Thus Spake Indian Cinema
iView Author: Ram V (Bangalore, India)
Email: Shrey.dna [at]gmail[dot]com
Thus Spake Indian Cinema : a brief history of propaganda in our films
‘In 1921, W Evans, a cinema expert in British Government was sent to survey the cinema scene in India. With remarkable foresight, he saw the possibility of cinema being used for political purposes. He recommended close censorship of films.’ says, the seminal work Tamil Cinema (Selvaraj Velayutham, Routledge, 2008. [Ref.1]
India today, as a nation, has millions of ideas to propagate, they include communal, casteist, factionalist, sexist, patriotic, secular, pseudo-secular, apolitical, atheist, communist, anarchist, apocalyptical, escapist ideas that throng the minds of billion strong population. The herd mentality in us humans, lead us to flock together with whom we assume are of the same feather.
W Evans would be nostradamically proud of himself, only if he had lived to see the precariously placed agenda, that finds itself in Indian cinema. Is our cinema propagandist? If it is, has it failed or succeeded all these years?. One would never know, as the whole idea is to deeply ingrain an agenda that needs to be propagated into the minds of the mass and understanding the mind of the mass is the last thing one would attempt first. Before answering these questions, let us briefly visit the century old filmdom that we cherished and nurtured during our lifetime. Memory and prints have vanished alike of British era films. If film lovers world over, look up to Eisenstein, FW Murnau, Fritz Lang, Orson Welles as learning initiation to cinema and film making, we Indians have no such qualms. At the maximum, we speak of ‘Alam Ara’, as the Indian screen spoke for the first time through it.
Indian cinema stood on borrowed legs during that period like Raja Harishchandra, Alam Ara and the social spectacle, Acchut Kanya. The influence of British authorities was high, and primarily harmless mythological and fantasies made through to the audience. Movies like Wrath (1930) were banned due to the fact that they showcase Indian actors as leaders. When the British Monarchy planned phased out transition for Indian Independence, it started off with announcing the Government of India Act 1935, wherein all British ruled regions of India could vote for their government. This imparted a sense of self-confidence , with a mirage of Independence seen at a distance, Indian film makers got adventurous. Studios sprouted like mushrooms in Kolkata, Chennai and Bombay. Mixed films were made, notably the Tamil Film Industry, resorted to patriotic propaganda against the incumbent rulers. ‘So you had Development of the Nation (Desa Munnetram) in 1938 and Motherland (Mathrubhoomi), Lion among Dalits (Harijana Singam), Lion of Bharath (Bharathkesari) and the well known Land of Sacrifice (Thyagabhoomi), all in 1939. Of these, only a print of Thyagabhoomi has survived and is in the archives in Pune.’ writes S Theodore Bhaskaran, in Frontline. [Ref.2
But by 1939, the congress government in Madras Presidency resigned, due to India’s involvement in the World War. Grabbing the opportunity, British monarchy re-imposed censorship and established Film Advisory Board ( read old day CBFC) under the auspices of propaganda officer, G D B Harvey. What followed was a series of anti-axis propaganda in Tamil. Burma Rani (, produced by Modern Theatres, was a Mata Hari style espionage drama, where a Yangoon based spy ring, involving three Indian Air Force pilots and a spy woman, plan their escape from the clutches of Japanese Army; apart from these In Defence of Honour (Manasamrakshamam), Kannamma My Darling (Kannamma En Kathali), En Magan (My Son) were war effort films of the 1940’s . Of these, only a print of Burma Rani is available.
