% is levied in Bombay. The Saurashtra Kinematograph is set up in Rajkot.1896
Plague in Bombay and Pune; national famine until 1897. E. B. Havell, one of the figureheads of the Bengal School of Painting, is appointed Superintendent of the Government School of Art, Calcutta. Bankimchandra Chatterjee’s Vande Mataram (Hail to the Mother), one of India’s national anthems later appropriated by Hindu chauvinists, is recited for the very first time at the Indian National Congress. Bal Gangadhar Tilak inaugurates a festival around the figure of the 17th C. Maratha emperor Shivaji to generate nationalist sentiment. B. R. Rajam Aiyer publishes the social reform novel, Kamalampal Charitram, in Tamil. The singer Vishnu Digambar Paluskar leaves the Miraj court to popularise classical music.
First film screening at Watson’s Hotel, Bombay, on 7 July, by the Lumière cameraman Marius Sestier. The Madras Photographic Stores advertises imported ‘animated photographs’, reviewed in the Journal of the Amateur Photographic Society of Madras.
1897
Damodar Hari Chaphekar assassinates Charles Rand, the ‘Plague Commissioner’, and Ayres, the district magistrate, for their handling of plague relief measures; he is hanged with his two brothers in 1898.
First films shown in Calcutta and Madras. Clifton & Co. announce daily screenings at their Meadows Street photography studio, Bombay.
1898
The first gramophone record is released by Gramophone & Typewriter Ltd., Belgatchia. Bhai Vir Singh’s Punjabi novel, Sundri is published.
Two Italians, Colorello and Cornaglia, organise film shows in tents at the Azad Maidan, Bombay. Hiralal Sen starts making films. Amritlal Bose screens a package of ‘actualities’ and ‘fakes’ at the Star Theatre, Calcutta, with plays and variety entertainments. The multinational Warwick Trading Co. commissions Panorama of Calcutta newsreel. Other films include Poona Races and Train Arriving at the Church gate Station (by Andersonoscopograph).
1899
Calcutta receives electricity supply, although earlier that year the Maharaja of Bikaner had apparently been the first Indian to switch on an electric light bulb. Lord Curzon becomes Viceroy and Governor-General of India. The seminal work of Urdu literature, Ruswa Mohammed Hadi Mirza’s Umrao Jaan Ada is published. Performance of G. B. Deval’s Marathi play, Sangeet Sharada, sometimes cited as the first reform ‘social’.
H.S. Bhatavdekar films a wrestling match in Bombay’s hanging gardens.
1900
Lord Curzon rejects the Congress Party’s pleas for permanent land settlements, alleging that the weather, rather than excessive taxes, had caused the famine, but he later reduces salt tax and raises income tax thresholds. He also sets up a Railway Board, and opens 6100 miles of new rail track.
Major Warwick establishes a cinema in Madras. F. B. Thanawala’s Grand Kinetoscope newsreels establish the genre’s commercial possibilities. Footage of the Boer War is released at the Novelty Cinema, Bombay.
1901
The reformist leader Mahadev Govind Ranade dies. Tagore establishes the Brahmacharya Ashram, the nucleus of the Vishwabharati University of Shantiniketan. Fakir Mohan Senapati publishes his Oriya historical novel, Lachama. Vishnu Digambar Paluskar sets up the first music school, the Gandharva Mahavidyalaya in Lahore. Edward VII is crowned following the death of Queen Victoria. The North West Frontier Province is created. Ramananda Chattopadhyay starts editing Prabasi, a high-profile, extensively illustrated Bengali literary monthly which pioneers the popular mix of book excerpts, poetry and one-act plays alongside reviews and essays (occasionally on film); its serialised fiction includes Rabindranath Tagore’s Gora (1907–1909).
Hiralal Sen’s Royal Bioscope establishes film exhibition alongside the commercial theatre in Calcutta, filming extracts from plays.
Bhatavdekar films the landing of Sir M. M. Bhownuggree and the arrival (returning from Cambridge University) of Sir Wrangler Mr R. P. Paranjpye.
1902
Kakuzo Okakura, a Japanese artist and a militant proponent of a pan-Asian ideology, arrives in Calcutta as a guest of Surendranath Tagore. His ideas influence the Bengal School of Painting and are given a nationalist gloss by Sister Nivedita. The first Indian to record a song on gramophone disc is Sashi Mukhi of Classic Theatres, Calcutta.
J. F. Madan launches his bioscope show in a tent on Calcutta’s Maidan, the foundation of a massive exhibition and distribution empire which dominated silent Indian, Burmese and Sri Lankan cinemas.
1903
Bhatavdekar and American Biograph film Lord Curzon’s Delhi Durbar, marking the enthronement of Edward VII.
1904
Madhav Prasad Mishra’s short story, Ladki Ki Bahaduri, appears in the journal Sudarshan. It is sometimes cited as the first work of short fiction in the still-evolving Hindustani language. Veer Savarkar, later associated with the right-wing Hindu Mahasabha, starts the Abhinav Bharat as a secret society of revolutionary terrorists. The Maharashtra Natak Mandali introduces naturalist prose theatre, later associated with the stage/film star Keshavrao Date.
Manek D. Sethna starts the Touring Cinema Co. in Bombay, showing The Life of Christ (two reels).
1905
Lord Curzon and the new Governor of Bengal, Andrew Fraser, announces the Partition of Bengal, ostensibly for the development of Assam. Partly in response, the Indian National Congress launches the Swadeshi Movement on 7 August, calling for the boycott of all foreign-manufactured goods. Lord Minto becomes Viceroy.
J. F. Madan turns producer with Jyotish Sarkar’s film of a protest rally against Partition.
1906
Dadabhai Naoroji, President of the Congress, announces that the Party’s aim is full ‘self-government or Swaraj’. The artist Raja Ravi Varma dies.
Madan’s Elphinstone Bioscope Co. dominates indigenous film production.
1907
The All-India Muslim League is formed in Dacca by a group of big landlords including the Aga Khan, the Nawab of Dacca and Nawab Mohsin-uk-Mulk, supporting the Partition of Bengal and calling for separate Muslim electorates and other safeguards for Muslims. Ramananda Chattopadhyay starts The Modern Review in Allahabad, discussing modernism in Indian art. It later published Tagore’s debate with Gandhi about culture.
J. F. Madan opens the Elphinstone Picture Palace in Calcutta, the first of his cinema chain. Pathé establishes an Indian office.
1908
Establishment of The Tata Iron & Steel Co. India’s largest private-sector corporation. Terrorist movements in Bengal, active since 1902, reach their peak with organisations such as the Anushilan Samiti of Calcutta and Dacca, the return of Hemchandra Kanungo from Paris and raids such as the Barrah dacoity by Pulin Das’s group. The movement, often led by upper-caste men proclaiming a communal Hindu or casteist ideology, dominated the romantic imagination of Bengali nationalism for decades. Khudiram Bose, a former Swadeshi activist and member of the Revolutionary Party, is hanged on 11 August. Bal Gangadhar Tilak is convicted of sedition and deported to Mandalay. Keshavrao Bhosle starts the Sangeet Natak troupe, Lalitkaladarsh.
Abdulally Esoofally, a South Asian and Singaporean travelling showman, starts exhibiting in India.
1909
The Indian Councils Act 1909 (Morley-Minto Reforms) is announced, introducing elections while trying to split the nationalist movement along communal lines by introducing separate Muslim electorates. Ananda Coomaraswamy publishes Essays in Nationalist Idealism, The Amateur Dramatic Association is started in Bangalore, associated with playwright T. P. Kailasam and stage actor-director Ballari Raghava, bringing modernism to Kannada theatre. Performance in Bengal of Dwijendralal Roy’s historical, Shah Jehan. Together with Rana Pratapsingha (1904), Durgadas (1906), Noor Jehan (1907) and Mewar Patan (1908), Shah Jehan anchors the stage historical in communal and nationalist politics.
1910
Rabindranath Tagore publishes Geetanjali. The All-India Hindu Mahasabha is launched at Allahabad, allegedly in response to the Muslim League, intensifying communal hostilities in Indian politics. Dadasaheb Phalke attends a screening of The Life of Christ at P. B. Mehta’s America-India Cinema.
1911
George V visits Delhi. The grand Durbar is India’s first extensively filmed public event, shot by Hiralal Sen, Bourne & Shepherd, Gaumont, Imperial Bioscope, S. N. Patankar and Madan. The Partition of Bengal is modified, followed in 1912 by the separation of Bihar and Orissa from Bengal. Tilak yokes Hindu chauvinism to the nationalist movement with his Geeta Rahasya. Jana Gana Mana is adopted as the second national anthem by the Congress Party.
Anadi Bose, Debi Ghosh and others start the Aurora Cinema Co. showing films in tents as part of a variety bill.
1912
British government transfers its Indian headquarters from Calcutta to Delhi. Ananda Coomaraswamy publishes his second text on an aesthetic theory for Indian nationalism, Art and Swadeshi.
Pundalik, probably the first Indian feature film.
1913
The first telephone service in India begins in Simla; the first carrier system is between Delhi and Agra in 1930. The militant Ghadar Movement, calling for the violent overthrow of British rule, is started by US-based Indians in San Francisco. Pherozeshah Mehta starts the Bombay Chronicle. Jaladhar Sen and Amulyacharan Bidyabhushan start the popular Bengali literary monthly Bharatbarsha; early essays on film include Pramathanath Bhattacharya’s ‘Bioscope’ in the inaugural issue and Narendra Dev’s ‘Chhayay May ay Bichitra Rahasya’ on film-making techniques, later published as a book in 1934; the monthly also publishes Saradindu Bandyopadhyay’s screenplay of Kalidasa. Rabindranath Tagore receives Nobel Prize for literature. Bal Gandharva starts the Gandharva Natak Mandali, the most famous of the Marathi Sangeet Natak repertories. The Parsee Theatre group, Khatau-Alfred, performs Narayan Prasad Betaab’s Mahabharata play.
Phalke’s Raja Harishchandra opens on 21st April to a select audience; on 3 May it opens commercially in Bombay’s Coronation Cinematograph.
1914
Start of WW1. Indian soldiers fight with British forces at Kut-al-Amara in Turkey and in Mesopotamia. Gandhi’s agreement with General Smuts in South Africa on immigration and taxation laws for Indians is the first political success of his Satyagraha (non-violent) ‘experiments with truth’. The Komagata Maru sails from Hong Kong to Vancouver carrying 376 passengers including several Sikh Ghadar activists, and is refused entry by Canadian authorities. The MacMahon Line fixes the border between India and China, leading to disputes erupting in the 1962 war.
Phalke shows his first three features, Raja Harishchandra, Mohini Bhasmasur and Satyavan Savitri, in London. R. Venkaiah and R. S. Prakash build Madras’s first permanent cinema, the Gaiety.
1915
The Defence of India Act. Gopal Krishna Gokhale dies. Aga Hashr Kashmiri writes his best-known and most often filmed play, Yahudi Ki Ladki. Govindrao Tembe starts the Shivraj Natak Mandali. First South Indian feature: R. Nataraja Mudaliar’s Gopal Krishna.
1916
Annie Besant and B. G. Tilak start their Home Rule Leagues on the lines of the Irish Home Rulers. Coomaraswamy’s entire collection of South Asian art is moved to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and he becomes its curator: this move influences his subsequent opposition to progressive Indian nationalism and its modernising aspects. The South Indian Liberation Federation, aka Justice Party, is formed in Madras.
Universal Pictures sets up Hollywood’s first Indian agency.
1917
Gandhi’s participation in the Champaran indigo planters’ agitation against iniquitous local taxes by European thikadars, followed by the Kheda movement in 1918, introduces his philosophy of Satyagraha to India and again places revolutionary peasant movements at the forefront of Indian nationalism.
Patankar-Friends & Co. is started, the predecessor of the Kohinoor Studio. J. F. Madan’s Satyavadi Raja Harishchandra is the first feature made in Calcutta. Phalke makes How Films are Prepared, a short film about film-making.
1918
WW1 ends. The first modern trade union, the Madras Labour Union, is founded.
Baburao Painter starts the Maharashtra Film Co. at Kolhapur. The Indian Cinematograph Act, modelled on that of Britain, defines the terms of censorship and cinema licensing. Phalke’s Hindustan Cinema Films Co. is established. Patankar’s Ram Vanvas is the first serial.
1919
The Government of India Act 1919 aka the Montagu-Chelmsford reforms, transfers selected areas of administration to Indian control. The Anarchical and Revolutionary Crimes Act, aka the Rowlatt Act, is designed to suppress all forms of nationalist protest. The massacre at Jallianwala Bagh, Amritsar, commanded by General R. E. H. Dyer on 13 April. Rabindranath Tagore, knighted in 1915, returns his knighthood in protest following Jallianwala Bagh. The All-India Khilafat Conference, uniting conservative Muslims in support of the defeated Caliph of Turkey, is supported by the Congress Party. It influences the non-co-operation movement the following year as well as the Moplah rebellion of 1921. Modern Indian shipping launched with the Scindia Steam Navigation Co.’s Liberty.
