I. (A) Personal Details

Role Name Affiliation Principal Investigator Prof. SumitaParmar Allahabad University, Allahabad Paper Coordinator Prof. Rekha Pande University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad Content Writer/Author Prof. Lalit Joshi University of Allahabad, (CW) Allahabad. Content Reviewer (CR) Prof.Rekha Pande University of Hyderabad Language Editor (LE) Prof. SumitaParmar Allahabad University, Allahabad

(B) Description of Module

Items Description of Module Subject Name Women’s Studies Paper Name Women and History Module Name/ Title, Women, Cinema and the Indian Nation: a description historical survey

Module ID Paper-3, Module-33 Pre-requisites The reader is expected to have an understanding of how patriarchy is articulated in visual and performing arts.

Objectives To make the reader understand how the ‘look’ is organized in Indian cinema and how it is used to promote voyeuristic tendencies among the audiences. Keywords film criticism,darsana theory,Indian cinema,male gaze, anti-colonial movement,female protagonists

WOMEN, CINEMA AND THE INDIAN NATION: A HISTORICAL SURVEY

Introduction

This unit is about the representation/portrayal/depiction of women in Indian cinema. No attempt has been made to choose films made in all the languages in India. Nor has any attempt been made to distinguish between representations in what have been called ‘mainstream’ and ‘art’ films. The lack of an ‘Indian Theory of Cinema’, explaining how women are represented on the screen, creates problems of interpretation. Moreover feminist film criticism in the western academia opens new vantage points for the reader but limited possibilities to understand Indian cinema. Nonetheless, some prominent theorists merit mention. Pioneering work was done by Laura Mulvey (Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, 1975) who argued that the look or gaze in cinema is androcentric and that male audiences derive ‘scopohilic pleasure looking at women’. But her critic Mary Ann Doane dismissed Mulvey’s attempts to position male spectators as ‘active’ and women as ‘passive’. Jain Gaines highlighted the importance of race as a factor of gaze. One could also argue that in the case of India, caste determines the character of the gaze; dalit and non-dalit women being represented differently in Indian cinema. Attempts to understand women’s representation subjectivity and gaze in India have been partial and inadequate. One example is the darsana theory according to which the camera cannot be viewed simplistically as a tool of male voyeurism but as device that frames the gaze in a field of divine darsana. However, in a world refigured by consumerism where the bodies of both men and women have been commodified – it would be difficult to establish that gaze is ordered entirely by the idea of darsana. The challenge before the student of cinema therefore is, to interrogate how women are objectified/valorized/excluded/silenced/ in the cinematic narrative.

The Act of ‘looking’

Perhaps it would be useful to begin by elaborating how the act of ‘looking’ is organized in cinema. This can be seen at several levels – (a) How the camera looks at action unfolding before itself (b) How men inside the cinematic frame look at women inside the frame (c) How women inside the cinematic frame look at men inside the frame (d) How men among the audience look at male actors on the screen (e) How men among the audience look at women actors on the screen (f) How women among the audience look at women actors (g) How women among the audience look at male actors on the screen. In organizing the look, Indian

cinema was deeply influenced by its counterparts in Hollywood but drew upon the elements of organization from indigenous traditions of painting and theatre. In the twentieth century, Mughal, Rajput, Tanjore, Madhubani, Kalighat and Oriya styles of painting were available to painters who liberally borrowed nuances from each style and established new traditions which can be called colonial-modern. Like painting, cinema too was an assimilative art. It borrowed and absorbed styles from various art forms including painting. Film scholar Chidanand Das Gupta calls this the Phalke-Verma style (after filmmaker Phalke and Painter Raja Ravi Verma). According to Das Gupta, subjectivity within the cinematic narrative was constituted by framing the image in a frontal manner, just like it was done in the tableau traditions of painting. But it is difficult to agree with him that by doing thus, Indian filmmakers froze the image on the screen. We shall again return to the question of iconicity.