After Independence, Hindi cinema ran out of ideology, and resorted to mythological and social issues, whereas Tamil cinema was busy promoting the pet Dravidian movement. When congress leaders despised cinema as an evil, like gambling and horse-racing. Kamaraj is said to have questioned ‘ How can there be government by actors?’. DMK cinema proved him wrong. CN Annadurai and M Karunanidhi stole the screen from everyone else. Annadurai’s Velaikari ( which had two zamindar’s cast representing intended characterization of Gandhi and Nehru) and Karunanidhi’s Parasakthi ( a mix of atheism, anti-brahmanism, anti-congress, dravidian propagandist affair) launched assault on the existing system, which DMK cinema finally broke down with the help of its actors like MGR, Sivaji Ganesan, MR Radha, NS Krishnan and SS Rajendran. When congress was overthrown in 1967, CN Annadurai presided as the first DMK chief minister. Never has cinema been used to rewrite the history of a people in such manner.
When the Kerala and West Bengal communist resorted to stage drama, in order to propagate their ideals, Bengali and Malayalam cinema looked at vernacular literature for source, and produced some gems like Ramanan, Nadhi, Bhargavi Nilayam, Asura Vitthu, Apu Trilogy, Megha Dakhe Tara and many more, Kannada and Telugu cinema were still revolving inside the mytho-social circle. Hindi cinema had transformed into semi-Urdu medium wherein lyrical masterpieces like ‘Mughal-e-Azam’, ‘Mother India’, ‘Pakeezah’ and ‘Pyaasa’ were born. It was time when this honeymoon with melodrama was briefly ended by two Sino Indian and Indo Pak wars. Indian cinema did not find the need to defend either wars, as there were no two ideological opinions on the need of war. Though, the travails of war was expressed in semi-propagandist movies like ‘Haqeeqat’ and ‘Ratha Thilakam’ (Tam). However, these are exceptions, not examples.
As communist presence in serious Indian cinema was felt throughout, mostly because of the alignment of several cinematic literary figures towards the ideology. This surely contributed to the primarily socialist nature of mainstream cinema, featuring the rich exploiting the poor, and a good samaritan rescuing the hapless destitute was a regular affair and can be attributed to an attempt of movie makers to reach out to the 700 million poor Indians. This form of tacit socialism was sometimes exposed through explicit attempts at promoting the ideology, often targeting communal agenda. with more effective movies like ‘Garam Hawa’ by MS Satyu.
I intend to keep most 80’s 90’s bollywood masala flicks and its sister products from other regions out of this discussion, as it is almost impossible to categorize nonsense. As Tamil Nadu reiterated its cinematic political manoeuvre, with MGR, probably the most popular Indian actor, not necessarily the best one, succeeded himself multiple times to the Chief Minister-ship. Scriptwriter Karunanidhi, had to be happy with the title credits, whilst the lead actor filled the screen from start to finish. Reel life imitating real life. While the MGR era neared end, in the neighboring state of AP, a fan raised a question, ‘Sir, we treated you like a king, what have you do for us in return?’, an emotional Nandamuri Taraka Rama Rao launched Telugu Desam Party , and placed himself on the high throne of AP. All the existing opponents were crushed. The NTR who was Rama and Krishna embodied, started appearing in socially relevant role and represented the poor mans savior. The unmatched popularity and new found screen image of NTR, combined to repeat the MGR magic in Andhra.
However, when all these happened, ‘Golden Man’ Rajkumar and ‘Evergreen’ Prem Nazir (he never shared the same popularity as the other neighbors, no one in Kerala does, for that matter) stayed out of politics. Rajkumar, though, did deal in propaganda in his films for the cause of Kannada and poor alike. Of late, Films rarely do indulge in full fledged propaganda, other than movies like ‘Gadar’, ‘Hero’ and similar flicks which celebrate brash criticism, laden with innuendoes, satisfying the emotional hunger of an affected population. ‘LoC’ , ‘December 16′, ‘Border’, ‘Keerthichakra’/'Aran’ (Mal/Tam), and ‘Kurukshethra’ (Mal) though devoid of any outright lashout, could not live up to a need for exciting war cinema. They all ended up being propagandist take on the misdeeds of our infamous neighbour.
