The State and New Cinema in Contemporary India: 1960-1997 [First ed.] 9781032371016, 9781032371276, 9781003335436

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“The author presents the story of a chronological development, not losing sight of the importance of facts and individual actors in the process even as she builds her argument on the relationship between policy, industry, and cultural production in independent India. The picture that emerges through the chapters is not only of cinema, or the artistic pursuit of cinema, but of a larger field where the market, political inclinations of the Indian state, and the more complex determinants of culture intersect. This is by far the most thorough study of the Indian New Cinema.” Moinak Biswas, Professor and Head, Department of Film Studies, Coordinator, The Media Lab, Jadavpur University

“Dr. Tiwari takes a subject that looks dry as dust, the working of two government run film finance corporations but uses the material to illuminate the linkages to the New Cinema of the mid 1970s on. Even those familiar with many of the sensitive and well-crafted films of the time will be surprised by her findings. In the process, this book opens up new vistas in looking at films, the creative arts of storytelling and narrative at a critical stage of independent India’s journey from the days of the Emergency (1975-77) to the mid-1990s when the process of liberalisation gathered pace. Film finance as a mirror to society and much more than that: a fine monograph at debut.” Mahesh Rangarajan, Professor of History and Environmental Studies, Ashoka University, Haryana, India

“Dr. Tiwari has provided a fascinating institutional history of India’s New Cinema movement. The first book of its kind, it examines the Film Finance Corporation (FFC)/National Film Development Corporation (NFDC) over a period of 50 years. It brings together film history and cultural policy studies to reflect on an important Indian public and intellectual institution. In doing so, this becomes a fine collection of historical research, probing through varied archives and debates, offering us invaluable insights into the landscape of New Cinema across government, bureaucrats, financiers, film makers, technicians, film critics, and those who watched the films. Such original and accomplished scholarship is not only welcomed, it is to be celebrated too.” Rajinder Dudrah, Professor of Cultural Studies and Creative Industries, Birmingham City University, UK

“This book is a rigorous, robust, and dexterously researched history of the most powerful film funding bureaucracy in postcolonial India - the National Film Development Corporation. Tiwari assiduously excavates numerous archives to meticulously show the intricate linkages and network between Indian postcolonial state, film industry, filmmakers, journalists, bureaucrats in the making of a complex landscape which gave birth to the influential Indian New Wave. This book adroitly sutures historiography and cultural studies to give us an astute insight hitherto unseen in the discipline of Indian film studies.” Ashish Chadha, Professor of Film Media, University of Rhode Island

“Sudha Tiwari’s uniqueness is in straddling the difficult-to-access archival materials and the rare (cinema) journals of the period to shed light on the aspirations and critique of cinema surrounding NFDC as a state apparatus, dependent on public money and driven by the “progressive” posture/ impulse of the people in power, as well as a space for the intricate intervention of cinema as a sociocultural art form where marginalized voices could be foregrounded. Sudha’s meticulously researched and compelling book sheds light on the challenges of writing institutional histories in the Indian context and the creative possibilities inherent in filling up the lacuna in the material domain through alternative means.” Swarnavel Eswaran, Associate Professor, Dept. of English and the School of Journalism, Michigan State University

“A textured, penetrating and streamlined study of an important stage in the evolutionary transformation of the FFC into the NFDC, providing a revealing insight into the NFDC’s synergies with the new emerging Indian postcolonial film landscape.” Ashvin Devasundaram, Senior Lecturer in World Cinema, School of Languages, Linguistics and Film, Queen Mary University of London

The State and New Cinema in Contemporary India

This book examines the relationship between the newly independent Indian state and its New Cinema movement. It looks at state formative practices articulating themselves as cultural policy. It presents an institutional history of the Film Finance Corporation (FFC), later the National Film Development Corporation (NFDC), and their patronage of the New Cinema in India, from the 1960s to the 1990s, bringing into focus an extraordinary but neglected cultural moment in Indian film history and in the history of contemporary India. The chapters not only document the artistic pursuit of cinema, but also the emergence of a larger field where the market, political inclinations of the Indian state, and the more complex determinants of culture intersect – how the New Cinema movement faced external challenges from the industrial lobby and politicians, as well as experienced deep rifts from within. It also shows how the Emergency, the Janata Party regime, economic liberalisation, and the opening of airwaves all left their impact on the New Cinema. The volume will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of history of contemporary India, film studies, public policy, especially cultural policy, media and culture studies, and South Asian studies. Sudha Tiwari teaches History at the School of Liberal Studies, UPES, Dehradun, India. She has a PhD from the Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India (2021), and an MPhil, MA, and BA in History from the University of Mumbai. She was a recipient of the Fox International Fellowship programme at Yale University, US (2016– 17) and has received a Junior Research Fellowship from the Indian Council of Historical Research. Her articles have appeared in the Economic and Political Weekly of India, Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, and South Asian Popular Culture. Her research interests include the Partition of India, history of culture, films, institutions, and policy studies in contemporary India.

The State and New Cinema in Contemporary India 1960–1997

Sudha Tiwari

First published 2024 by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2024 Sudha Tiwari The right of Sudha Tiwari to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 978-1-032-37101-6 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-37127-6 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-33543-6 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003335436 Typeset in Sabon by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India

Contents

Acknowledgements viii Abbreviations x Introduction

1

1 Cinema, State, And Scholarship: A Discussion

9

2 Situating the Desire for a New Cinema (1950s)

37

3 Formation of the Film Finance Corporation: New Cinema Gets Institutionalised (1960–74)

65

4 Whither New Cinema?: The Emergency, Disciplining, And Survival Through Merger (1975–80)

112

5 National Film Development Corporation and the Burden of Development on New Cinema (1980s)

165

6 Economic Reforms, the NFDC, and New Cinema: Battle for Existence (1991–97)

226

Conclusion

269

Bibliography 273 Index 287

Acknowledgements

This book is the result of the immense faith, support, and mentoring that I received from Prof. Moinak Biswas (Jadavpur University) and Ashish Chadha (University of Rhode Island). Prof. Biswas saw a book in my doctoral thesis, which he examined as an external. It was his endorsement and appeal to convert the thesis into a book which made me ambitious. Ashish supported me from the beginning when I started the process of searching for and writing to publishers with the book proposal. I made an acquaintance with both of them at Yale University in 2016. And I would not have thought then that they will end up being so crucial in this journey. Thank you, Moinak Da and Ashish, your support and faith mean a great deal to an early career scholar like me. When the world fed into my already existing feeling of self-doubt and incompetence, meeting and interacting with you rebuilt my confidence and morale. This book is for you and your students. That acknowledged, any errors in the book are solely mine. I am thankful to UPES, Dehradun, for keeping me gainfully employed and being patient and non-intrusive, so that I could focus on the book. A fed belly is essential for a freer mind. My deepest gratitude to Prof. Sucheta Mahajan, my doctoral supervisor, and teacher since 2014. Thank you, Prof. Mahajan, for all the love, support, and encouragement. This project and JNU would not have been the same without an advisor and motivator like you. I am indebted to Maa (Sushila), Papa (Ravishankar), and Didi (Poonam), for life. In the past decade, they have consciously kept me away from all kinds of household responsibilities, so that I can focus on my studies, research, and chase my dreams. The time I spent at Yale University as a Fox International Fellow (2016–17) was life-changing. It made me academically ambitious and gave me a research ethic which resulted in a full-bodied and comprehensive work like this. The courses I audited at Yale on World Cinema, Latin American Cinema, and the Cinema of the USSR, taught me how to study a film, and what goes into the making of a film. These courses not only initiated me into a great world of cinema but also helped me connect with some of the world-renowned professors of film studies. The interaction I had with them during the courses helped update this project in significant ways. I am grateful to Prof. Moira

