Table Of ContentColonial India and
the making of empire cinema
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To the memory
of my father
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. Colonial India
and the making
of empire cinema
Image, ideology and identity
Prem Chowdhry
~
Vistaar Publications
NEW DELHI
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, _.....; ( (' / Copyright C Prem Chowdhry 2000.
All rights reserved. No pan of this book may be reproduced or utilized in
any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, includuig photocopying,
recording or by any information storage or retrieval system, without permis
sion in writing from the publisher.
For copyright reasons, this edition is for sale only in India, Pakistan, Nepal,
Bangladesh, Bhutan, the Maldives, and Sri Lanka.
First published by Manchester University Press, UK. This edition published
in 2001 by
~
Vistaar Publications
(A Division of Sage Publications India Pvt Ltd)
32 M-block Market, Greater Kailash-1
New Delhi 110 048
Published by Tejeshwar Singh for Vistaar Publications, and printed at Chaman
Enterprises, Delhi.
ISBN: 81-7829-062-6 (India-HB)
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Contents
Acknowledgements Page vii
.
List of illustrations
IX
List of abbreviations
X
1 Introduction 1
Situating audiences in colonial India 9
British perceptions: conflicting viewpoints 17
Renegotiating ideological norms: the case of The Relief
of Lucknow 28
Oriental-cum-imperialist discourse: the Hollywood stakes 38
A shift of policy: shelving of films 43
2 The Drum (1938): the myth of the Muslim menace 57
Creating myths: the North-West Frontier 60
Masculinity and femininity: positing gender relations 69
Anti-British propaganda: British apprehensions 78
Protest and agitation: cry~tallising nationalist concerns 86
Identifying prime actors: audience and agitators 96
Reaction and action: the Congress ministry 103
3 Gunga Din (1939): spectre of Hindu domination 131
Aura of authenticity: conflicting messages 134
Communalising nationalism 142
Mahatma Gandhi: villain and saint 152
Privileging religioq and caste: categorising society 160
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vl CONTENTS
Loyalists and the army: surfacing contradictions 167
Reception of the film: national and imperial 176
4 The Rains Came (1940): imperialism, racism and
gender relations 193
Images and accentuation: old and new 19 5
Historical complexity: princely states and development 200
Miscegenation: resolving contradictions 205
Transgressor as the 'giver': symbolising relationships 210
Constructing femininity in a colonial setting: class
dimension 215
Coloured masculinity: the emasculated male 222
Publicity: release of the fil.m 228
S Conclusion 240
Images and concerns: loyalism and nationalism 242
Post-colonial cinema: insecurities and justifications 251
Bibliography 272
Index 285
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Acknowledgements
This work is the result of an unexpected beginning: while collect
ing archival material for a monograph on gender studies I came
across a freak reference regarding the outbreak of a riot in
Bombay in 1938 in the wake of the screening of a British film.
What began as a tentative exploration, born out of intellectual
curiosity, has evolved into a full length study. Many institutions
have supported this project and I am grateful to them all: the
British Council and the Charles Wallace Trust for the offer of a
short-term fellowship; the University Grants Commission, New
Delhi, whose travelling grant enabled me to collect very valuable
source material housed in London at the India Office Library and
Records and the British Film Institute; the faculty and staff of the
Film and Television Institute of India, and the National Film
Archives of India, Pune, for extensive discussions and for locating
source material; the staff of the Maharashtra State Archives,
Mumbai; the National Archives of India, New Delhi; and the
director and staff of the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library,
New Delhi, for providing me with space and unlimited freedom
to pursue my line of interest and inquiry.
This work has gone through various stages. At each stage
friends and fellow scholars have stepped in to discuss, criticise,
substantiate and, above all, to encourage my second foray into
what is essentially an interdisciplinary work. Special thanks to
Ranjani Majumadar for providing me with indispensable refer
ence material from her vast collection; to Ravi Vasudevan for
discussions, clarifications and suggestions regarding reference
material; to Biswamoy Patti for reading through and commenting
upon my first draft; to Sudesh Vaid and Amit Kumar Gupta for
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
reading parts of the same; and to Patricia Uberoi and Radhika
Singha for responding to and giving extended critical comments
on the entire manuscript and a refreshing new way to look at the
arguments.
I wish to extend special thanks to two of my friends, Uma
Chakravarti and Ramya Sreenivasan, for their extremely gener
ous and enthusiastic involvement with my work. Uma has been
closely associated with this project from inception to fruition,
reading various drafts, and often lifting my sagging spirits
through provocative and challenging queries and astute and
perceptive comments and criticism. Ramya stepped in during the
final stages. Her intervention at a crucial stage of this project has
contributed immensely to a greater clarity and sharpening of my
arguments and in highlighting their finer nuances. I also express
my gratitude to Lola Chatterjee for an incisive editing of the text.
However, I alone remain responsible for any errors in the work.
I dedicate this work to my late father. A noted political scientist, he
was a purist in academic discipline. I would like to think that his
unarticulated scepticism regarding the validity of a study of
cinema, especially in the hands of a social historian, would have
been laid to rest. He certainly would have enjoyed being proved
wrong. I shall miss his laughter and pleasurable affirmation of this.
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List of illustrations
•
1-4 From The Drum
•
5-6 From Gunga Din
7-10 From The Rains Came
Illustrations appear on pp. 124-30
Stills from British Film Institute. Every effort has been made to
trace the copyright owners of these illustrations; any person
claiming copyright should contact the publisher.
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