Home

Featured Articles

Sep 17, 2025
Ramaharitha Pusarla

Why Should India Deny Oxygen to The Idea of BRICS Currency?

Introduction Postulated as a framework by Jim O’Neil for the emerging economies, originally BRIC in 2006, metamorphosed into BRICS with the China-sponsored membership of South Africa in 2009, despite it not fulfilling any criteria for an emerging economy. While an absence of coherent ideological and governance commonalities is evident from the mere composition of the group, it has consistently grown in its international stature over the decades. With an ascendant economic growth trajectory, the group is slowly evolving into a counter to the G7 countries. The BRICS+ countries, making up 45.2% of the world's population and accounting for 36.7% of global GDP in PPP, 23.3% in global exports, are expected to surpass the G7 as per EY by 2026. The global merchandise exports of the BRIC plus countries increased by 12.6% points from 2000 to 2023, around the same time the G7 exports fell by 16.2% points. The rise of BRICS has eventually narrowed down the global economic landscape into G7, BRICS and others. Indeed, the global exports of the rest of the world marginally increased during the same period. Within the BRICS+, India and China have emerged as prominent players both in terms of their growing economic size and population. Instructively, as per the GDP ranking based on Purchasing Power Parity (PPP), China is pegged as the number one economy, with India projected to clinch the second position by 2028 1. Other BRICS countries like Brazil, Russia, and the UAE are expected to make a giant leap in terms of global exports. Concomitantly, the economic role of each of these countries is bound to expand. Saudi Arabia remains ambivalent about BRICS and has been hedging its bets. Washington Consensus and the Bretton Woods Institutions The Bretton Woods System was instituted in the aftermath of World War II, which pegged the fixed exchange rates backed by USD or the US gold reserves (22,000 tons). This enabled the US government to convert USD into gold reserves when requested by foreign central banks. This arrangement allowed the US Central Bank to print US dollars depending on the world’s demand without worrying about the inflationary consequences. Soon, growing imbalances in the US economy eroded confidence in the dollar’s stability. Unable to withstand the US inflationary pressures, the Bretton Woods System collapsed and in 1971, then US President Nixon suspended the convertibility of the USD into gold. Ever since, the USD has continued to remain as the global reserve currency, though it wasn’t backed by any formal treaty. There is no international treaty obligating nations to use USD, as the so-called Washington Consensus has withered away. To reduce reliance on the USD, the IMF has introduced Special Drawing Rights (SDR) as a supplementary reserve asset. However, following the sudden escalation of prices following the Yom-Kippur war in 1973, SDRs failed to finance global trade. Economists attribute various reasons for the USD’s dominance. Prominent among them are the size of the US economy, full convertibility, a full-fledged financial system to back it, capital mobility, a strong banking system and an independent central bank. Although China has a large economy, it falls short of other requirements. In the case of the Euro, the monetary union is not backed by a fiscal union. For any currency to have wider acceptance, it must have the above-mentioned factors. The emerging global economic trendlines are accompanied by a swift decline in the share of the US dollar as the international currency for global trade from 71.5% in 2000 to 58.2% in 2024 2. Given the increasing share of the BRICS countries, the economic policies of individual countries and the group collectively are going to have an impactful influence on the global economic landscape. It is notable that despite the uncertain US economic policy and dollar weaponisation post Russian invasion of Ukraine, the dollar share has remained unchanged. US Unilateral Measures However, driven by geopolitical factors, Trump’s trade tariff war, to insulate their economies, BRICS+ is attempting to coordinate their policies. A coherent approach would eventually translate into downsizing the dominance of the US dollar as the choice of global payments and transactions. Pertinently, BRICS might even want to circumvent the SWIFT trading helmed by clearance from US Bank and might be interested in creating new financial instruments. After Trump unilaterally withdrew from Iran’s nuclear peace plan, JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) and