Indian cinema does not always fit into the neat categories offered by political chronology. Many of the themes and concerns raised by filmmakers about modernity, caste, class and gender during the colonial period were reiterated after independence without much deference to changing political discourses. For example, matrimony between a Dalit girl and Brahmin boy was not negotiable in Achchut Kanya (1936) as well as Sujata (1957). In both the films, the removal of untouchability is highlighted as the core agenda instead of an erasure of the caste system; this, despite the presence of a powerful movement against the caste system led by Ambedkar and others. Likewise, the gains made by the women’s organizations during the anti-colonial movement notwithstanding, a women continued to be portrayed as ‘’virtuous only if she kept the structure of the joint family with the patriarch at its apex intact. On the contrary, a modern woman aspiring to liberate herself from the influences of patriarchy was categorized as a rebel. She was shown onscreen as a modern woman (dressed in western costumes, smoking, drinking, dancing and laughing with men in clubs, ballrooms and theatres). One such stereotypical portrayal is that of Neeta (Nargis) in Andaz (1949). The melodrama revolves around Neeta, who is torn between the contradictory pulls of modernity on the one hand and patriarchal family values on the other. Andaz is a love triangle which ends with Neeta shooting her male friend and suitor and getting a jail term for her crime. It is during the trial that she is reminded of her father’s words when he had warned her to abandon her ‘modern’ ways. There were however, notable exceptions to such portrayals, particularly in the case of directors who became involved with art or parallel cinema.

Challenge before Indian filmmakers

The challenge before the Indian filmmaker has been to mobilize and legitimize the voyeuristic male gaze in creative ways so that it does not become an embarrassment either for the nation- state or for the civil society or women audiences at large. Whether we take into account the surveys available of theatre going audiences or statistics from the sales of software and free internet films, the number of women watching films has been constantly growing. In a paradoxical situation women-as-commodities on the screen must become acceptable to women-as-consumers among the audience. Filmmakers have therefore skillfully evolved a formula which combines erotic signification with pathos within the hybridized narrative space. This means the construction of an ethical universe in which erotic pleasure can be communicated without violently breaching the modesty of women. This is accomplished at many different levels – by adding song-dance sequences, by valorizing a virtuous woman and deprecating a fallen woman and by incorporating long scenes of rape and other forms of violence against women. Thus a woman on the screen must be emblematic of chastity and virtue (Sita, Radha, Savitri, Mira). But she must be prepared to bear endless indignity so that an unjust system can be brought to an end and a new order can be established. By invoking mythology (Mother Goddess/Shakti), filmmakers can negotiate easily between the sacred/profane and the past/present and the collective/individual so that the audiences can effectively deal with their present day anxieties.

Search for Identity

Indian cinema was born at a time when the anti-colonial movement had entered a radical phase. Like their counterparts in painting, theatre, music and literary production, Indian filmmakers were in search of an identity. Dadasaheb Phalke had proposed the idea of a swadeshi film. In an interview to the Marathi magazine Navyug in 1913 he proclaimed that a film made with indigenous capital, cast and crew for the visual benefit of Indian audiences could qualify as a truly swadeshi film. In the initial stages of filmmaking, the search for swadeshi ended with turning stories from the Puranas into screen adaptations. One reason for this was that Puranic stories were already in circulation and had a captive audience a priori. The result was the making of films like Shree Krishna Janma, Kaliya Mardan and Raja Harischandra (1913) by Phalke. During Phalke’s time cinema was not viewed as a