The Kohinoor Film Co. is founded. Release of the Maharashtra Film Co.’s début film, Sairandhri. Bilwamangal aka Bhagat Surdas, sometimes presented as the first Bengali feature, by Rustomji Dotiwala for Madan Theatres.
1920
Non-co-operation movement launched by Gandhi calling for the defiance of ‘every single state-made law’, and Muslim theologians announce that Muslims have only two alternatives before them: to declare a jihad (holy war) against the foreign infidels, or hijrat (emigration). M. N. Roy, who had formed the Communist Party in Mexico in 1919, the first outside the Soviet Union, starts the CP of India (CPI) in Tashkent on 17 October with six other members.
The Bengali film weekly Bijoli starts, edited throughout the 20s by Nalinikanta Sarkar, Barindrakumar Ghosh, Sachindranath Sengupta, Arun Sinha and writer-film-maker Dinesh Ranjan Das. Film censor boards set up in Bombay, Calcutta and Madras. The American-trained Suchet Singh releases Shakuntala with Dorothy Kingdom and other imported actors. Ardeshir Irani starts his first studio, Star Film Co. Nala Damayanti is the first international co-production (with Italy).
1921
The Moplah (or Mapilla) rebellion in Malabar, in which Muslim peasants kill or ‘convert’ Hindus, leads to bloody confrontations with the police and is a major setback to the non-cooperation movement’s efforts to make a nationalist alliance between Hindus and Muslims. Tagore’s Vishwabharati University is officially recognised. The Bengali Theatrical Company stages Khirode Prasad Vidyavinode’s Alamgir, introducing Sisir Bhaduri, and transforms the Bengali public theatre. Lalitkaladarsh stages its famous one-off production of Sangeet Manapmaan, featuring the reigning stars of Marathi theatre, Bal Gandharva and Keshavrao Bhosle, to raise funds for Gandhi’s Tilak Swarajya Fund. Abanindranath Tagore’s seminal Calcutta lectures, the Bageshwari Shilpa Prabhandavali (loosely translated as Some Notes on the Indian Artistic Anatomy and Sadanga, or The Six Limbs of Indian Painting), defines an aesthetic theory for the ‘New School’ or the ‘Bengal School’ of Indian painting. The artist Jamini Roy abandons his Post-Impressionist landscapes in favour of a modernist, urban assimilation of popular and folk influences. His atelier of mass-produced paintings, opposing the dominant primitivist emphasis on tradition, becomes a major influence on contemporary Indian, especially Bengali art. Vishnu Narayan Bhatkhande publishes Hindustan Sangeet Paddhati, making classical music compositions available to the public in the form of a textbook. Gandhi visits Gorakhpur campaigning for the non-co-operation movement. According to Shahid Amin (1984), the occasion marked the launch of the Messianic ‘Mahatma’ image. Novelist Premchand surrenders his government post to contribute pamphlets in support of the movement.
Kohinoor’s Bhakta Vidur, banned in Madras and Sind, becomes Indian cinema’s first censorship controversy. Dhiren Ganguly’s anti-Western satire, Bilet Pherat, produced by the Indo-British Film Co. (Est: 1918). R. S. Prakash starts the Star of the East film company in Madras.
1922
The Chauri Chaura episode (4 February): a group of Congress and Khilafat protestors attack a police station and kill 22 policemen, causing Gandhi to call off the non-co-operation movement. The artist Nandalal Bose, later Satyajit Ray’s teacher, takes over the Kala Bhavan at Shantiniketan. Hemendraprasad Ghosh starts the Bengali literary monthly Masik Basumati (later the fortnightly Basumati) for the Basumati literary house, publishing literary fiction and theatre, book and film reviews; it also publishes essays on film by Hemendrakumar Roy and Atorthy’s seminal writings on silent Bengali cinema. Mama Warerkar writes the play Satteche Gulam.
Entertainment tax on film exhibition is levied in Calcutta. Sisir Bhaduri, supported by a group of lawyers, starts the short-lived Taj Mahal Film Co. to adapt well-known literary works to film. The trend is later continued by other studios in Bengal. Rewashankar Pancholi starts Empire Film Distributors in Karachi and Lahore, importing American films.
1923
C. R. Das and Motilal Nehru start the Swaraj Party to enter legislative assemblies. It achieves wider Muslim and Hindu support than the Congress, but by 1928 the Party represents mainly conservative Hindu landlord interests in the communally charged Bengal. Aparesh Chandra Mukherjee’s Karnarjun at Calcutta’s Star Theatre confirms the commercial theatre’s dominant language, influencing much of the early Bengali cinema. The Hindustan Times is launched. The Bengali literary journal Kallol, edited by Dinesh Ranjan Das, is first published and becomes the foremost literary journal of its time, lending its name to the Kallol Group.
One of the early Bengali film weeklies, Sachitra Sisir, edited by Bijoyratna Majumdar, contains film and theatre reviews as well as production news. The élite literary journal Bharati (founded in 1877 and regarded as the journal of the Tagore clan) carries a serialised history of Bengali cinema. Entertainment tax of 12% is levied in Bombay. The Saurashtra Kinematograph is set up in Rajkot.
1924
First radio programme, broadcast privately with a 40w transmitter, by the Madras Presidency Club Radio. The station ran for three years. Dhiren Ganguly exhibits Nanubhai Desai and B. P. Mishra’s Razia Begum in Hyderabad; the story of a Muslim princess falling in love with a Hindu leads to Ganguly’s expulsion by the Nizam and the closure of his Lotus Film Co. Nanubhai Desai and others start Saraswati Film. Maneklal Patel starts Krishna Film. Kamala Movietone is started in Lahore. India’s first periodical exclusively devoted to cinema, Mouj Majah (Gujarati), is launched in Bombay by J. K. Dwivedi. Hemendrakumar Roy and Premankur Atorthy start Nachghar, a weekly Bengali theatre and performing arts journal also publishing essays on film.
1925
In Amravati, K. B. Hedgewar founds the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a militant cadre-based civilian army, to establish a Hindu rashtra (state). One of its members later assassinated Gandhi and the group has been involved in communal confrontations ever since. A Puss Moth carrying mail from Karachi to Bombay inaugurates a civilian air service. The Gurdwara Law in Punjab vests the responsibility for the running of all major gurdwaras in the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC) which, with the Akali Dal, has controlled Punjab politics ever since.
The first major film adaptation of the social reform novel: Painter’s Savkari Pash, the Indo-German co-production Prem Sanyas aka The Light of Asia. Fatma Begum, probably the first Indian woman producer and director, starts her production company and débuts as director with Bulbul-e-Parastan, released in 1926. N. D. Sarpotdar and Pandurang Talegiri start United Pictures Syndicate (formerly Deccan Pictures) in Pune; Sharda Film is started and formalises the stunt film genre. The Madurai Bala Shanmughananda Sabha, later known as the TKS Brothers troupe, is started, dominating pre-Independence Tamil theatre and film.
1926
The Arya Samaj leader Swami Shraddhanand is assassinated. Periyar E. V. Ramaswamy Naicker starts the Self-Respect Movement, propagating atheism to oppose caste discrimination. The Imperial Conference redefines Dominions as ‘autonomous communities within the British Empire’. India is not offered Dominion Status until 1942, when the offer is rejected. The Conference also launches the notion of Empire Films. The Bengali literary monthly Kalikalam, edited by Murlidhar Basu, Sailajananda Mukherjee and Premendra Mitra, starts in the wake of Kallol’s success; indicted repeatedly by the conservative literary establishment for obscenity, it serialised Mitra’s controversial Pank.
Foundation of the Punjab Film Corp. in Lahore, inaugurating the Punjabi film industry. Ardeshir Irani starts Imperial Films, eventually making India’s first sound film.
Vande Mataram Ashram, the first Vande Mataram Film Co. production, is censored and briefly banned. The journal Photoplay starts in Calcutta.
1927
The Indian Trade Union Act comes into force on 1 June, defining the terms for union recognition and their frame of reference. Industrialists set up the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI). The Indian Broadcasting Company starts operations in Bombay and Calcutta, inaugurating professional radio in India. Modhu Bose starts the Calcutta Amateur Players theatre group.
Indian Kinema Arts Studio starts in Calcutta, one of the predecessors of New Theatres. Film journals the Movie Mirror (Madras) and Kinema (Bombay) are started.
1928
Gandhi resumes Satyagraha, suspended after the Chauri Chaura violence, with the Bardoli peasant movement protesting against the 22% rise in land revenue collections. The movement also makes Vallabhbhai Patel a national leader. The Simon Commission, consisting of Sir John Simon and seven British MPs, arrives in India. It is boycotted by all major Indian Parties. Its 1930 report recommends abolition of diarchy and provincial autonomy, falling far short of Indian demands for autonomy. Lala Lajpat Rai is killed in a police charge on a demonstration in Lahore against the Simon Commission. Bhagat Singh and two other members of the Hindustan Socialist Republican Army retaliate by assassinating a British police officer. The first major textile strike in Bombay, led by the Girni Kamgar Union, lasts for six months and establishes the CPI as a political force.
The Indian Cinematograph Committee (1927–8) publishes its report. Appointed to counteract American imports with censorship regulations, the Report refused to give British films preferential treatment and recommended a series of measures to promote Indian films instead, with measures such as financial incentives to producers, the abolition of raw stock duty and the reduction of entertainment tax. The British administration ignores the report. A. R. Kardar starts the United Players Corporation in Lahore, the origin of Playart Phototone. R. Padmanabhan founds the Associated Films Studio in Madras, presiding over K. Subramanyam’s entry into the cinema and Raja Sandow’s directorial début. First Malayalam feature: J. C. Daniel’s Vigathakumaran.
1929
The defeat of the Public Safety Bill (1928), intended to deport socialist activists, leads to the Meerut Conspiracy when 31 CPI members, including three English CP representatives, are put on trial. The Devdasi Bill, combating prostitution in the name of religion and introduced by Muthulakshmi Reddy in the Madras legislature in 1926, is partially passed against conservative male opposition. It is passed in its full form only in 1947. The first commercial aviation service is offered by Imperial Airways, extending its weekly London-Cairo flight to Karachi.
Wall Street crashes, ending negotiations about a major Hollywood expansion into India. Several important studios are founded: Prabhat Film Co. in Kolhapur; Ranjit Movietone in Bombay; British Dominion Films Studio and Aurora Film Corp. in Calcutta; General Pictures Corp. in Madras. The influential Gujarati film periodical Chitrapat, edited by Naginlal Shah, and the Moving Picture Monthly are launched in Bombay. Universal’s Melody of Love is the first sound feature released in India, at the Elphinstone Picture Palace. Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay (not the famous novelist) launches the Bengali monthly Deepali containing mainly film-news, reviews, memoirs and serialised fiction; the journal also produced an English weekly under the same title, edited by Manujendra Bhanja and addressing a ‘highbrow’ audience.
1930
The former Congress Party activist Surya Sen leads an Indian Republican Army raid on the police and auxiliary force armouries at Chittagong. The group launched a sustained guerrilla action against the British, triggering several terrorist movements in and around Midnapore, and brutal state reprisals against the entire nationalist movement. The poet Mohammed Iqbal suggests a merging of the North West Frontier Province, Punjab, Sind and Baluchistan into a single state, the ancestor of Pakistan. Gandhi inaugurates the civil disobedience movement with his epic march from Ahmedabad to Dandi to defy the Salt Act. The Department of Industries and Labour takes over radio operations and starts the Indian Broadcasting Service in Bombay and Calcutta. Physicist C. V. Raman wins the Nobel Prize for his theory of the ‘Raman Effect’ of scattered light. Rabindranath Tagore, who started painting aged 67, has his first exhibition at the Galerie Pigalle, Paris; the show travels through Europe and opens at the Town Hall, Calcutta, in 1931. Abanindranath Tagore paints his definitive work, the Arabian Nights series. Munshi Premchand publishes the first number of his journal Hans.
Sailajananda Mukherjee starts the Bengali film weekly Bioscope reporting the Hollywood, Bombay and Calcutta film industries and publishing reviews, pre-release synopses of films, industrial surveys and, occasionally, essays about technical and aesthetic issues. Ambalal Patel and Chimanlal Desai start Sagar Film. Gubbi Veeranna starts production with the Gubbi-Karnataka Films Corp. at the Malleshwaram Studios in Bangalore.
