Ram Krishna Ranjan

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Cuts and continuities

THIS RESEARCH EXPLORES how film practice, bothas methodology and outcome of the inquiry can be mobilised toexplore negotiated imaginations of the Bengal famine from acaste-subaltern perspective?The Bengal famine of 1943, in which nearly three million peopledied, was man-made. A multitude of factors led to the famine,including British colonial policies, war, hoarding and profiteeringby local elites and businesses, and existing faultlines of caste, classand gender. In recent years, scholars have focused on scrutinisingthe famine from an anti-colonial perspective. Still, a gap exists inexploring the intersectionality of caste-related subalternities andthe famine. However, the immediate concern with filling this gapis ethical-methodological: even from the lens of caste-subalternconsciousness, how does one arrive at and share stories of thefamine, and can they ever be ‘recovered’ and ‘represented’? Thisdilemma and tension animate this PhD in Artistic Practice. Taking the Gramscian notion of subalterns as people/groups onthe margins of history, subaltern studies, especially in India, haveconsistently focused on the need to write history from below.On the one hand, scholars and historians have looked at archivalmaterials for erasures of subaltern history and foregroundedthem. On the other hand, they have mobilised methods such asoral history to recuperate the subaltern histories. In a limitedsense, this research adheres to this tradition. It looks at existingfilms on the Bengal famine and makes critical interventions inthem to foreground the caste question, and it also aims to create‘new’ material through collaborative fieldwork-filming andworkshops. However, this PhD also departs from the traditionas it is not a recuperative historical project. It focuses on thecreative, collaborative, and negotiated processes of imaginingand engaging with that history.Through an iterative, collaborative and reflective film practice,this research suggests that filmmaking can foreground subalternepistemologies and ontologies when it is not merely seen asproduct-oriented but also as a knowledge activity. Moreover, itcan foreground an ethos of active and continuous negotiationand enable the emergence of multiple, contested and layerednarratives. Lastly, this research proposes a shift away from‘recovery’ and ‘representation’ of the ‘authentic’ caste-subalternexperiences of the famine and toward negotiated imagination.About the author: Ram Krishna Ranjan works at the intersection of research, pedagogy and film practice and currently teaches in the film program at HDK-Valand, University of Gothenburg.

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