Acknowledgements  ix Fradinger, Prof. Dudley Andrew, and Prof. John MacKay, for allowing me in their classes, hearing and engaging with my views, and acknowledging my interest in global cinema. Various libraries at Yale University were very useful for collecting primary and secondary sources to write this project. I want to express my thankfulness towards the super-efficient, helpful, and cheerful staff of Yale libraries, particularly at the Center for Science and Social Science Information (CSSSI) library. The Borrow Direct and Interlibrary Loan services at Yale were helpful in getting access to many of the annual reports of the FFC from the 1960s. The Fox International Fellowship also gave me a golden opportunity to screen many of the NFDC-financed films for fellow Foxians and the larger Yale community. I am immensely grateful to Julia Muravnik, Assistant Director for Fox Fellowship, for facilitating these screenings. These screenings helped me collect feedback (informally) from non-Indian viewers. Their reactions to films like Mirch Masala and Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron were very different. Mammo became immensely popular among some of the Foxians who saw it. It was during the Fox Fellowship that I met Prof. Mira Reym Binford at her residence in Hamden, Connecticut. While sorting her collection of material on Indian cinema, she kindly permitted me to photograph, scan, and photocopy relevant material for my research. This is where I collected information from Bulletin on Film, a digest meant primarily for the use of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Cinema in India, an NFDC publication, and Cinemaya. She listened to my research ideas and, over many conversations, shared her experiences from the 1970s when she was in India. Her memories had not failed her, and she fondly remembered Prithviraj Kapoor and the Kapoor family. I am obliged to the UGC for their (non-NET) fellowship. I must mention my debt to the Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR). Their Junior Research Fellowship (JRF) (2015–6, and 2017–8) helped me financially, by taking care of most of the stationery and field work expenses during my graduate days. I am extremely grateful to the filmmakers I interviewed, which include many of the who’s who of New Indian Cinema. I am obliged to Kumar Shahani, Shyam Benegal, M.S. Sathyu, Saeed Akhtar Mirza, and Shama Zaidi for their precious time. Many librarians and staff members need to be mentioned here. The librarians and staff members of Central Library and SAA Library (both JNU), the Nehru Memorial Museum Library (NMML), Central Secretariat Library, Sangeet Natak Akademi Library (all New Delhi), Asiatic Society, Prabhat Chitra Mandal, Central Board of Film Censorship library (all Mumbai), and the NFAI (Pune) are acknowledged from the bottom of my heart. Sudha Tiwari Dehradun June 2024

Abbreviations

3-D 3-Dimensional ABCL Amitabh Bachchan Corporation Limited AD Anno Domini ADMK Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam AFM American Film Market AIADMK All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam AIDS Acquired Immuno Deficiency Syndrome AIFPC All India Film Producers’ Council AIR All India Radio aka Also Known As ATN Asian Television Network BFI British Film Institute BFJA Bengal Film Journalists’ Association BJP Bharatiya Janata Party BMPA Bengal Motion Picture Association CAA Cine Artistes’ Association CAWFI Cine Artistes Welfare Fund of India CBFC Central Board of Film Certification CBI Central Bureau of Investigation CEO Chief Executive Officer CFD Cinema for Democracy CFSI Children’s Film Society of India CIDALC Comité International pour la Diffusion des Arts et des Lettres par le Cinéma COME Committee of Management Executives CPU Committee on Public Undertakings CUNIC Co-operative Union of New Indian Cinema DAVP Directorate of Audio-Visual Publicity DD Doordarshan DD1 Doordarshan 1 DD2 Doordarshan 2 DD-III Doordarshan-III DFF Directorate of Film Festivals DG Director-General

Abbreviations  xi DMK DTH DVD FD FFC FFI FFSI FICCI FIR FMC FTII HPF IAMPAS IAS IBEF ICAIC ICC ICCR ICE ICS IDBI IEI IFDA IFFI IIT IMPDA IMPEC IMPPA INFACT IPS IPTA JNU JP LIC MPhil MA MD MGR MHRD MIB MP MPAA

Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam Direct To Home Digital Versatile Disc Films Division Film Finance Corporation Film Federation of India Federation of Film Societies of India Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry First Information Report Film Makers’ Combine Film and Television Institute of India Hindustan Photo Films Indian Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Indian Administrative Service India Brand Equity Foundation Instituto Cubano del Arte e Industria Cinematográficos (Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry) International Cricket Council Indian Council of Cultural Relations Information Communication Entertainment Imperial Civil Service Industrial Development Bank of India Indian Entertainment Industry Indian Film Directors’ Association International Film Festival of India Indian Institute of Technology Indian Motion Picture Distributors’ Association Indian Motion Picture Export Corporation Indian Motion Picture Producers Association Indian Federation Against Copyright Theft Indian Police Service Indian People’s Theatre Association Jawaharlal Nehru University Jayaprakash Narayan Life Insurance Corporation of India Master of Philosophy Master of Arts Managing Director Maruthur Gopala Ramachandran Ministry of Human Resource Development (Government of India) Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (Government of India) Member of Parliament Motion Picture Association of America

xii Abbreviations MRTP Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Act MUKT Marketing Union of Kinemotograph Technicians N’CYP National Centre of Films for Children and Young People NAFDEC National Film Development Corporation NBT National Book Trust NCERT National Council of Educational Research And Training NDA National Democratic Alliance NFAI National Film Archive of India NFC National Film Corporation NFDC National Film Development Corporation NFFC National Film Finance Corporation NFP National Film Policy NRI Non-Resident Indian NSD National School of Drama OUP Oxford University Press PCA Production Code Administration PM Prime Minister PMO Prime Minister’s Office PR Public Relations RBI Reserve Bank of India RSFSR Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic SAA School of Arts and Aesthetics SOAS School of Oriental and African Studies TADA Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act TOI Times of India TRP Television Rating Point TV Television UGC University Grants Commission UK United Kingdom UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization UNICEF United Nations Children’s Fund USA United States of America USSR Union of Soviet Socialist Republics VCR Video Cassette Recorder VRS Voluntary Retirement Scheme ZCC Zonal Cultural Centre