1931
Bhagat Singh is hanged, after throwing a bomb at the Central Legislative Assembly ‘to make the deaf hear’. He becomes India’s first nationally renowned socialist martyr. The Gandhi-Lord Irwin Pact is signed, leading to the temporary suspension of the civil disobedience movement. It is resumed after the failure of the second Round Table Conference in London, where Winston Churchill refers to Gandhi as a ‘half-naked seditious fakir’. New Delhi, designed by the Orientalist architect Edwin Lutyens, becomes India’s capital.
Alam Ara is India’s first sound film. Kalidas is the first Tamil sound feature; in Telugu it is Bhakta Prahlada and in Bengali Jamai Sasthi. B.N. Sircar founds New Theatres, a sound film expansion of International Filmcraft (Est: 1930). Pancholi’s Empire Talkie Distributors acquires rights to RKO-Radio productions and RCA-Photophone sound equipment. The Bengali film weeklies Batayan (edited by Abinashchandra Ghoshal) and Chitralekha (edited by Bibhutibhushan Bannerjee) are launched. The Bengali literary quarterly Parichay (edited by Sudhindranath Datta) starts, arguably the most influential journal of cultural theory in pre-Independence Bengal.
1932
Within three days of the Congress Party’s decision to resume the civil disobedience movement, the entire leadership is jailed and all civil liberties suspended. Over 80,000 non-violent protesters court arrest. Ramsay MacDonald’s ‘Communal Award’, creating separate electorates in the provincial legislatures for Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, Anglo-Indians, Europeans, Depressed Classes, Women, Marathas and ‘Others’, further emphasises British efforts to communalise the nationalist movement and gives a new lease of life to the Hindu Mahasabha, which becomes its most strident opponent.
First sound features in Gujarati (Narasinh Mehta) and Marathi (Sant Tukaram). The East India Film Co. starts in Calcutta, pioneering Bengali, Tamil and Telugu film-making. The Motion Picture Society of India is set up to represent the Indian film industry (in 1951, the Film Federation of India takes over). Hindi weekly Cinema Sansar, edited by Radhakrishna Sharma and featuring screenplays, lyrics, stories and film news, is launched in Bombay. In Bengal, the monthly Chitrapanji edited by Abani Basu includes serious essays by film-makers.
1933
The Indian Air Force is formed, named ‘Royal’ during WW2. The Indian Military Academy is started at Dehra Dun on the lines of the Sandhurst academy. The government of India nationalises radio broadcasting. Choudhury Rehmat Ali’s note of 28 January is the first time the word ‘Pakistan’ (Land of the Pure) is used: it is also a loose acronym for ‘Punjab, Afghanistan, Kashmir, Sind, Baluchistan’. In Calcutta, Bengal Lamps is India’s first manufacturer of light bulbs and electrical equipment. Natyamanwantar stages its landmark Marathi stage production, Andhalyanchi Shala.
Prabhat Studio moves to Pune; its Sairandhri, processsed and printed in Germany, becomes India’s first colour film. Kolhapur Cinetone is started. Wadia Movietone is founded, establishing the stunt film as a respectable, big-budget genre, with Hunterwali (1935). Vijay Bhatt and others start Prakash Pictures. Vel Pictures and Tamil Nadu Talkies are launched in Madras. Himansu Rai’s fourth international venture, Karma, is premièred in London. The air-conditioned Regal Cinema opens in Bombay.
1934
The Congress Socialist Party is founded in Bombay, consisting of a group of Marxists, including Jayaprakash Narayan, Achyut Patwardhan and Yusuf Meherally; it later re-established links with the A. P. Kisan Sabhas and emphasised land reform as an integral part of the nationalist agenda. The CPI is banned. Jinnah returns from England to head the Muslim League. Major earthquake in Bihar, destroying the city of Monghyr. The Royal Indian Navy is set up. Bengal’s ‘establishment’ literary weekly Desh starts.
Bombay Talkies is established. Zubeida and Nanubhai Vakil start Mahalaxmi Cinetone. First sound features in Oriya (Seeta Bibaha) and Kannada (Bhakta Dhruva). Ch. Narasimha Rao’s Seeta Kalyanam, for Vel Pictures, is the first sound feature made in Madras. Meenakshi Cinetone is founded with K. Subramanyam’s Pavalakkodi. Priyanath Ganguly helps start Kali Films in Calcutta. Rajit studio’s Toofan Mail is the Hindi cinema’s first major success in the ‘stunt’ film genre, leading to Wadia’s Hunterwali (1935). The Hindi film periodical Chitrapat, edited by Hrishamcharan Jain, is launched in Delhi; it publishes scripts, fiction serials, poetry and news about international cinema. Bengali film weekly Ruprekha, edited by Jyotishchandra Ghosh, starts. The Urdu novelist Munshi Premchand is hired as a scenarist by Ajanta Cinetone at Rs 8000 per year.
1935
Buddhadev Bose and Samar Sen start the leading poetry quarterly Kavita in Bengal, introducing major writers such as Jibanananda Das and Bishnu Dey. The Indian Broadcasting Service starts its Delhi station. The Government of India Act (1935) provides provincial autonomy for elected ministers. Debates over participation in elections divide Congress. The Act defines an Anglo-Indian as a ‘European with a male progenitor, but the female is a native Indian’. The Seventh Congress of the Communist International (1935) calls for united anti-Fascist fronts. The CPI, regrouped under P. C. Joshi, abandons its critique of the Congress as a ‘party of the bourgeoisie’ to make common cause with several left groups, including the Congress Socialists, the Royists and the All-India Kisan Sabha (founded in 1936). The broad socialist front is supported by Nehru.
India produces 228 features. In a booming South India, studios are started in Madras (K. Subramanyam’s Madras United Artists), Salem (Angel Films, 1934) and Coimbatore. The first All-India Motion Picture Convention is held. First films in Punjabi (Sheila) and Assamese (Joymati). Dhoop Chaon establishes playback singing as a standard practice. Launch of the seminal film monthly Filmindia; initially edited by D. K. Parker, it was later taken over by its proprietor Baburao Patel and lasted until 1961. The Quetta earthquake on 21 May; its after-effects are filmed by P. V. Pathy.
The Progressive Writers Association conference, started in London in 1935, has its first all-India conference at Lucknow. The All-India Kisan Sabha, founded alongside the Congress session in Lucknow, publishes N. G. Ranga’s Kisan Manifesto making a series of ‘minimum demands’ on behalf of small landowners, tenants and landless labourers. All-India Radio is started. Orissa and Bihar become independent states of India.
Amar Jyoti is shown in Venice. Master Vinayak and cameraman Pandurang Naik co-found Huns Pictures; the Telugu company Saraswati Talkies debuts with Draupadi Vastrapaharanam. Sarathi Films, started the same year, presided over Gudavalli Ramabrahmam’s early work in the reform genre (e. g. Raitu Bidda, 1939). Raja Sandow’s Vasantsena launches the prolific career of the Tamil comedy duo N. S. Krishnan and T. A. Mathuram. Franz Osten joins the Nazi Party. Jaddanbai starts Sangeet Film with films featuring her daughter Nargis as a child actress. Sohrab Modi and Rustom Modi start Minerva Movietone. The Bengal Motion Picture Association is founded in Calcutta. The second All-India Motion Picture Convention (Madras).
1937
Elections under the 1935 Act, when several political veterans contest for governmental office for the first time in their lives, leads to a Congress triumph in 8 of the 11 British-ruled provinces. C. P. Ramaswamy Aiyer, the dewan of Travancore, announces the Temple Entry proclamation and later concedes communal representation to keep the Christian, Ezhava and Muslim communities from becoming a joint opposition to Nair and caste-Hindu domination. Amrita Sher-Gil, who returned to India in 1934, visits the Ajanta and Mattancheri murals (1936–7), and paints her major works, Brahmacharis and Bride’s Toilet.
First ‘songless’ film, J. B. H. Wadia’s Naujawan. The first indigenously made colour film is Gidwani’s Kisan Kanya, using the Cinecolor process acquired by Imperial. T. R. Sundaram starts Modern Theatres in Salem; Newtone Studio starts in Madras. The Indian Motion Picture Producers’ Association (IMPPA) is formed in Bombay, the first and for several years the most influential trade union in the film industry. Sant Tukaram receives a special jury mention in Venice. The Amateur Cine Society of India is formed in Bombay by, a. o., P. V. Pathy, Stanley Jepson and Rudi Van Leyden. Jogjiban Bandyopadhyay sets up the Bengali film weekly Kheyali.
1938
The Haripura Congress is marked by ideological rifts between the Right and the Left factions of Congress; it also exhibits Nandalal Bose’s famous Haripura posters, showing India’s working people and evoking Pat figurations and reliefs from Bengal’s terracotta temples. The modernist sculptor Ram Kinker Baij makes his monumental Santhal Family cement sculpture at Shantiniketan. K. M. Munshi starts the Bhartiya Vidya Bhavan. Short-wave radio broadcasts are introduced. Veer Savarkar becomes president of the Hindu Mahasabha.
Duniya Na Mane is shown in Venice; none of the four Indian films shown in Venice in the 30s were bought for Western distribution. Bombay Talkies makes what is probably the first officially commissioned advertising film, on Lever’s Dalda cooking oil, for the Lintas advertising agency (although Niranjan Pal is supposed to have made some ads in the early 30s). The South Indian Film Chamber of Commerce and the Indian Motion Picture Distributors’ Association (IMPDA) are set up. The silver jubilee of the Indian film industry (usually dated from Phalke’s Raja Harishchandra) is celebrated with ‘official’ versions of India’s film history. The first Malayalam sound feature: Balan. The Indian Screen Gazette is started by Wadia Movietone, sponsored by the Film Advisory Board; P. V. Pathy films a three-reeler on the Haripura Congress for the Gazette.
1939
The British government declares war on Germany in the name of India. Nehru protests, declaring himself equally opposed to Fascism and imperialism, and pledges that an independent India, fighting Fascism alongside other free nations, would freely make its resources available for the war. Congress ministers, elected in 1937, resign.
Vauhini Pictures is started by B. N. Reddi and Gemini by S. S. Vasan. Both companies expanded into studios in Madras in the 40s. Film Industry, a trade newspaper, is started in Bombay.
1940
The All-India Muslim League adopts the ‘Pakistan resolution’ at Lahore. The harmonium is banned from All-India Radio: its tempered scale, adapted from the organ, is considered antithetical to the shruti or the microtones that give Indian music its continuous scale. Only decades later would this commonly used musical instrument be allowed on radio again.
Film Advisory Board is set up by the government and is granted monopoly over raw stock. Intensification of censorship of films likely to support the independence movement with images or words. P. K. Atre, Master Vinayak and others start Navyug Chitrapat with public finance. Mehboob makes Aurat, the original version of Mother India. Himansu Rai dies, and Devika Rani takes over Bombay Talkies.
1941
Subhash Chandra Bose escapes from house arrest, travels to Berlin and meets Hitler (1942), who approves a plan to raise an army in South-East Asia. All-India Radio becomes part of the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting. Rabindranath Tagore dies. The first modern shipyard in India, at Vishakapatnam, comes on stream. Its first ship, Jala Usha, is commissioned in 1948. Churchill announces that the Atlantic Charter does not apply to India.
The Lahore-based film industry breaks into the national market with Khazanchi. First Pushtu film: Sarhad Pictures’ Laila Majnu. Kadaru Nagabhushanam and P. Kannamba start Rajarajeshwari Film. The Motion Picture Association is founded in Delhi, after similar regional bodies in Bengal and Madras.
1942
Sir Stafford Cripps arrives in India amid increasing fears that India might fall to Japan, which bombs the east coast and Calcutta. His proposals to frame a Dominion Constitution and a promise of independence after the war are rejected, especially since they imply Partition. Congress launches the ‘Quit India’ movement in August. Violent confrontations lead to massive reprisals as eight British brigades and 57 Indian battalions are used to quell what the viceroy describes as ‘by far the most serious rebellion since that of 1857’. Matangini Hazra, a 72-year-old widow, leads a demonstration braving police bullets in Tamluk, Midnapore, becoming one of the icons of the August Kranti movement. The Japanese bomb Rangoon and Singapore. Representatives of Indian organisations from Japanese-occupied territories meet in Tokyo and Bangkok, and resolve to raise an Indian National Army (aka Azad Hind Fauj) with Japanese support, consisting mainly of Indian prisoners of war. The CPI collaborates with the British following Hitler’s invasion of the USSR and opposes the Quit India movement. It concentrates on organising the Telangana peasantry against the Nizam of Hyderabad and on the Travancore movement against Dewan Ramaswamy Aiyer’s rule. Dr Dwarkanath Kotnis, head of a medical team sent to China, dies. Four years later, V. Shantaram films his story (Dr Kotnis Ki Amar Kahani) as a nationalist fable. Hindustan Motors is the first indigenous car-manufacturing company.