Recently, I happened to watch gem of film, ‘Thalappavu’ (Headgear), which is based on the real life events on the in-custody encounter of naxalite , Varghese, who worked among the adivasis of Waynad. Cinematically brilliant, the movie announces the arrival of a young and promising director, Madhupal. His control of the craft is commendable, when he chooses non-linear and point-of-view method for telling this complex tale. All said and done, it indoctrinated the naxalite view, when the nation is fighting the menace, forming ‘Salwa Judum’ . The movie and the premise had no two opinions on who was right. Again malayalam cinema, always had a left incline, with ‘Lal Salam’ and ‘Raktha Sakshikal Zindabad’ , however none more vociferously courted the left ideology, than Renji Panicker, who in most of his scripts, covertly instills the left serum. But he came out confidently overt, as left is in power in Kerala now, with ‘Roudram’, where another left cronie, the great Mammootty, blatantly proclaimed their left incline and devotion alike. Marx , Karl not Groucho, would have been proud.
Anyhow, the film arena, which has always been filled with left oriented ‘free thinkers’, has now taken upon itself the task of unmasking the communal forces of our country, carefully avoiding the minorities among them, and promoting propagandist work of the cruel majority force. Films like ‘Naseem’, ‘Parzania’, ‘Zakhm’, ‘Rang De Basanti’, ‘Fiza’ and lately ‘Firaaq’ exhibit such trend. Exceptions like ‘Black Friday’ exist.
‘Any art or literature that causes degradation of the society should be restrained by legal measures’ – Thus spake Hitler. Cinema is a powerful medium, if the audience gets hooked on to the empathy, societies can be changed, governments overturned. A film maker has to be careful as to not utilize this power to knowingly misguide the audience, for popularity and success.
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Other References:-
wikipedia-Cinema_of_India
Tamil_cinema_and_Dravidian_politics
indiastudychannel.com/india/parties/2-DMK
corporate.lexisnexis.com/news/marketing,branding
hinduonnet.com
wikipedia-Nandamuri_Taraka_Rama_Rao
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
@ Ram- I admire the effort taken by you to write this.Yes Thalappavu by Madhupal is a good movie on the naxalite movement especially considering that the director makes his debut with this film
( he has been actor before this).Would recommend Gulmohar – a very good movie again on similar lines directed by Jayaraj.It marked the entry of writer/director Ranjith as a lead actor & he’s brilliant in it.
@Kathi Mahesh Kumar
Thanks..
@Sethumadhavan
@Thanks..sethu..it was labor of love though.. :-)
Yes, I remember Madhupal from ‘Kashmeeram’ and few others…He was the good looking despicable bad guy..ha ha..but ‘Thalappavu’ redefined his image in my mind…It is an exceptional directorial debut..Jayaraaj’s ‘Gulmohar’ and ‘For the People’ series are also examples of pro-naxal propaganda , Yes I should have included them also..Maybe next time.. :-)
malayalam cinema is by and large pro left , although films like ‘arabikatha’ , ’sandesham’ etc.. make strong comments on the current state of affairs about the grand old communist party. unionism runs in our blood and it hasn’t spared the film industry.
@renish. Very true..even in ‘Arabikatha’ Sreenivasan, towards the end, says that Left is required to serve the people but not in the current form..’Stalin Sivadas’, ‘Kannur’ are some communist films which I wilfully ommitted
@Ram … ha ha ha .. ’stalin sivadas’, ‘kannur’ et al are movies even hard core communists would happily disassociate from. All said and done you should never talk about Poland (remember “polandine kurichu oru aksharam nee mindi pokaruthu ” from sandesham)
left stood for ideology and it had the power to attract young blood. There is a certain kind of romanticism attached to it. But , everything is only on paper and the hypocricy of their leaders is very much for everyone to see.