Introduction

This book is the first comprehensive work on the institutional history of India’s New Cinema movement. It is the first book written on the Film Finance Corporation (FFC)/National Film Development Corporation (NFDC), spanning five decades of history. By endeavouring an institutional history of the two Corporations, and their patronage of the New Cinema in India, the book examines the relationship between state formative practices in the way that they articulate themselves as cultural policy. As a distinctive work of history writing, it interlinks three diverse domains of knowledge, viz. institutional history, film history, and critical cultural policy studies. Broadly, the book explores the question of how culture is policy and policy is culture. Ramachandra Guha once grumbled that Indian historians did not go beyond 15 August 1947 and that sociologists and political scientists did not look back before that date.1 He found it “a paradox, a puzzle, and a pity” that what one knew about independent India was chiefly through the works of sociologists, economists, political scientists, and journalists, but not historians.2 He pointed out certain fruitful areas of research on independent India, namely, biographies, economic policy, and institutions, as a way to understand contemporary India. He deliberated writing a history of All India Radio (AIR), which played “a formative part in the first few decades of independence”, promoting “a national culture while paying respect to its regional diversities and differences”.3 Other institutions that deserve their history writing, according to Guha, included the National Dairy Development Board and the Delhi School of Economics. Guha believed a history of these and many other institutions, having had “a major impact on the life of the nation”, “would be of absorbing interest”.4 He also suggested that historians should write with depth and insight about the “often very fertile” debates among writers and social scientists that may have occurred in independent India. The present book takes it upon itself to bring into focus an extraordinary but neglected cultural moment in the history of contemporary India by providing a historical account and an institutional trajectory of the FFC/NFDC and the New Cinema. It strongly submits that the history of the FFC/NFDC, as a department under the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB), Government of India, is an important aspect of the history of the post-independent Indian state. By primarily analysing the government policies, from DOI: 10.4324/9781003335436-1

2 Introduction the 1950s to 1990s, to understand the shaping of the two Corporations and New Cinema, the volume manifests the FFC/NFDC and New Indian Cinema in their integral units: government, ministries, bureaucrats, financiers, producers, filmmakers, technicians, film critics, and common cinephiles. The book consciously includes various debates and discourses occurring between filmmakers, film lovers, and film critics on the integrity of New Cinema and the FFC/NFDC’s subsidised patronage given to it. India did not agree on one meaning of “good cinema”, as the exploration of multiple framing discourses of New Cinema shows. The movement for a good cinema in India had a very fascinating journey, first christened as “New Cinema” in the 1960s, then “Parallel Cinema” in the 1970s, “Good Cinema” in the 1980s, and finally, “Meaningful Cinema” in the 1990s. Spread over various chapters, the book comments upon the interest of the parties involved in generating these discourses through either questioning, discarding, or eulogising New Cinema’s status in India’s film culture. The book not only states the momentous process giving rise to an idea of the New Cinema, but, in its various chapters, deals with the formation of the language or “discourse” in which New Cinema began to describe the differences between itself and the “other” cinematic traditions in India. The book largely deals with Hindi feature films financed and produced by the FFC/NFDC. It does not go into the details of the distribution and exhibition sector, though it does summarise the successes and failures of the FFC/ NFDC in these two important aspects of the film trade. The book also studies briefly the impact of television and video on the FFC/NFDC and New Cinema (Chapters 5 and 6). With two full chapters dedicated to tracing the idea and history of the New Cinema/NFDC, focussing upon the 1950s and 1960s, the study emphasises the year 1975 (Chapter 4) because the 1970s were politically the most volatile period in the history of post-independent India. New Cinema and the FFC faced their first major point of crisis, where it was asked to “go commercial”. The NFDC was formed in 1975 during the Emergency, with a suggested agenda of the FFC’s gradual merger with it. The element of disciplining, regimentation, and corporatisation espoused by the Emergency affected the Corporation and New Cinema in multiple ways. Financing of low-budget films came to a virtual halt during the Emergency. The FFC’s contribution to the national economy was stressed in the revised charter of functions for it, drawn by the MIB. Appeal to wider audiences and entertainment entered the charter, pointing to major departures from the earlier aims and objectives of the FFC/New Cinema. The pursuit of “new”-ness came to a standstill, as the Government of India also indicated that it may not be able to support the Corporation financially beyond a point. The Emergency also shaped the political consciousness of many of the directors and filmmakers who played a significant role in the New Cinema movement and those who also worked with the NFDC on socially and politically relevant films. The Emergency, unintentionally, emboldened the artists to question the state and its apparatus. It gave a mandate to the filmmakers where they could freely

Introduction  3 focus on the everyday lives and struggles of the common people, cornering the saga of the nation-state in the process.5 The year 1997 is the point of arrival for the study for historically significant reasons. Due to the liberalisation of Indian markets, the NFDC started facing problems in handling production single-handedly and thus started co-producing with the national television channel Doordarshan (DD). Television and the video revolution started affecting the film industry in general and New Cinema in particular. The closing of single-screen theatres and the culture of multiplexes by the end of the millennium badly affected non-commercial cinema. Though the National Democratic Alliance (NDA)-I government assigned the status of industry to cinema, a demand long-pending since the 1950s, the NFDC faced a crisis of survival and was almost on the verge of closure by the mid-1990s. By 1997–8, television, economic reforms, and the recognition of cinema as an industry emerged as important turning points questioning the very rationale of the NFDC. Apart from the Introduction and Chapter 1, the other five chapters are structured chronologically, dealing with the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s respectively. Chapter 1: Cinema, State, and Scholarship: A Discussion This chapter provides a global perspective on understanding the state–cinema relationship and a desire for an alternative cinema. This is done to historically and analytically place the New Indian Cinema and the FFC in worldwide film histories. The two events in India, as the chapter argues, were inspired and affected by a global film culture, and various states embracing cinema to build a modern nation-state and its citizens. It includes a comprehensive discussion of scholarly work done so far on Indian cinema, state and culture, institutions and policy studies, economic and industrial aspects of Indian cinema, and finally the FFC/NFDC and the New Indian Cinema. This section in the chapter makes a critique of the one-dimensional, state-centric understanding of the Indian New Cinema movement and the formation of the FFC. The chapter argues in support of studying the alternative cinema movement with the help of critical cultural policy studies and an empirical historical analysis, bringing in voices from government archives to the common film viewer. Chapter 2: Situating the Desire for a New Cinema (1950s) This chapter situates the desire for a New Cinema in India from the late 1940s. It traces those discourses and “fertile” debates (Guha) which reflect the longing and need for such a cinema. It was this desire on the part of the filmmaker which ultimately led to the formation of the FFC in 1960. The chapter discusses four official and non-official texts and events in detail, namely Satyajit Ray’s essay (1948), the Report of the Film Enquiry Committee (1951), the

