ray himself admits that the Nawab

has realized that the company has the upper hand, and all he can hope for now is moral victory

(faceless and face saving according to Ray). Pritchett sees the Nawabs abdication in Prem Chands

original as a splendid and romantic victimization of oneself. Also worth close analysis is the

Nawabs comment - nothing but music and poetry can bring tears in a mans eyes. The line is

pompous and drips of philosophy but Ray wants it to be like that. He obviously meant it to be ironic.

The Nawabs character is complex and contradictory as Ray argued in his article published

in the Illustrated Weekly of India but this complexity translates into a decadence and irresponsibility

that is easily identifiable with the colonial anxiety about a persistently belligerent class and the

colonizers self proclaimed duty of studying the people. Ray, in a way assumes as a colonial, the

role and anxieties of the Orientalists and his attempt to understand them comes close to the

Orientalist enterprise. Referring to the exotic appeal of the nautch girl scene Ray writes, "both the

details and the colour scheme conform to engravings of that period. The scene is a very close replica

of the miniatures of that period. Even the cat comes from a drawing by an artist of Wajid's court"

(Dasgupta 115). However attractively the refinements of Lucknowi culture seem to have been

presented there remains in Rays portrayal an attempt at evoking a mood of decadent exoticism akin

to the luxuriant and seductive dismissals of Muslim culture in the paintings of Orientalists like

Ingres, Gerome and Lecomte etcetera (Pritchett 75-78). The insidious magical apparatus of Rays

camera obscura serves Ray as a fetish or an apotropaeon3 that helps to placate horror of Islamic

culture (an unbearable reality) rather than helping him as a device for tracing and transparency

to attain or present a true and clear picture of historical reality ( Kofman 48).

3 In Greek antiquity, any sign, symbol, or amulet believed to have the power of averting the evil eye
or of serving in any way as a charm against misfortune.
 Sharma 8

The compulsion to understand Awadhi Muslim culture stems from a basic and inherited

suspicion that demands constant scrutiny of this source of permanent danger to the Indian Empire

(Hunters dedication to Hodgson 5). The director then exemplifies what Said refers to as the

accommodation between the (colonized) intellectual class and the new imperialism (Said 322-

323). Ray only aspires to that science of compassionparticipation even in the construction of

their (the other) language and their mental structures (Said 271). The predicament of the Nawab as

shown by Ray finds a parallel in colonial paradigms about the Arab/ Moslem , namely- the tendency

of Islam to be satisfied with the truth as the description of mental structures, or in other words with

psychological truth (Said 297). The Nawabs comment about poetry and music alone being able to

bring tears in a mans eyes, substantiates the above.

It is easy to find also, in Rays film, the distillation of stock ideas about the Orient -its

sensuality, its tendency to despotism, its aberrant mentality, its habits of inaccuracy (for instance

Mirs inaccurate sense of directions as to the location of the old and desolate mosque and his firing

accidentally/inaccurately in fright of the British), its backwardness... (Said 205). Rays portrayal of

the Nawab could be sympathetic but it is tainted by colonial myths. Nawab Nawab Wajid Ali has not

attained to self knowledge as is typical of the oriental given as fixed (the Nawab is fixed in his

vacillations, indecisions, whims, fancies, in his very instability and unpredictability), stable, in need

of investigation, in need of even knowledge about himself (Said 308). Pritchetts comment about the

Nawabs abdication dubs it as a leap into the pathos of self mortification and tragedy. Since the

Orientals (Islam/Muslims) cannot understand themselves it is the duty of the Orientalist and even the

neo-Orientals (oriented enough to Orientalist discourse in a new imperialist/neo-colonialist

framework and sufficiently in command of his masters voice; Orientalism now functions through

ventriloquisms) to hold up the mirror of history at the right angle so as to force the oriental subject
 Sharma 9

out of his insular self.

Rajbans Khanna advises one to consciously stay on guard against accepting interpretations

handed down to us by teachers in our anglicized schools and wonders if Ray has missed the wood

for the trees in missing the point about Wajid Ali Shahs characterization in the film (53). The point

becomes even more valid in the context of the Bengali Hindu intelligentsia that literally flowered on

the grave of its Muslim counterpart. We are informed by one of the many scholars that colonial

Service (service with a capital S) had produced, about the neglect and contempt with which the

Muslims of lower Bengal were treated: The former conquerors of the East are excluded from our

Oriental Journals and libraries as well as from the more active careers in life. He goes on to relate

patronisingly, the rise of the Hindus in social and governmental circles, to a state of easy tolerance.