@Renish :-0 Cuba, Poland and China always had higher priority…Sandesam is a masterpiece. It is an exact observation that there is some romanticism about the leftist ideology, it comes from the high one gets when fighting an establish, the intoxication from rebelling against the system. But, the communist propoganda films seldom worked with Kerala audience, most of these films were not artistically effective…The audiences are more shrewd, I believe.
i just feel that ‘propaganda’ in the sense that you use it seems a bit limited… propaganda need not be necessarily spelt out… in fact propaganda is for me just another word for ideology being spelt out… however ideology is something that permeates through even the most seemingly obscure films, or in every scene, and every frame is it not?
even in terms of political propaganda, movies can refer the political or social realm without even directly referring to the political.. take for instance the movies made by tony gatlif, where the dominant theme is of portraying gypsies and the practices of their everyday lives…. the narrative and the songs themselves refer to the political in a very strong manner rather than depicting the political in terms of strife or conflict….
just an observation….
@ Ram- Wouldnt put For the People in the same league of Thalappavu or Gulmohar.For the people is more in the lines of Shankar’s movies like Gentleman,Indian,Mudhalvan etc.
Regarding the communist oriented films those like Lal Salaam or Arabikatha which didnt try to push you towards communism did find reasonable acceptance among the Kerala audience.Arabikatha was not only about communist ideology, it was also about the plight of malayalee stugglers in the Gulf countries.
@Sethumadhavan, its true…both were by Jayaraj, hence came out in the same breath…I felt Thalappavu was cinematically more experimental and crisp.
Yes Lal Salaam’s second half was excellent, as it questioned existing communist leaders and their motives. Arabikatha, I feel took Gulf Malayalees as the other extreme of local Communists,through a man caught up in the situation where he cannot enact his thoughts. It was the launching pad for Anil Panachooran whose ‘Chora veena mannil…’ was a revelation. But the genius Sreeni, a leftist that he is, made his stand clear towards the end.. Once a Communist always a communist :-)
There are two aspects you have covered in your writeup Ram. One is the use of propogandist films by political forces and by people with ambitions and the other is the closer look at the films with message themselves. When it comes to the later, it is very important to look at how visual symbols and metaphors were used by actors and directors in their movies to overtly and covertly hint at ‘vote for A or B’. MGR movies unfailingly had lyrics in songs, hand gestures by vaathiyaar, background images which were clearly hinting the ’so called illiterate masses’ whom to vote for.
There is another aspect – the establishment or government itself – how it allows films that show the ruling party in good light have a free run while banning or obstructing the films that have contrary message using all means (censor board included). The travails that a ‘Thyaaga bhoomi’ by Subramanian faced at the hands of the British is still faced by many a honest film maker under free india. The classic case in point that pops up in my mind is Maniratnam’s harmless ‘Iruvar’ which was mercilessly chopped away in thamizh so much so that when I watched it in a theatre, i felt like watching a TV serial dubbed in a different language.
@sneh…agreed..propaganda might be tacit or explicit, I might have concentrated on explicit one only..the article is just a overview. The case of MGR or NTR or Social aspects of bollywood can be detailed as much as one wishes to research upon.
@Jaiganesh..when I watched ‘Enga Veetu Pillai’ as a child, I never realized the relevance of MGR’s gaudi Red and Black clothes. or the victory sign in AIADMK movies…it is true..when MGR sings ‘Anna showed us the right way’ in ‘Pallandu Vazhka’ we knew who needs to be revered. More recently, ‘Muthu’ , I assume was Rajnis most political movie. He says to Meena, who is a drama artist, and prefers the queens role (ring any bells!!!), something similar to ‘Throne, position and authority, has got prominence only if it comes on its own’..Even a song goes ‘Entha Katchi, Namma Katchi’ (Meena questions on behalf of the TN people, which is our political party?) Rajni replies ‘Katchiyellam ippo nammakedhukku, kalathin kaiyyil adhu irukku’ (Why speak of Politics now, time will tell by itself). Even the final scene of Baba, where Rajni returns from spirituality towards the people, in implying his inevitable political plunge.