4 Introduction first IFFI (1951), and the Film Seminar held by the Sangeet Natak Akademi (1955). These texts and events provide a complete view of the condition of the industry, point out the elements ruining Indian cinema, suggest ways to take it to global standards of excellence, and describe the state’s perception towards cinema. They show that the passion to make and appreciate realist cinema, away from the dominance of Hollywood, existed both in filmmakers and the common film lover. These texts and events set a fundamental tone for an alternative cinema and the need for state intervention through the FFC. Chapter 3: Formation of the Film Finance Corporation: New Cinema Gets Institutionalised (1960–74) This chapter discusses the formation of the FFC and its initial functioning. Summarising its major successes and failures, the chapter deliberates upon the FFC/New Cinema’s fight for acceptability in their first phase of existence. Some of the concerns that this chapter deals with are the FFC establishing itself as a model institution serving the film industry, its stress on artistic consideration as a criterion to sanction loans, realisation of introducing the New Cinema movement, and evaluating the base created by the FFC for a healthy film revolution in India. The chapter constantly negotiates with government facts and figures, and public dialogues, on the Corporation and New Cinema. Chapter 4: Whither New Cinema?: Emergency, Disciplining, and Survival Through Merger (1975–80) This chapter continues the debate on the FFC and New Cinema’s struggle for legitimacy and survival, only this time challenged by the state itself. It first discusses the formation of the NFDC, which coincided with the declaration of Emergency (1975) in India. Then, the chapter provides a panoramic view of the impact of the Emergency on the Indian film industry in general and the FFC and New Cinema in particular. With the help of government reports and press coverage, it assesses the FFC’s performance in supporting New Cinema and young filmmakers during this period. It was a period full of trials and tribulations for the FFC and New Cinema. By analysing film polemics, as covered by the press, the chapter makes an important contribution in recording the journey of New Cinema becoming Parallel Cinema. This rechristening highlights attitudinal and policy-level changes affecting the state patronage enjoyed since the 1960s. Chapter 5: The National Film Development Corporation and the Burden of Development on New Cinema (1980s) This chapter examines the combined impact of the state’s ever-changing film policies and technological advances in communication industry on the NFDC and progress of New Indian Cinema in the 1980s. It does so by reviewing three government reports, the Working Group on National Film Policy and

Introduction  5 the two Committee on Public Undertakings (CPU) reports on the NFDC. It further situates the challenges of survival facing the NFDC and New Cinema within the larger crisis prevalent in the Indian film industry in the early 1980s. The chapter reviews the successes and failures of the newly revived NFDC, as a policy-shaping body, a custodian of the Indian film industry, and a chief patron of India’s New Cinema. The central point of debate of this chapter is the NFDC and New Cinema fighting to survive the burden of a state-induced emphasis on development, productivity, corporatisation, and financial viability while struggling to maintain the artistic nature of its feature films. A section on Doordarshan is inserted to assess the impact of television on the NFDC and New Indian Cinema. Such an in-depth analysis (continued in Chapter 6) of the NFDC and New Cinema’s relationship with Doordarshan is a leading contribution of this book. The chapter continues to explore different conversations India was engaged in on the utility of the NFDC and New Cinema, highlighting key incidences of disillusionment among New Cinema’s star actors, directors, and producers. Chapter 6: Economic Reforms, the NFDC, and New Cinema: Battle for Existence (1991–97) The chapter starts with a discussion of the economic reforms of 1991 and their larger implications for the Indian film industry, specifically for the NFDC and New Cinema. It then evaluates the NFDC’s successes and failures under the shadow of the Babri mosque demolition, Bombay riots, and blasts in 1991–2. While the demolition was an unparalleled cultural shock for India, it opened up an alternative right-wing, regressive, and fundamentalist politics in the country, which affected the ways the film industry would be dealt with. After the exposing of a deeper nexus between the underworld and the Bombay film industry, through money and muscle, the Government became cautious of the Indian film industry. The NFDC’s proactive involvement with Doordarshan and television is discussed, continuing from the previous chapter, along with its effect on New Cinema. The chapter also continues the thread of conversation, from the previous chapter, on the rationality of New Cinema and the NFDC, bringing in fresh evidence from the 1990s to highlight how Naseeruddin Shah was turned into a subject of Filmfare gossip, with a call for a total shutdown of the NFDC. The chapter ends with a brief discussion of the granting of industrial status to and its implications on the Indian film industry in 1998. After this declaration, the very need of having an organisation like the NFDC was questioned, as the low-budget films no longer needed its patronage, or so people thought. Sources and Methodology This book follows a chronological and empirical account of the events, policymaking, and discourses which went into the making of the FFC/NFDC and New Indian Cinema.

6 Introduction The sources to write this book include government reports, annual reports of the FFC, NFDC, and MIB, and various reports of the CPU. It thoroughly scrutinises and analyses the content of these reports, never done before in this manner, to achieve the aims and objectives of the book. The book actively uses film magazines, a paratext widely used by film and cultural history scholars. Two of the most important film journals that this book relies heavily upon are Filmfare and Screen. These two were most authentic in their narration, reporting, and wide coverage of issues in the Indian film industry. Filmfare, with B.K. Karanjia, as its editor, played a key role in promoting, shaping, and covering the FFC and New Indian Cinema. Karanjia also became the editor of Screen in the 1980s. While Filmfare was a Times of India publication, Screen was printed by the Indian Express group, helping me understand issues from multiple sides. The content from these two film magazines has been useful in writing sections on debates and discourse on New Cinema and the FFC/NFDC. The Times of India was also consulted for a similar purpose. The Illustrated Weekly of India helped with perspectives on contemporary political and historical issues, especially the 1980s and 1990s. Here, the book found inspiration in Thomas Elsaesser’s insights, “To do film history today, one has to become an economic historian, a legal expert, a sociologist, an architectural historian, know about censorship and fiscal policy, read trade papers and fan magazines”.6 Elsaesser wrote this in his review of books, published between 1983–5, on film history. These books brought a turning point in the discipline of film history, referred to as the New Film History, “which should really be called New History of the Cinema”. These sources were collected from various libraries and NFAI, Pune. The libraries include Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) Central Library, the School of Arts and Aesthetics (SAA) library (JNU), Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (NMML), Central Secretariat Library (all in New Delhi), Asiatic Society Library, library of the Central Board of Film Censors, and the Prabhat Chitra Mandal, Dadar (all in Mumbai). I got most of the annual reports of the FFC from the 1960s from the Yale library facilities. The source base also includes extensive interviews. Kumar Shahani, Shyam Benegal, M.S. Sathyu, Saeed Akhtar Mirza, and Shama Zaidi were easily accessible and generous with their time. I conducted hours of interviews with them, which is a prized possession of this work. I also spoke to Rafique Baghdadi in his house in Mumbai, where he shared his experiences of New Cinema and Indian cinema in general and the challenges of running a film society in Mumbai. Speaking to contemporary independent filmmakers like Ashish Avikunthak/Chadha was an eye-opener, understanding the challenges of making the kind of film one wants to make, mostly relying on self-funding, as the golden era of Corporation days is long over.7 Finally, unlike the type of resources and support Peter Sutoris received from the main branch of the Films Division (FD)8 in Mumbai, the head branch of the NFDC was not that research-friendly. It lacked a documentation centre and does not have a book library or archive of its films. I constantly wrote to various officers,

