 Political ideologues took issue with Ray 's work . In a public debate during the 1960s , Ray and the Marxist filmmaker Mrinal Sen engaged in an argument . Sen criticised him for casting a matinée idol such as Uttam Kumar , whom he considered a compromise . Ray said that Sen only attacked " easy targets " , i.e. the Bengali middle @-@ classes . However Ray himself has made movies on Bengali middle class in films like Pratidwandi and Jana Aranya set during the period of the naxalite movement in Bengal . Advocates of socialism said that Ray was not " committed " to the cause of the nation 's downtrodden classes ; some critics accused him of glorifying poverty in Pather Panchali and Ashani Sanket ( Distant Thunder ) through lyricism and aesthetics . They said he provided no solution to conflicts in the stories , and was unable to overcome his bourgeois background . During the naxalite movements in the 1970s , agitators once came close to causing physical harm to his son , Sandip . Early in 1980 , Ray was criticised by an Indian M.P. and former actress Nargis Dutt , who accused Ray of " exporting poverty . " She wanted him to make films to represent " Modern India . " 
