Ganesh, lord of auspicious beginnings and father of goddess Santoshi Ma. A Superhit Goddess Jai Santoshi Maa and Caste Hierarchy in Indian Films Part One Philip Lutgendorf

“Audiences were showering coins, perennials of its vast output, yet they quarter of national cinematic output) flower petals and rice at the screen constitute one of the least-studied enjoys the largest audience in appreciation of the film. They aspects of this comparatively under- throughout the Indian subcontinent entered the cinema barefoot and set studied cinema. Indeed, I will venture and beyond. Sholay (“Flames”) and up a small temple outside…. In that for scholars and critics, Deewar (“The Wall”), were both Bandra, where mythological films mythologicals have generally been heavily-promoted “multi-starrers” aren’t shown, it ran for fifty weeks. It “hard to see.” Yet DeMille’s words belonging to the then-dominant genre was a miracle”. —Anita Guha, also belie the fact that most sometimes referred to as the masala (actress who played goddess mythologicals—like most commercial (“spicy”) film: a multi-course cinematic Santoshi Ma; cited in Kabir films of any genre—flop at the box banquet incorporating suspenseful office. The comparatively few that drama, romance, comedy, violent 2001:115). have enjoyed remarkable and action sequences, and song and Genre, Film & Phenomenon sustained acclaim hence merit study dance. Both were expensive and Cecil B. DeMille’s famously both as religious expressions and as slickly made by the standards of the cynical adage, “God is box office,” successful examples of popular art and industry, and both featured Amitabh may be applied to Indian popular entertainment. Bachchan, the male superstar whose cinema, the output of the world’s Of the four hundred and seventy- iconic portrayal of an “angry young largest film industry, albeit with five Indian films released in 1975, three man” would dominate the screen certain adjustments—one must enjoyed enormous success. All were for the next decade. Female characters pluralise and sometimes feminise its in Hindi, the lingua franca of the were marginal to both, and this was subject. The genres known as entertainment industry based in not surprising given that their target “mythologicals” and “devotionals” Bombay (a.k.a. ), lately audience was young urban males, who were present at the creation of the dubbed “Bollywood,” which strongly identified with their themes Indian film and have remained hardy (although it generates less than a of honor and revenge.

10 MANUSHI Superhit Goddess his 50-minute feature Raja The third “superhit” of 1975 could Harishchandra—the bulk of films hardly have been more different, shown on Indian screens continued to however, and came as a complete be foreign, with American output surprise to both the industry and the dominating, a situation that prevailed press. Jai Santoshi Maa (“Hail to the until well into the sound era of the Mother of Satisfaction”)1 was a low- 1930s.2 Both nationalism and religious budget film featuring unknown feeling inflect Phalke’s oft-quoted actors, cheap sets and crude special account of his 1911 viewing of a film effects, and a plot and audience called The Life of Christ, which caused dominated by women. Dedicated to omission) by scholars, as well as the him to mentally visualise “the Gods, a little-known Hindu goddess, it responses, from several disciplinary Shri Krishna, Shri Ramchandra,” and to belonged to a film genre that had perspectives, to the Santoshi Ma ponder the question, “Could we, the been considered marginal for more film and phenomenon. sons of India, ever be able to see Indian than three decades. Yet Jai Santoshi Early Mythologicals images on the screen?” (Rajadhyaksha Maa became a runaway, word-of- The chronology of early cinema in 1993:49). Phalke’s 1913 effort, based on mouth hit, packing cinemas in major India closely paralleled its development an episode in the , was urban centers and smaller provincial in the West, from the first demonstration the first of nearly a hundred films he towns. It also became something of the Lumière brothers’ cinématograph would make over the next two decades, more: a phenomenon that gave a new in Bombay in July of 1896, only six almost all based on epic and (puranic) and specifically Indian inflection to months after its unveiling in Europe. tales. These included Lanka Dahan the American pop phrase “cult film,” Both in its technology and content, (“The Burning of Lanka,” 1917), for audiences commonly engaged in early cinema carried the cachet (or depicting the monkey Hanuman’s ritual and devotional behavior during stigma) of being a foreign innovation, exploits in the Ramayana and said to its screenings, and temples and and was largely confined to the new have been “India’s first big box-office shrines to its titular goddess soon commercial cities of the , hit” (Rangoonwalla 1983:33), and Shri began to appear in many parts of where it was patronised by European Krishna Janma (“The Birth of Lord India. As the years passed, the film residents and the Anglophone elite. Krishna,” 