Introduction  7 both at the Mumbai and Delhi branches but with no success. I also visited the MIB/NFDC office at Soochna Bhavan in New Delhi but the person in charge refused to talk. Critical Cultural Policy Studies This book incorporates critical cultural policy into historical studies. It draws upon Justin Lewis and Toby Miller’s work on the Critical Cultural Policy (2003) and places this study within a similar framework. Referring to Karl Marx’s thesis on the need for organic laws (also) supplementing the Constitution to create moral power, Lewis and Miller write, “That “organicism” is sought after and developed through cultural policy, which governments use to address populations with illustrations of patriotism, custom, and art”.9 According to Lewis and Miller, these cultural policies can have unintended consequences, such as when ‘progressive’ artists start using the monetary backing provided by the government to support any kind of activism, e.g. AIDS activism.10 Marx’s insight on “moral power”, according to Lewis and Miller, does help identify how cultural policy can instil loyalty in the public.11 Cultural policy, in this sense, becomes a site for the production of “cultural citizens”, with the cultural industries providing not only a ream of representations about oneself and others but a series of rationales for particular types of conduct. Taking the examples of a television commercial and a museum, which require “different forms of analysis and invoke different forms of power and consent”, Lewis and Miller argue that they both operate to produce a compliant citizen, who learns self-governance in the interests of the cultural-capitalist polity. As such, these cultural forms are neither arbitrary nor inevitable, but the product of a series of decisions, determinations, and struggles that produce one set of outcomes over another. In short, they are the result of cultural policies.12 According to Lewis and Miller, cultural policies play a very important role in producing institutions, practices, and agencies, “Cultural policies are a means of governance, of formatting public collective subjectivity…done in the name of maintaining culture, to preserve ways of being a person”.13 An understanding of cultural policy depends on how one defines culture, which includes both, artistic traditions as well as scholarly disciplines (textual studies, cultural history, and literary criticism). Talking specifically about the film industry, Miller wrote, When we talk about government film policy, we are referring to a network of practices and institutions intended to sustain and regenerate production, distribution and exhibition…getting to know film

8 Introduction policy and intervening in it is an important part of participating in film culture.14 One may speculate if the New Cinema movement in India was an unintended consequence of the Indian government’s support given to the FFC/NFDC; if both the FFC/NFDC and New Indian Cinema were a ‘produced outcome’ of such cultural policies. One may continue to wonder which preceded which, the filmmaker’s desire for a New Cinema or the state’s desire for a ‘new citizen’. As the book shows, the answers are more complicated than has been believed thus far. After all, Ray’s essay (1948) appeared a year before the government constituted the Film Enquiry Committee (1949). The filmmakers and the urban audience desired a change. Nevertheless, undoubtedly, the FFC (and NFDC) embodied all the ambitions of a newly independent nationstate’s cultural policies. While one reads the Film Enquiry Committee Report (1951), one is reminded of what Lewis and Miller said, “The creation of cultural citizenship may seem a rather high-flung way to describe the nitty-gritty of policy formations, and such notions are often submerged beneath more pragmatic discourses.”15 In any comprehensive document discussing India’s cultural policy, the notions of good citizenship are directly invoked and are also revealed in studies done by various scholars (see Chapter 1). Notes 1 Guha, 2008, p.192. 2 While Guha may be partially right in his assertions, he missed out on the fact that the distinction between historians and sociologists and economists is a bit “specious” in these interdisciplinary times. Contemporary India has not been totally neglected by social scientists and historians. Bipan Chandra’s Essays on Contemporary India (Har-Anand Publications, New Delhi, 1993) is an elementary reading, written more in a “reflective” fashion. He also led a comprehensive volume on the history of post-independent India. See, Chandra et al., 2008. Also see, Samaddar, 2001. S. Gopal’s biographies of Nehru (1989) and Radhakrishnan (1989), and Rakesh Batabyal’s history of JNU (2014) are exemplary exercises in contemporary history. 3 Guha, pp.195–6. 4 Ibid. p.196. 5 See, Rajagopal, 2011. 6 Elsaesser, 1986, p.248. 7 For more on Ashish’s work, see https://avikunthak​.com/, date accessed 11 November 2019. 8 See Sutoris, 2016, pp.227–8. 9 Lewis and Miller, 2003, p.1. 10 Ibid. 11 Ibid. 12 Ibid. p.2. 13 Ibid. 14 Miller, 2003, p.134. 15 Ibid.

1

Cinema, State, and Scholarship A Discussion

Nation-Making and State-Building Through (Cultural) Institutions The newly independent India (1947) accorded high importance to nationbuilding through institutions. Jawaharlal Nehru, as India’s first Prime Minister, among other things, is remembered for being an institution builder, including that of an educational and cultural nature. These were guided by democratic socialism and a notion of a welfare state, with an objective to mould citizens for the modern, newly independent state.1 The first Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) was set up in 1951 at Kharagpur, followed by Bombay (1958),2 Madras (1959), and Delhi (1961). The establishment of several science laboratories in different parts of India provided incentives for pure and applied research. The Atomic Energy Commission, formed in 1948, dedicated itself to the task of atomic energy for “peace-time construction, refusing to make experiments in atomic bombs.”3 Various cultural bodies were founded to promote film, literature, drama, music, art, and painting. As early as 1948, the Government of India created the FD “to lead the production and distribution of Indian information films.”4 According to Deprez, “Nehru adapted the initial war propaganda purpose of information films to the new times of peace and independence, enlisting documentary cinema for his larger project of nation building, integration, and development.”5 Three important Akademis were established in the early 1950s, Sangeet Natak Akademi (1952, performing arts), Sahitya Akademi (1954, literature),6 and Lalit Kala Akademi (1954, fine arts) functioning under the Ministry of Culture, Government of India. According to Mulk Raj Anand, National independence was to mean not merely political freedom, but the evolution of a civilisation in which the individual human being would have his self-respect restored to him and his self-confidence encouraged, which would give him faith in the best things of India’s past, against the Imperialist contempt, and for creative living in the present.7 Anand believed that patronage by the state was necessary in a country “where the creative arts have been starved of moral support, under an alien DOI: 10.4324/9781003335436-2