reimposed punitive sanctions on Iran, they proved to be very effective as Iran was shunted out from the SWIFT system. The other European countries that still wanted to honour the agreement announced plans to create an alternate system to continue payments. However, they couldn’t get far ahead with their efforts for fear of America’s weaponisation of the dollar. This decline in usage of the dollar, increasingly seen as de-dollarisation, has triggered fears of a shift in the balance of power, eventually reshaping the global economy and markets. Luis Oganes at J.P. Morgan said, “The concept of de-dollarisation relates to changes in the structural demand for the dollar that would relate to its status as a reserve currency. This encompasses areas that relate to the longer-term use of the dollar, such as transactional dominance in FX volumes or commodities trade, denomination of liabilities and share in central bank FX reserves,” 4. But as of now, the US dollar makes up for 88% of global traded forex volumes as opposed to 7% of the Chinese yuan. Though China has unseated the US as the topmost global exporter, the US dollar continues to maintain its overall dominance. Its share in global markets is five times the United States’ share of global imports. Indeed, owing to its extensive use, emerging economies, which by far have increased global activity, are currently subjected to the turbulence stemming from the volatile US markets. Alluding to the US dollar’s entitled status that can create a ripple effect across the globe, French Finance Minister Valery Giscard d’Estaing, in the 1960s, termed it as an “exorbitant privilege”, and it continues to wield a disproportionate control over global trade. Mark Carney, currently the Prime Minister of Canada, in his role as the governor of the Bank of England, in 2019, suggested that emerging countries must join to create their own replacement reserve currency to circumvent the ‘destabilising role” of the US dollar 5. Indeed, leveraging this ‘exorbitant privilege’, US trade advisor to Trump, Peter Navarro issued summary threats to India and warned it to “act like a strategic partner of the US” 6. BRICS Currency: To be or not to be! Except for sizeable combined economic activity, BRICS+ doesn’t have anything in its favour to launch a common currency. Geographically flung apart, with dissimilar economic sizes and monetary policies, achieving fiscal and monetary integration of the BRICS nations is extremely difficult. The EU is a striking example of issues that countries must face when the economies are not equal and comparable. Absence of ideological coherence, strong political institutions and different levels of development and their capacity to take on debt further render unrealism to the idea of a common currency. A single currency needs a common interest rate. Given the existence of different price levels in BRICS currencies, stitching a cohesive monetary policy is very difficult. For the first time at the 14th BRICS Summit, in the shadow of the Ukraine war, Russian President Putin announced the BRICS plan to issue a “new global reserve currency” 7. BRICS New Development Bank (NDB) President Dilma Rousseff indicated that there is an agreement in principle to use a new settlement currency called the Unit, which will be backed 40 per cent by gold and 60 per cent by local currencies in the BRICS bloc. The idea initially received some traction at the 2023 Johannesburg Summit. Ahead of the summit, Brazilian President Lula, expressing support, queried, “Who decided that the dollar was the (trade) currency after the end of gold parity?” 8. Drawing wisdom perhaps from the struggles faced by the European Union countries post-2008 financial crisis to maintain fiscal balance, BRICS has junked the idea of a common currency. Setting the record clear, Yury Ushakov, adviser to Putin, stated that BRICS countries are focusing on increasing cross-border trade and settlements in local currencies and indicated Russia’s intention to create an independent BRICS payment system based on digital technologies and blockchain. Subsequently, at the 2024 Kazan BRICS Summit, Putin clarified that they are not fighting the dollar but deterring the weaponisation of the SWIFT platform 9. Indian Response to the Idea of BRICS Currency From the beginning, India has consistently stayed away from the idea of BRICS currency. Reiterating India’s stand, EAM Jaishankar has clarified that India would back out of creating a new currency. The root of BRICS' frustration with the dollar is the loss of autonomy over economic policy. The euro was launched 50 years