1918). The appearance of the acquired the status of a “cult Even after Indian producers became divine incarnations Rama and Krishna classic,” and was regularly revived, active—this is generally dated to May in the latter two films is said to have especially for women’s matinees on of 1913, when D. G. Phalke released elicited a powerful response from Friday, the day associated with the vrat or ritual fast and worship of Santoshi Ma; by all accounts, hundreds of thousands and perhaps millions of women periodically participated in such worship. Media accounts of the sudden emergence of a modern “celluloid goddess” attracted the interest of scholars interested in the impact of film on religion and popular culture, and as a result Jai Santoshi Maa became unique among mythological films by becoming the subject of a modest scholarly literature. To establish a context for my own examination of the film, I will briefly survey the history of mythologicals and their Babubhai Mistri’s 1965 Mahabharat, Krishna displays his cosmic form to Arjuna in a scene recapitulating conventions of popular poster art. evaluation (or more typically,

No.131 11 viewers, as “…men and women in New Competing Genres numbers (e.g., the Telugu language the audience prostrated themselves Mythological/devotional films cinema of Andhra Pradesh; Shah before the screen” (Barnouw accounted for all but one of the 1950:120-122). In the dominant and Krishnaswamy 1980:15). twenty-five feature films made by Hindi language cinema, according Significantly, Phalke seems to have Indian producers prior to 1920 to Nasreen Munni Kabir, the catered to—indeed, helped to (Rangoonwalla 1983:35), but mythological “had virtually create—a different audience than cinematic content changed rapidly disappeared by the 1950s” (Kabir that which patronised foreign films. in the next decade. Dhiren Ganguli’s 2001:114)—a fact that would make the He advertised in vernacular Bilat Ferat (“England Returned,” success of Jai Santoshi Maa more newspapers rather than in the 1921), offered a contemporary striking. English-language press, and took comedy of manners, and Madan Absence of Scholarly Study his shows to the hinterland, often by Theatres’ Barer Bazar (“Marriage There exists no major scholarly bullock cart, to offer inexpensive Market,” 1922) dramatised a social study of the mythological film genre, screenings to rural audiences who problem (ibid. 40-49). There were and only a handful of articles devoted sat on the ground before makeshift historical dramas like Simgadh (“The to it. This is surprising, since screens (ibid.). Fortress of Simgadh,” 1923), on the mythologicals constituted the most Other producers followed Phalke’s life of the Maratha king Shivaji, and distinctive early product of Indian example. The Elphinstone Bioscope thrillers like Kala Naag (“Black cinema, one that “earmarked for Company of Calcutta issued its own Cobra,” 1924), based on a sensational the Indian film an area of subject version of the Harishchandra story, murder case in Bombay (ibid. matter that won for it an immediate nearly double the length of Phalke’s, 49-50; Rajadhyaksha and Willemen and powerful hold in India in 1917, and later that year offered 1995:227). The variety of nascent and neighbouring countries….” Prahlad Charitra (“The Deeds of genres suggested by these titles (Barnouw and Krishnaswamy Prahlad”), based on the Bhagavata reflects the pressure of competition 1980:20). Moreover, these films were Purana story of a legendary devotee within a growing industry (by 1930, instrumental in “laying down the of Vishnu (Rangoonwalla 1983:33). India was producing close to 200 films operative norms of Indian films, The first film made in was per year), which caused filmmakers to both in form and content, which are 1919’s Keechaka Vadham (“The seek new sources of appealing still in use after seventy years” Slaying of Keechaka”), likewise narrative. Mythologicals continued to (Rangoonwalla 1983:31). Yet beyond adapted from the Mahabharata. Such be produced (and re-produced: e.g., the Phalke era (to which the two films, which themselves celebrated the Mahabharata tale of Savitri had preceding quotes refer), standard swadeshi or indigenous manu- been filmed at least eight times by surveys of Indian cinema make, at facture, embodied a nationalist 1937; Barnouw and Krishhnaswamy most, only scattered reference to message through traditional tales 1980:100), but they comprised a mythologicals (e.g., Barnouw and presented via a fascinating new shrinking percentage of output. Krishnaswamy 1980:90-91, 100-101, technology; they helped to draw According to B. V. Dharap, they 173; Chakravarty 1993:2, 35-36, 42), new constituencies into the cinema, accounted for roughly seventy per and the most theoretically ambitious and into a project of Indian cent of films made prior to 1923, but recent study of popular cinema, modernity. Other films of the period only fifteen per cent of those made M. Madhava Prasad’s Ideology of the centred on the legendary biographies between 1923 and 1930 (Dharap Hindi Film, dispenses with them in of