respectable profession. Hence no female actors were cast in his biopic Raja Harischandra, the female lead being played by Salunke, a former tea-stall employee. But there were others who turned their gaze to everyday life. As a consequence was born the ‘topical’ film. By the 1920s, the anti-colonial movement had been partly successful in mobilizing middle class women. Though small in numbers, women were becoming increasing visible in the public domains. The film industry in India was no exception. Devika Rani, Durga Khote and Leela Chitnis all came from urban middle class backgrounds. Women characters began to be featured in ‘topical’ films of the 20s and the 30s. Chandulal Shah directed several silent films such as Typist Girl (1926), Gun Sundari (1927), Vishwamohini (1929), Barristers Wife (1935) and Sipahi Ki Rani (1936) with women characters torn between tradition and modernity. V. Shantaram directed Amar Jyoti (1936) in which Durga Khote played a dacoit queen who dared challenge the patriarchal order. A year later Shantaram made Duniya Na Maane in which a young girl about to be married to an elderly widower, not only refuses to enter wedlock but mocks at him. Filled with shame, the widower commits suicide. Shantaram used a remarkable editing style to drive home his point of view. This included a brief marriage sequence depicted as shattered mirrors, reappearing distorted laughing faces, the forlorn look of the husband and a ticking clock. Likewise, Amiya Charavarty’s film Girl School (1949) is a village drama about a Meena (Geeta Bali) who refuses to succumb to an arranged marriage and establishes a school for girls instead. But the above two films were exceptions. Chandulal Shah’s Gunsundari (1934) is a story about a woman (Gauhar) who stuggles to keep her joint family intact. Nargis in Awaara (1951) is a lawyer who must reform Raj Kapoor but becomes responsible for driving Dilip Kumar to his tragic end in Deedar (1951). Filmmakers also chose to draw upon the rasa tradition in refiguring the image of women in films but were careful in investing it both with divine as well as erotic attributes. This strategy enabled them to invoke the desired attribute whenever the script demanded it (Geet Gaata Chal (1975), Muqaddar Ka Sikandar (1978), Bol Radha Bol (1992).

One of the most iconic films in the history of Indian Cinema, Mehboob Khan’s Mother India (1957), is a remake of his 1940 film Aurat. The film’s protagonist Radha (Nargis) is a dutiful wife (Sita). When her husband deserts her and she becomes a victim of the moneylender’s lust she bears the tragedy with a sense of fortitude, expected of her. Misfortune strikes again when she loses two of her sons in a series of natural disasters. But when, in a concatenation of

events, the moral order is threatened, she performs another iconic role-this time as Mother Goddess (a curious mix of Kali and Durga). Radha does not hesitate to kill her own son Birju (Sunil Dutt) when he does not stop stalking a village girl. The phenomenal success of Mother India prompted other filmmakers to make similar films. Thus Smita Patil tried to relive Radha’s role in Kasam Paida Karne Wale Ki (1984) and Waris (1988) but failed to trigger much excitement among the film going audience.

The Mother Goddess icon has been deployed in many other films with clever variations. But even Sita, the Mother-Godess, must pass the test of fire although it means facing humiliation at the hands of her husband (patriarch). This is the central theme of Shyam Benegal’s Nishant (1975), Basu Bhattacharya’s Panchvati (1986) and N.Chandra’s Tezaab (1988). Female characters in a number of other films like Dahej (1950), Devi (1970), Biwi Ho To Aisi (1988) and Pati Parmeshwar (1988) play passive dutiful wives. Passivity was also a necessary precondition for keeping the patriarchal joint family system intact.

Impact of Modernity

A couple of decades after independence, the patriarchal joint family in India had begun to reveal signs of disintegration. Rapid urbanization attracted skilled and unskilled workers in large numbers. The city had other attractions; being the symbol of modernity, it offered anonymity to young couples in addition to a new family life. Filmmakers skillfully responded to this crisis. Film scholar Madhav Prasad has termed Indian cinema quintessentially a Feudal-family-Romance. This means that the monolithic structure of the feudal family and its control over the family’s accumulated wealth must be protected from usurpers. It does not matter if the action in the film unfolds outside the boundary of the nation as in Love in Tokyo (1966), An Evening in Paris (1967), Pardes (1995), Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge (1995) Aa Ab Laut Chalein (1999) or locally as in Hum Aapke Hain Kaun (1995), Kal Ho Na Ho (1998), Hum Saath Saath Hain (1999), Baghbaan (2003) and Vivah (2006). The feudal family has the potential to ward away all predators including those who represent the forces of consumerist capitalism.

