Mathia

Joseph Pulinthanath’s Mathia occupies a singular and deservedly important place in the history of Indian regional cinema. Made in Kokborok, the indigenous language of Tripura, this 2004 film is considerably more than an ethnographic portrait of a remote tribal community. It is a deeply unsettling meditation on superstition, patriarchy, social conformity and the terrifying consequences of allowing collective apprehension to masquerade as truth. Its significance is heightened by the fact that it emerged from a cinematic milieu possessing little institutional infrastructure and even less visibility beyond the geographical confines of Tripura. Yet Mathia transcended those limitations, earning international recognition and becoming the first film from Tripura to win the Best Feature Film award at the International Film and Television Festival of Niepokalanów in Poland in 2003.

At the heart of Mathia is Kwchwngti, a young woman who arrives to live on the outskirts of the remote village of Hathai Para. Her mysterious presence soon becomes an object of suspicion, and before long the villagers begin to regard her as a swkal — a witch. Her presence becomes particularly threatening when she is perceived as interfering with the proposed marriage of Kephengrai and Khumbarti, even as Kephengrai himself maintains a clandestine relationship with another young woman, Sampri.

What initially appears to be a narrative about supernatural belief gradually reveals itself as something far more disturbing and sophisticated. The alleged “witch” is not the true source of the village’s disorder; rather, her presence merely illuminates the fractures that have always existed beneath the community’s outward cohesion — jealousy, desire, sexual hypocrisy, patriarchal authority, manipulation and, above all, the readiness of human beings to sacrifice an individual in order to preserve the comforting illusion of social order.

The film’s most disquieting achievement lies in its refusal to portray witch-hunting as merely an eccentric relic of primitive superstition. Pulinthanath is interested in something considerably more consequential: the manner in which an entire community can be persuaded to participate in persecution when superstition is fortified by fear, authority and social conformity. Here Mathia acquires a powerful sociological dimension. The “witch” becomes a convenient explanation for misfortunes that the villagers cannot otherwise comprehend. Illness, adversity, unusual behaviour and interpersonal tensions can all be attributed to an invisible supernatural agency. Once a person has been branded a witch, however, evidence ceases to matter. The accusation itself becomes the proof.

The film therefore poses a question that is as uncomfortable as it is universal: How does an ordinary human being become an acceptable victim in the eyes of an entire community?

The emotional core of the film is provided by Banthu, the one individual who recognises Kwchwngti’s humanity and falls in love with her. He elopes with her on the very night when she is to be killed by the henchmen of the village landlord, leaving behind his mother and younger sister. When his mother subsequently dies of natural causes, grief and guilt distort Banthu’s understanding of events. He blames Kwchwngti for the catastrophe and brings her before the village council, effectively delivering her back into the hands of the community and the fate traditionally reserved for witches.

This reversal is perhaps the film’s most devastating irony. The man who initially sees through the collective delusion ultimately becomes ensnared by it himself. Love, which had appeared capable of transcending communal prejudice, becomes corrupted by grief, fear and superstition. The destruction of this central relationship is not merely a romantic tragedy; it constitutes the film’s larger indictment of how deeply social conditioning can penetrate even the human heart.

Another of Mathia’s considerable achievements is its uncompromising commitment to indigenous space, language and cultural identity. Pulinthanath does not attempt to translate Tripura into the visual grammar of mainstream Indian cinema. Instead, he allows the village to remain unmistakably Tripuri. Its landscape, customs, folklore, interpersonal relationships and language are not ornamental embellishments but essential components of the narrative itself.

The importance of Kokborok to this achievement cannot be overstated. At a time when the language had almost no representation in Indian feature cinema, Mathia demonstrated that a language unfamiliar to the overwhelming majority of Indian audiences could nevertheless sustain a feature-length dramatic narrative and communicate complex emotional and social concerns to viewers far beyond Tripura. Its international recognition was particularly significant because the film did not achieve accessibility by abandoning its linguistic or cultural identity. Quite the contrary: it travelled beyond its homeland precisely while remaining authentically rooted within it. In that respect, Mathia stands as an important assertion of the principle that indigenous communities possess not merely the right to be represented, but the right to represent themselves, in their own language and on their own cultural terms.

Pulinthanath’s direction is marked by an admirable restraint. He does not succumb to the temptation of transforming witchcraft into sensational horror or theatrical melodrama. A less accomplished filmmaker might have exploited the supernatural premise for atmosphere, spectacle and fright. Pulinthanath instead treats the belief in witchcraft as a social phenomenon and turns his gaze towards the people who create, sustain and ultimately weaponise that belief. The film consequently belongs far more to the tradition of social realism than to supernatural cinema.

The performances by Meena Debbarma, Jayanta Jamatia and Amulya Jamatia complement this understated approach. Pulinthanath, who also wrote the screenplay, resists theatrical excess and allows the characters to inhabit their social environment with a degree of naturalism. Meena Debbarma’s portrayal of Kwchwngti is particularly consequential, because the emotional architecture of the film depends upon our gradual recognition of her not as the mysterious “other” imagined by the villagers, but as a vulnerable human being condemned by their prejudices. Jayanta Jamatia provides the romantic counterpoint, although the love story remains deliberately subordinate to the larger social tragedy. Love matters here not simply because two people wish to be together, but because their relationship implicitly challenges the authority of the community.

The film’s visual language reinforces its realism. The landscape is never merely picturesque background. The village, the surrounding countryside and the palpable physical isolation contribute to the impression of a self-contained social universe, one in which external institutions possess little influence. There are few mechanisms available to interrogate or challenge communal belief. Consequently, folklore, customary authority and collective opinion acquire an almost overwhelming power.

Even the title, Mathia, meaning “Bangle,” invites interpretation. The bangle is traditionally associated with femininity, marriage and social identity; yet within the world of the film, the woman remains deprived of the security and autonomy that such social symbols ostensibly promise. The bangle thus acquires an ironic resonance, encapsulating one of the central contradictions of the narrative: society may celebrate conventions surrounding womanhood while simultaneously denying women meaningful agency within those very conventions.

Perhaps the most impressive aspect of Mathia is its refusal to furnish the audience with a conveniently identifiable villain. It would be reassuring to attribute the tragedy to a handful of malevolent individuals. Pulinthanath offers us something considerably more unsettling. He suggests that ordinary people are capable of participating in extraordinary cruelty when an entire community comes to accept a false premise as unquestionable truth.

That insight is what allows Mathia to transcend its immediate geographical and cultural setting. Its story may belong to a particular village in Tripura, but its moral universe is recognisable everywhere. Societies have repeatedly demonstrated their capacity to turn difference into suspicion, suspicion into prejudice, prejudice into certainty and certainty into persecution.

Mathia is therefore not a film to be approached merely as entertainment. It demands to be engaged with as an act of cultural testimony, social criticism and deeply humanistic cinema. Pulinthanath takes a local story rooted in the folklore and social realities of Tripura and transforms it into a universal meditation on fear, superstition, patriarchy, conformity and persecution.

Most importantly, he gives a marginalised community a cinematic voice without diluting its linguistic or cultural distinctiveness. The tragedy of Kwchwngti is consequently not merely the tragedy of a woman accused of witchcraft. It is the tragedy of a society so thoroughly imprisoned by its own prejudices that it loses the capacity to recognise the humanity of the person standing before it.

And therein lies the enduring power of Mathia: its true horror does not reside in the supernatural, but in the frighteningly human ease with which a community can manufacture a monster — and then convince itself that destroying that imagined monster is an act of righteousness.