after France and Germany set aside their hostilities. Unfortunately, old and new members of BRICS have long-standing rivalries, viz, India Vs China, UAE Vs Iran, which will preclude the idea of fiscal convergence. But the idea of BRICS currency can potentially unsettle the US, as the BRICS nations are part of large trade blocs, and together these trade blocs include 64 countries. Though the concept is a non-starter, any alternate payment mechanism adopted by BRICS can have an impact on the dominance of the US dollar. Trump’s America First Policy, driven by the discriminatory tariff war and secondary sanctions, has substantially increased the financial volatility. Amid heightened fears of weaponisation of the dollar as a geopolitical tool, to mitigate vulnerabilities of dollar exposure and US monetary policy, BRICS countries are rapidly increasing trade in local currencies, which has surged to 90% from 65% two years ago 11. At the heart of India’s approach to BRICS currency is to uphold economic sovereignty, which aligns with its quintessential policy of strategic autonomy. Central to its foreign policy is the advocacy of a multipolar, inclusive and equitable world. A world where power is diffused among several power centres and not concentrated in one or two powerful states, with a range of middle powers contesting for influence. Such a diverse world comprising nations with greater autonomy would foster greater international stability, security and prosperity. Centred on this principle, India promotes ‘multi-alignment’, stitching diversified partnerships with different countries. India believes that a critical rebalance of power would prevent a unipolar or bipolar world. Given its principled approach for a multipolar world order, India firmly stands with the BRICS countries, which is a diverse group of countries with common interests seeking to navigate the global challenges through collaboration and cooperation. This is also reflected in its committed stand to develop an alternate financial system that is more inclusive and less vulnerable to geopolitical coercions. India is not interested in replacing the US dollar and its dominance. For that matter, India is not in favour of a common BRICS currency. However, it is keen on exploring parallel mechanisms where countries are sufficiently insulated from the looming threats of ‘economic warfare’. Diversification is the mantra that India seeks to strongly promote to evade the wanton weaponisation of trade and financial structures by powerful nations. India and China are the powerful economic weights within BRICS+. Making 60% of BRICS GDP and as a major trade partner of all BRICS nations, they wield immense heft. Beijing has markedly benefited from the surge in the intra-BRICS trade in recent years. The expansion of BRICS has augured well for its trading prowess, with the balance within BRICS increasingly shifting towards Beijing. An increase in intra-BRICS trade is helping China to counterbalance the impact of the trade war with the US. Steadily buttressing its economic position, Beijing is evolving as a dominant player and might gain more mileage with a common BRICS currency. Dollar Hegemony versus Yuan Hegemony China would use the proposed BRICS currency to gain financial hegemony. As the Euro experience suggests, Germany, which has been the economic heavyweight in the European Union, has driven the entire exercise of creating the new currency and made it the intervening currency. Being a dominant economy, China would likely emulate the same and call the shots12. All other nations would have to oblige to Chinese dictates. Yuan is a minor international currency and part of the SDR currency basket; a common BRICS currency will boost its dreams of internationalising the yuan and even challenge the hegemony of the US Dollar. Though China is the largest exporting market and an economic superpower, the dream of making Renminbi a global reserve currency has been rather wishful despite efforts by China since 2009 onwards. A BRICS currency can lead to the dominance of the Yuan and China’s monetary policies. Central to the idea of BRICS currency is to reduce dependence on the US dollar and bestow economic policy autonomy for countries. But by effectively integrating the monetary policies under China’s overbearing influence in BRICS would replicate the same process that BRICS countries want to avoid. BRICS currency would, in fact, make China more powerful, lending it the power to veto to stall or allow plans to suit its economic interests. BRICS has been formed to reduce reliance on any powerful bloc and attempts to change the Western-led