The Bombay Film Society is formed. Major shortages in raw stock; only recognised producers receive a maximum of 11,000 feet for features and 400 feet for publicity trailers. Priority is given to films supporting the war effort, leading to a rash of war movies. Filmistan is founded by a breakaway group from Bombay Talkies led by S. Mukherjee and Ashok Kumar. A. R. Kardar founds the Kardar Studio. First films in Sindhi (Homi Wadia’s Ekta) and Marwari (G. P. Kapoor’s Nazrana). V. Shantaram starts the Rajkamal Kalamandir Studio on the former Wadia Movietone premises; Homi Wadia starts Basant Pictures. Mehboob starts his own production company (becoming a studio in 1952) with the hammer-and-sickle logo. K. A. Abbas, V. P. Sathe and others start the journal Sound, featuring politics, fiction, reviews and essays on Indian film.
1943
The Bengal famine (1943–4), a direct consequence of war profiteering and speculation, leaves five million dead. The best-known work of art dealing with the issues involved is Bijon Bhattacharya’s play Nabanna, the inaugural production of the Indian Peoples’ Theatre Association. Subhash Chandra Bose arrives in Singapore by submarine from Kiel and becomes Supreme Commander of the Indian National Army. He proclaims a ‘Provisional Government of Azad Hind’ (Free India). His government in exile is immediately recognised by Germany and Japan. The Muslim League amends the ‘Quit India’ resolution to ‘Divide And Quit’. The Calcutta Group of painters, including Gopal Ghosh, Prodosh Dasgupta and Nirode Majumdar, has its first show.
Kismet, one of the biggest hits in Indian film history, is released. Rajkamal Kalamandir’s début feature, Shakuntala, is a major hit. Information Films of India is started, the Defence of India Act is amended to force all distributors to pay for and to show the Indian News Parade. K. Ramnoth starts the Cine Technicians Association of South India. Court Dancer, the English version of Raj Nartaki, is released in the USA in a few provincial theatres. Kalish Mukhopadhyay starts the seminal Bengali film monthly Rupamancha, with extensive film and performing arts reviews, committed to film education and to the reorganisation of the industry.
1944
The Indian National Army fights the British at Arakan, near Mandalay, and on Assam’s north-east frontier. They ‘liberate’ 15,000 square miles including Japanese-occupied Andaman and Nicobar islands. The Dravidar Kazhagam Party is founded by Periyar E. V. Ramaswamy Naicker in Madras. The Bombay Plan, presented by a group of industrialists, commits the Indian private sector to nationalist responsibilities, envisaging the possibilities of a free-market economy coalescing into the socialist ideal of a planned economy. K. C. S. Panicker starts the Progressive Painters Association in Madras, later institutionalised into the Cholamandal artists’ village (1966). Prithviraj Kapoor launches the Prithvi Theatres in Bombay.
War profiteers increasingly launder their gains through the film industry, inflating star salaries and budgets, speeding up the shift away from studios towards independent production. The Navajyothi Studio is started in Mysore. The government appoints a Film Advisory Committee. Entertainment tax is increased in UP, Central Provinces, Bombay and Madras.
1945
The Indian National Army, hit by desertions and disease, surrenders, and several members are publicly tried. Bose is believed to have been killed in an air crash over Taipei. Central and provincial legislature elections: Congress wins majority but loses to the Muslim League in all Muslim-dominated provinces except the North West Frontier Province. A pact between Bhulabhai Desai of the Congress and Liaqat Ali of the Muslim League envisages joint control of an interim government, but both parties quickly repudiate any such understanding. Labour comes to power in Britain. C. R. Attlee sponsors a new initiative to break the Hindu-Muslim deadlock with the Simla Conference chaired by Lord Wavell. Jinnah rejects all compromise offers. The Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) is inaugurated (it became operational only in 1954); it later pioneered India’s nuclear and space research programmes. The best known Prithvi Theatres play, Inder Raj Anand’s Deewar, addresses the communal divide in the context of India’s impending Partition.
M. K. Thyagaraja Bhagavathar and N. S. Krishnan are arrested on murder charges and imprisoned. Film trade representatives resign from the Film Advisory Committee. The government withdraws state control on raw stock distribution (imposed in July 1943).
1946
The Muslim League’s call for a Direct Action Day (16 August) leads to the worst 20th C. communal riots in Bengal (Calcutta, Dacca, Noakhali and Tipperah). Riots in Bihar following the observance of 25 October as Noakhali Day. Nehru becomes vice-president of the Viceroy’s Executive Council, heading the Interim Government of an undivided India. Jinnah declares the day (2 September) as a day of mourning for Muslims; the Muslim League joins the government on 13 October and Jinnah accompanies Lord Wavell, Nehru and others to London to try to break the political impasse over Partition. Mutiny by Royal Indian Navy ratings (18 February). The CPI-led Telangana peasant insurrection reaches its peak, fighting the feudal zamindar system and bonded labour, forced levies and illegal land seizures. In Travancore, a general strike against Dewan Ramaswamy Aiyer’s insistence on continuing a despotic independence escalates into the CPI-led Punnapra-Vyalar uprising. India recalls its South African High Commission, repudiating the India-South Africa treaty of 1927. The privately owned Tata Airlines becomes the country’s official international airline, Air India. Binode Behari Mukherjee paints his major mural, Medieval Hindi Saints, at the Hindi Bhavan, Shantiniketan (1946–8). Nehru publishes The Discovery of India.
IPTA’s debut feature, Dharti Ke Lal, with Neecha Nagar and Dr. Kotnis Ki Amar Kahani, are made as war-effort films. Ranakdevi establishes the Gujarati cinema as a financially viable industry. MGM introduces commercial 16mm distribution, mainly for mobile cinemas. Information Films of India is dissolved; the Defence of India Rules on compulsory documentary screenings as well as footage restrictions are withdrawn.
1947
Lord Mountbatten becomes the last Viceroy and Governor General of India; he presents his plan for Partition (3 June), and announces the schedule for the transfer of power (14–15 August). The Indian Independence Bill is passed 15–16 July. Pakistan’s Constituent Assembly meets (11 August) and elects Jinnah as its first President. Nehru becomes India’s first Prime Minister (15 August), making his famous speech, ‘A Tryst with Destiny’, to the Constituent Assembly. In Punjab, the fall of Khizar Hayat Khan’s Congress- and Sikh-supported ministry is followed by massive rioting in Lahore, Amritsar, Multan, Attock and Rawalpindi. Nearly 200,000 people are killed as six million Muslims from the East and over four million Hindus and Sikhs from the West become refugees in an exchange of populations. Communal attitudes merge with attitudes to sexual conquest and to property in a virtual war of extermination, as refugee trains carry more corpses than living people. The nizam of Hyderabad refuses to accede to the Indian Union and encourages the razakars, members of the Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen, to terrorise the peasantry. Pakistan attacks Kashmir; India signs a treaty of accession with Maharaja Hari Singh of Kashmir.
Udaya Studios, the first film studio in Kerala. The AVM Film Co. starts, adapting S. V. Sahasranamam’s stage hit, Nam Iruvar, Master Bhagwan’s Jagriti Studios is established near Bombay. Paul Zils and Fali Bilimoria start the Documentary Unit - India. Satyajit Ray, Chidananda Das Gupta and others start the Calcutta Film Society. Foundation of the Bengali film weekly Rupanjali, edited by Sudhangshu Basu.
1948
Gandhi is assassinated by an RSS member. Limited India-Pakistan war over Kashmir, as India complains to the UN Security Council. The Indian Army occupies Hyderabad, forcing the Nizam to surrender. The CPI, which had fought the Razakars, refuses to call off the Telangana insurrection, raising hopes of spearheading a nationwide revolution. The peasantry fights the army until the insurrection is called off in 1951. The Press Trust of India is formed as a news agency under an agreement with Reuter and the Indian & Eastern Newspaper Society. The Progressive Artists Group, formed in 1947 in Bombay, has its first show. Sombhu Mitra starts the theatre group Bohurupee. The Atomic Energy Act is passed.
Uday Shankar makes his nationalist dance spectacular Kalpana, S. S. Vasan’s Chandralekha is the first Madras production to become an all-India hit; both films are made at the Gemini Studio. Bhavnani’s Ajit is made on 16mm Kodachrome and blown up to 35mm in the USA. Nirmala is the first Malayalam film made in Kerala. Raj Kapoor starts his R. K. Films, building his studio in 1950. Nehru announces a freeze on the construction of movie theatres. Gour Chattopadhyay initiates the Bengali film monthly Chitrabani, the most reliable record of 40s-50s Bengali cinema together with Rupamancha.
1949
The Indian constitution is drawn up, adopting the British model. Universal suffrage and equal rights for all are among its radical measures, but it also includes Articles 352–5, empowering the president to declare a State of Emergency and providing central government with virtually unlimited authority. Manipur becomes an Indian Territory. The State of Rajasthan is formed, merging the old state with the Rajput Princely States of Bikaner, Jaipur, Jodhpur and Jaisalmer. Ceasefire in Kashmir, as the Indian Constituent Assembly recognises Kashmir’s independent status and its decision to become part of the Indian Union. This decision becomes a major rallying point for the Hindu Right which claims that Kashmiri Muslims have ‘special status’ in India. Ban on the RSS is withdrawn, after a pledge to eschew violence. Trade agreement to export jute, tea and castor oil to the USSR in return for wheat. The USSR becomes India’s biggest trading partner and the only country to accept rupees as a currency for international trade. Athreya’s play, N. G. O., pioneers realism on the Telugu stage.
Films Division is set up. The DMK (Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam) is founded by C. N. Annadurai. The Party launches its use of film as propaganda with Velaikkari and Nallathambi Dharti Ke Lal becomes the first Indian film to receive widespread distribution in the USSR. The Cinematograph Act of 1918 is amended; a new censorship classification is introduced. Entertainment tax for film is raised to 50% in the Central Provinces, going up to 75% in West Bengal. The Central Circuit Cine Conference, under Raibahadur Chunilal, protests at the increases and theatres go on strike. Dev Anand and Chetan Anand start Navketan Productions in Bombay, one of the independent producers through which IPTA members enter Hindi cinema. Movie Times is launched in Bombay, edited by B. K. Karanjia. Indian Documentary is launched by Paul Zils and others.
1950
India declares itself a sovereign democratic republic (26 January): population 350 million. The Republic is elected member of the UN Security Council for two years. The Assam earthquake (1 August). The Faculty of Fine Arts, Baroda, starts; ten years later, it becomes the pre-eminent centre for contemporary Indian art.
Jean Renoir and Satyajit Ray meet on the shoot of The River in Bengal. Nemai Ghosh makes Chinnamul in Calcutta. The celebrated Tamil film Ezhai Padum Padu establishes Ramnoth, Nagaiah and Arudra. C. R. Subburaman, Samudrala Raghavacharya, Vedantam Raghavaiah and others start the Vinoda Studio. Vijaya Pictures starts with Shavukaru. The Pakistan government levies a tax of Re 1 per foot on all imported Indian films.
1951
The First Five-Year Plan is announced, with an outlay of Rs 2069 crore. Shyama Prasad Mukherjee starts the Bhartiya Jan Sangh on 2 October, an earlier version of the BJP, as the political wing of the RSS.
The S. K. Patil Film Enquiry Committee, appointed in 1949, reports on all aspects of cinema, noting the shift from the studio system to independent entrepreneurship. Its critique of the mass-cultural idiom, including black market money and the star system, is accompanied by recommendations for major state investment in film production, the setting up of a film finance corporation, a film institute and film archives. The report is ignored for a decade. Film Censorship is centralised under a Central Board located in Bombay. The Film Federation of India is formed, joining up all sectors of the industry, with Chandulal Shah as president. Anjali Devi and Adi Narayana Rao start the Anjali Pictures Studio. The success of Patala Bhairavi transforms Telugu cinema. P. Subramanyam starts the Merryland Studio in Kerala. The weekly newspaper Screen is set up by the Indian Express group. Pudovkin and Cherkassov tour India with a major Soviet film programme.
1952
Nehru forms a government in May after independent India’s first general elections. Gopalakrishna Adiga’s poetry anthology, Nadedu Banda Dari, is published; together with his Bhumigita (1959), these are considered the beginnings of the Navya Movement.
