Encyclopedia of Indian Cinema

656 Pages·1999·35.876 MB·English

by  Ashish Rajadhyaksha, Paul Willemen

Indian Cinema
Encyclopaedia of

Indian Cinema
Encyclopaedia of
ASHISH RAJADHYAKSHA / PAUL WILLEMEN
BFI PUBLISHING
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
New Delhi
1998
Produced in association with the
National Film Achive of India
First published in 1994 by the
British Film Institute
21 Stephen Street, London W1P 1PL
and
Oxford University Press
YMCA Library Building, Jai Singh Road
Post Box 43, New Delhi 110001
The British Film Institute exists to encourage the development of film, television and video in the United
Kingdom, and to promote knowledge, understanding and enjoyment of the culture of the moving image. Its
activities include the National Film and Television Archive; the National Film Theatre; the Museum of the Moving
Image; the London Film Festival; the production and distribution of film and video; funding and support for
regional activities; Library and Information Services; Stills, Posters and Design; Research, Publishing and
Education; and the monthly Sight and Sound magazine.
Copyright © Ashish Rajadhyaksha and Paul Willemen 1994
All rights reserved
Cover: From the exhibition Culture of the Streets (1981) by M. F. Husain.
Reproduced, with grateful thanks, courtesy of M. F. Husain.
The authors respectfully dedicate this book to the memory of D. D. Kosambi.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 0-85170-455-7 (UK)
019-563579-5 (India)
US Cataloguing data available from the Library of Congress.
R
Designed and Processed at
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments..................................................................................7
Preface to Second Edition......................................................................8
Preface....................................................................................................9
Introduction..........................................................................................10
Explanatory Notes................................................................................12
Abbreviations .......................................................................................15
Chronicle ..............................................................................................17
National Production Figures ................................................................30
Dictionary.............................................................................................33
Films ...................................................................................................243
Bibliography.......................................................................................533
Name Index........................................................................................547
Film Index...........................................................................................572
Blank
Acknowledgements
We gratefully acknowledge the financial and institutional assistance of A special thank you, at the end of a long journey, to all the contributors
the UNESCO Participation Programme (1989); the Indian Council for of this book. Most of them worked on it in their spare time, while
Social Science Research, New Delhi; the Charles Wallace (India) Trust; holding down full-time jobs as bureaucrats, teachers, journalists or
Tata Institute of Social Sciences (Bombay), and Centre for the Study of researchers in areas other than the cinema, which makes their
Culture & Society, Bangalore. involvement, their labour and their patience all the more valuable.
A number of people have graciously and generously taken the time to The already complicated problems of gathering information across the
give us advice and to comment on parts of the manuscript. Special expanse of India, the absence of established networks and the, at times,
thanks go to Nasreen Munni Kabir, M. S. S. Pandian, V. A. K. Ranga Rao, bewildering logistics of simple communication systems, always and in
Geeta Kapur, Harish Raghuvanshi, P. K. Nair, Sibaji Bandyopadhyay, every instance means that in India, people depend on other people,
Anustup Basu, Shivarama Padikkal, ‘Filmnews’ Anandan, Venkatesh friends and colleagues, families, associates, relatives, acquaintances, to
Chakravarthy, V. Chandran, Roma Gibson, B. N. Subramanya and manage - even to set up - functioning systems in lieu of those that do not
P.G.Srinivasa Murthy. work. I could not even begin to list the many friends who extended their
hospitality to me, those who sent me books and references or put me in
Stills: Courtesy National Film Archive of India; BFI Stills, Posters and
touch with others who could help. A special thank you to colleagues at
Designs; Kamat Foto Flash, Syndications Today.
the Centre for the Study of Culture and Society, Bangalore, in particular
We thank the following contributors and consultants: to Tejaswini Niranjana for her support and encouragement, Geeta Kapur,
Vivan Sundaram, Nasreen Munni Kabir, Prof. Mihir Bhattacharya and the
Assamese: Pradip Acharya (Guwahati)
Department of Film Studies Jadavpur University, Nandinee
Bengali: Moinak Biswas (Calcutta)
Bandyopadhyay, Jhuma Basak; P. Govinda Pillai, Prof. Hiren Gohain,
Bhojpuri and Rajasthani: Murlidhar Soni (Jaipur) Dhiru Bhuyan, Pabitra Kumar Deka, Prafulla Dutta, Bobbeeta Sarma;
Gujarati: Amrit Gangar (Mumbai) Ashok Dhareshwar, David Windsor; Anjali Monteiro at the TISS, Sudhir
Nandgaonkar and the Prabhat Chitra Mandal, S. V. Rajendra Singh, Girish
Gujarati and Hindi: Harish Raghuvanshi (Surat)
Kasaravalli, Satyamurthy Anandur, Sushant Mishra, T.V. Chandran, K.P.