world order into a multipolar system where developing countries can wield a proportional influence commensurate with their global economic activity. China’s Geoeconomic Trap India and China have contrasting visions for BRICS, which is evident from Beijing’s enthusiasm for expanding the group to turn into a support organisation for its geopolitical agenda, including promoting its Belt and Road Initiative and Global Development Initiative. It was an attempt to strengthen its influence among the developed countries. Nations seeking an opportunity to get economically closer to China reposed great interest in joining BRICS. Watchful of Beijing’s geopolitical agenda for BRICS, India has been cautiously supportive of the process. China silently harboured the ambitions of turning BRICS into a China-centric group and was inclined to position BRICS as another venue for “anti-US political activism”13. Beijing harbours a vision to dethrone the US as the sole hegemon, while India is desirous of a world order where a wider range of voices, particularly from the developed world and the Global South, are objectively considered for decision-making processes. In fact, India’s discussions at BRICS have been development-oriented with a focus on South-South economic and financial cooperation. With an economic potential to evolve into a counterpart of the G7 countries, India wanted to promote engagement between both groups. The 2025 Rio Declaration explicitly called for a comprehensive reform of multilateral institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, World Trade Organisation (WTO) and the UNSC to make it more inclusive, credible and representative of contemporary global realities14. India’s approach underscores a more equitable participation, advocating for the right of development within the global system. China nurtures an ambition of a unipolar Asia and a bipolar world. Being a revisionist power, China is inherently hegemonistic with a tendency to utilise every intergovernmental organisation to promote its initiatives. Historically and culturally, India is hard-wired to strategic autonomy and resists a subservient relationship. It refuses monopolisation of organisations or institutions and believes in building partnerships and fostering cooperation for shared developmental goals. India’s solutions for reducing reliance on the US dollar stem from the domestic success of the digital payment infrastructure, Unified Payment Interface (UPI), that revolutionised India’s efforts towards financial inclusion and seamless financial integration. Having firmly rejected the idea of a common BRICS currency, with tech-driven innovation, India is now working on an alternative to the SWIFT system through UPI. India is exploring connecting with other alternative payment mechanisms like the BRICS Pay System and others. India is prioritising internationalisation of the rupee by bringing through transformative cross-border payments with UPI and making it globally interoperable. Bolstering the BRICS call for trade in national currencies, the RBI is now allowing foreign banks to open Special Rupee Vostro Accounts (SRVAs) to facilitate trade settlements in rupees. As of now, India is expanding its rupee trade with 18 countries. Alongside, RBI is piloting a digital rupee to eventually use for cross-border projects like mBridge, a multilateral central bank digital currency initiative (CBDC) 15. In the process of reducing dollar dependence, India has never sought to replace it with any other currency. On the contrary, it is actively pursuing alternative globally operable payment mechanisms for trade and financial transactions. In other words, “India is not anti-dollar. It is anti-weaponisation of the dollar”. Trump’s aggressive sanctions, tariffs and penalties have sparked a reassessment among nations and galvanised their efforts to reduce reliance on the US dollar. The double whammy of being subjected to the vulnerability of the US dollar and a systemic risk of sanctions is pushing nations to explore alternatives. As a dominating trading partner within BRICS, any common currency arrangement will be dominated by Beijing. Being an authoritarian state with questionable transparency, weak institutional checks and limited commitment to the rule of law, India will never agree to a common BRICS currency. With a comparable demographic and diplomatic heft, ordaining consensus-based functioning, India pushed back calls for a common BRICS currency. The overarching goal of Chinese foreign policy is to turn BRICS into a counterbalance to the US. Besides, China’s plot of keeping the border issue alive and its