The first International Film Festival of India, held in Bombay, Madras and Calcutta, by Films Division. The films of De Sica make a tremendous impact. Bimal Roy moves to Bombay and sets up his production company. Parasakthi, the most famous DMK Film, is released. The Indian Cinematograph Act 1952 is passed, replacing the 1918 Act, but makes few changes. The key section, banning films ‘against the interests of the security of the State, friendly relations with other foreign states, public order, decency or morality’, is retained. Film producers terminate their agreement with All-India Radio to broadcast film songs, when the radio refuses to credit producers or film titles. The radio starts its National Programme on music and its National Orchestra, conducted initially by Ravi Shankar. Colour films Aan and Jhansi Ki Rani (released in 1953) are made. Bombay Talkies ceases production. Ritwik Ghatak débuts with Nagarik. The fortnightly journal Filmfare is launched, claiming to be the ‘first serious effort in film journalism in India’. The Indore-based Hindi tabloid Cinema, edited by Manohar Prasad Gupta, starts publication. With the failure of protracted negotiations, West Pakistan finally bans the import of Indian films. An Indian film delegation visits Hollywood on invitation from the Motion Picture Association of America.
1953
The state of Andhra Pradesh, merging the former Central Provinces and Telangana, is formed, with the cessation of the CPI-led insurrection. Sheikh Abdullah, former Prime Minister of Kashmir, is arrested and imprisoned. Until 1975, Kashmir’s politics are largely determined by the central government. The Sangeet Natak Akademi is launched to support and fund music and theatre; it is the first of the three autonomous institutions intended to channel government spending on the arts.
Do Bigha Zameen, showing the influence of Italian neo-realism, receives a special mention at Cannes (1954) and the Social Progress Award at Karlovy Vary. Prabhat Studio ceases production. Sharey Chuattar, the first film starring Uttam Kumar and Suchitra Sen. The Cinematograph Act is amended, extending the powers of various authorities to suspend exhibition of certificated films. The Film Federation of India accepts an Advertisement Code. The trade weekly Trade Guide (edited B. K. Adarsh) is started; it remains the main Hindi film trade paper. Filmfare inaugurates its annual awards.
1954
Zhou Enlai visits India, and Nehru goes to Beijing where he signs the ‘Five Principles of Peaceful Co-existence’ with Mao Zedong. The National Gallery of Modern Art opens in New Delhi. The Lalit Kala (Fine Arts) Akademi and Sahitya (Literature) Akademi open.
The first national film awards go to Shyamcbi Aai and Jagat Murari’s short, Mahabalipuram. Awara is a major hit in the USSR. Abbas’s Munna is the second ‘songless’ film; it was shown at the Edinburgh Film Festival in 1955. Indian film delegations visit the Middle East and the USSR. Talks between the Film Federation of India and the government fail over All-India Radio’s policy of broadcasting film songs without crediting sources, driving producers into using Radio Ceylon. The compulsory exhibition of ‘approved films’ (i. e. government propaganda films) in Madras is declared unlawful by the Supreme Court. The Premier Studio, Mysore’s second studio premises, is started by M. N. Basavarajaiah.
1955
Nehru’s celebrated speech at the Avadi Congress calls for a ‘Socialistic Pattern of Society’. Khrushchev and Bulganin come to India. Nehru attends the Bandung Afro-Asian Conference, which inaugurates the Non-Aligned Movement in a cold war context. The leaders of the movement, Nehru, Nasser and Tito, meet again at Briony in 1956. Cow slaughter is banned in Andhra Pradesh. The National Defence Academy is set up at Khadakvasla. The Hindu Marriage Act is amended, making the minimum marriageable age for women 15 and for men 18; it also provides for divorces and individual separations. Dharamvir Bharati writes his Hindi verse play, Andha Yug; staged by Satyadev Dubey for Theatre Unit in 1960, it is one of the inaugural productions of a modern, post-Independence Indian theatre.
Pather Panchali has its world première at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, coinciding with the official opening of the Textiles and Ornamental Arts of India Exhibition; in India, the film makes money for the West Bengal State Government, a significant factor in persuading the central government to set up the Film Finance Corporation in 1960, long after it had rejected the 1951 Enquiry Committee’s recommendation as financially impracticable. Festivals of Indian cinema in Beijing and London. The Children’s Film Society is set up. The South Indian Film Chamber of Commerce starts the Journal of the Film Chamber. The High Court at Andhra Pradesh grants an interim stay on the law of compulsory exhibition of ‘approved’ films and on the show tax.
1956
The Second Five-Year Plan, with a plan outlay of Rs 4800 crores. The government signs the controversial PL 480 agreement with the USA on foodgrain imports: India pays for the food in the form of loans to US multinationals in India and to private enterprises marketing American goods. The States Reorganisation Bill is passed; the State of Madhya Pradesh and the Union Territories of Delhi and Andaman and Nicobar Islands come into being. Language riots in Ahmedabad over the proposed division of Bombay into Maharashtra and Gujarat. Kerala State is formed, combining Malabar, Kasergod and most of Travancore-Cochin. Mysore State (later Karnataka) is formed, extending the old Mysore kingdom with parts of Madras and Bombay Presidencies and Hyderabad. On 14 October, Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar and 200,000 ‘scheduled caste’ Hindus convert to Buddhism in Nagpur to overcome the iniquities of caste oppression. The first Indian newsprint factory at Nepanagar is started. APSARA, the first nuclear reactor in Asia outside the USSR, is commissioned at Turbhe, just outside Bombay city. The artist M. F. Husain paints his seminal works Zameen (1955) and Between the Spider and the Lamp, presenting an emblematic cultural amalgam for independent India. UNESCO gives a $20,000 grant to study the use of television as a medium for education and ‘rural uplift’. The USA donates equipment and Philips sells a 500w transmitter at a nominal price.
Indian films are shown at Edinburgh, Karlovy Vary and Berlin. The government refuses to make its ‘approved’, compulsory propaganda films available free of charge to exhibitors. The freeze on construction of new cinemas in Bombay is lifted. The Kerala Film Chamber is started in Cochin. The Andhra Film Chamber Journal is launched in Vijaywada. Rossellini starts work on India ‘57. Despite major government support and funds, his visa is allowed to expire after a variety of controversies including allegations that he infringed local moral codes (by having an affair with a married Indian woman). The Hindi journal Film Sangeet, published by the Sangeet Karyalaya, Hathras (which had earlier published Bhatkhande’s pathbreaking textbook on North Indian classical music). Bhatkhande’s influence is extended to written musical scores for film songs, in addition to essays on film music aesthetics and interviews with musicians.
1957
The first Communist ministry is formed in Kerala, led by E. M. S. Namboodiripad. Food prices increase by 50% since 1955, forcing the government to import wheat commercially from Australia and to accept aid under the controversial PL 480 agreement with the USA. The Indian Navy purchases the British aircraft carrier Hercules. All-India Radio starts its ‘light entertainment’ Vividh Bharati channel, later becoming its commercial channel, emphasising film-based entertainment.
Jagte Raho wins first prize in Karlovy Vary and Aparajito in Venice; Kabuliwala receives a special mention for music in Berlin. Mother India is released. Pardesi is the first Indo-Soviet co-production. Raw stock is declared an essential commodity and its import is centrally controlled. Dealers are forced to declare their stocks. The Cinematograph Bill, intended to start a national film board, production bureau and film institute, is withdrawn. Chidananda Das Gupta, Satyajit Ray, Mrinal Sen and others start the Indian Film Quarterly.
1958
The first phase of the Bhakra Nangal dam, the showpiece of Nehru’s government, is completed. The dramatic deterioration in India’s foreign exchange reserves, increased spending on imported arms and the need to double the envisaged foodgrain imports, force the government to adopt a radical development strategy emphasising agrarian reform, land ceilings and (following the Chinese model) the organisation of co-operatives. The Indian Copyright Act comes into force. Hindi playwright Mohan Rakesh writes his Ashad Ka Ek Din.
The first documentary film festival is held in Bombay. Ajantrik is shown in Cannes, out of competition. D. N. Sampat, founder of the Kohinoor Studio, dies.
1959
The government-sponsored steel plants at Rourkela and Bhilai are inaugurated; like the Bhakra Nangal dam, they exemplify Nehru’s ‘temples of the future’. In September, television arrives in India as a half-hour weekly service with a range of 40km around Delhi. C. Rajagopalachari starts the Right-wing proliberalisation Swatantra Party, combining the Forum of Free Enterprise and the All-India Agricultural Federation. China’s suppression of the Tibetan revolt, violating the treaty signed by Nehru and Mao Zedong (1954), forces 14,000 Tibetan refugees, led by the Dalai Lama, to turn to India. One consequence is that the Chinese model of economic collectivisation is discredited. Most of the food imported under the subsidised PL 480 scheme from the USA is released in fair-price shops, inaugurating India’s indebtedness to global lending organisations. The Communist ministry in Kerala is dismissed.
Six years after The Robe, Guru Dutt makes the first Indian CinemaScope film, Kaagaz Ke Phool. Do Aankhen Bara Haath is shown in Berlin and wins the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and Samuel Goldwyn Awards for best foreign film. Pather Panchali’s continuous 226-day run at the Fifth Avenue Playhouse, New York, apparently breaks a 30-year record for foreign releases in the USA. The Federation of Film Societies of India is founded, with Satyajit Ray as its president and Indira Gandhi as one of the vice-presidents. In Bombay, the Marathi weekly Rasarang (edited by A. D. Potnis), featuring sports and movies, is started; the Hindi monthly Sushama, an offshoot of the famous Urdu periodical Shama (edited by Yusuf Dehlvi in Delhi), features poetry, short stories, song lyrics and articles on Hindi films.
1960
Bombay State is divided into Maharashtra and Gujarat. Steel production starts at the Durgapur plant. Indian Navy’s first aircraft carrier, the INS Vikrant, is commissioned in Belfast. The National Museum opens in New Delhi.
The government implements the 1951 Film Committee recommendation and starts the Film Finance Corporation to give low-interest loans to selected projects. In the late 60s, the FFC emphasises the financing of the independent sector. The Film Institute is started at Pune, on the former Prabhat Studio premises; the Institute for Film Technology is started in Madras. The Hindustan Photo Film Manufacturing Co. starts making b&w X-ray film. Mughal-e-Azam, the most expensive feature to date, is completed. Ranadheera Kanteerava is the first big Kannada hit, establishing its star, Rajkumar. Shri Venkateshwara Mahatyam inaugurates N. T. Rama Rao’s political persona of the ‘living god’. The weekly tabloid Movieland is launched in Madras. Gandhian Sarvodaya workers start a series of protests against indecent film posters and hoardings.
1961
India invades and annexes Goa, Daman, Diu and Nagar-Haveli, the remaining Portuguese colonies, which are now declared Union Territories, along with Nagaland. The All-India Census reveals India’s population growth to be 2.3% annually, considerably higher than the Central Statistical Organisation’s projections. The Third Five-Year Plan introduces family planning programmes, which were later to prove controversial. School television project is launched in Delhi.
Ganga Jumna promotes the use of regional dialects in the mainstream Hindi film. First Rajasthani film: B. K. Adarsh’s Babasa Ri Laadi. Drastic cuts in the import of raw film stock. Second Film Festival of India in Delhi.
1962
The border war with China (20 October-21 November) in the North and North East. The illequipped Indian Army is routed. Nehru is violently attacked by the Congress right wing for the failure of his ‘non-alignment’ policies. In the general elections, Congress wins but the rise of the Jan Sangh and the Swatantra Parties signal a formidable merging of industrial pro-liberalisation forces with those of Hindu communalism in collective opposition to Nehru. The Bhakra-Nangal multipurpose river valley project on the river Sutlej, one of the biggest dams in the world, is complete. In 1954, Nehru had described this engineering feat as the ‘greatest and holiest’ of India’s shrines.
Pakistan bans Indian films in the East (West Pakistan had banned them in 1952), hitting the Bengali cinema particularly hard. Radio Ceylon captures India’s commercial radio audience by broadcasting film songs and film-based programmes, while All-India Radio concentrates on popularising classical music. First Bhojpuri film: Ganga Maiya Tohe Piyari Chadhaibo. Indian Film Culture, the journal of the Federation of Film Societies of India, is launched in Calcutta.
1963
The ‘Kamaraj Plan’, initiated by K. Kamaraj, a senior Congress leader and Chief Minister of Madras, calls for the voluntary resignation of all senior Congress members from government posts in order to concentrate on revitalising the Party. Nehru uses the plan to purge the right wing from his ministry. Morarji Desai, one of the most vocal critics of Nehru’s socialism, accuses him of preparing the rise to power of Indira Gandhi. Parliament approves the continued use of English as an official language beyond 1965. A 10kg ‘toy rocket’, launched into outer space from the Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station near Trivandrum, is India’s first space research success. The Group 1890, an art exhibition with J. Swaminathan’s manifesto and an introduction by Octavio Paz, becomes the second major show, after the Progressive Artists Group, to redefine an indigenous modernism.
The Indian Motion Picture Export Corporation (IMPEC) is formed. The first Indian Merchant-Ivory film, The Householder. Barnouw and Krishnaswamy’s Indian Film is published. The Journal of the CTA of South India, a Madras-based monthly, is started; it is probably the first technical film journal in India, and reports on the work of major film technicians in the South.