Hindi: Nasreen Munni Kabir (London)
Kumaran. Subbalakshmi Iyer allowed us the use of her bibliography of
Kannada: Dr Vijaya (Bangalore), Madhava Prasad (Bangalore) Indian cinema. A special thanks to Gudipoodi Srihari for his help in
Malayalam: P. K. Nair (Pune), R. Nandakumar (Trivandrum), Telugu film, ‘Filmnews’ Anandan for the Tamil and Dilip Das for helping
Neelan (Trichur), Satheesh Poduval (Hyderabad) us overcome difficulties in researching recent Oriya film. Gerhard Koch
Oriya: Chandidas Mishra (Mumbai/Bhubhaneshwar), Samarendra kindly advised us on the entry for Franz Osten. M. S. S. Pandian provided
Das (Phulbani) a new bibliography of Tamil film for the second edition. Randor Guy
graciously reassured us about the accuracy of some of our information
Punjabi: B. R. Garg (New Delhi), Anup Singh (London)
on Tamil cinema. Jyoti Bhatt gave us his kind permission to use and also
Silent Film: Virchand Dharamsey (Mumbai)
provided the print for the picture illustrating the DMK Film entry.
Tamil: S. Theodore Baskaran (Chennai), Preetham Chakravarthy Virchand Dharamsey made available his encyclopaedic memory not only
(Chennai) in his area of specialisation, but also to identify hundreds of film stills.
Telugu: K. N. T. Sastry (Hyderabad), I. S. A. Mohana Krishna Harish Raghuvanshi is largely responsible for whatever degree of
(Hyderabad), S. V. Srinivas (Hyderabad/Bangalore) accuracy we have achieved in our Hindi filmographies. K. P. R. Nair shot
and S. B. Kanhere developed the prints in the NFAI collection for this
Research and editorial assistance were generously contributed by
book. Riyad Vinci Wadia provided new information, including prints of
Subhash Chheda, Amrit Gangar and their team at DadaKino,
otherwise unavailable Wadia productions to help us correct and update
Mumbai, as well as by:
credits, synopses, filmographies and other information on that studio and
Bengali: Amitava Sen (Calcutta), Sanjit Choudhury (Calcutta)
its personnel. The Films Division Commentary staff gave me access to
Documentary Film: Subhash Chheda, Amrit Gangar (Mumbai) every Indian language, a unique instance of the unique nature of many
Hindi: Kavita Anand (Mumbai), Ganga Mukhi (Mumbai) of our national institutions. Alaknanda Samarth’s support at all times, and
especially in that rainy February of 1992 in London at a particularly
Kannada: Pushpamala N. (Mysore/Mumbai), Sandhya Rao
critical time for this project, as well as Mrs Ranu Biswas’ hospitality in
(Bangalore), Raghunandan (Mysore)
Calcutta and R. S. Amladi’s for long stretches in Pune, are the kinds of
Malayalam: M. G. Radhakrishnan (Trivandrum), Koshy A.V.
support that, over time, became integral to the logistics of this
(Trivandrum), Sreekumar K. (Trivandrum) and Manambur Suresh
programme.
(London)
Marathi: Vasudha Ambiye (Mumbai) Thanks also to the library staffs, too numerous to name, of the National
Centre for Performing Arts, Mumbai Marathi Granthasangrahalaya, the
Silent Film: Partho Datta (New Delhi)
Centre for Education and Documentation (Mumbai); the Kerala Studies
Tamil: M. Ravi Kumar (Mumbai) section of the Trivandrum University Library; the National Library,
Gautam Chattopadhyay at Nandan, the libraries of Chitrabani, Cine
This book, quite simply, would never have been realised without the
Central and Cine Society (Calcutta); the Film and Television Institute of
assistance of a number of people within the British Film Institute
India (Pune); the Suchitra Film Society (Bangalore); the Nehru Memorial
(Richard Paterson, Bridget Kinally and Imdad Hussain), London, and the
Museum and Library (New Delhi); the BFI’s library and the India Office
National Film Archive of India, Pune. In addition, we should like to thank
Library (London). Information about the careers of Indian directors in
the Nehru Centre in London, the London International Film Festival, Mr
Malaysia was kindly supplied by Mr Dato’ Haji Mohd Zain Haji Hamzah
R. Advani and Ms Anita Roy of the Oxford University Press, Delhi, for
and Ms Shara Abdul Samad of the National Film Development
their enthusiasm and support. For support in editing, designing and
Corporation, Malaysia.