10  Cinema, State, and Scholarship Government, and where opportunities for publishing, in the ordinary commercial world, are unequal in the various languages.”8 The Lalit Kala Akademi encouraged experimentalists, and gave room for “heroism and invention.” Sangeet Natak Akademi also set up the National School of Drama (NSD) as one of its constituent units in 1959. NSD became an autonomous body in 1975 and is fully financed by the Ministry of Culture, Government of India. The Indian Council of Cultural Relations (ICCR), formed in 1950 by Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, and the National Book Trust (NBT), set up in 1957, also played an instrumental role in nation-building. NBT published books in various Indian languages at a low cost. The ICCR proved influential in connecting India with the scholarship and arts of its neighbours. Cultural scholarships were offered to students of Asian and African countries to encourage contact between students of those countries and India. In all these efforts to institutionalise culture and knowledge, cinema somewhere lagged behind. While the creation of the FD, as early as 1948, had proved that the Indian government was aware of the importance of films in growth and development, and as a piece of propaganda machinery, it was still contemptuous of the Indian film industry. The industry, privately owned and operated, did not receive much attention from the government of India. The only two ways the Indian state dealt with it were through censorship and entertainment tax. State and Cinema The first attempt to use a film industry in its nation-making project was perhaps made in the USSR. In 1922, Lenin proclaimed, “of all the arts for us cinema is the most important” in an interview to Anatoli Lunacharsky.9 This proclamation justified the nationalisation of cinema and photo enterprise in the USSR in 1919, under the People’s Commissariat of Education.10 The Commissariat was empowered to nationalise, supervise, control, and regulate the entire photo and cinema trade and industry.11 In another Directive on the Film Business, issued in January 1922, the Commissariat was directed to supervise all film screenings and regulate the business by registering and numbering all the films shown in the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR). A definite proportion was to be fixed for every film-showing programme, divided between entertainment films, for advertisement or income, “without obscenity and counter-revolution,” and under the heading “From the life of peoples of all countries” – pictures with a special propaganda message, such as, “Britain’s colonial policy in India, the work of the League of Nations, the starving Berliners, etc.” He also directed to give special attention to organising film screenings in the villages and in the East, “where they are novelties and where our propaganda, therefore, will be all the more effective.”12 Many nations have seen precedence of active state efforts to support their film industry with finances and production. Protective government policies

Cinema, State, and Scholarship  11 played a central role in the evolution of new or revitalised cinema movements such as New German Cinema, the French “nouvelle vague” (New Wave), New Australian Cinema, New Mexican Cinema, and the Cuban and Venezuela cinemas.13 The United Kingdom’s National Film Finance Corporation (NFFC), established in 1949, became a model for India’s FFC.14 The revolutionary changes brought in the French film industry post-Second World War owed a lot to the French government’s active but non-intrusive policies.15 The dens of fraud, black money, and corruption had become natural in the aftermath of war, blocking the progress of “the renaissance” of French cinema. It was agreed upon that state administration must intervene to cut short its corruption. “The concern at large was that the ‘cinema culture’ should be encouraged and also preserved with the same respect given to cultural heritages in other fields of art.”16 Through the Cinematic Act of 25 October 1946, French cinema was declared to be a “trade of special character.” Through separate legislation, a special central apparatus was carved out to guide its economy. The government equipped itself fully to intervene directly in the affairs of the production, distribution, and technical services of cinema. Registration and licensing were introduced for each and every cinema enterprise. Identity cards were issued to everyone, including writers, directors, and technicians, and they were liable to certain checks and controls. Quarterly returns of turnover of revenue had to be submitted and each contract entered into for any arrangement had to be registered with the government. Even the stars and artistes had to register themselves and lodge the contracts signed between them and the producers and declare their revenues or contractual sums. Directors had to have their talents certified to launch into direction and they were given subsidies to prove their talents through short films. Technicians were assisted or subsidised. In doing all this, the state in no way curbed the creative activities or the initiative of entrepreneurs but concerned itself mainly with checking and counter-checking financial practices at all levels. Culprits and evaders went out of business, and their licenses were cancelled. Such a regulation effectively curbed black money transactions, weeding out the corrupt and fake people. According to Balador, And once cinema was healthy in all its financial dealings, new aspirants came up with new ideas and techniques and a certain sanity prevailed in the cinematic profession so that talent was rewarded. Amidst this healthy and meritorious environment, the creative mind prospered, leaving behind a wealth of cinematic culture which was later called the “Cinema of the French new wave.”17 The French government apparatus which achieved all this, the Centre national de la cinématographie (CNC, National Centre of Cinematography), was guided by the Culture and Communication Minister and administered by a director-general nominated by the parliamentary committee of ministers.18 Its diverse activities included, the development of the industry’s hard

12  Cinema, State, and Scholarship and software, regulation of its finance and business at all levels through indigenous techniques, and jurisdiction and control of all physical aspects of the film industry. It, however, did not touch the creative aptitudes of artistes and creators. Various Latin American states formed film-related agencies to produce a revolutionary cinema to spread such ideas. Cuba established the Instituto Cubano del Arte e Industria Cinematográficos (ICAIC, Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry) in 1959. With this, Cuba became the first Latin American nation to create a new culture on a national scale by restructuring all aspects of the cinematic experience. In Chile, the national cinema was already synonymous with Popular Unity and the Salvador Allende political experiment. While Brazil was experiencing the emergence of the innovative Cinema Novo movement, Argentina, under Fernando Birri, challenged the industrial mode of filmmaking, with radical young filmmakers taking the cinema underground. Similarly, in Bolivia, young filmmakers challenged the hegemony of the state filmmaking apparatus to produce a cinema for the indigenous people. According to Ana M. Lopez, In all Latin American nations, the 1960s were years of cultural and political effervescence, and the cinema – conceived of as an aesthetic, cultural, and political/ideological phenomenon – was self-consciously immersed in the maelstrom of popular and intellectual debates…. Throughout the continent…the cinema’s role in society and its relationship to the continent’s struggle for liberation were redefined in the late 1950s and 1960s. By 1968 or 1969, the cinema of Latin America could rightly be called the New Latin American Cinema, a pan-Latin American cinematic movement dedicated to the people of the continent and their struggles for cultural, political, and economic autonomy.19 Art with a social mission was a strong feature of the New Latin American Cinema in the 1960s and later. This was part of the rhetoric of cultural nationalism, which was strongly dominated by leftist political ideologies, which included, in cinema, internationally recognised names such as Fernando Birri, Glauber Rocha, Jorge Sanjinés, etc. This rhetoric, loosely defined, maintained that film as a mass art, one that needs to be financially profitable, is also an art infused with a social mission – to be popular in the sense of responding to and empowering the popular culture of the entire group, nation, or region. As Patricia Aufderheide understood, the mission of the filmmaker was “to create, in tandem with popular forces, an autonomous culture for the purpose of strengthening popular participation in society.”20 The New Indian Cinema did resemble the New Latin American Cinema in spirit, though not in ambition. They both shared an anti-Hollywood sentiment and wished to create an indigenous cinema. Unlike the New Latin American Cinema, the New Indian Cinema was not a pan-continental movement and was limited in its aspirations – Indian in ethos, and promoting