1964
Nehru dies; Lal Bahadur Shastri becomes prime minister. The Communist Party of India splits, the majority of the rank and file going to the CPI (Marxist). The split is triggered by the India-China war, but the larger context is the CPSU’s support for the Congress, regarded as an imperialist ally by the CPI’s left wing. Following a split in the Congress and the imposition of president’s rule in Kerala, 800 CPI(M) cadres are arrested, including A. K. Gopalan, the best known of Kerala’s Marxist leaders. The indigenously manufactured Vaijayanta tank is the showpiece of the Indian Army’s arsenal.
The National Film Archive of India is founded in Pune under the Information & Broadcasting Ministry. The Film Institute at Adyar, Madras, starts. Report on Indian Cinema for UNESCO by Jerzy Toeplitz, president of FIAF. He notes the Bombay cinema’s impact on the Hindi language. First Kashmiri film: Naizraat.
1965
Second Indo-Pakistan War since Partition disputing the Kashmir borders. Pakistan invades Chhamb and the Rann of Kutch (1–23 September). Major language riots in South India over the adoption of Hindi as India’s national ‘link’ language. Demonstrations in Madras exceed those of the 1942 Quit India movement. M. Karunanidhi is among the arrested DMK agitators. Kerala declares a strike on 18 February. The CPI(M) emerges as the dominant political party in Kerala’s mid-term elections. However, its significant left wing concentrates increasingly on creating peasant organisations with an extra-parliamentary action programme. Charu Majumdar, leading the best known of these movements, declares: ‘The real fight against revisionism can never be begun unless the peasant starts it through revolutionary practice’. Television becomes a daily service of one hour, restricted to Delhi.
The International Film Festival of India turns competitive. R. Kariat’s Chemmeen.
1966
Indira Gandhi becomes prime minister, after the Tashkent peace talks followed by the death of Lal Bahadur Shastri. Punjab is divided into Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh. Devaluation of the rupee by 36. 5%. A growing number of political groups, both Left and Right, marginalise parliamentary politics and embark on violent protests. The Communists’ emphasis on extra-parliamentary ‘mass struggle’ is emulated by a variety of regionalist, ethnic and communal groups. The FICCI considers a proposal to raise a large election fund to support a ‘business party’.
Ghatak joins the FTII in Pune. Karnataka Chief Minister Veerendra Patil initates a scheme to subsidise all films made in the state. The initial subsidy is Rs. 50,000 for b&w and Rs. 1 lakh for a colour film. The Dolton Press, part of B. Nagi Reddy’s publishing empire, starts the journal Bommai (edited by B. Vishwanatha Reddy) in Tamil. The Dadasaheb Phalke Lifetime-Achievement Awards are started. The first Dogri film is Kumar Kuldip’s Gallan Hoyian Beetiyan. The North Calcutta Film Society starts the quarterly Chitravash and publishes special issues on, e. g., Nemai Ghosh and Rajen Tarafdar. The Cine Club in Calcutta starts the occasional journal Kino in English.
1967
Indira Gandhi leads her Party to victory in the National Elections. The Congress, hit by major defections and multi-party alliances cobbled together exclusively to oppose it, finds its popular support eroded and loses in eight of India’s 17 states. Left United Fronts assume power in West Bengal and Kerala; the DMK wins in Madras on an anti-Hindi platform, and coalitions elsewhere include Hindu communalist factions, dissident ex-Congressmen and reincarnated pre-Independence royalty. The peasant uprising in the Naxalbari District of West Bengal, led by CPI(M) members, starts peacefully but turns into an armed insurrection against individual landowners. Chief Minister Ajoy Mukherjee, who leads the only major non-Marxist faction in Bengal’s United Front, rigorously quells the rebellion, causing a split in the United Front and provoking the dismissal of the state government. ‘Naxalite’ activity surfaces in Andhra Pradesh, at Srikakulam, where Girijan tribals take on local landlords and the police to create virtual soviets, redistributing land and establishing their own administrative machinery. The Srikakulam uprising is defeated only in 1969 by the Central Reserve Police Force. The Rohini RH75 rocket is launched from the Thumba base.
Bommai diversifies into the Telugu monthly, Vijaychitra. Start of the Bengali film monthly Chitrabikshan by Cine Central, Calcutta. Hindustan Photo Films makes India self-sufficient in b&w film and sound negative film. All colour stock is imported and locally perforated. The first 70mm wide-screen film screened in India. M. G. Ramachandran is shot and injured by co-star M. R. Radha. He also becomes a DMK Member of the Legislative Assembly and, in 1970, treasurer of the DMK. The Vividh Bharati channel on All-India Radio goes commercial in Bombay, Pune and Nagpur. Over the next decade, it becomes the dominant publicity medium for cinema, with, e. g., sponsored serials and song compilation programmes.
1968
The All-India Co-ordination Committee of Communist Revolutionaries, the precursor of the CPI(ML), becomes the focus of the extra-parliamentary Left. The first Indian Triennale of International Art, organised by the Lalit Kala Akademi.
The G. D. Khosla Committee Report on Film Censorship criticises the censorship guidelines: ‘If they are followed rigidly, not a single film, Indian or Western, is likely to be certified.’ Abbas’s independent short, Char Shaher Eh Kahani, made in the context of the Khosla Committee’s investigations, sparks a major censorship controversy by suggesting that censorship violates the constitutional right to free speech. Major reforms are instituted by the Hidaytullah judgment in the Supreme Court. A manifesto for a New Indian Cinema movement is issued by Mrinal Sen and Arun Kaul, advocating a state-sponsored author-cinema. The state-owned Jyoti-Chitraban studio is inaugurated in Kahilipara, Guwahati, Assam.
1969
Indira Gandhi splits the Congress, sacks her finance minister Morarji Desai, and announces the nationalisation of 14 of India’s largest banks accounting for 52% of the national credit. She becomes the unquestioned leader of her Party. Her increasing use of radical socialist rhetoric attempts to neutralise both Left and Right opposition in the name of ‘progressive forces’. The CPI(ML) is founded in Calcutta by Kanu Sanyal. The atomic power station at Tarapur becomes operational. The Bhabha Atomic Research Centre produces Uranium 235. The scientist Vikram Sarabhai, Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, presents his vision for Indian TV: to overcome simultaneously India’s two major limitations, geographical distance and linguistic diversity.
Bhuvan Shome and Uski Roti, financed by the FFC, inaugurate New Indian Cinema. Olavum Theeravum launches a second ‘new wave’ in Malayalam. Aradhana makes Rajesh Khanna a megastar in association with Kishore Kumar’s singing and S. D. and R. D. Burman’s scores. Publication of P. Parrain’s Regards sur le cinéma indien in Paris. First Satyajit Ray retrospective at the Cinémathèque, Paris.
1970
The Naxalite Movement takes a new turn with student uprisings in Calcutta and other cities. Rebelling against corrupt and archaic education systems, problems of unemployment and the class divide separating Westernised urban life from the ‘reality’ of rural India, the student action becomes iconoclastic, defacing statues of Gandhi, Rammohun Roy, Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar, Vivekananda et al. Furious debates about the role of art and culture, the supportable and objectionable aspects of India’s history, and the role of its petty bourgeoisie, end badly with brutal police and military crackdowns and indiscriminate killings. Anti-Naxalite hysteria grips the state machinery. The central government approves the West Bengal Prevention of Violent Activities Bill. Indira Gandhi’s turn towards socialism is reflected in the new Industrial Licensing Policy, reversing the trend towards deregulation. This socialism is incarnated in the Fourth Five-Year Plan, with an outlay of Rs 15,902 crore. The government abolishes privy purses and all privileges to India’s erstwhile royalty.
The English monthly Stardust, using ‘Bombay English’ and featuring movie star gossip and scandals, revolutionises the concept of the fanzine. Journal of the Kerala Film Chamber (Cochin) starts. Close Up (no. 5/6) publishes a special number on ‘The Indian Film Scene’. Samskara inaugurates New Indian Cinema in Kannada. Firoze Rangoonwala publishes his Indian Filmography: Silent and Hindi Films (1897–1969).
1971
The Pakistan government’s crackdown on Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s Awami League leads to war with India and results in East Pakistan becoming Bangladesh. Indira Gandhi exploits India’s success by announcing elections. Her Congress (R) wins a massive majority, which she uses to change the Constitution, giving greater powers to the parliamentary executive at the expense of the judiciary. President’s Rule is declared in West Bengal and Union Minister Siddhartha Shankar Ray uses troops to quell what remains of the Naxalite Movement. A conservative estimate (quoted by Francine Frankel, 1978) is that 15,000 people were arrested, of whom 2000 were killed. By 1973, there are more than 30,000 political prisoners in Bengal, arrested under the Maintenance of Internal Security Act (MISA). India signs a 20-year Treaty of Peace and Friendship with the USSR, triggered by ‘secret’ talks between Kissinger and Zhou Enlai and the fear that both China and the USA would back Pakistan in the event of further conflict. This effectively ends the Nehruite non-alignment policy. The State of Himachal Pradesh is formed. B. V. Karanth’s theatre group, Benaka, stages Karnad’s Hayavadana, Kambhar’s Jokumaraswamy and Lankesh’s Oedipus, inaugurating a Navya- inspired avant-garde in Kannada theatre.
The agreement between the Indian government and the MPEAA is allowed to expire. From 114 foreign films censored in 1972, the number falls to 38 in 1973 and 26 in 1974. The directive to the FFC to sponsor independent film-making is written into its official objectives, enjoining it to turn film into ‘an effective instrument for the promotion of national culture, education and healthy entertainment … by granting loans for modest but off-beat films of talented and promising persons in the field’. This directive was to last for only five years. India produces 433 feature films, making it the largest film producer in the world. The boom, started in the mid-60s, continues throughout the decade: in 1979, 714 Indian features were submitted to the censor. Pakeezah is released. Shantata! Court Chalu Aahe starts the New Indian Cinema movement in Marathi. Its original author, Tendulkar, writes the play Sakharam Binder
1972
Government nationalises the coal-mining industry. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and Indira Gandhi reach agreement over Kashmir (the Simla Accord). Amol Palekar’s staging of Sadanand Rege’s Marathi play Gochee starts the Chhabildas experimental theatre movement, deriving its name from a school in a lower-middle-class neighbourhood in Bombay, which the theatre group Aavishkar had earlier acquired to stage low-budget theatre experiments to a small audience. Television starts in Bombay (October). Stations are started the following year in Srinagar, Amritsar and Calcutta. Madras and Lucknow follow in 1975.
First art-house cinema opened by the FFC. First features in Manipuri (Matamgi Manipur) and Coorgi (Nada Manne Nada Koolu). The first film co-operative run by technicians, the Chitralekha Co-op, starts production with Adoor Gopalakrishnan’s début, Swayamvaram. In Tamil Nadu, M. G. Ramachandran is expelled from the DMK and forms the Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam. The Malayalam film weekly Nana starts, occasionally publishing filmographies and listings in between features on the Malayalam film industry. Do Gaz Zameen Ke Neeche establishes the Ramsay Brothers and the horror genre in Hindi.
1973
The former Mysore State becomes Karnataka. A Special Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court restricts Indira Gandhi’s constitutional amendments of 1971, impeding her efforts to make parliament the supreme authority in the country’s constitution. In retaliation, Mrs Gandhi selects and appoints a new chief justice, a ‘blatant attempt … at undermining the independence of the judiciary’, according to the Supreme Court Bar Association. Jayaprakash Narayan, the former socialist later associated with the Gandhian Sarvodaya Samaj, warns against the erosion of democracy. All private wholesale trading in wheat is banned; only the Food Corporation of India, and similar organisations, are authorised to purchase wheat. The fixing of procurement prices, coupled with the relative failure of the wheat crop, leads to large-scale hoarding and a major black market in food.
The FFC becomes the channelling agency for the import of raw stock, a role until then played by the State Trading Corporation of India. A 250% import duty on raw stock is imposed. First Haryanvi film: Beera Shera. Bobby reinvigorates the love story genre. Ankur is a commercial success, starting the ‘middle-of-the-road’ cinema of the independently financed, commercially designed art-house movie, a genre that soon dominates state-sponsored film and television. Launch of the Bombay-based weekly trade paper Film Information, providing the most reliable listings of Hindi cinema.