printing the second edition, we are especially grateful to the Repro-India
team, and in particular to Rakesh Pherwani’s assistance in solving often And, finally, Pushpamala, who shared with me every moment of the pain
complex problems of computer software. and the pleasure, the discoveries and the journeys of realisation we
made together these last five years. The complexity these days of values
We are particularly grateful to Mr P. K. Nair who, in his former capacity as
like ‘home’ and ‘belonging’ and ‘memory’, the interrogation and
director of the NFAI, was a major supporter of the project and who later
enablement that is the very stuff of her work, makes her place in the
became one of its key contributors and authorities. His successor, Suresh
world in which this book has been written perhaps the most special of
Chabria, extended all the facilities of the NFAI for research and remained
all.
a source of encouragement and support. On several occasions the staff,
especially the film and library staff, went beyond their official function to
extend their belief in, and commitment to, this endeavour. Needless to
say, none of this book’s no doubt numerous shortcomings can be
blamed on any of the contributors and advisers who have so generously
Ashish Rajadhyaksha
and unselfishly given their time and expertise to this project.
7
Preface to Second Edition
I
t is with pleasure that we present before you a revised and updated did not feature in the book. It must be remembered in this context that
second edition of the Encyclopaedia of Indian Cinema. The book’s some 23 million Indians go to the movies every day, that a goodly
indices, filmographies and film entries have now been brought up percentage of these would consider themselves, validly, authorities on
to 1995. We present new entries on stars, directors and composers who the subject of this book, and further, that certain kinds of actors often
have made their mark in the 1990s, and a vastly expanded section of film represent an essential constituency, and are crucially implicated in the
entries where we have especially covered mainstream productions from assertion of their fans’ identities.
the 1970s-90s. These are films that are most likely to be in current
Many readers responded to our call for this project to become something
circulation, on video, television or in your neighbourhood theatre. We
of a collaborative venture, helped with their knowledge on certain areas,
have carried out many thousands of corrections on the first edition, some
with comments on certain perhaps unduly critical turns of phrase, with
major, others mostly to do with spellings, dates - many film titles have
otherwise scarce information enabling us to update this project as a
now been re-dated in terms of their actual completion (rather than their
whole. To these readers, and to the dozens of reviewers of the first
dates of release) - and the identification of dubbed films and multilingual
edition in India, Pakistan, Britain, Australia and the USA who also came
productions. We also include a new feature: an exhaustive index of
up with often useful responses, our sincere gratitude.
names other than the ones featuring as independent entries. Although
nowhere near the end, we believe in all this that we have taken a major Our gratitude especially extends to the team that assembled the first
step towards that elusive category ‘definitive’. edition, and went to work on the second. We also welcome to the team
several new, younger, contributors and consultants who joined us,
When we handed over the first edition to the publishers in mid-1994, all
notably in Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and Oriya cinemas. Their
those who had worked on the book were aware of the priorities of its
names feature in our updated acknowledgements list. Many of our senior
time. Our focus was then on the history of Indian cinema, especially on
authorities went through the book in the greatest possible detail, and we
its relatively less chronicled periods: the silent era, the early years of
must especially reiterate our gratitude to Virchand Dharamsey, Harish
sound, the major directors, stars, writers and composers who were noted
Raghuvanshi and V.A.K. Ranga Rao in this regard.
figures in their times but often forgotten by subsequent generations.