efforts to encircle India and its strategy to challenge India’s status as the regional security power have brought things to a nought. Beijing’s constant needling of India’s external security interests with military and diplomatic support to Pakistan has constantly fed into New Delhi’s suspicions. The festering, unsettled border dispute has long foreclosed the chances of a Sino-India entente. Additionally, China’s belligerent, muscular expansion has always been a constant source of instability and peace in the region. China’s utter disregard of India’s three Ms- mutual sensitivity, mutual respect and mutual interest has pushed India into circumspection. While the lack of trust and rivalry can be a source of dissension, in the long term would sufficiently safeguard the BRICS platform from turning into a Sino-centric organisation and lay the foundations for a pragmatic multipolar world order. Conclusion Trump’s economic coercion in his second term will further force nations to further diversify their relation, undermining the organisational foundations of the Western-led world. Emerging countries are now increasingly coopting advanced technology to bolster their foreign policy to navigate through the geopolitical uncertainties. Blockchain-backed bitcoins were used by countries in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis to avoid central bank surveillance. In the face of burgeoning punitive sanctions, nations are taking a fresh recourse to technology for creating a new parallel financial architecture to carry out transactions without a hitch. References 1.https://www.ey.com/en_in/insights/tax/economy-watch/brics-to-pave-the-way-for-a-multipolar-currency-era 2.https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/notes/feds-notes/the-international-role-of-the-u-s-dollar-2025-edition-20250718.html 3.https://www.ambassadorllp.com/ap-insights/the-exorbitant-privilege-under-threat-will-the-us-dollar-remain-the-worlds-main-reserve-currency 4. https://www.jpmorgan.com/insights/global-research/currencies/de-dollarization 5.https://www.reuters.com/article/business/world-needs-to-end-risky-reliance-on-us-dollar-boes-carney-idUSKCN1VD28C/ 6.https://www.deccanherald.com/opinion/navarro-reminds-modi-of-americas-exorbitant-privilege-3690500 7.https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/policy/brics-explores-creating-new-reserve-currency/articleshow/94628034.cms?from=mdr 8. https://investingnews.com/brics-currency/ 9.https://www.firstpost.com/world/dedollarisation-brics-independent-payment-system-digital-technologies-blockchain-13745631.html 10.https://indianexpress.com/article/news-today/putin-advocates-for-swift-like-system-to-counter-us-dollar-dominance-9628629/ 11.https://www.ebc.com/forex/brics-currency-explained-benefits-risks-and-strategy#:~:text=Sanctions%20on%20Russia%2C%20Iran%2C%20and,65%25%20just%20two%20years%20prior. 12.https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/economy/brics-currency-india-unlikely-to-endorse-the-move-may-just-ignore/article67215868.ece 13.https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/china-and-india-are-at-odds-over-brics-expansion/ 14. https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=2142786 15.https://www.indiatoday.in/india-today-insight/story/as-brics-debates-reducing-dollar-dependence-why-india-is-walking-a-fine-line-2753797-2025-07-10

Sep 17, 2025
Rajabhishek Dey

The Bengal Files: A Blistering Portrayal of Reality

Cinema has often been called the mirror of society, but sometimes the situation is such that it functions as the mirror society refuses to look into. The Bengal Files emerges precisely as one such mirror, dragging into daylight the dark corners of Bengal’s history that have long been silenced, softened or above all distorted. At a time when Bengal is once again grappling with political violence, identity crises and the erosion of civic trust, the film is not merely a retelling of the past. It is a provocation, a challenge and an act of remembrance. To understand the urgency of the film, one must first glance at Bengal today. Stories from the present, of families struggling under a state of apathy, hostile streets, of corruption where “অনেকেই তো করে” (since many do it, why not me?), and of ordinary citizens silenced by political syndicates. At the same time, its higher intellectual legacies demonstrate to us that Bengal lives in a paradox. On one hand, it celebrates a rich cultural tradition of poetry, cinema, and intellectual pride; on the other, it easily hides the deepest scars of communal conflict, partition and systemic violence. The fear is not abstract. Across social media and in public debate, voices from Bangladesh remind Indians of what happens when demographic imbalance, appeasement politics and state-backed violence converge: minorities disappear. A Bangladeshi narrator confesses, “আমি বাংলাদেশি। অন্যায়ের প্রতিবাদ করার সামর্থ্য নাই… সংখ্যায় কমতে কমতে এখন আর প্রতিবাদ করার লোকবল নাই।”