The concurrent wretchedness of the Muslims is attributed to the cruelties which they inflicted, the

crimes which they perpetratedin the name of mistaken religion. The Bengali Hindus greater

psychic mobility thus lay in his courting the sober and genial knowledge of the West (Hunter, The

Indian Musalmans, dedication to Dodgson, 153-165).

Another telling account of this advantageous tendency is to be found in David Knopfs work

entitled British Orientalism and Bengal Renaissance. Knopf refers to the elitist founders of the

Hindu College at Calcutta in 1816 as brokers to the English who wanted the college to concern

itself primarily with the cultivation of European literature and European science (Knopf 78). A

strong anglophile tradition is thus discernible in the colonial educational trend and social history of

Bengal. Within this tradition it would not be unreasonable to place an intellectual like Ray who was

heavily influenced from his earliest years to Western ideals. He expressed his dislike for Shanti
 Sharma 10

Niketan4 and his preference for the Anglicized universities of uptown Calcutta in his student days

though his mother managed to coerce him to join the former. His earlier experiences as a journalist

and designer at an English firm, his sojourn in Europe and his great love of European films too seem

to corroborate this view. Saids definition of Latent Orientalism applies to Rays portrayal of the

Muslim society in Shatranj ke Khiladi. The film keeps intact the separateness of the Orient, its

eccentricity, its backwardness, its silent indifference, its feminine penetrability, its supine

malleability (Said 206).

Unlike Prem Chand, Ray denies the viewer a catharsis, even a psychological one though in

his article defending his portrayal of Nawab Wajid Ali he approves of Prem Chands view that

Wajids decision against offering resistance to the British was an act of cowardice and a symptom of

decadence. The idea is to end in anti-climax, as Pritchett rightly observes. He formulates the end

as a shameless and impotent lapse to a failed self/culture thereby annihilating all possibilities of

redemption or revival. Ray informs us frankly that the crux of the theme is to be found at the end of

the filmin that Mir and Mirza (while getting ready for a fast round of chess) have cleared their

conscience by admitting that they have been cowardly in their behaviour. Is that all? Of course Ray

goes further and claims that the film also says that, Nawabi did not end with the takeoverthat

upper class values (he forgets to mention Muslim) were only superficially affected by the British

rule and that feudal decadence was a contributing factor in the consolidation of British rule in India

(Ray, Illustrated Weekly of India). This however, is not as indirect as it seems. The subtext is that

Nawabi continued in all its supine malleability and feminine penetrability, that upper class

4 A small town near Bolpur in the Birbhum district of West Bengal, India, approximately 180
kilometres north of Kolkata (formerly Calcutta). It was made famous by Nobel Laureate
Rabindranath Tagore(actually R. Thakur), whose vision became what is now a university town
(Visva-Bharati University) that attracts thousands of visitors each year. Santiniketan is also a tourist
attraction because Rabindranath Tagore wrote many of his literary classics here, and his house is a
place of historical importance.
 Sharma 11

values persisted in the earlier state of silent indifference and that feudal decadence survived

with all its eccentricity. Last but not the least these Moorish attributes led to the subjugation of

India by the British.

Rajbans Khannas article in response to Rays article in the Illustrated Weekly informs us as

to how Colonel John Williams Kaye wants us to believe that this strategy was "most cunningly

contrived to increase the appearance of harshness and cruelty" (Kaye, A History of the Sepoy War in

India, P 151). Khanna puts Kayes account in the correct perspective: It was a calculated attempt

by Nawab Wajid Ali to make the entire country realize that Dalhousie's perfidious act was a naked

and unprovoked aggression against a peaceful and unarmed people (53). That the move was

cunningly contrived to give the appearance of harshness and cruelty where there existed none is

something we cannot accept too readily, coming as it is, from an Englishman. However, a similar

move, made by the Nawab in a very different context and reported by another Englishman tells us:

the Legal decision which declares that the ultimate triumph of Islam is to be shared by

Muhammadans and Christians alike, issued from the palace of the ex-king of Oudh (Nawab Wajid

Ali). His majestys loyalty will henceforth shine with redoubled lustre (Hunter 113,

parenthesis mine).

