From Jyoti Basu to woman who disappeared 28 years ago, it’s a filmy fight in Bengal poll season

Date: September 3, 1997

Time: 9 am

A middle-aged woman boarded a cab in Kolkata’s Bhowanipur area never to return again.

The disappearance of Manisha Mukhopadhyay remains one of the most enduring political-conspiracy theories to intrigue the state till date.

Manisha was not just any ordinary citizen. As an assistant controller of examinations at Calcutta University, she was known to have been close to many bigwigs of the then ruling Communist Party of India-Marxist. She was also a functionary of CPI(M)’s students wing, the Student Federation of India (SFI).

On that Wednesday morning, she got into the cab with her husband and nephew, according to media reports of that time. The husband, with whom her relation was reportedly strained, got out of the car on the way. After driving a few more metres, Manisha told her nephew to get down. After initial reluctance, he alighted the car at Golpark area of the city. The car sped away with Manisha, who was never seen again.

The disappearance became a major political embarrassment for the then Left Front government headed by Jyoti Basu after Chinu Devi, the ageing mother of the missing CU official, raised accusing fingers at the CPI(M) leaders her daughter befriended.

Many falls since, even the political landscape of the state has undergone a complete change. The formidable CPI(M) back then is a pale shadow of its former self now. But the mysterious disappearance is still a cold case, with a trail of unanswered questions.

Cut to 2025. Manisha is all set to resurface as a political thriller on the silver screen, causing political tongues, which had gone silent, to wag again, almost three decades after her disappearance.

Storyline apart, the backgrounds of the director and members of the cast of the proposed film are indicative of the real-politics to be weaved into reels in sync with the emerging trend of using popular culture to set political narratives.

Director Arindam Sil is considered to be close to Trinamool supremo and West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee.

Interestingly, at least three main characters in the film will be played by TMC leaders.

TMC spokesperson Kunal Ghosh will make a cinematic debut portraying a powerful leader of a political party in the film, titled Korpoor (camphor). The character is modelled after then CPI(M) state secretary late Anil Biswas. State education minister Bratya Basu will play the role of a police officer reportedly based on a former officer-in-charge of the homicide section of the Kolkata police. Basu is not new to the silver screen being an actor and director. A TMC councillor, Ananya Banerjee, will also play an important role in the film.

Director Sil, however, told the media that the film is completely fictional with no resemblance to any real person, living or dead. The movie is based on Dipanwita Roy’s Bengali novel Antardhaner Nepathye based on the real-life disappearance of Manisha.

It is likely to be released in December or January, just a few months before the state will go to election.

The timing of the movie on the high-profile case that generated a whiff of rot in the state’s education system is difficult to ignore.

The TMC government is under attack, particularly from the Left parties and their affiliates, over the teacher recruitment scam and other alleged irregularities involving the education system, including the rape and murder of a trainee doctor at government-run RG Kar Medical College and Hospital last year.

What could be a better counter to the Left Front’s charges than revisiting an episode that pointed towards politicisation of the education system under the LF regime.

The movie is bound to deliberately or inadvertently put in the dock the Left Front regime.

“It is a sinister design to tarnish the image of the Left Front and the then government. The allegations were found to be baseless and the case was shut long ago. Trinamool leaders should focus more on the current follies rather than digging up the past,” CPM veteran Rabin Deb was quoted as saying by the media.

The release of politically nuanced films ahead of elections is a trend Bengal is fast catching up with. And the TMC is not the only one riding the bandwagon.

BJP-leaning filmmaker Vivek Agnihotri last week unveiled the teaser of his upcoming film The Bengal Files with a provocative tagline: “If Kashmir hurts you, Bengal will haunt you”.

It’s not a mere coincidence that the film’s narrative aligned with the saffron propaganda that Bengal is turning out to be another Kashmir. The teaser ends with a visual of a burning idol of goddess Durga. The film is expected to be released in September around the time Bengalis will gear up for the annual Durga puja festival.

Not to be outwitted in crafting political narrative through the cinematic lens to influence voters, the CPI(M) even planned to cough up party funds to finance a biopic on Jyoti Basu, former chief minister of West Bengal.

Social and economic changes brought about by Basu as chief minister of the state for 23 long years is expected to be the compelling narrative of the movie, which the CPI(M) leaders say will present various aspects of the late leader’s “exemplary life”.

The biopic will be made initially in Bengali under the banner of the Jyoti Basu Research Centre inaugurated in January this year, according to Rabin Deb.

Already the party is said to have initiated discussions with filmmakers and actors associated with Bengali films as well as Bollywood. The party’s first choice to portray Basu is Naseeruddin Shah, uncle of a prominent state CPI(M) leader Saira Shah Halim, sources said. Shah has been reportedly approached for the role.

The movie will be the latest addition to the list of biopics on important political personalities. But this will perhaps be the first instance of a political party funding the movie on its leader.

As expected, the attempt to bring alive the late Marxist leader on screen led the critics to take a dig at the party saying it is forced to fall back on a late leader for resurgence as it lacked any credible face.

“The CPI(M) does not have any popular face. The young leaders it tried to project with much hype failed to win even in their localities. So, the party has to rely on Jyoti Babu,” TMC spokesperson Kunal Gosh told the media.

The CPI(M) set the target to launch the biopic by next year. “First it will be in Bengali, and then we also intend to make it in other languages,” Deb said.