Furthermore, we tried to present as far as possible within the pages of a Most gratifying perhaps, at least partly as a result of the work that went
single book the vast panorama of the six major language industries and into this book along with the debates its publication has sparked, other
the nine other languages in which films are commonly made, covering initiatives appear to have received a new burst of energy. In terms of
not only the well known titles but also the key film-making personnel of research, DataKino’s computerised data bank housed at the National
these regions. This often called for some kind of loose system of Film Development Corporation is set up on a clearly more
allocating space to all ‘language’ cinemas proportionate to their comprehensive scale than could have been achieved in one book.
production scale. Finally, we addressed the major problems presented by Further, the success of the first edition contributed to providing a new
the archives: how to use current concerns of theory to ‘read into’ space for writing on the cinema, and to allied events such as conferences
surviving material in situations where the films themselves haven’t and workshops in the relatively recent discipline of film studies. It is this
always survived and information is scanty, scattered and often development, and the nature of demands that theorists and researchers
contradictory. of the future and arising from the new disciplines that are currently in the
process of formation and stabilisation, that will no doubt determine the
Having put this together, the next stage was to put this material into the
future directions this Encyclopaedia project will take. Perhaps future,
public arena, and generate some kind of dialogue with interested readers
computerised, and eventually on-line publication will allow both an
and authorities.
expansion of the space at our disposal and permit newer search modes
We always expected a controversial response, but never one as suitable both to researchers and cinephiles alike.
overwhelming as we got, especially in India, but also in many other parts
of the world where the book is being used by teachers and researchers
of Indian film. In India, the commonest response featured extensive,
Ashish Rajadhyaksha/Paul Willemen
often heated, discussions around why certain names - usually of stars - August 1998
8
Preface
P
roducing a reference work about a national cinema is an sound cinema could be seen as part of Indian cinema: Ardeshir Irani, the
uncomfortable project. Both Seamus Deane, an Irish intellectual, director of Alam Ara, also made the Persian film, Dokhtar-e-Lor, in 1933
and Aijaz Ahmad, a subcontinental intellectual, have produced in Bombay, commonly acknowledged as the first Iranian sound feature, a
powerful critiques of the very attempts to provide a history of any fact celebrated in Mohsen Makhmalbaf’s Nassereddin Shah Actor-e-
particular art-form presented in terms of a nation-state’s achievements. Cinema (Once Upon a Time Cinema, 1992).
Deane’s ‘Critical Reflections’ in Artforum of December 1993 argue the
Any account of Indian cinema cannot but run the risk of essentialism as
case in relation to the construction of national art histories. Ahmad’s
outlined by Deane, including its reactionary aspects and distasteful
‘Indian Literature: Notes Towards the Definition of a Category’, reprinted
ancestral longings. To acknowledge, with Ahmad, that the art-form
in his book In Theory (1992, pp. 243-85), examines the (im)possibility of
defined under such murky circumstances is always too diverse to fit
there being a national Indian literary history. Ahmad points out that,
neatly under any label that could be affixed to it, is small comfort,
even should the legitimacy of a category such as Indian literature be
especially in the context of contemporary India where the risks to life
granted, it would have to encompass such diverse histories in so many
and limb of ancestral longings and essentialism are so gruesomely made
languages tied to geographical terrains with constantly shifting
real. In such a context, it is not enough simply to point out that India is
boundaries that no single scholar can ever claim to practise the discipline
and always was plural and diverse and that any attempt to essentialise it,
of Indian literature. Furthermore, the territorial unity that can readily,
to force a coincidence between territory and chronology, or between
though abusively, be imagined for German, French, US or Japanese
nation, ethnicity, religion and state, is un-Indian (in the sense that it
cinemas and literatures, cannot be fantasised for India without restricting
betrays the struggle which achieved an independent state in the first
the terrain and the period to an absurdly small fragment of what should
place) as well as murderous.
be addressed if we are to make any kind of sense of the cultural
productions at issue. To restrict an account of Indian cinema to the geo- Deane tries to think his way through the problem of the ‘national’ art-
temporal frame constituted by the Indian nation-state since form by invoking feminism: ‘It is a crux of feminist theory that
Independence or, more accurately, since Partition, would require us to essentialism must be both accepted and confronted, cancelled, erased.’
ignore some of the most admirable cinematic achievements realised in The present work on Indian cinema tries to learn this lesson from
Colonial India. More damagingly, it would also rule out any engagement feminist theory, especially as formulated by, for example, Gayatri
with the longer-term dynamics which have shaped post-Partition Indian Chakravorty Spivak, who described the ‘risk of essence’ in terms of the
cinema. need to acknowledge ‘the dangerousness of something one cannot not
use’ (Outside in the Teaching Machine, London and New York:
Even if it were thought to be desirable, a rigorously ‘nation-state’
Routledge, 1993, p. 5).