poet saints of the medieval bhakti 1983:80). They experienced a brief two footnotes (Prasad 1998:4, n.3; tradition, such as Bilwamangal resurgence with the coming of sound 135, n.19). and Kabir Kamal (both 1919; in 1931, accounting for some forty per Decline of Mythological ibid. 34-35). Such hagiographic cent of films during the next three Explanations for the fluctuating films were sometimes called years, but then their output fell again, commercial fortunes of these films “devotionals,” to distinguish them to an average of between five and ten have been offered, however. The from “mythologicals,” which per cent of annual production (ibid. preference of early directors for featured divine and semi-divine 81). These statistics cover the whole mythological subjects has been heroes. However, many accounts of India and thus include regions of attributed to the social and technical merge both under the umbrella label the South where mythological films constraints they faced: in order to “mythological” (Dharap 1983:80). continued to be made in sizeable reach a mass, multi-lingual, and

12 MANUSHI largely illiterate audience without the disapproving, or dismissive— early sound era, characterises it as a use of sound, they relied on culturally suggesting that mythological films “naïve” Gandhian nationalist allegory familiar stories that permitted them to are, frankly, embarrassing: the most with implicitly subaltern sympathies develop complex narratives without tawdry and regressive products of an (Kapur 1987:79-96). Such arguments dialogue (Kabir 2001:110). Such otherwise much-maligned industry, are not without merit, and may be narrative familiarity was relied on and the expressions of a religious applied equally well to older whenever a new technology was vision that is particularly alien to performance forms—for religious introduced, which explains the “progressive” and westernised storytelling in India has often made brief resurgence of mythologicals sensibilities. Attempts to rehabilitate allusions to social and political in the early sound era (Barnouw the genre approvingly note the veiled conditions—but they are clearly not and Krishnaswamy 1980:90).3 This political motives of some early the whole story, and ignore issues of argument may be further extended to filmmakers; thus P. K. Nair observes reception based on class and gender, the expansion of television viewing that, under the strict censorship of as well as considerations of religious in the 1980s, which received a boost British authorities, ancient stories of meaning. from phenomenally popular serialised demon-slaying heroes could serve as Caste Hierarchy in Films versions of the Ramayana and allegorical critiques of the colonial Raj Psychoanalyst Sudhir Kakar’s Mahabharata—the most successful (cited in Kabir 2001:103-105). This is playful “caste system” of examples of mythological-style an argument indirectly supported by film genres—which posits the entertainment after Jai Santoshi Maa some of Phalke’s own writings, as well mythological as brahman (priest/ (Lutgendorf 1990:127-141). as by historical evidence concerning sage), the historical film as kshatriya A further explanation for the the reception of specific films—thus (warrior/aristocrat), and the action- decline of the mythological is that it the 1919 film Sairandhree, about the packed “stunt film” as shudra (serf/ was subsumed within an emerging attempted rape of the Mahabharata manual laborer; Kakar 1989:25)—has super-genre—usually termed the heroine , is said to have been some validity for the early cinema. “social,” a label loosely applied to widely interpreted as a critique of the Many conservative and pious people any film set in modern times— policies of the Viceroy, Lord Curzon condemned films as corrupting and that assumed a cinematically- (Dharap 1983:82). Similarly, Geeta immoral—likely to “arouse passion sophisticated audience and that Kapur’s appreciative if headily and cause sexual promiscuity, abounded in inter-textual allusions to theoretical analysis of Sant Tukaram leading to masturbation, loss of epic and (puranic) myths as well as (“Saint Tukaram,” 1936), one of the eyesight, and…impotence” (Khare to folklore, current events, and most popular “devotionals” of the 1985:142), but would sometimes make previous films (Booth 1995, 2000; Thomas 1987:304; cf. Prasad on the emergence of the “social” as “the all- inclusive film” which absorbed other genres; 1998:46-47, 135-136). The implicit argument that mythologicals marked a transitional phase in Indian cinematic practice, offering accessible entertainments that, among other things, taught Indians how to watch films, is one to which I will return in reference to Jai Santoshi Maa, a film that, once again, seems to have drawn new audiences into cinema halls. Political Allegories What is the cause for the scholarly neglect of mythological films? The slim literature on the topic bears a Telugu mythological Narthanasala based on a Mahabharata episode, tone that is variously apologetic, N. T. Rama Rao in drag as Arjuna-turned-transvestite Brihannala.