Ray in his defense published in the Illustrated Weekly of India quotes Abdul Halim Sharar:

The king weeping and wailing, made every effort to exonerate himself. Though Ray clearly shows

his preference for Sharar as his primary historical source he glosses over this alleged detail in the

film. He even claims credit for his secular and merciful treatment of the Nawab. Indeed, Ray seems

to be struggling with the same anxiety as Outram in the film, namely, to convince himself that the

Nawab is indeed as bad as Sleeman had portrayed him. His defense suggests that he has already

found his answers in Sharars account but he chooses to be better advised by artistic and secular
 Sharma 12

principles to omit that detail which in any case would not have benefited the film particularly.

Moreover, Ray in his eagerness perhaps, to convince himself of the Nawabs many faults including

those of the culture (tehzeeb) which is represented in the film (with the same sarcastic and

patronizing air ), rushes to the first Muslim historian of the period speaking poorly of the Muslim

ruler.

Edward Said in Orientalism , while discussing Orientalist propaganda, mentions Lasswells

theses about propaganda and Greunebaums active Orientalist propaganda against Islam. Rays

attempt subscribes, consciously or unconsciously to the above categories in that it represents Islam

along colonial lines. Nawab Wajid Ali in not signing the treaty with Outram while abdicating makes

a rare political statement. He refuses to be written down by the British. Ray on the other hand signs

the disparaging treaty with the British on the Nawabs behalf by showing the latter to be ultimately

incompetent and timid. Saids comment about Grunebaums formulations portraying Islam as a

culture incapable of innovation is true of Ray too in that Ray shows the Nawab and his subjects

immersed in tradition to the extent of being lost to the present.

Tradition functions in Rays film as an opiate of the masses so much so that it is of the nature

of an addiction. An addiction is fixity, a habit that changes only in respect of degree. Tradition in

Lucknow, Rays narrator informs us, is linked to a particular culture of leisure and pleasure. The

culture is traced back to the Delhis sultanate, again Muslim. Nawab Wajid Ali for all his talent in

dance and poetry is lost in a classical performative tradition that is hardly his own (He plays

Krishna5 amongst gopis6). Even where he is innovative - for instance his songs and compositions -

5 In Hindu mythology, according to the Bhagavata Purana, which is one of the eighteen puranas,
Krishna is termed as Svayam Bhagavan (God incarnate) since he was the purna-avatara or full
incarnation of the supreme god Vishnu.
6 In Hinduism the name gopi (sometimes gopika) is used more commonly to refer to the group of
cow herding girls famous within Vaishnava Theology for their unconditional devotion to Krishna.
 Sharma 13

he is given to sensuality and an aberrant mentality fixing him to what Said calls essential ideas

about the Orient. Ray quotes Sharar in his defense of the Nawab: Wajid versified his love affairs

and hundreds of amorous escapades of his early youth. He made them public throughout the

country The two nobles Mir and Mirza have been playing a game which was invented in India

long before the Muslims came. The two shia Muslims are shown to blissfully uphold the self

congratulatory notion that chess originated in Iran/Persia. Munshi Nand Lal enlightens them about

the antiquity of the game that Mirza boasts of to his wife: Ever since I started to play chess, my

power of thinking has grown a hundredfold. Now I think futuristically. (italics mine)

Nandlals visit is an expos of sorts, laying bare the fact that Muslims have no share in the

game except in playing it, which, is of course very far from the truth. The fast game too is an

innovation of the British just as the railways and telegraph are. The two friends simply and ironically

adopt the fast game at the end of the film. What happens in this portrayal is that Lucknow is

shown to be in a deeply traditional slumber which only that notable culture is capable of. This

aspect is highlighted at the expense of the Nawabs widened sympathies and the good hearted nobles

who are well meaning and focused to the point of becoming recluses. Mir tells Nand Lal with a good

deal of pride We hear nothing when we play. Later, when their game is compromised due to the

theft of chess pawns, they agree that tomato is bishop, lime is knight, chilli is rook and so on. In

the following scene where the Nawab rebukes his ministers for malpractice and bad governance, we

realize that the same is true of the real body politic in the Nawabs realm; offices of state, Ray

implies, have been filled up likewise in the kingdom. Also, by implication, the society, state and

domesticity are all subsumed by the larger demands of the game. The players in their monomania

have made their game a microcosm of sorts. Rays portrayal here again subscribes closely to another

interesting Orientalist assumption: Inability then to see life steadily, and see it wholeand liability
 Sharma 14

to be stampeded by a single idea and blinded to everything else- therein, I believe, is the difference

between the East and the West (Said 277).