approach to Indian cinema, or to any other art-form, cannot be
sustained. If we put the emphasis on ‘nation’ rather than on ‘state’, the On the one hand, essentialism is evoked and confronted in the attempt
problems only multiply. In other words, there is no sense of Indianness, to offer a fairly comprehensive though no doubt seriously flawed
nor of any other so-called national identity, that precedes the forms of introduction to an All-Indian cinematic history. It is All-Indian not in the
historical and personal experience or expression given shape by sense of stressing a common denominator or in the negative acceptance
particular, geographically and historically bounded institutions of of the term discussed in our entry on All-Indian Film, but in its attempt to
government, by particular state forms providing and enforcing, and engage with the film cultures that arose in all parts of India, rather than
always necessarily falling short of doing so homogeneously, both to privilege the Hindi cinema, and to give them space in accordance with
geographical limits and social stratifications. Nations are retroactive, not their relative weight in Indian cinema as a whole. This strategy
retrospective constructions to which we are invited, often not very necessarily involves making judgments, and equally necessarily means
subtly, to adhere. Seamus Deane notes that ‘the most essentialist getting some of the judgments wrong. So be it. Other books with similar
figurings of history ... depend upon making an intersection between time aims will provide correctives and future, corrected and up-dated editions
and space, between chronology and territory. This is a feature of all of this first effort will do likewise.
writings that aim to provide a history of an art-form, of a literature, of a
On the other hand, essentialism has been erased both in the critical
nation-state’s achievement in the arts.’ He goes on to ask:
methodology, which is consciously hybrid and ‘impure’, calling on
Is it possible to write a history of any form of ‘Art’, is it possible to knowledges, values and conceptual tools which are neither nativist nor
locate it territorially, and at the same time to be free of any rootlessly cosmopolitan, and in the scope of the book which
conception of art that is not at least implicitly essentialist and unapologetically includes artists and films that could be claimed by
therefore subversive of the very idea and form of history - that is Pakistan, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Singapore or even by Hollywood (Ellis
not in some sense either reactionary or ancestral in its longings, Duncan) or Germany (Franz Osten, Paul Zils). The editors do not wish to
and, ultimately, impassive toward all forms of exposition or suggest that these other national cinemas would be wrong to make such
explanation? claims. It is just that Indian cinema is incomprehensible without the
inclusion of these artists and films in the same way that Pakistani or
In this respect, a reference work is no different from a historical account:
Bangladeshi cinema cannot be understood without taking into account
both construct what they purport to address.
the work of artists commonly regarded as part of Indian cinema.
Deane’s questions go to the heart of the matter. It may not be an accident
The editors have taken the risk, described by Deane, of ‘going through
that an Irish intellectual talking about ‘Irish Art’ should ask questions so
essentialism, re-tracing the journey as much as possible against the grain
pertinent to the very desire of producing a book about Indian cinema. As
of the received pattern while still accepting that pattern as given, in order
an intellectual marked by the history of the island of Ireland, including
ultimately to replace it with something that is not essentialist, univocal,
the experience of colonialism, post-colonialism and Partition, Deane’s
coercive’. In this task, we have been greatly helped by many scholars
thought has a definite resonance for those who address notions of Indian
whose expertise in the many different Indian cinemas and cultures has
art-forms.
made the editors acutely aware of the impossibility of mastering, unifying
A book purporting to be, however imperfectly, an encyclopaedia of and essentialising Indian cinema as an artform coinciding with both a
Indian cinema(s) cannot but lay itself open to all the criticisms and singular territory and chronology.
strictures formulated by Deane and Ahmad. The very enterprise of
We have taken ‘India’, not as a fixed entity, but as a socio-cultural
compiling such an encyclopaedia is inevitably caught in the tensions,
process, a changing and contested set of overlapping frameworks
fantasies and, not to put too fine a point on it, the traps they describe. If
(always temporarily) stabilised by governmental institutions, be they the
the category of Indian cinema cannot be restricted to post-Partition India,
Colonial administration, the Indian government or the various
neither can it be made to coincide with any definition of pre-Partition or
institutions seeking to regulate (or deregulate, which is only a different
of Colonial India. Any such definition would include all or part of
type of regulation) the interface between culture and economy within, at
Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and various bits and pieces of geography
any given time, specific territorial limits. In the end, our main guideline
beyond the current borders of the Indian Republic. As even a cursory
has been to focus on the works, the artists and the institutions which
glance at the Chronicle in this book will make clear, the boundaries and
have addressed Indian cinema as a constituent part of ‘India’ as a socio-
composition of the Indian State have varied a great deal over the years.
cultural process.