1974
The Nav Nirman student agitation in Gujarat, opposing a faction-ridden Congress, the corruption of Chief Minister Chimanbhai Patel and escalating prices of wheat and cooking oil, leads to President’s Rule. The agitation spreads to Bihar as Jayaprakash Narayan announces his re-entry into political life to lead the movement, supported by the Jan Sangh, the Congress (O) and the CPI(M). A National Co-ordination Committee led by Narayan addresses a series of massive rallies, making Bihar the spearhead of the anti-Indira Gandhi campaign. Anand Patwardhan’s Waves of Revolution (1975) chronicles the movement towards what Narayan called ‘sampoorna kranti’ (‘Total Revolution’). The strike of 1.7 million railway workers continues for three weeks with wide support from the anti-Congress opposition. It is broken through the widespread use of preventive detention under the Maintenance of Internal Security Act (MISA). The ‘peaceful’ nuclear blast at Pokharan demonstrates India’s acquisition of nuclear capability.
Hindustan Photo Films starts limited production of positive colour stock. The Film Festival of India becomes an annual event. The Film Institute of India is registered as an autonomous society, and is merged with the TV Training Centre to become the Film & Television Institute of India.
1975
Indira Gandhi is accused of ‘corrupt practices’ during her 1971 election campaign in the Rae Bareilly constituency. She is debarred from holding elective office for six years. This event, and the expansion of the Jayaprakash Narayanled movement into Gujarat, the formation of a multi-party ‘Janata Front’ culminating in Narayan’s major Delhi rally calling on the army and police to disobey ‘illegal orders’, lead to the declaration of Internal Emergency. All opposition leaders and thousands of intellectuals and political activists are jailed. Mrs Gandhi announces her Twenty-Point Economic Programme, using the unprecedented powers of her government to promise: the implementation of agricultural land ceilings, houses for landless labourers, the abolition of bonded labour, the liquidation of rural debt, cheaper prices, higher agricultural wages, increased production and employment, the socialisation of urban land, a crackdown on tax evasion, the confiscation of smuggled property and cheaper textbooks. Smallpox is eradicated from India. The Chasnala colliery disaster, in which 372 miners die. Utpal Dutt presents his play, Dushwapner Nagari. The USA loans its satellite ATS-6 for a one-year SITE project, while Doordarshan expands its number of terrestrial stations (Calcutta, Madras and Lucknow in 1975, Ahmedabad in 1976). The Aryabhata, a 360kg satellite, is made in India and launched from a Soviet cosmodrome.
A new agreement with the MPEAA means that US films can be imported again. Sholay and Jai Santoshi Maa are made. The Bengali film fortnightly Anandalok starts.
1976
Emergency attacks on civil liberties include the Prevention of Publication of Objectional Matter Act, effectively introducing pre-censorship of the press, and the 42nd Amendment, paving the way for a permanent dictatorship. A new National Population Policy is announced by Sanjay Gandhi, aiming to sterilise 23 million people over three years. Between April and September 1976, 3.7 million Indians were sterilised, mostly among the lowest and most oppressed sections of the population, often forcibly in makeshift sterilisation camps. In the Turkman Gate and Jama Masjid neighbourhoods in Delhi, 700,000 people are made homeless by slum clearance and ‘beautification’ programmes. The Constitution’s preamble is amended from ‘Sovereign Democratic Republic’ to ‘Sovereign Socialist Secular Democratic Republic’. Food prices stabilise following a good monsoon; the number of days lost in industrial strikes goes down from 6 million between July and September 1974 to 1.56 million between July and September 1975. Doordarshan TV is separated from All-India Radio and is allowed to take advertising.
During the Emergency, the Committee on Public Undertakings attacks the FFC’s ‘art-film’ policy because, from Rs 62.5 lakhs disbursed since June 1969 for 30 features, Rs 38.01 lakhs had not been recovered. From the 30 films financed, only 16 were completed and 10 of them ‘have not proved successful at the box office’. The Committee ignores distribution and exhibition, exclusively blaming the films instead. It decrees a series of aesthetic criteria for future film funding, including ‘human interest in theme’, ‘Indianness’ and ‘characters with whom the audience can identify’. Prefiguring the commercialised Doordarshan experiment, the Estimates Committee’s 80th Report (1975–6), states that ‘It should have been apparent to the [C]orporation that films are primarily a means of entertainment and unless the films financed provide good entertainment [t]hey would not be acceptable to the masses.’ The Report adds that in 1969–70, Indian films worth Rs 4. 35 crore were exported illegally. It also attacks the selection policy of Indian films entered in foreign festivals. The journal Film Blaze starts in Bombay. The YUKT co-op, a group of ex-students of the FTII, makes Ghashiram Kotwal. The negative of Amrit Nahata’s Kissa Kursi Ka (remade 1977), a satire on Emergency rule, is destroyed by Sanjay Gandhi’s representatives.
1977
In the general election, Indira Gandhi is defeated and the Janata Party, a coalition of disparate opposition groups, takes power under Morarji Desai. The Emergency is withdrawn. In Tamil Nadu, the AIADMK comes to power with M. G. Ramachandran as chief minister. He introduces schemes to assist the Tamil film industry, including government subsidies. Tamil film production leaps from 66 films in 1978 to 105 in 1979.
1978
Indira Gandhi starts the Congress (I) Party. The Janata Party’s Foreign Exchange Regulation Act, and the founding of the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Commission, effectively terminate the licences to Coca Cola, IBM and other multinationals. The All-Assam Students Union (AASU) issues a 16-point Charter, including a demand to restrict the entry of foreigners, mainly Bangladeshi refugees, into Assam. The B. G. Verghese Working Group on Autonomy for Akashvani and Doordarshan, submits its report. The following year, the Prasar Bharati Bill cancels any possibility of real autonomy for TV.
The net Indian box-office take for 1978–9 is c. Rs 247 crore. Entertainment tax for the period is Rs 187 crore. On average, state governments collect 43% of the gross box office. The Orissa Film Development Corporation (Est: 1976) announces the financing of Janata cinema houses’ in rural and semi-urban areas. The number of Oriya films reaches 15. Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh adopt similar financing programmes while Punjab, UP and Kerala directly build state-owned theatres. Panorama of Indian cinema at the Carthage Film Festival. The Malayalam film journal Chitrabhoomi is started by the owners of the mainstream daily Mathrubhoomi.
1979
The Janata Party splits (e. g. because of the Jan Sangh’s affiliations to the RSS), Morarji Desai resigns and Charan Singh becomes a caretaker prime minister as elections are announced. The Akali Dal General House defines the Anandpur Sahib Resolution, demanding that Chandigarh becomes the capital of Punjab and that the Supreme Court adjudicate disputes over the distribution of river water. The Congress (I) supports Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale for the Shiromani Gurudwara Prabandhak Committee elections. The film industry forms the National Party with a predominantly pro-industry, right-wing manifesto, denying that it is a version of the former Swatantra Party. This is the only occasion when the film industry attempted to start a political Party of its own, although several movie stars participated in parliamentary politics. Mass rallies in Assam, led by the AASU, on the issue of illegal immigrants, also generate anti-Muslim and regionalist anti-Bengali sentiment. The second satellite, Bhaskara-1, also built in India by ISRO, is launched from Bear’s Lake, USSR. However, the first Satellite Launching Vehicle (SLV) at Sriharikota fails with a payload of 40kg.
Malayalam film production reaches 123 (54 in 1975), exceeding the Hindi cinema, partly because of the Kerala government’s Chitranjali Film Studio and other subsidies, but mostly because of the influx of ‘Gulf money’ remitted by Malayalam workers in the Middle East. Shankarabharanam is a major Telugu musical hit.
1980
Indira Gandhi’s Congress (I) returns to power, also winning Punjab with the support of Bhindranwale and other groups which unleash extreme Right terrorist attacks. As a result of the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act, the number of foreign companies in India falls from 510 in 1975 to 300 by 1980–1. The second satellite launch from Sriharikota, the satellite ROHINI, is successful. The first colour telecast from Doordarshan, an experiment on 18 July, announces the 1982 shift to colour and commercialisation. The Information & Broadcasting Minister makes colour TV one of the Congress (I)’s main election promises.
India has 6368 permanent and 4024 temporary ‘touring’ theatres. The Lotus Cinema, hired by the FFC, becomes Bombay’s only venue for ‘art’ films, opening with Bimal Dutt’s Kasturi (1978). The FFC merges with the Indian Motion Picture Export Corporation to become the NFDC. Independent film-makers start the Forum for Better Cinema and ask the government to invite Satyajit Ray to head the new organisation. Ray declines the offer, urging the Forum to exercise caution. The NFDC’s Board combines disparate interests and is unable to agree which kind of cinema to support. K. S. Karanth’s Report of the Working Group on National Film Policy is published. It recommends, e. g., the foundation of a Chalachitra Akademi for film in line with the academies for literature, theatre, dance and the visual arts. The academy would combine the Directorate of Film Festivals, the National Film Archive of India, a non-commercial import/export agency, a film museum and the means to fund film societies, education and research programmes. The government ignores the report. Satyajit Ray retrospective at the Indian International Film Festival; Mrinal Sen retrospective at the National Film Theatre, London. The journal Cinema Vision (India) starts in Bombay with an issue on silent cinema.
1981
Mrs Gandhi’s government reverses its pre-Emergency commitment to socialist protectionism in the wake of its new space satellite programme. The shift to colour TV pioneers the liberalisation of import licences for unassembled TV kits, assembly and marketing initially being reserved for small businesses. India borrows $5 billion from the International Monetary Fund, the biggest such loan in history. The art exhibition Place for People (Bhupen Khakhar, Vivan Sundaram, Gulam Mohammed Sheikh, Nalini Malani, Sudhir Patwardhan) reconstitutes Indian modernism, drawing on popular arts and on figurative elements rather than abstraction. India’s first geostationary telecommunications satellite, APPLE (Ariane Passenger Payload Experiment), weighing 670kg, is launched from French Guiana by the European Space Agency.
Celebration of Indian cinema’s golden jubilee; formation of the short-lived Indian Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences (IAMPAS). A three-part season tours the USA (billed as a pre-Ray package, a Ray retrospective and a New Indian Cinema programme). Special issue on Indian cinema by the Journal for Asian Literature (Washington). 36 Chowringhee Lane achieves a commercially viable, English-speaking audience, enhanced by foreign sales.
1982
Continuing the Congress (I)’s liberalisation policies, Indian culture is marketed in a massive Festivals of India campaign starting in London, then in Paris and Moscow. India’s finest traditional and contemporary artists are featured. The Bombay Textile strike, lasting almost a year. INSAT 1-A is launched from Cape Canaveral, inaugurating a national TV programme mobilising all prime time throughout the country for the New Delhi station. Colour TV starts on 25 April with the telecast of Ray’s Sadgati and Shatranj Ke Khiladi. Regular colour telecasts through INSAT begin on 15 August. The Ninth Asian Games held in Delhi provide the first nationwide colour programmes, using the USSR’s Stationary-5 satellite and 20 low-power transmitters.
N. T. Rama Rao starts the Telugu Desam Party. The failure of Rawail’s Deedar-e-Yaar is a major setback to the Hindi industry. The Tamil film weekly Gemini Cinema starts. First films in Brijbhasha (Brij Bhoomi) and Malvi (Bhadwa Mata).
1983
Violence erupts in Assam, led by the All-Assam Students Union (AASU) which boycotts the Assembly elections held with major military support, although none of the main Parties except the Congress (I) and some Left groups participate. Rampant terrorism in the Punjab countryside, briefly quelled by massive state intervention, gradually resurfaces. INSAT 1-B satellite is put into orbit from the US space shuttle Challenger, inaugurating the Special Plan for Expansion of the Television Network.
The Karnataka state subsidy to films is increased to Rs 1 lakh for b&w and Rs 1.5 lakh for colour, provided the films are in Kannada and made entirely in the state. Producers are allowed to do post-production outside Karnataka until 1986, when several dubbing, mixing and re-recording studios (the Chamundeshwari and Vasant labs, followed by Prasad Studios and Shankar Nag’s Sanket Electronics) are established. Panorama of Indian Cinema at the Centre Pompidou, Paris. First film in Garhwali (Jagwal) and Khasi (Ka Lawei Ha Ki Ktijong Ngi).
1984
The Bhopal disaster, in which deadly emissions of methyl iso-cyanate from a Union Carbide (India) plant in Bhopal kill 3849 people (by official estimates) and maim 500,000 people in the countryside. The army attacks the Golden Temple, Amritsar, the most sacred of Sikh gurdwaras and the hideout of Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale. Over 2000 people die, including a third of the military contingent used. The Congress (I)’s former protégé, Bhindranwale, is killed. In retaliation, Indira Gandhi is assassinated by her security guards, triggering the Delhi riots in which 2717 people (official estimate), mostly Sikhs, are killed by mobs with alleged Congress (I) compliance. Rajiv Gandhi becomes prime minister. The P. C. Joshi Working Group on Software for Doordarshan is presented to parliament, with scathing criticism of TV’s commercialism and ‘Delhi-centrism’. The report is never officially published. Doordarshan starts a second channel from Delhi.