The onus of abdication and the shame of colonization, for Ray, seem to be linked first and

foremost to a culture rather than individuals. The whole point of portraying the details of Lucknowi

life and culture, its splendor, its wealth and riches, its music and poetry, its tehzeeb is the same as the

oriental impulse found in the writings of European Orientalists, namely, a showcasing of a grand and

splendid oriental folly. The purpose thereof is curative. In showing what Grunebaum calls the

profoundly disturbed state of Islam (or Islamic state), is an attempt to force it to look beyond

itself. This looking beyond is to be effected by nurturing or dissatisfaction with the self.

Looking beyond then is the same as looking away or not looking at all. In the end Ray ensures that

the purpose is met by making the two players agree upon one unbreakable rule of colonization -

We need darkness to hide our faces. It is as if an entire historical edifice of culture is being swept

under the carpet with the echo - We need darkness to hide (y)our faces. The face of Nawab Wajid

Alis Lucknow, an Islamic face, is best hidden. Hence the ugly show to justify the hiding.

The Nawabs future abdication in the wake of a planned British takeover is mused over by

the resident Outram not as it is - another instance of colonial greed but more in terms of a

problematic in the justified business of empire - Orientals were rarely seen or looked at they were

seen through , analyzedas problems to be solved or confined or taken over (Said 207). General

Outrams perusal of the Nawabs itinerary lists activities that are as appalling to his colonial mindset

as they are oriental. The king flies kites just like the vulgar populace is shown to do at the beginning

of the film. He enjoys dancing with local dancing girls and composes his own songs besides being an

ardent patron and poet. Despite his patronizing air and colonizing self complaisance the axis of

Outrams thought and damning remarks about Wajid seem to fit into Rays differentially opprobrious
 Sharma 15

judgmental cog. Rays screenplay and visualization seem to agree with Outramss worst criticisms -

frivolous, effeminate, irresponsible, worthless. Outrams attack is too strong and tempting for Ray

who goes reeling under the inertia of his-story - colonial as well as popular. Westons weak appeal to

eccentricity drives the final nail. What follows and what precedes this pivotal scene are almost

mirror images of Outrams estimation of the Nawab. The kings make up and appearance seem to be

true to the actual portraits extant and his interest in classical dance too can be defended. The

mannerisms and habit do betray a conscious attempt at highlighting the feminine aspects of his

persona. The objectionable elements of Rays film besides having an indirect bearing on the

problems of history lie in his cultural misrepresentations through acts of omissions and emphases.

The placid and uneventful Lucknow of the film that Rajbans Khanna rightly berates on historical

grounds has its most serious connotations in cultural misrepresentation. The derisive epithets that

Outram uses for the Nawab are dismissive -- if one were to actually read and see between the lines

as Ray demands from a discerning audience in his article -- of an entire generation of Lucknowi

Muslims. The implications are far more reprehensible when one notices the power of visual mass

media in shaping the ideas of a people already fraught with communal and historical bias.

The Nawabs sexuality as well as that of Mir and Mirza seems to agree with colonial theories

about Oriental sexuality (refer to Said 315, 241) The Nawabs sexuality is shown in Ray to be

contemplative (the scene where he smokes the hookah dreamily while staring at the faces of women

surrounding his bed), even performative (the dance scene where he is dressed as Krishna surrounded

by gopis) but far from active. The kings 400 concubines and 27 mutah7 wives mentioned in the film

are especially enraging to the British resident who seems to wrack his brains about the concurrence

7 In Shia Islam, temporary marriage or contract marriage. In the pre-Islamic Arabic culture the word
Mutah actually meant 'renting vaginas' and those women who 'rented' their body part were regarded
as business women.
 Sharma 16

of an exploding harem and an unfailing routine of prayer in the Nawabs exotic life. Polygamy

especially amongst Muslims has been a hotbed of clich besides dehumanizing colonial envy and

hatred. Said in his chapter entitled Orientalism Now quotes an imperial agent T.E. Lawrence

regarding Semitic sexuality - the Semite hovered between lust and self-denial. This calls to mind