No.131 13 an exception for religious films. Thus immediate signal that it aims for a Lower Class Kitsch? Mahatma Gandhi, who disapproved different audience, as Bombay There are other problems with of cinema, is said to have seen only journalist Ashok Banker forthrightly mythologicals. On an aesthetic level, one film in his lifetime: Vijay Bhatt’s observes in his notes on the film. their cheap production values and 1945 mythological Ram Rajya— By the 1970s mythological movies special effects, evoking the staging “Rama’s Reign” (Dharap 1983:82). were seen as downmarket and vernac, conventions of rustic folk theater and “Stunt films” popular in the 1930s and suitable only for films made in other lower-class notions of opulence, are 40s, featuring avenger-style ethnic Indian languages. (Vernac is perceived as gaudy kitsch by superheroes intervening in defense short for vernacular. It is a common wealthier and more educated people. of underdogs, appealed particularly Indian English word for a person of an Further, such films typically portray to the urban working classes. Yet ethnic Indian background without much gods displaying human Kakar’s invocation of ancient varna education, English or sophistication emotions such as desire, fear, anger, categories obscures other social who speaks only a local ‘vernacular’ and jealousy. Such portrayals pose divisions in contemporary India. As language. The equivalent of a country little problem for rural and more noted earlier, Phalke targeted his bumpkin or backwoods bozo. [sic]) So traditional audiences, for whom even mythological films at a vernacular- when this low-budget B-movie broke laughter at the gods can coexist speaking and partly-rural audience all records to become one of the comfortably with feelings of awe and rather than the urban middle class highest-grossing films of the year…it devotion. But they are at odds with who patronised Anglo-European took everyone by surprise. (Banker two influential currents in elite films. In subsequent decades, stunt 2001:59) discourse: a Protestantised ideology films and mythologicals were in fact Such observations suggest that, of religion, absorbed through often made by the same studios, in the “caste system” of post- English-medium education, that whose directors “talked of Independence Bombay cinema, where advocates solemnity and dignity in mythologicals as ‘nothing more than the “stunt film” was subsumed within the portrayal of divinities, and a stunt films that happen to be about the omnibus masala “social” aimed brahmanical and lingering orientalist gods’” (Thomas 1987:304-305). Both at urban male audiences, it was preference for advaita monism, that were aimed at less-educated and the “downmarket and vernac” holds the worship of physically- generally less-prosperous audiences, mythological that became the cultural embodied deities to represent urban for the stunt films, rural for shudra of film genres—shunned by a “lower” level of theological mythologicals—though the latter “sophisticated” audiences, as well as understanding. To these must of were also known to appeal by the neo-brahmins of academia. course be added the overall hostility particularly to women (Barnouw and Krishnaswamy 1980:47; Shah 1950:106). Although the advent of sound led to Indian-language films gradually edging out foreign competition, the growing status of English as elite lingua franca led to new conventions of coding for target audiences. In Bombay cinema, “A-grade” films (generally “socials”) displayed their titles and credits in Roman script and using English terminology (“director,” etc.), and peppered their dialogue with English words and phrases. The fact that the opening credits of Jai Santoshi Maa appear entirely in Devanagari script and feature Sanskritised-Hindi neologisms (e.g. In a episode form Sagar’s Ramayan, Hanuman (Dara Singh) confronts the digdarßak for “director”) is an submarine demoness Simhika

