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DG Phalke's RAJA HARISCHANDRA in British India Of Repositorium für die Medienwissenschaft Brigitte Schulze D.G. Phalke's RAJA HARISCHANDRA in British India of 1913. Pioneering a National Cinema Under Colonial Rule 1995 https://doi.org/10.25969/mediarep/16074 Veröffentlichungsversion / published version Sammelbandbeitrag / collection article Empfohlene Zitierung / Suggested Citation: Schulze, Brigitte: D.G. Phalke's RAJA HARISCHANDRA in British India of 1913. Pioneering a National Cinema Under Colonial Rule. In: Frank Kessler, Sabine Lenk, Martin Loiperdinger (Hg.): Oskar Messter. Erfinder und Geschäftsmann. Basel: Stroemfeld/Roter Stern 1995 (KINtop. Jahrbuch zur Erforschung des frühen Films 3), S. 173– 189. DOI: https://doi.org/10.25969/mediarep/16074. Nutzungsbedingungen: Terms of use: Dieser Text wird unter einer Creative Commons - This document is made available under a creative commons - Namensnennung - Weitergabe unter gleichen Bedingungen 4.0/ Attribution - Share Alike 4.0/ License. For more information see: Lizenz zur Verfügung gestellt. Nähere Auskünfte zu dieser Lizenz https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ finden Sie hier: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ BRIGITTE SCHULZE D. G. Phalke's RAJA HARISCHANDRA in British India of 1913 Pioneering a National Cinema Under Colonial Rule The 13th Pordenone Silent Film Festival will offer the opportunity to watch whatever film of Indian Silent Cinema, 1913-19JJ1 has survived and been preserved at the National Film Archive of India (NFAI) in Pune. This article intends to focus on this widely neglected area of early film culture by conveying some insights the author was able to get during a recent film festival at Bombay. The centenary of cinema in India officially has a range from 1995 until the 7th of July 1996, since on this day one hundred years ago in Bombay's Watson' s Hotel the first screening was arranged by two Lumiere operateurs. The centenary of Indian cinema will not be celebrated until 2013. Dhundiraj Govind Phalke (1870-1944), respectfully and lovingly called »Dadasaheb«, or the »Father of Indian cinema«, was remembered beforehand during a unique Homage to the Masters at this year's Bombay International Filmfestival for Documentary, Short and Animation Films (BIFF). The National Film Archive of India (NFAI) in Pune managed to complete last restoration and copying works of the entire, unfortunately heavily diminis­ hed heritage of Indian silent films, just in time. But out of the presumed 1200 to 1300 silents the NFAI could get hold of a dozen or so titles only. Dhundiraj Govind Phalke's ceuvre of about 100 feature, short, documentary and animation films, which he made mainly under the Hindustan Film Com­ pany's 2 banner between 1913 and 1932 had a similar fate. But thanks to the unusual interest of the Phalke clan in »Dadasaheb's« work, and the persistent care of Satish Bahadur, ex-Professor at the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), as weil as the ex-director of the NFAI P. K. Nair and its present director Suresh Chabria, fragments of six of his features, and only three tiny parts of his non-fictions could be rescued. The remains consist of two reels of the first full-length (four reeler) feature film of the subcontinent RAJA HARISCHANDRA (King Harishchandra, 3700 feet, 1913 ), of extracts from the five features LANKA DARAN (Lanka in Flames, 3000 ft., 1917), SHREE KrusHNA}ANMA (Lord Krishna's Birth, 5500 ft., 1918), KALIYA MARDAN (Crushing of Demon Snake Kaliya, 6000 ft., 1919), SANT TUKARAM (Saint Tukaram, 6000 ft., 1921), and BHAKTA PRAHLAD (Devotee Prahlad, 7447 ft., 1926), a very short sequence of a short comedy PITHACHE PANJE (1923 or 1924). The fragmented documentaries include SINHASLIA MELA (Festival of 173 Dhundiraj Govind Phalke {1870-1944) Sinhaslia, 1921), BRICK LAYING (1914 or 1915), and only the censorship card of ANIMATED COINS (677 ft., 1921). The Mini Theatre of the Nehru Planetarium in Bombay proved tobe too small to seat all the enthusiasts of early Indian cinema on this third day of the BIFF. NFAl's director Prof. Suresh Chabria stressed the necessity to sound the bell for »a new century of Indian cinema« through a new approach to the specific aesthetics of Indian films rooting in Phalke's early works. Chabria is of the opinion that the Phalke films were testimonies of a different vision of the world and differentiates these films from dominant world cinema as being »monstra­ 3 tion films more than narration films« • An »Indian film theory« would have to be fully established to deal with this cultural heritage in an adequate way. The first step rnight be the corning together of Indian film historians and theorists in 1995. RAJA HARISCHANDRA, produced 1912, exhibited 1913: »India's first full-length feature film« Before taking a closer look at the film itself, I would like to name some of the difficulties and shortcomings I faced when dealing with this early history of a culture at »the edge of world cinema«. 