In addition, the cultural divisions between Indian cinema and other
cinemas have been very flexible as well. To give but one example, and
Paul Willemen
the editors of this book have debated the point, the beginnings of Iranian
London, May 1994
9
Introduction
The sheer gigantomania of India’s film factories in Mumbai, Chennai, systems to perpetuate their economic and cultural claims and to record
Calcutta, Bangalore and Hyderabad, well known collectively as the their achievements. Indeed, so influential is this amalgam of industrial,
world’s largest national film industry, have attracted increasing, if institutional and cinephiliac discourses, so thoroughly has it saturated the
sometimes bemused, attention from film scholars, not least because of ‘sources’, that it has become virtually impossible consistently to ascertain
the embarrassment of Indian cinema’s near-chronic omission from most historical ‘facts’ even as basic as filmographies or credits.
global film histories. However, for millions of Indians, wherever they
The problem is, of course, not new to India’s historians. From the mid-
live, a major part of ‘India’ derives from its movies. Here, the cinema has
19th century through to the late colonial period, India’s history was
provided, for the better part of this century, the most readily accessible
virtually the plaything of an extraordinary variety of ideological
and sometimes the most inventive forms of mass entertainment. In its
movements, from Orientalists to Utilitarians, Evangelists, Reformers,
scale and pervasiveness, film has borne, often unconsciously, several
Nationalists and religious revivalists, each presenting history as an idea of
large burdens, such as the provision of influential paradigms for notions
‘the past’, choosing the one most suited to the kind of cultural
of ‘Indianness’, ‘collectivity’ (in the generation of an unprecedented,
mobilisation they were propagating in their present. Each of these in turn
nationwide, mass-audience), and key terms of reference for the
yielded simplified, uncritical but extraordinarily durable versions of their
prevailing cultural hegemony. In India, the cinema as apparatus and as
stand, which in turn not only influenced the popular art of its time but
industry has spearheaded the development of a culture of indigenous
the actual process of history-writing itself. Many of the historians whose
capitalism ‘from below’, and its achievement in doing so continues to
methods we adopted have been concerned with placing the ‘fact’ as a
influence and determine newer programming and publishing strategies
central question in their analysis, including, and crucially so, the forms
with the proliferation of television channels and mass-circulation fan
and circumstances of the generation of ‘records’. Referring, for instance ,
magazines.
to Ranajit Guha’s manifesto statement, ‘On Some Aspects of the
So, at least, goes conventional wisdom about an admittedly complex, Historiography of Colonial India’, and to the work of the Subaltern
and at times bewilderingly vast, realm of cultural production. The prime Studies Group, Edward Said (1988) pointed to the
example of a mass-entertainment industry operating in a nation-building
frequent reference to such things as gaps, absences, lapses,
context has clearly been, to date, Hollywood. Dozens of books have
ellipses, all of them symbolic of the truths that historical writing is
been devoted to speculation about, and a few to analyses of, the
after all writing and not reality ... [which was controlled by] the
relationship between notions of ‘America’ and the ‘America’ constructed
Indian elite and the British colonizers who ran, as well as wrote the
in the minds of people all over the world, including in the USA, by
history of, India. In other words, subaltern history in literal fact is a
Hollywood’s products. In the early decades of this century, the dime
narrative missing from the official story of India.