14 MANUSHI to religious expression of Marxism outstanding success of a handful of significant chain of events relating to and psychoanalysis, two of the most mythological films, and the failure of Satyavati points to a successive influential ideologies of the humanist many others, suggests that even the movement in the evolution of academy during the second half of “illiterate” and “credulous” can be Santoshi Ma….”; ibid.). Surprisingly, the twentieth century. discriminating cinema goers. The neither of these insights seems to have Many Indian intellectuals of the question of what made Jai Santoshi been pursued in subsequent post-Independence era nurtured the Maa one of the most successful films scholarship, but I will return to them hope that technological and of its period remains unaddressed. shortly. economic progress would gradually Goddess Analysed Four years after Das’s essay solve the “problem of religion” in Given the above, it is not appeared, a panel on “Santoshi Ma, the their famously-devout land. Dharap’s surprising that the modest literature Film Goddess” was presented at the essay on mythologicals is saturated on Jai Santoshi Maa reflects annual meeting of the American with the vocabulary of Victorian mainly the work of sociologists, Academy of Religion, showcasing the rationalism, invoking “fatalism” as a anthropologists, and historians of work of young Western scholars who catch-all for everything that is wrong Indian art and religion, rather than of had become interested in the film and with India: “…so long as ignorance, film scholars. Although these authors cult.5 Art historian Michael Brand illiteracy, poverty, superstition rule provide a good deal of insight into traced the history of the goddess’ the large mass of people in this the Santoshi Ma cult, I think it is fair worship to the early 1960s, when five country; so long as fatalism is taken to say that, broadly speaking, they temples to Santoshi Ma were dedicated for granted, such pictures will always are more interested in Hindu at widely-separated sites in northern have an audience….” (Dharap goddesses than in Hindi films, and India. He also showed how the 1983:83). Remarking on the devotional show relatively little interest in the iconography of the goddess, which reaction to Phalke’s early films, aesthetic and narrative qualities that seems to have developed during Dharap sneers that “the illiterate contributed to the film’s success. the same period, rapidly became spectators actually prostrated Sociologist Veena Das’s 1980 standardised through poster images. themselves, taking the screen-Gods essay on the film includes a synopsis Brand’s paper indicates that the cult of as real.” There is indeed a curiously of its plot, but quickly moves to an Santoshi Ma was already spreading naïve faith displayed here: Dharap’s ambitious typology of mother among women—through word of own assumption that a “scientific” goddesses within which she situates mouth, pamphlet literature, and poster understanding of cinematic artifice Santoshi Ma; she then speculates on art—well before the making of the film. properly precludes the experience of the socio-religious concerns of the Indeed, it was reportedly one woman’s “real” divinity—this despite the fact film’s primary fans, whom she devotion to Santoshi Ma, acquired that routinely and identifies as lower-class urban through a pilgrimage to a temple in knowingly impute divinity to iconic women. Although Das makes factual Jodhpur, Rajasthan, that made her urge materialisations of all sorts, errors that suggest a perhaps cursory her filmmaker husband, Vijay Sharma, permanent and transient, natural and viewing of the film (thus she identifies to “spread the goddess’s message” manufactured: from clods of earth to the Santoshi Ma fast as comprising through the cinematic medium (Hawley painted surfaces to consecrated twelve Fridays rather than sixteen, 1996:4). human actors.4 The persistence of and asserts that the goddess Another presenter on the AAR such cinematic idolatry is especially becomes angry with her devotee in panel was Kathleen Erndl, whose work troubling to Dharap, and he attributes the climactic scene), she offers, albeit on Santoshi Ma was part of research it to the “illiterate, ignorant and in passing, two penetrating and on goddess cults of the Punjab hills, hence, credulous” nature of Indian related observations. These concern which eventually resulted in the viewers: “Even after seven decades the relative centrality of the human monograph Victory to the Mother of films,gullible members of heroine (“It seems to me that in an (1993). Its chapter on “The Goddess the audience were seen laying important sense one may justifiably and Popular Culture” devotes a themselves prostrate before the ask whether the true subject of this section to Santoshi Ma, who “has screen deity in motion picture theatres story is not Santoshi Ma, but taken all of northern India by storm”; throughout the country, when Jai Satyavati”; Das 1980:49), and the yet Erndl says little about the film, Santoshi Maa was shown” (Dharap parallel structure of the film’s two main beyond noting its massive popularity 1983:82). Yet, as already noted, the narratives, divine and human (“Every (Erndl 1993:141-152). She summarises