One of the enduring legacies of the anti-colonial movement was that it had made possible, the entry of educated women in the workplace. From the days of silent cinema until the early

1960s, working women could be seen in films like Telephone Girl (1926), The Educated Wife (1932), College Girl (1935), Indira M.A. (1934) Typist Girl (1935), and Dr.Vidya (1964). Curiously, Indian cinema viewed the 50s and the 60s, perhaps as decades in which the project of nation building was entirely in the hands of men. This is why working women became less visible on the screen in this period. They appear again a decade later in Zanjeer (as knife sharpener), in Abhimaan (as singer), in Trishul (a secretary) and as petty clerks in Chhoti Si Baat and Baton Baton Mein.

Indian cinema was also successful in inventing the character of the vamp. A vamp lacked the chastity and aura of the Mother Goddess. As a counterpoint to the chastity of the Mother Goddess, she symbolized diabolical lust; her habitations included night clubs, bars and dance floors. Depicted frequently as a cabaret performer, she danced and mingled with men uninhibitedly. In the immediate decades following independence the vamp could be seen, often with Anglo-Indian dancers, luring the protagonist to forbidden domains. Films such as Aaar Paar (1953), Shri 420 (1954) and Nau Do Gyarah (1957), Howrah Bridge (1958) can be viewed as appropriate examples of this genre. Thus, by inventing the vamp, filmmakers could now redirect the voyeuristic gaze to the female body without being accused of statutory blasphemy by the censors.

Though rape had been a stable element of cinematic narratives in India since the 40s, it was generally represented symbolically on the screen. With Insaaf Ka Taraazu (1980) making waves at the box-office, filmmakers lost all inhibitions. The rape scene lost its nuanced presentations. Now the camera began to explore the endless possibilities of exploring the anatomy of the women’s body. Gory details of the mis en scene were worked out by chasing, assaulting and violently disrobing the victim or tying her hands and feet and capturing her agony in successive close-up shots. Meri Awaz Suno (1981), Aaj Ki Awaaz (1984), College Girl (1990), Phool Bane Angarey (1991), Purush (1992), Damini (1993), Anjaam (1994), Bandit Queen (1994) and Lajja (2001) exploit the graphics details of the rape scene and convert it into a spectacle. Some filmmakers in the 80s, created the character of the ‘Avenging Woman’ by investing her with the shakti of the Mother Goddess (Durga/Chandi/Kali). In this way was created what Lalita Gopalan calls ‘interlocking narratives of rape and revenge’. Thus

were born films like Zakhmee Aurat (1983), Aurat Ka Inteqam (1984), Pratighaat (1987). Revenge actually provided the subterfuge to enter the gruesome scenes of rape.

By the late 80s, filmmakers dared to make erotic investments in the bodies of the female protagonists. Only a careful refiguration of the rasa tradition could create a new ocularity. The new domain for the darsanic gaze now became college festivals or dance competitions or other spectacles. This was also the domain where the hero finally capitulated to the heroine’s charms. Her body now became an object of consumption by audiences (men) both inside and outside the screen. Dil To Paagal Hai (1998) and Taal (1999) and Chandni Bar (2001) can be considered as representatives of this genre. In Chandni Bar the distinction between the vamp and the heroine finally ceased to exist.

There is a variation of this genre – the inappropriately termed ‘Muslim Social’, at the centre of which is the tawaif and her home – the kotha. The tawaif is both a historical character and a cinematic spectacle. She is invested with contradictory attributes – condemnation and praise, celebration and disavowal. She also makes possible, as film scholar Sumita S. Chakravarty has argued, the blurring of the boundaries between the legitimate and the illegitimate. Her private space - the kotha provides the filmmaker a vantage point to explore a territory untouched by modernity. It is the kotha where a long tradition of India’s literary and performing traditions (poetry, dance and singing) can be found intact. Traditionally, the tawaif was never a fallen woman or a prostitute; her patrons included rich and influential members of the aristocracy. But the filmmaker is only interested in the visual space where she will perform a dance (mujra) for her audience. The story of the tawaif is scripted once again so that men can gaze uninhibitedly at a pre-modern spectacle. Thus, the kotha, the tawaif and the mujra have been profoundly explored in films such as Pakeezah (1971), Umrao Jan (1981), Sardari Begum (1996) and Devdas (2002). The last movie Devdas, was remade several times since its first edition came out in 1928. Pronounced as India’s first tragedy film, its chief attraction lay in highlighting the character of Chandramukhi, the tawaif in the hero’s life.