Rays portrayal of the devout and prohibitionist but sexually frenzied Nawab. The undercurrent of

sexual exaggeration that Said discerns in Orientalist writings about Arabs could also be applicable

to Muslims in general, so that, the only way in which they count is as mere biological beings;

institutionally, politically, culturally they are nil

Rays film of course does not suffer on that account and the sexual exaggeration if any is

seam-ingly evened out by way of what would be publically perceived as artistic and sentimental riff-

raff of the decadent Nawab, by his unsavory vacillations in times of most serious political challenge,

and of course by his most unwarranted sentimentalism in music and poetry. The Nawabs many

talents then become the talons with which, in a suicidal bid, he rips apart the body politic. One has to

agree with Rajbans Khanna that this ought not to have happened. Viewed solely as an artistic

enterprise the film could pass off as ambivalent though not open ended. There is foreclosure in the

utter hopelessness and squalor of the ending. Seen as a socio-political statement with solid historical

and cultural ramifications it fails.

Mirs wife obliges another man in bed and in the end Mir resigns to the fact in the most

disgraceful and shameless manner while Mirzas wife languishes due to his disinterestedness in her

obvious physical charms. Both men have no issue or are shown to be unproductive. Mirza fails to

perform in bed even when his wife actively tries to seduce him. The minor/unsuccessful revolts of

the wives find their parallel in the Nawabs fleetingly (emotionally/poetically) envisioned revolt

against British control. The two players never revolt against anything except the hurdles in their
 Sharma 17

gaming routine. Their uprisings are of the nature of coitus interruptus (Said 316) a perfect anti-

climax.

The last scenes setting (changed from that in the original ) epitomizes the careless lives of

the denizens of the exotic city in the times of Nawab Wajid Ali Shah. Ray omitted Mirs and Mirzas

fight to death as he felt it might be taken to symbolize the end of decadence. Presumably, for Ray

Lucknows feudal (read Muslim) decadence is too infectious and perhaps dangerous a disease to

end with the ousting of a Muslim Nawab. It is to this staunch belief in the infectiousness of Muslim

decadence that Ray owes the characterization of the English captain Weston, an admirer of Urdu

poetry and classical music. The scene where Outram has a most instructive dialogue with his ill-

besotted subordinate about the Nawabs concubines, dancing hobby, musical and poetic

compositions besides the 29 mutah8 marriages of the Nawab, the Muslim call to prayer resounding in

the background offers a deeply disturbing contrast. Almost immediately after this scene we see the

Nawab praying on the palace roof and the chess players praying before sitting down for another

round. The passivity and resignation of their response to the call to prayer is juxtaposed by Ray with

Outrams charged and active response to the call of empire, duty and propaganda. His tirade against

the Nawab as he chastises the errant Weston for his admiration for the bad king is Rays cultural

propaganda. Lasswells theses is useful in understanding Outrams response and Rays footage of it:

The modern propagandist like the modern psychologist, recognizes that men are often poor judges

of their own interestsclinging timorously to the fragments of some mossy rock of ages (Said

292).

The scene obviously juxtaposes the Moslems, merely men in their act of submission with white

supermen in the act of arbitration and supervision. The scene is entirely plausible though.

8 A fixed term marriage contract in Shia Islam held to be highly controversial by the Sunni
Muslims.
 Sharma 18

However, it seems to be a deliberate statement, no matter how obliquely made, rather than an

incidental occurrence. Ray then comes across as a successful (subtle) propagandist in that he fulfills

the requirements spelt out by Lasswells thesis: The task of the propagandist is that of inventing

goal symbols which serve the double function of facilitating adoption and adaptation. The symbols

must induce acceptance (Said 292). Ray succeeds in inventing goal symbols of what he

neutrally labels feudal decadence along biased cultural and communal lines. These symbols do

find acceptance in the popular imagination and are also repeatedly adapted to suit fresh needs in

representations of Islamic culture in print and visual media. To name a few - cock fights, kite flying,

sensual indulgence, inertia, effeminacy, unawareness, backwardness, useless abstractions, indolence,

ignorance, regressive traditionalism, conservatism, orthodoxy, etcetera. These symbols achieve the

desired goal of constructing the other as negativity, a fault line in the body politic.