(“I am Bangladeshi. I no longer have the strength to protest against injustice… our numbers have dwindled so much that now there are no people left to raise their voices.”) This chilling admission is not about history but about lived present: an acknowledgment that in West Bengal too, the same trajectory is feared. The joke is on us Imagine there… sitting down at a small tea stall, an old couple moving slowly through the crowded bazaar. The husband has faint vision due to a cataract operation ten years ago, and rests his hand on his wife’s shoulder. He was not born blind; illness claimed his sight later in life. The wife, practical as always, checks her bag- does she have change? If not, there may be an awkward argument with the tea seller while her husband looks away in shame, an old habit of avoiding confrontation. They ordered two cups of tea without sugar and a couple of biscuits. The husband asks for “bakery biscuits,” though he cannot see what is on offer. A stray dog appears, tail wagging. The wife describes its colour to her husband and asks if he wants to share a biscuit. He tosses one, narrowly missing the dog’s face. Passersby chuckle “blind man”…mocking him without mercy. She steadies him as they rise, pays the bill, and they continue walking. Rain begins to fall. He worries about the umbrella. She, irritated but calm, says, “We’ll manage. Walk slowly.” And they walk on. This tender but uneasy scene is the story of Bengal today. The couple are proud that their children live abroad…successful, settled, fluent in English. Yet their pride hides a deeper loss: their grandchildren no longer speak Bengali at home. They use the language only with grandparents over video calls, never with their parents. What was once identity has become ornament. This “success story” masks a crisis. While some boast of children working in London or Toronto, Bengal’s young at home struggle with shrinking jobs, unemployment and underemployment. The paradox is cruel: those who leave forget, while those who stay are condemned to endure. Language tells the story sharply. Grandparents are fluent. Parents are half-fluent. Children understand but rarely speak. Their children may be silent altogether. This “fishbone pattern” of cultural decline shows how heritage collapses, step by step. And when the urban educated elite stop speaking their own language, literature, theatre and music lose their audiences. Jatra pala gives way to streaming apps; local libraries shrink while global platforms expand. The slow death of a language is never loud…it is silent, like the grandchildren who will no longer know the songs their grandparents sang. Politics deepens the fracture. A section of retired Bengalis treat Kolkata like a retirement home, erasing the memory of the Great Calcutta Killings and Partition violence, because it no longer matters to them… as their children are safe abroad. If suppose (I am not claiming) tomorrow Bengal becomes “West Bangladesh,” it makes little difference to them personally. But for the 39 percent who stayed…either by choice or compulsion- this erasure is deadly! Meanwhile, elections are no longer about ideology but about machinery. The ruling party knows the art of booth management… using the police, local muscle, women’s groups, and the distribution of money to secure votes and occupy counting tables. Cars ferry loyalists to polling stations; central forces are courted. This is democracy in form, but not in spirit… an economy of patronage, where loyalty and cash matter more than dialogue or vision. Opposition leaders may deliver speeches and hold meetings, but without grassroots networks and financial muscle, they cannot compete. And then there is the hypocrisy of the so-called liberal intelligentsia. A film trailer is enough to spark outrage. For years, they wore masks of free speech and artistic independence. But the moment their comfort is threatened, those masks fall. The Joker’s words from The Dark Knight apply here: morals and codes are “a bad joke,” discarded at the first sign of trouble. Introduce a little chaos, and the system collapses… because chaos treats everyone equally. In the end, the image remains: the blind husband and the weary wife, walking into the rain to Apanjan Old Age Home, their old-age home, residential care sanctioned by