In the 90s, the Indian economy was not only opened for foreign investment but also integrated with markets across the globe. This was also the decade when the monopoly of the state owned television channel Doordarshan came to a sudden end. With the advent of the Star Television Network and later BBC, CNN, Sony, MGM and Fox, Indian audiences were

exposed to foreign television content. With films from Hollywood relentlessly invading urban homes, Indian filmmakers felt the vital need to innovate or perish. The format needed to be urgently altered to draw the audiences back to Indian cinemas. Two separate trends became visible in this period. Some filmmakers offered a critique of liberalization and globalization by making films like Page 3(2005), Fashion (2005) and Heroine (2012) but not without disengaging themselves from explicitly displaying female bodies on the screen. There were others who responded to the period of disquiet and uncertainty by inventing the ‘Item Song’. The ‘Item Song’ was rarely a part of the film narrative; it was added as a ploy to titillate audiences. At the core of the Item Song lay the gyrating body of a woman, often an established star who agreed to a singular appearance in the film. Perhaps the first Item Song in the history of Indian cinema is ‘Choli Ke Peechche’ was performed in the film Khalnayak (1997). The song invited strong reactions from some parliamentarians, women’s organizations and members of the civil society. As more and more lawsuits came to be filed against the song, it garnered greater media coverage. As a consequence the film performed extremely well at the box-office. Soon the ‘Item Song’ became a stable trope of Indian cinema. Many films which followed successfully deployed the Item Song. These include, among others, China Gate (Chamma Chamma,1998), Fiza (Mehboob Mere, 2000), Dum (Babuji Zara Dhire, 2003), Kal Ho Na Ho (Mahi Ve, 2004), Dhoom (Dhoom Macha Le, 2004), Banti aur Babli (Kajrare,2005) Guru (Maiya Maiya, 2005) Crazy (Dekhta Hai Tu Kya, 2008).

Indian cinema thus seems to be out of sync with the progress made by the contemporary women’s movement and the range of issues it has addressed. Though some filmmakers have managed to handle sensitively, issues related to violence against women, questions of gender equality and the acknowledgement of the role of women in material and cultural production largely elude the diegetic space of cinema. As film budgets grow progressively with time, it is doubtful if producers, intimidated by the volatility of the market, will consider committing large sums of money to meet the demands of political correctness. We must also bear in mind that the Indian film industry is still dominated by men. In the past four decades, only a handful of women directors have made films which have readdressed the voyeuristic gaze in nuanced ways. These include Kalpana Lajmi (Rudali, Chingaari, Daman, Darmiyan, Ek Pal), Meera Nair (Monsoon Wedding), Deepa Mehta (Fire, Earth, Water) and Aparna Sen (Paroma, Mr. and Mrs. Iyer). However, the fact that a director is a woman is no guarantee for

a gentler handling of gender issues. Patriarchal discourse is cleverly made to articulate itself through the agency of women. Some of the recent films made by women directors like Ekta Kapoor (Ragini MMS1&2, The Dirty Picture, Ek Thi Dayan), Meghna Gulzar (Hu Tu Tu, Just Married) and Zoya Akhtar (Kismat Talkies, Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara), bear ample testimony to this incongruity.

Conclusion

Also, the Indian film industry has hitherto been telling stories largely of the lives of upper caste urban Indians. Thus, only a certain type of female character is visible onscreen while its ‘Other’ is absent. A more representative picture of Indian women on the screen can only be had when writers and directors draw upon the everyday experience of women of diverse castes and communities in different regions of India, particularly when developmental polices tend to displace and marginalize the nation’s poor on a phenomenal scale. Susi Tharu and K. Lalitha have demonstrated in their two-volume study of Women’s writings in India about how this can be accomplished. Only when the polyphony of such voices has been completely retrieved and (re) presented on the screen, can one speak about a critical engagement with patriarchy and the emergence of truly women’s cinema in India.