The film ends with a foregone desideratum: If we cant cope with our wives, how can we

cope with the British army? This last humble pie is eaten after the two noblemen have exposed

themselves in the heat of the moment, to be descendants of grass cutters and cooks employed in

the service of rich families. So much so for pure blood chuckles Ray. The faade has fallen and so

has Lucknow. The fall of Lucknow is also a phallic fall. The dismounting of the Nawabs artillery

and the elaborately filmed march of the British army with its erect and charged canons signify the

virility of the colonizing culture. Herein lies the feminine penetrability of which Ray is as guilty as

he shows the Lucknowi culture to be. In succumbing to the colonial Orientalist discourse about the

Orient knowingly/unknowingly he becomes more guilty of bias and colonial misrepresentation than

the colonizers themselves.

The Nawabs gesture of offering his crown to a British head lends itself as much to a psycho-

sexual reader response. There is something effeminate about the scene where the Nawab offers his
 Sharma 19

crown to the resident with a sudden though determined urgency. The scene reminds one queerly of a

marriage ceremony with the groom-resident uneasily courting the bride-king who unceremoniously

and with a sudden and overpowering impulse offers/bares to the groom, the prize of the bargain

without ritual and ceremony in broad daylight and in the discomforting presence of the guests. It

seems that the director even prepares us for this grand finale in the early dialogue between the

British resident and the Captain Weston:

Outram: Special? I would've used a much stronger word than that,

Weston: I'd have said a bad king. A frivolous, effeminate, irresponsible,

worthless king.

Weston: He's not the first eccentric in the line- (italics mine)

Prem Chands description of this scene too resonates with the same feminine imagery: The Nawab

departed from his house the way a bride, weeping and beating her breast, goes to her in-laws'

house. ..And that was that; the kingdom came to an end (Rehbar 73). Prem Chands ending spans

between admiration for the fallen chess players to a dismissal of an entire culture by way of very

telling imagery. He informs the reader that the two friends were pleasure seekers but they were not

cowards...there was no lack of personal courage. However the imagery of the desolate mosque in

last line with its broken arches... ruin, the fallen walls and the dusty minarets more or less settles

the matter of cultural decadence and artistic apathy. Rays film too shows the Nawab as a detached

dilettante on the one hand with a rather romantic and impractical understanding of male machismo

and as an emotional loser on the other. He tells his prime minister who cries before breaking the

news of the British takeover that only music and poetry can bring tears to a mans eyes. He even

rises to the occasion when he declares that the British would have to fight him in order to get the

throne; only to give up his crown way too easily in a most demeaning and disconcerting anti-climax.
 Sharma 20

In the final analysis, it would seem as Said suggests, that the most eccentric artists are

constrained and acted upon by society, cultural traditions, stabilizing influences like schools,

libraries, and governments so that both learned and imaginative writing can never really be free.

Prem Chand and Ray are as constrained as writers and intellectuals as they are constructed by

ideas, environment and empire. Moreover, they are as constrained as thinkers and social

commentators as they are tamed by a social and philosophical tradition built on a colonial

foundation.

Works cited

Das Gupta, Chidananda, ed. Satyajit Ray; An Anthology of Statements on Ray and by Ray. New

Delhi: Directorate of Film Festivals, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting,

Government of India, 1981, p. 115

Hunter, W. W. Intro. by Bimal Prasad. The Indian Musalmans. New Delhi: Rupa and Co., 2002.

Kaye, John W. The History of The Sepoy War in India. London: W.H. Allen and Co. 1870.

Khanna, Rajbans. Ray Has Missed the Wood For the Trees, The Illustrated Weekly of India, 31

December 1978, p. 53.

Knopf, David. British Orientalism and the Bengal Renaissance: The Dynamics of Indian

Modernization 1773 1835. Calcutta: Firma KL Mukhodadhyaya, 1969.

Kofman, Sarah. Camera Obscura of Ideology. Trans. Will Straw. New York: Cornell University

Press, 1999.

Pritchett, Francis W. "The Chess Players: From Prem Chand To Satyajit Ray, Journal of South

Asian Literature 22, 2 (Summer-Fall 1986):65-78.

Rahbar, Hans Raj. Prem Chand: His Life and Work .Delhi: Atma Ram and Sons, 1957), pp. 183-84.

Ray,Satyajit. "My Wajid Ali is not Effete and Effeminate," The Illustrated Weekly of India, 31
 Sharma 21

December 1978, pp. 49-51.

---. Dir. Shatranj ke Khiladi.. Perf. Kumar Sanjiv. Devki Chitra Productions, 1977. Film.

youtube.com

Said, Edward. Orientalism. India: Penguin Books, 2001.

Shatranj ke Khiladi. English subtitles. Subs4movies.com. iMDB code: tt0076696