novel, popular journalism and then film provided not only the key
narratives for that relationship, but also its most potent archives: a To supply the narrative requires ‘a deeply engaged search for new
baggage of political fact and cultural revisionism that was accepted, in its documents, a ... re-deployment and re-interpretation of old documents,
entirety, by US television from the 1960s on. so ... that what emerges is a new knowledge’. One of the first historians
to do so was D.D. Kosambi, to whom we dedicate this book. In his
The ‘India’ of its movies, like Hollywood’s ‘America’, has spawned its
celebrated Introduction to the Study of Indian History (1956/80),
own cinephilia, which at its most basic is animated by a distinctive
Kosambi set out to ‘reconstruct a history without episodes ... defined as
‘insiderism’, a buddy-culture of speech and body-language that has now
the presentation, in chronological order, of successive developments in
expanded and replicated itself into idioms of popular literature with a
the means and relations of production’, enjoining all historians of India
dynamic of their own via reviews, gossip columns and magazines,
to
publicity materials, novelisations, autobiographies, interviews and fan-
club hagiographies. Unlike Hollywood, however, the dynamic of these remember that no single mode [of production] prevailed uniformly
idioms has not always intersected with that of official, ‘national’ India in over the whole country at any one time: so it is necessary to select
any predictable fashion. To some extent, as Paul Willemen’s Preface for treatment that particular mode which, in any period, was the
shows, this has to do with ‘the national’ itself, as ideology and as most vigorous, most likely to dominate production ... no matter
institution, as State and as imaginary motherland. India has changed how many of the older forms survived in outward appearance.
dramatically, and more than once in this century. And, as can be
Clearly in India’s 20th-century cultural arena, the mode of production at
imagined, the Indian state has required at different times different things
issue in cinema is capitalism, remembering that ‘no single mode
from its popular culture to shore up, defend and/or perpetuate its realm
prevailed uniformly’ and that ‘older forms survived’ at the same time.
of political and cultural control. To a much greater extent, and again
Even if those older forms survived only ‘in appearance’, that still means
unlike Hollywood, the ‘Indian’ in Indian cinema has all too often been a
they must be taken into account since it is fatal to overlook appearances,
realm beyond what the State has been able to claim for itself: a complicit,
especially in cinema. The lesson to be learned from D.D. Kosambi in this
if not always officially legitimate terrain of belonging, simultaneously
respect is that we must refuse to reduce a mode of production to either
envied and resented.
pure capitalism or to some older mode. In each case (film, studio, state)
Most Indian readers of this book will be familiar with how, in the 1970s, the particular mix of old and new will leave a particular imprint, with the
cinephilia relating to mainstream Hindi cinema became an important capitalist mode of production in cinema providing a more (or less)
source for celebrating ‘indigenous’ cultural populism while mounting a dominant determination. When the cinema apparatus came into India, it
free-market attack on the Nehru-Indira Gandhi socialist model of state was a technology and a mode of cultural manufacture and distribution
institutions, and how it influenced a great deal of state policy, especially, without direct historical precedent in the country. On the other hand,
of course, policy addressing the Indian film industry itself. They will also from the earliest features of Phalke’s work and ever since then, film
recognise this cinephilia’s role over the last two decades in the presented its most critical value as being a neo-traditional cultural form
propagation of a sense of nostalgia, as glossy ‘nostalgia films’ and par excellence, a gadget that worked at its best in suturing cultural
advertising campaigns invoke genres such as the classic 50s romances, difference and producing an easily consumable homogeneity for an
even as political parties create an aggressive new frontier of right-wing increasingly undifferentiated mass audience. To aid this suturing, several
‘Hindutva’ for indigenous populism. Others may recognise the crucial film-makers, producers and institutions went some way in demonstrating
part this and other kinds of nostalgia have played in the rhetoric of an the survival of older forms. Phalke himself attempted a theory of film that
Asian diaspora, which in turn further informed influential literary as well made it virtually a traditional Indian art in the context of Swadeshi. The
as cinematic fictions, along with, for instance, the Asian music-video studio-era film-makers commonly aspired to the respectability of the
industry and other kinds of actual or pretend political counter-cultures. reform novel, just as 50s films were later to seek the ‘high-art’ credentials
of a Satyajit Ray and other directors promoted as models by the Indian
This reference book on Indian film has required of its editors and
State. New Indian Cinema was born in the context of Indira Gandhi’s
contributors some sensitivity to both the form and the history of this
developmentalist programmes culminating in the Emergency and the
entire cluster of discourses, not least because an amalgam of them has,
establishment of Doordarshan. Most influential of all, perhaps, was the
on several occasions, provided a stand-in for the history of Indian
way the Utopian ‘India’ of the pre-Independence period - the tabula
cinema itself, or at least for the kind of history mobilised by influential
rasa upon which were inscribed some of the most elaborate melodramas
sectors of the film industry with its press and institutional support
in Indian film history - gave way to the idea of regionalism, an idea of
10