the state government. Proud of their children abroad, yet mocked by strangers. Nostalgic for a culture their grandchildren will not inherit. Fearful of the storm, yet moving forward. That is Bengal today- proud, blind, enduring, and stumbling toward an uncertain future. The joke, as always, is on us! Why the Film Stings So, when I watched The Kashmir Files, I was shaken. But when I watched The Bengal Files, I was disturbed in an altogether different way. Because this was my race, my city. These were our people. The faces, the streets, the accents: this was not someone else’s tragedy. It was ours. Some scenes were more brutal than The Kashmir Files. But the horror did not lie in their shock value… it lay in their familiarity. The narrow lanes, the political rallies, the slogans, the faces of leaders who still have echoes today. Yup…the film trailer launch was stopped in Bengal for a reason. It exposes too much. It reveals what many would prefer to forget. It shows us that history, if suppressed, will always return like an unhealed wound. Performances That Carry History The acting is not just a craft… it is a burden. Simratt Kaur, Namashi Chakraborty, Pallavi Joshi, Darshan Kumar.... all deliver powerhouse performances filled with anger, fear, and vulnerability. Anupam Kher, Mithun Chakraborty, Saswata Chatterjee, Sourav Das…each adds weight. Mithun, now a political figure, brings a layer of irony to his cameo. Pallavi Joshi embodies the conflicted conscience of a generation that both witnessed and denied. Symbolism and Soundscape Although making a slightly funny caricature of Gandhi and Jinnah (unlike earlier Bollywood films), Vivek Agnihotri does not drown the film in entertainment melodrama. He uses Bengal’s own culture as his scalpel. Baul music slips in unexpectedly, with the ektara appearing in people’s hands. Portraits of Renaissance men…Vivekananda, Tagore, Aurobindo… stare down from walls and offices, as if silently watching Bengal betray itself. And here, the Durga idol in the Noakhali office reminds us of Bengal’s ancient Hindu identity (not any modern-day Durga or Kaali idol that is mainly worshipped), reminding Bengalis of thousands of years of the past! Two songs pierce through the narrative like memory itself: Kichudin Mone Mone and Dwijendralal Ray’s Dhono Dhannye Pushpe Bhora, sung in Hemanta Kumar’s immortal voice. These are not nostalgic flourishes… they are reminders that Bengal’s golden culture was burning alongside its people. Mother India, as Maa Bharti herself becomes a character, speaking of double-faced demons and forked tongues. She reminds us: what Bengal thinks today, India thinks tomorrow. This is no mere slogan. The film shows it through parallels: the body of the Sheikh played by young Ekalavya Sood torn apart during Punjab’s Partition and Nehru’s speech starts “Tryst with Destiny”, the antagonist recalling of Kashmir’s “Ralib Galib Chalib” reminds us how the problems with Hindus are universal and recurring and follow the same pattern throughout history. Even the choice of the child’s name “Taimur” carries layered satire…mocking which Bollywood celebrity family don’t know: while reminding us of India’s violent past and anti-Indians’ future motifs. Reality Masquerading as Fiction There is no fiction here. None. Yes, I insist: what you see happened. And that is the best part of the film I liked. It seems that the director has been very well prepared with all the answers to all the probable questions and references to be asked in future! For example, the character of Golam Sarwar represents the hypocrisy that thrives today: men who preach madrasa education for others while sending their own children abroad. The Razakars of Bangladesh followed the same script… men who collaborated with Pakistan, then later became opposition leaders, educated their children in the West, and lectured others on visiting Madrasa! The character of Shashwata Chaterjee, his family’s cultural status modelled this, along with somehow also on “respected” social workers like Sheikh Shahjahan (may be)- shows how easily the mantle of philanthropy can hide a violent legacy. The police, meanwhile, are portrayed as perfect clowns, incompetent and corrupt, as it is today. Again, take another crucial example where Priyanshu Chatterjee plays the judge…helpless, ideological, a man in between the city’s burns who believes in the secular dream. Yes… he is also real. I will not give any references here to make the discussion more prolonged. If you have time and interest…please read about those Hindu teachers and intellectuals who clung to nationalism and secularism only to be betrayed