‘Iruvar’ was a gem even after the cuts..Yes, it could have been greater if censor scissors were not in place..it is a sad reality Indian film makers have to live with
The first politically charged movie i saw was ‘Repati povurulam’ a telugu movie on the naxal movement. I was a kid then (now??) and was still able to understand the message of rich vs poor. There were some communist themed movies in Thamizh like ‘Kann sivandhaal mann sivakkum’ (If eyes become red, so shall the land too) and ‘aer munai’ which had the audacious scene about the infamous fighting in the assembly (1987) and was expectedly banned. Paattali Makkal Katchi began their political propoganda with few movies with Murali as lead (forgot the names but they did have a good run in the BO). Nowadays the propaganda movies dont have to be all that subtle and clever – the loudness is blaring and the lack of message clearly shows – a reason why Vijaykanth is eschewing propoganda in movies and sticking to masala after he entered mainstream politics. Now thamizh audience expect all the entertainment from politicians directly without silver screen and they are being served properly well on that front by the political entertainment fraternity with such a gusto and masala that Perarasu must be gasping for breath and sneezing at the strong dose of masala.
@Jaiganesh…thanks for reminding us all of ‘Kann Sivanthal Mann Sivakkum’…it has got perhaps the best revolutionary song ever made in Indian cinema …’Manidha Manidha’…
@all see it in youtube-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gejStyii-i0
‘the loudness is blaring and the lack of message clearly shows’…wonderfully spot on.
Now thamizh audience expect all the entertainment from politicians directly without silver screen and they are being served properly well ….ha ha…poor Perarasu…he stopped film making…I assume he is working on his acting skills now… :-)
Wow. What a recount. And a good topic. Very deftly handled. Even the masala entertainers of the 80s-90s that you refuse to categorize had ample sprinklings of workers’ anguish (Amitabh movies mostly). The protagonist would take to crime to rebel, which gave rise to the term angry young man. You picked out the right time to write this article since Subramanyapuram has nothing covert about the topic. It simply displays the dilemma of a guy torn between his desires/ promises and his ideology.
You missed out Girish Kasaravalli’s Thaayi saheba, Hasina and Gulabi talkies. Gems from this guy and his films are far from being psuedo secular. Like Tam movies dealt with their fav Dravidian and social issues, Kannada cinema had its share of Gandhada Gudi and movies dealing with Devdasis. Kerala always had left leanings. Telugu was always opportunistic. Bengali/Oriya cinema was always art movies. Hindi cinema is the one actually evolving every year.
@Vinay…Yes I could not cover Kasaravalli, Karnad and Puttana Kanagal..whom I would cover is some other article as exclusive. They deserve special attention…To add to Kasaravalli’s excellent pieces…one more film that makes the casteist statement is Karnad’s ‘Samskara’ and since it was written by none other than left lover Ananthamoorthy…it was filled with anti-brahmin propaganda..but a brilliant movie it was…I also left out Bharatiraja movies in Tamil like ‘Puthiya Vaarpugal’ and ‘Vedam Puthithu’ , as if one would write on these its difficult to not detail…If detailed it would go beyond the framework with which I was working…I realize I have missed to mention a lot of relevant films…and I thank you guys for adding up more details..
In Hindi movies, propoganda has always been psuedo secularish. Only movies blaming the hindu community have been made – Firaaq, Slumdog Millionaire, Chaand bhuj gaya,Parzania, Zakhm, etc. In fact Ashutosh had a good chance to show Mughal atrocities in Jodha Akbar. But he played it down. Black Friday was about an event. Mani’s Bombay was very fair, almost a documentary. A good historical movie about a hindu king rebelling against the mughal atrocities would be an ideal answer.
Sorry the earlier movie referred to was Kanchipuram not subramanyapuram
@Vinay…on Mughal atrocities…excellent point..SLB’s latest classic ‘Aavarana’..throws light into this aspect…hope someone picks it up to make film on that..
did you mean Priyadarshan’s ‘Kanchivaram’…I am yet to see that..how is it?