Cinema, State, and Scholarship  13 anti-commercial values, seeking state finances. It was marginal but not as politicised, except in West Bengal and Kerala. The New Indian Cinema refrained from being a politically revolutionary cinema, though it had the aim of changing the cinema taste of Indian audiences. The point one is trying to make here is that the movement for a new cinema was trending across the world since the late 1940s. The Italian neorealism,21 the French New Wave, and the New German Cinema existed and thrived as post-War new cinema movements,22 inspiring many young filmmakers in India, who also keenly followed the changing grammar of films from Britain and USA. Govind Nihalani was tremendously affected by The Red Shoes (1948, Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger) and Lust for Life (1956, Vincente Minnelli). After coming in contact with Western cinema, he realised, “There is more to cinema than just stories. An intense interest in colour and photography grows.”23 After reading Sergei Eisenstein’s Notes of a Film Director (1946), he understood that “cinema is not two plus two equals four. It is two plus two equals five or 50 or 700. Cinema is not mathematics. It is magic.”24 This magic evolved during his student years at the SS Polytechnic, Bangalore, through watching Battleship Potemkin, Ivan the Terrible, through watching Orson Welles, Luis Buñuel, Robert Bresson, Federico Fellini, Akira Kurosawa, Yasujirō Ozu, Kenji Mizoguchi, Ingmar Bergman, and Andrei Tarkovsky. Cinema, he said, for him became a medium of art where he could employ space, time, colour, movement, word, sound, and music “to give vision to my inquiry into the human condition.”25 Such was the impact of the global alternative film movements on India’s filmmakers who were destined to write a new history of filmmaking in India. Though the New Indian Cinema was not pan-continental in its aspirations, the FFC/NFDC inspired the formation of similar corporations in South Asia. In Sri Lanka, the film industry was nationalised and put under the monopoly of the State Film Corporation, now called the National Film Corporation (NFC), in 1972.26 According to Shohini Chaudhuri, the NFC monopoly continued until 2000, and promoted art films during the 1980s. In Pakistan, the significance of the film industry was only realised by Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s democratic government (1973–7).27 Bhutto established a public limited corporation, the National Film Development Corporation (NAFDEC) in 1973. The NAFDEC was formed, like the NFDC, to import foreign films and raw materials, build new cinemas and studios, promote low-budget films worldwide to strengthen the home-grown cinema, institute film festivals, enable participation in foreign film festivals, launch national film awards, and assist the installation of modern equipment along with the formation of the national film academy.28 The Corporation was fully operational until 1979, and the import of raw stock continued until the Benazir Bhutto government in 1988. It was closed down in 2002. According to Ahmad Bilal, “The making and breaking of NAFDEC demonstrates that political disruption is one of the major causes of failure. NAFDEC became a victim of bureaucratic handling, in which intellectual talent is over ruled by decision-makers.”29 After

14  Cinema, State, and Scholarship 1975, Bangladesh formed its own Film Development Corporation based in Dhaka. However, unlike India, Bangladesh’s alternative filmmakers belong to an underground movement and use low-cost 16mm film format.30 The FFC and New Cinema in India After consistent demand and constant pressure from the Indian film industry, the FFC was established in 1960, along with the Film Institute of India (FTII) in 1961, and the National Film Archive of India (NFAI) in 1964. These three institutes played a pioneering role in the New Cinema movement in India. According to Saeed Akhtar Mirza, FTII became a “springboard,” and the FFC was at the heart of the New Cinema movement. To him, these were “culture centres” which allowed one to “break barriers.”31 Though Satyajit Ray’s Pather Panchali (1955) had already won international recognition, and Raj Kapoor, Bimal Roy, and Guru Dutt’s films had engaged with Nehruvian socialism, the movement for an alternative cinema got appropriately institutionalised only after the FFC was established. It took another decade for the FFC to launch the New Cinema with Mrinal Sen’s Bhuvan Shome (1969), Basu Chatterjee’s Sara Akash (1969), and Kantilal Rathod’s Kanku (1969). Uski Roti (1970, Mani Kaul), and Maya Darpan (1972, Kumar Shahani), added strength to the claim that a “new” cinema had finally arrived in India, under the Indian state’s patronage. The FFC rapidly gained recognition and the feature films it funded began to win awards nationally and internationally. These films had an acute sense of realism and details of locality, emotions, and empathy with the characters. Shekhar Deshpande claimed, In the 19th century the concept of nationhood was maintained by the kind of literature a community produced. It may well be that the identity of a nation in the 20th century is determined by the kind of films produced.32 He believed, if one wishes to find the ‘national character of Indian consciousness’ and ‘discover the thoughts, concerns and relationships of its people’, one will have to find it in ‘new cinema’ and not in commercial cinema. First the FFC, and later the NFDC, were involved in providing loans at lower rates of interest, and also entered into production, to young graduates of FTII, and such filmmakers who wanted to make artistic films but lacked funds and production facilities. It is clear from this study that the Corporation was instrumental in giving untried directors and actors a chance, and remained the chief patron of New Indian Cinema till the mid-1990s. While some critics characterised the New Indian Cinema as statist propaganda and wastage of public money, others regarded it as a symbol of Indian aesthetics and

Cinema, State, and Scholarship  15 artistic autonomy. Both the parties in their respective generalisations miss the complex dynamics of cultural policies and economic phenomena in the movement. This is where this book intervenes. Literature Survey In India, it is the Bombay-based popular Hindi cinema which receives maximum attention from scholars, both foreign and Indian. The majority of research studies done on Indian cinema take up popular films. Scholars have studied cinema to understand the urban poor in India and used cinema to know the history of a region. Some scholars have focused on Bombay cinema to understand sexuality and romance or simply as a guide to understand modern India and its social history. Gokulsing and Dissanayake, and Lutze and Pfleiderer analyse Indian popular cinema and Hindi film as an index of cultural change. Some writings have connected ‘Bollywood’ with the Indian nation, as an inseparable alliance. Gautam Kaul wrote chapters on links between cinema and freedom fighters, national leaders’ opinions about films, and connections between nationalism, social reform, and cinema. Ranjani Mazumdar has used Bombay cinema as an archive of the city. Vijay Mishra’s essays have been some of the earliest writings on Bombay cinema, encompassing its critique, and comments on text and form. Works by Chidananda Das Gupta and Ashis Nandy also focus exclusively on popular cinema; one critiques it and another contextualises it for a psychological understanding of Indian society through cinema and vice versa.33 Ashis Nandy’s body of work on popular Hindi film is comprehensive and reflective, as it is written from the perspective of a political psychologist.34 M.S.S. Pandian’s essay on Parasakthi (1952, Krishnan-Panju, script by M. Karunanidhi) (1991) and his book on Maruthur Gopala Ramachandran (MGR) and Tamilnadu’s politics (1992) is pioneering in two senses: methodology and inclusion of elements from subaltern studies. He used government archival material and contemporary documentation like press periodicals to analyse the narrative form of the films. He reads Parasakthi as “an element of Tamil political history” which was “a signboard of the coming days of the consensual politics the DMK was destined to play in Tamil Nadu.”35 In Image Trap (1992), he discusses how the DMK used cinema as a vehicle for political communication to “produce consent for their kind of politics from those whom they dominate.”36 Pandian used popular cinema to study the creation of subaltern consent to a specific kind of elitist politics. He combined components of history, politics, and cinema to explore a significant period in the history of contemporary India, the saga of MGR as “a modern day political myth.”37 According to Pandian, MGR’s early popularity rested substantially on his successful roles in films which can at best be classified as pedestrian.38 The DMK, overtly allegiant to cinema as a means for political communication, skilfully transmitted MGR’s cinematic image to politics and invested it with “a certain life-like authenticity.” This “merger of the