by their students, astonishingly, one fine morning, who became rioters, killers, and opportunists. His character is not invented. These people existed and are still there. Many records, biographies and autobiographies testify to their existence… their naivety, their disillusionment (unfortunately, not any film). In reality, we also find how these ideologies of nationalism and secularism were further carried forward- the first translation of the Quran into Bengali was done by a Hindu. Hindus and Hindu values highly contributed to the language movement in East Pakistan later. Yet when persecution came, they fled or were killed. Unfortunately! Those who reached India often turned communist, conveniently erasing their past, teaching their children nothing of what they endured, just lamenting “Amago ekkhan desh achilo!” (Once we had a land!) The Names That Haunt Us Seventy-three years ago, Bengal was torn apart by men whose names still echo if you have ears. Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy, then the Premier of Bengal and his subordinate Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, later hailed as the “greatest Bengali of a thousand years.” Out of context…once, the Muslim Mayor of Calcutta, Muslim Mayor of Calcutta, Osman Khan, distributed a pamphlet in Urdu. It read: ‘Do not lose hope, raise your sword, O kafirs, the day of your destruction is not far away.’ The leaflet also contained a picture of Jinnah holding a sword. Now replace the name of the Mayor with Firhad Hakim. 2+2=4! Right? The message is blunt: yesterday’s leaders who enabled bloodshed are mirrored in today’s leaders who enable silence. The Pattern of Erasure This erasure is why my textbooks were empty. This erasure is why I did not know Gopal Mukherjee. This erasure is why generations can grow up in Bengal and know nothing of Bengal’s own holocaust. The Bengal Files achieves both scale and intimacy. It does not allow us the comfort of distance. Every scene is designed to wound the conscience. It is an eye-opener, not because it tells us something we never knew, but because it forces us to acknowledge what we were never allowed to remember. The film is like a cigarette packet that reads, “Smoking kills.” We may laugh, ignore, or dismiss. But cancer does not go away. History is the same. We can ban a film. We can suppress chapters. We can ridicule survivors. But the past remains, festering. Erased Histories as recovered: Gopal Paṭha, Bengal’s Women and the Silence of the Elite One of the strengths of The Bengal Files as a movie is that it does not reduce history to faceless statistics. Numbers alone cannot carry the weight of human suffering; it is through characters, both real and reconstructed, that the film breathes life into memory. The film resurrects forgotten voices… heroes erased, women silenced, and communities branded as either villains or martyrs depending on political convenience. Among the figures brought back into public consciousness, none is more striking than the sacrifices and actions of Rajendra Lal Roychowdhary and Gopal Chandra Mukhopadhyay, affectionately known as Gopal Paṭha. Though the state branded the latter one a “goonda.” Later leftist intellectuals dismissed him as a communal thug. But to those who survived because of him, he was nothing less than a guardian. As the document records, people called him Calcutta’s “অঘোষিত রক্ষক”…the city’s unofficial protector. The Bengal Files makes a political choice by restoring his dignity. In doing so, it contests the long-standing suppression of Hindu resistance figures who do not fit into neat secularist narratives. Perhaps the most harrowing sequences of the film involve the women of 1946. The film confronts audiences with these images, not to sensationalise but to memorialise. As one of the fighter’s documented videos states, “In Kolkata’s Rajabazar area, Hindu women were raped, their dead bodies bound hand and foot, stripped completely naked, their breasts cut off, and then hung from the meat shop hooks by the roadside.” Its true. Moreover, in Noakhali, apart from burning Hindu men alive, hanging, entire villages of women were forced into conversion, their sindoor was erased with toes, and many were married off to their rapists. Countless others chose suicide over dishonour, echoing the tragic choices made during medieval invasions. Yes, in a society where even today women’s suffering and sexual violence are often erased, these depictions are radical. They demand acknowledgement that sexual violence was not incidental but central to the genocide…a weapon of war designed to humiliate and terrorise an entire community.