John Abraham starts the Odessa Collective in Cochin.
1985
The 52nd Amendment bill disqualifies Members of Parliament who defect from one Party to another. The Assam accord, after which the AASU-Asom Gana Parishad leadership takes over the state government. The Punjab accord is signed by Rajiv Gandhi and Harchand Singh Longowal, the most moderate of the Sikh leaders. Longowal is assassinated shortly afterwards. Doordarshan becomes a fully commercial station selling prime time slots to private sponsors and manufacturers of TV soaps. Its first successful series, Kumar Vasudev’s Humlog (1984–5), is modelled on the Mexican concept of the ‘developmental’ soap opera and is sponsored by Colgate-Palmolive and Nestlé. Several privately made serials follow as TV ownership jumps from 2. 7 million in 1984 to 12. 5 million in 1986.
Indian Cinema season at Pesaro Film Festival, Italy.
1986
The district judge of Faizabad orders the opening of the Babri Masjid mosque in Ayodhya to Hindu worshippers. According to fanatical Hindus, the mosque, built in 1528, stands on the spot where Ram, a Hindu god, was born. The Babri Masjid Action Committee (BMAC) is formed. G. M. Shah’s ministry in Kashmir is dissolved and Kashmir is brought under President’s rule. The Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Bill, better known as the Shah Bano Bill, follows the Supreme Court’s judgment ordering Mohammed Ahmed Khan of Indore to pay alimony to his divorced wife Shah Bano. The Supreme Court is accused of violating the Shariat (the Koranic Commandments) by the Muslim Personal Law Board, and the government, to win conservative Muslim support, passes a Bill taking away all rights from divorced Muslim women. The assets of the top 574 companies identified by the Monopolies & Restrictive Trade Practices Act are, on average, Rs. 70.24 crore, almost double the value of Indian subsidiaries of foreign multinationals.
The actress Smita Patil dies, aged 31. The Calcutta-based journal Splice starts, edited by Samik Bandyopadhyay. It lasts for four issues.
1987
Institutionalised corruption and capital flight become dominant political issues. Arms deals (e. g. buying Bofors guns and HDW submarines) and the hiring of an American detective agency to trace illegal funds held by Indians abroad provoke a series of inquiry commissions. Finance Minister V. P. Singh is sacked and becomes a leading opponent of the Rajiv Gandhi regime. Amitabh Bachchan resigns as MP after allegations that his family is involved in the Bofors kickback scandal. In Deorala, Roop Kanwar is burnt alive on her husband’s funeral pyre, reviving the ritual murder of widows which had been banned for a century. The Jharkhand agitation in Bihar strives for separate statehood. The government persecutes the Indian Express, a virulent anti-Rajiv Gandhi paper which relentlessly pursued the corruption scandals. 300,000 Muslims at a New Delhi rally demand the return of the Babri Mosque, while militant Hindus gather at Ayodhya to pledge the building of a temple. India sends troops to support the Sri Lankan government against the guerrilla movement launched by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. The Baroda art exhibition, Questions and Dialogue, signals the emergence of the Radical Painters & Sculptors Association dominated by artists from Kerala and takes a militant stand on the commercialisation of Indian art, emphasising a role for the radical avant-garde. The Ramayana TV serial (1986–8) becomes Indian TV’s first major hit.
The NFDC starts the quarterly journal Cinema in India.
1988
Rajiv Gandhi’s Defamation Bill, seeking to reimpose Emergency-type curbs on the press, is withdrawn following nationwide resistance. The National Front of opposition parties is launched in August; the Janata Dal, led by expelled Congress(I) member V. P. Singh, revives the centrist opposition unity of the Emergency, except for the BJP. The Bhartiya Kisan Union, led by Mahendra Singh Tikait, the most militant of the rich peasant organisations, organises a major rally at the Boat Club, New Delhi. The DMK wins the Tamil Nadu state assembly after M. G. Ramachandran’s death (1987) and the split in his AIADMK. IRS-1A, a remote sensing satellite, is launched from the Baikonur cosmodrome in the USSR. INSAT 1C, launched by the Ariane facility in Kourou, French Guiana, develops snags.
The journals Cinemaya (A Quarterly on Asian Film) and Deep Focus start.
1989
Satwant Singh and Kehar Singh, accused of assassinating Indira Gandhi, are hanged. Safdar Hashmi, a street theatre activist, is killed by thugs allegedly members of the Delhi Congress(I). Amid a nationwide outcry, the Safdar Hashmi Memorial Trust is formed, organising a series of Artists Against Communalism programmes featuring some of India’s best-known musicians, dancers and artists. Agni, an intermediate-range ballistic missile, is fired, making India the fifth country to acquire IRBM capability. The Shilanyas ceremony is held at Ayodhya, as the foundation stone for a temple in the name of Ram is laid. Rajiv Gandhi, seeking Hindu support, allows the ceremony to take place. In the general elections (December), a coalition of the Janata Dal, supported by the right-wing BJP and the CPI(M), displace Rajiv Gandhi’s government.
The Central Board of Film Certification allows 1268 video titles to be released, including 62 features, 213 shorts, 48 ‘long’ films and 915 foreign shorts.
1990
The government’s policy to increase quotas of jobs for ‘backward castes’ in public service is strongly attacked by upper-caste and middle-class sectors. Karunanidhi’s DMK government in Tamil Nadu is dismissed for allegedly supporting the Sri Lankan LTTE. A ‘Rath-Yatra’, evoking a medieval chariot procession, is led by L. K. Advani of the BJP from Somnath to Ayodhya, fomenting communal violence along its route. Advani is arrested by the Janata Dal; in retaliation, the BJP withdraws its support from the government, which falls. The second Shilanyas procession and the ‘kar seva’ at Ayodhya on 30 October in which several people are killed and injured in police action.
The first Bombay International Film Festival for Shorts and Documentaries, sponsored by Films Division.
1991
Rajiv Gandhi is assassinated by suspected LTTE terrorists. A rising foreign debt and other dysfunctions inaugurate a policy of economic reform encouraging foreign investment. The USSR disintegrates. India conducts the last census of the century, announcing a population of 844 million. The Doordarshan Director General, Shiv Sharma, is assassinated by suspected Punjab terrorists. Punjab is declared a ‘disturbed area’, followed by Assam. The 10th Lok Sabha elections take place with 200 million registered voters. The Congress emerges as the largest party and P.V. Narasimha Rao is sworn in as Prime Minister. The first-ever BJP ministry takes over in U.P and acquires the disputed Ayodhya land. Parliament passes the notorious Terrorists and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) (TADA) Bill. The Parliamentary ‘Question Hour’ is telecast for the first time.
1992
‘Prithvi’, India’s medium range surface-to-surface missile is successfully tested, followed by the ‘Agni’. Major stock exchange scandal featuring the stockbroker Harshad Mehta is discovered, and the Janakiraman Committee’s revelations of major collusion by banks is accepted by the government. The BJP government makes Sanskrit compulsory in primary schools in U.P. Later in the year the BJP organises an attack on Ayodhya and destroys the Babri mosque leading to major bloodbaths in many parts of the country.
The first Indian-made satellite, INSAT-2 A, is launched from Kourou. Five selected regional TV channels go national. Satyajit Ray is presented an honorary ‘Oscar’ and the Bharat Ratna, India’s highest civilian honour.
1993
Communal violence spreads in Bombay and Ahmedabad, with the Bombay death toll in the aftermath of the Ayodhya riots rising to 550. The movie star Sanjay Dutt is arrested under the TADA Act. The Government of India decides to implement the Mandal Commission recommendations, providing for 27% reservation for socially and educationally backward castes in the Central Services. The Hazratbal mosque in Kashmir is taken over by terrorists. The Latur earthquake obliterates over 40 villages in Maharashtra.
Bill to regulate Cable TV introduced in the Lok Sabha. Five more Doordarshan channels are launched. Murdoch’s STAR-TV acquires 49.9% shares in the ZEE-TV network. Controversy over the ‘Choli ke peeche’ song in Subhash Ghai’s Khalnayak.
1994
The Janata Dal splits and George Fernandes is elected president of the breakaway ‘Samata’ group. The agitation in Karnataka against the telecasting of news in Urdu turns violent, following which the Election Commission announces a stay-order on Urdu news telecasts from Bangalore Doordarshan. The Cable Television (Regulation) Ordinance is announced. Plague hits the city of Surat claiming 47 victims; five more die in Delhi of pneumonic plague. Real-life ‘Bandit Queen’ Phoolan Devi is released from prison after 11 years.
Murdoch announces a new ‘pay-TV’ channel in Hindi, among several other ventures. Jurassic Park (1992) is dubbed in Hindi and grosses Rs 12 crore. It is followed by Speed (1993), Cliffhanger (1992) etc., Aladdin (1992), True Lies (1994), Twister (1996) etc., intensifying the new practice of dubbing Hollywood products into Hindi and other languages. The ‘sarkailo khatia’ song in Raja Babu causes a scandal leading to the announcement of amendments in the Censor Code. Hum Aapke Hain Koun is declared the biggest hit in the history of Indian cinema, reintroducing the ‘family’ entertainment genre. Bandit Queen is virtually banned by the Indian Censor Board.
1995
The Government of India decides not to extend the notorious TADA (Terrorists and Disruptive Activities) Bill. The Shiv Sena-run Maharashtra government scraps the Enron power project but then revises its decision. The Chrar-e-Sharif shrine, built in 1460 by Zain-ul-Abedin in central Kashmir, is burnt down by terrorists. The Oil and Natural Gas Commission rig in Pasalapudi blows up, and the fire is put out after 62 days. The first-ever cellular phone service in India starts in major cities.
The INSAT 2C is launched. ISRO and INTELSAT announce a $ 100 million 10-year agreement leasing some of the forthcoming INSAT-2E capacity. CNN announces a news channel in partnership with Doordarshan. Aditya Chopra’s Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge is the hit of the year. Mani Rathnam’s Bombay has a controversial release after it is ‘cleared’ by Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray. Major censorship controversy around E.V.V. Satyanarayana’s Alluda Majaaka.
1996
The Lok Sabha election takes place, with the BJP emerging as India’s single largest party, but short of a majority. A.B. Vajpayee’s government collapses after 13 days, and is replaced by a multi-party coalition under H.D. Deve Gowda. The Michael Jackson show is organised in Bombay by Shiv Sena leader Raj Thackeray. In a year dominated by political corruption, the Jain Hawala’ case involves alleged kickbacks by a businessman to several Cabinet Ministers and other noted politicians, former Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao is indicted in the ‘St Kitts forgery’ case and former telecommunications minister Sukh Ram’s house is raided by the CBI which finds Rs 3 crore in cash and jewellery. The Port Blair station of Doordarshan is inaugurated.
Shyam Benegal’s Making of the Mahatma is released in India and South Africa. N.T. Rama Rao dies.
1997
The former film star and Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, J. Jayalalitha, is arrested on corruption charges. The liberalisation drive now includes consumer goods. Bill Gates visits India, as does Greek musician Yanni who performs outside the Taj Mahal. The BJP and Bahujan Samaj Party announce a coalition government in U.P. with a plan of rotating the Chief Ministership every six months, but this coalition comes to grief in the first six months. India joins the Information Technology Agreement (ITA) of the World Trade Organisation, paving the way for a phased reduction in import tariffs on IT products. Caste violence sweeps through many parts of North and South India, as 10 Dalits are killed by the pro-landlord Ranvir Sena in Bihar, and violence escalates between Dalit and Thevar communities in Tamil Nadu.
Gulshan Kumar, owner of the T-Series label and pioneer of the audio-cassette revolution of the 1990s, is assassinated. Leading Hindi composer Nadeem is accused of the murder, and also accused of acting in collusion with a Dubai-based mafia. Continuing accusations of the ‘criminalisation’ of the Hindi film industry lead to its being declared an ‘industry’ the following year. Doordarshan drops its plans to introduce a STAR-TV-led project of Direct-to-Home satellite TV. Amitabh Bachchan returns to film with the commercial disaster Mrityudaata.
1998
The I.K. Gujral-led United Front coalition government falls after the report of the Jain Commission on Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination claims the participation of the DMK in training Tamil militants in Sri Lanka. The BJP forms a government led by A.B. Vajpayee. The new government announces several changes in the Prasar Bharati Act of 1990, affecting Doordarshan’s future as an autonomous enterprise, as well as in the proposed Broadcast Bill. Riots in Bombay following the desecration of an Ambedkar statue. The Women’s Reservation Bill is withdrawn by the government following stiff opposition by practically every major political party. India explodes the H-Bomb at Pokharan.
The Prime Minister’s ‘Task Force’ on Information Technology announces the plan of having ‘internet kiosks’ at every public telephone booth in India. The government declares the film industry as a legitimate industry qualifying it for institutional finance.