174 Unfortunately film history and theory still nurture themselves on »success­ ful cinemas« of the world market, which results in a tendency to construct the »otherness« of Indian cinema as a deviation from the (Western) norm4• In contrast to this clearly prevailing imperialist attitude in cultural studies, we will try to do justice to RAJA HARISCHANDRA according to its own historical and cultural context. Within Indian film studies5 there is a tendency which is less evident but equally misleading: the placement of their thus marginalized (film-) cultures within the rosy light of »our Indian heritage«. Not only a distinct cinematic culture different from »the West« is suggested, but also one which claims to represent all of the cultures of the subcontinent under the single labe! of lndianness. In its aesthetics, form and content this lndianness becomes an extrapolation of »traditional arts«, and vice versa Sanskrit drama, folk theatres, scroll paintings and the Epics become precursors of cinema. Indianness is ascribed as weil to the audiences, all too easily refered to as »the Indian audience« supposedly longing to see »Indian films«. A profound analysis of the political economy of film technology itself, entering the subcontinent from the West and challenging local manual skills, and of RAJA HARISCHANDRA in particular, its narrative, time and space constructions, finally adding up to a new relationship between audience and the object of their 6 attention, eg. the film, is given by Ashish Rajadhyaksha • But Rajadhyaksha, too, relates to a single audience only, one homogenious as consumers vis-a-vis the screen. Questions relating to the socio-economic and cultural composition of early film audiences in British India until 1914 and their psychological dispositions so far remain unanswered by film history and are hardly asked at all. I want to examine here one facet of lndianness: its re-/presentation in 1913's cinema under British colonial rule, which finally perfected itself during the thirties as an encompassing national Indian cinema. Trying to reconstruct RAJA HARISCHANDRA's meaning as cinema in 1913 in the colonized and just industrializing environment of Bombay, I will restrict myself here to questioning Indianness as a pre-existant quality in the arts which was supposedly absorbed by cinematography. Thus, my argument is that Indianness was an all-new concept which has been effectively moulded and reinforced by the cinema on society, in our case Bombay, a distinct urban microcosm in transition. So far only one study is known to me which analyses for instance Phalke's nationalism7 as one current of »Hindu« ideological dimensions of the silent 8 period in then British India. Begun by »subaltern,< historical studies , critical approaches of homogenising argumentations stressing »high cultures« dealt mainly with literature and the theatre. If applied to cinematic traditions the focus still is on sound cinema. 9 175 In May 1913 the Bombay Chronicle (English) invites to the Coronation Cinematograph and Variety Hall in one of Bombay's prominent areas to watch for »Double Rates of Admission« (most probably 2 Rupees - the average monthly wage of a worker in the textile mills was about 18 Rs - BS) RAJA HARISCHANDRA, »A powerfully instructive subject from the Indian mythology. First film of Indian manufacture. Specially prepared at enormous cost. Original scenes from the sacred city of Benares. Sure to appeal to our Hindu patrons.« To heighten the appeal of the film, the one-and-a-half hours' show included a duet and dance of Miss lrene Delmar, a comical sketch by The McClements, and »Alexandroff, the wonderful foot-juggler«. The story of the truth-loving King (Raja) Harishchandra is taken from the Puranas, post-vedic Hindu scripts in metrical form on deeds and powers of gods, goddesses, heroes and heroines of high birth. Most probably composed between 600 and 1600 A.D., they were important codifications of the Brahman-defined social and moral order, and not allowed tobe read by shudras10 and warnen, who could only listen to them for their moral instruction and salvation. Within pre-modern oral traditions there were many versions and interpreta­ tions of the »truthful King« Harishchandra. His virtue has been a popular theme 11 12 of folk theatres , and also of the urban Parsi Madan Theatre , which reveals its caste- and dass- transcending appeal. In the first film on the theme »The images were condensed into two-dimensional resemblances to what the viewers >already 13 knew<, and what Phalke called >Indian< « , suggesting not only an already established homogenous, all encompassing Indianness, but while using this unquestioned concept, also raising the questionable moral standards of the Puranas beyond all criticism. Whatever might have been overlapping cultural or 14 ethical spaces , traditions of performing or visual arts, of the respective elites and lower castes and classes in pre-colonial times, definitely did not lead in a linear development to its final expression in Phalke's first feature, as we argue here: RAJA HARISCHANDRA introduced something specifically new.
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