No.131 15 Santoshi Ma’s story based on written Freudian theory to account for the the apparent specificity of Santoshi sources, and identifies the goddess different cultural aims of Hindu Ma into a generic Mother Goddess with the lion-riding Sheranvali popular childrearing. His resulting book, All shaped by infantile experience (ibid. in northwestern India, an unmarried the Mothers are One (1992) includes 13-28). Yet there are many aspects of goddess who is both virgin and an extended discussion of both the this film that Indian viewers may be mother, and whose historic worship printed and cinematic narratives of expected to “see” and understand through shakta and tantric ritual Santoshi Ma, focusing on the tension quite readily, and that seek to engage (including blood sacrifice) has been Kurtz identifies between an Indian them through reference to familiar sanitised, in recent times, by her child’s “natural” and “in-law” mothers beliefs, discourses, and practices. It increasingly urban and middle class (the women of its father’s family, who is my conviction that a re-reading of devotees (ibid. 3-6). Contra Das and play a key role in childrearing; ibid. the film in terms of such contextual Brand, Erndl argues that there is 111-131). Kurtz’s critique of the elements will reveal Jai Santoshi Maa nothing particularly “new” about cultural biases inherent in earlier to be an intelligent, witty, and well- Santoshi Ma, apart from her psychological studies of Indian crafted film that deserves the success unusually rapid diffusion through the childhood is often fascinating, yet his it has enjoyed. I will argue that, media of print, film, and radio (ibid. use of Freud’s theory of infantile within its aesthetic conventions of 144). sexuality to explain the multiplicity of flatly-painted backdrops and gaudily- Another presenter at the 1984 Hindu goddesses (as reflecting costumed gods who appear and panel was Stanley Kurtz, then a unconscious memories of early disappear with a clash of cymbals, the graduate student in anthropology at experiences with multiple female film presents a carefully-structured Harvard, working on a dissertation on caregivers) is certainly open to narrative abounding in references to the Santoshi Ma cult. In the course question. folklore and mythology and offering of his fieldwork, Kurtz concluded, like The analyses of both Das and trenchant commentary on social Erndl, that Santoshi Ma was not Kurtz explain the popularity of Jai convention; it also develops a “visual perceived by devotees as distinctive Santoshi Maa in terms of factors that theology” that is particularly relevant or new, and was in fact confused with are unseen by and (in a conscious to female viewers. In addition, I will other popular goddesses (Kurtz 1992: sense) unknown to most of its propose that Das’s pioneering and 2-4, 15-16). Like Das, he became viewers. In this process of peering, commendable effort to place the film principally interested in creating a as it were, beneath the surface of the in a socio-historical perspective, may comprehensive typology of female film, that surface appears to have now, more than two decades later, be 6 deities, but in the service of a yet more largely been overlooked—indeed, it reconsidered. ambitious agenda: a reworking of is Kurtz’s stated intent to “dissolve” Part Two continued on page 24 Available from MANUSHI a VHS cassette of six short films in Hindi by Madhu Kishwar THEMES  Liquor & State Policy  India’s Traditional Technologists  Dowry: Compulsion vs need  Licence Permit Raj: A View from Below  The Disinheritance of Women  Agriculture & Sarkari Controls Duration: Half an hour each. Price: Rs. 1500 (for all six inclusive of postage in India) US$ 50 (Overseas) inclusive of airmail postage. Now also available in CD-ROM and NTSC format at the same price.

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