16  Cinema, State, and Scholarship cinematic and the real” in DMK politics was highly rewarding, election after election. But when MGR was forced to leave the DMK in 1972, and he formed his own ADMK, later renamed the AIADMK, “all his support from the ‘front-benchers’ who had already lost themselves in the make-believe world of MGR’s films and filmy politics, went with him and stood him in good stead till his death in 1987.”39 Pandian wrote this “essay” as he was “puzzled and pained” by MGR’s unparalleled political success, in spite of his eleven-year rule (1977–87) being “one of the darkest periods in the contemporary history” of Tamilnadu. Pandian found the answer in cinema which helped him decode “the complex terrain of Tamil politics.” Besides, he was motivated by “a certain academic concern regarding significant lacunae in the current scholarship on both the past and present politics of the subaltern classes in India.”40 Pandian explained his point further, the dominant reality has been and is one of the subaltern classes conceding to the authority of the ruling elites (often through such processes as overt and covert deference to them as well as emulation of their values)…In my view, the MGR phenomenon could be a worthwhile instance, from the contemporary political history of Tamilnadu, to be studied in order to explain this relatively unexplored area of how the elites produce consent for their kind of politics from those whom they dominate.41 Pandian, apart from feature films, used hagiographic writings on MGR available in the form of books, pamphlets, biographies, and newspaper articles, “to explore how MGR was popularly represented to the common people.”42 The long-book-essay elaborates various elements of the cinematic image of MGR, reasons for its popular acceptance, and its embeddedness in the pre-existing cultural expressions of the subaltern classes in Tamilnadu. It further investigates how this screen image was successfully transferred to the terrain of politics through “carefully constituted popular narratives which correlate his real life with his screen image, as if there were no difference between the two.”43 Ravi Vasudevan’s extensive body of work on Indian cinema revolves around early Bombay cinema, especially the Hindi socials and melodramatic feature films, understood from the prism of modernity and nation-making, approached as a sociocultural historian.44 Focussing on Guru Dutt and his contemporaries’ work in the Bombay film industry, Vasudevan wrote on the conventions of Hindi social film, with a major focus on gender representation. The concluding paragraph of his thesis is worth quoting here, “A counter-cultural cinema needs to analyse the commercial cinema in complex ways if it is to generate a culturally relevant springboard for the development of its own agenda and practices.”45 He was perhaps pointing out to the New Cinema film practitioners, whose Othering of commercial cinema was not appreciated by a larger section of filmmakers and film lovers. Vasudevan was interested in the commercial form as a social historian. For Vasudevan,

Cinema, State, and Scholarship  17 cinema is not an entity dependent on history, but rather has direct agency with power to give existence to something in the society, and not otherwise. In another paper on popular Bombay cinema, he argued, film…is not an excrescence that lies on the surface of ‘reality’, waiting to be peeled away or decoded in the drive to uncover the underlying, and more important, socio-political content…I am interested in the way the audio-visual dimensions of cultural activity are constitutive of social perception and identity.46 Urvi Mukhopadhyay (2013) used films to study the representation of “medieval” times on the Indian screen. She investigates “perceptions of the ‘medieval’ age in India, as revealed in cinematic representations during the period from the 1920s to the 1960s…with particular emphasis on representations of the medieval histories of the northern and western parts of the country.”47 She situates her study within the larger conceptual understanding of ‘perceptions’ of the past, and the historical as a genre adopted by the nationalist culture to convey to the masses its version of Indian history. She investigates how “a market-oriented medium like film” further complicates the sociocultural process of looking at the past.48 Mukhopadhyay traces the multi-stranded historicising process witnessed by society in the period between the 1920s and the 1960s…[as] the process of defining a nationalist ‘self’, using ideas of the medieval past, continued through the 1960s, especially in the context of the Nehruvian emphasis on ‘modernity’ and ‘secularism’.49 She primarily concentrates on popular historicals, particularly in the Hindi/ Hindustani language, produced in Bombay. She compensates for the lack of availability of many of the early films, B-grade historical films produced in the 1950s and 1960s, by relying on news reports, film criticism, and advertisements published in contemporary film journals and newspapers like Filmland, Filmindia, Ruprekha, the Bombay Chronicle, Cine-Herald, and The Times of India. She has also used government reports and legislation, including the Report of the Film Enquiry Committee (1951), especially those centred on the issues of exhibition and censorship, revealing contemporary official attitudes to the ideological dimensions of representing the past.50 She has also used resources from conferences conducted on various aspects of the film industry in India. According to Mukhopadhyay, The records of these conferences provide various contemporary views and reflections on cinema and society from the world of Indian films… The exchange of views and perspectives on film and society at these events are useful in assessing the various representational strategies adopted by the cinematic media during the period under discussion.51

18  Cinema, State, and Scholarship Her book places filmic representations, contemporary political culture, trends in historicism, and strategies of representation within a largely chronological frame. Works on state and culture, institutions, and policy studies

In a distinctive volume, Rudolph (1984) emphasised the importance of cultural policy for the practitioners of policy analysis, as it “occupies substantial policy space” in “many political systems.”52 The book, however, keeps cinema out of its discussion. The edited book includes chapters on writing and teaching of history, the cultural legitimacy of science and its proper influence on culture, India’s secular state’s regulation of religion in the form of temple resources and prestige, the representation of artists in autonomous bodies, and the challenges posed to the doctrine of unity-in-diversity by Tamil nationalism, all helping to define the arena and dynamics of cultural policy.53 According to Rudolph, Cultural policy encompasses efforts by states to articulate and define national identity and a public philosophy. It concerns such questions as what it means to be an Indian, how Indians should live, what they should value, and how they can achieve the things they value.54 Cultural policy can be about national identity and public philosophy; he wrote, “In India, the meaning and application of culture are central features of political consciousness and political controversy.”55 What constitutes cultural policy? For Rudolph, it includes arenas like history, religion, language, minorities, education, the arts, and science and technology. Unfortunately, as Rudolph claimed, giving the example of the three national akademis, Neither the cabinet nor parliament have found the means or created the occasions to formulate or endorse cultural policy generally, or for particular cultural areas. Policy has emerged ad hoc and piecemeal through administrative actions that reflect, for the most part, the views and preferences of administrative officials or those dependent on them.56 The FFC/NFDC was certainly an administrative creation, but was New Indian Cinema an administrative creation, too? Who influenced the administration to create the FFC? Anubha Kakkar wrote an M.Phil. dissertation on state and culture, studying aspects of the government’s policy on cultural institutions in India (1993).57 The dissertation concentrates on the workings of some of the prominent government-funded institutions established for the promotion of art practices in the country, including the three national Akademis. The study shows how some of these institutions were established within the framework

Cinema, State, and Scholarship  19 of a “very strong post-colonial legacy,” reflecting in the policy perspective and prescriptive which led to their creation.58 According to Kakkar, since the Government of India has not explicitly stated its policy perspective in Art and Culture, the only way one could attempt to study the Government’s presence in this domain is through such institutions – the objectives for which they were established, reasons for their successes or failures, any structural deficiencies in their procedural workings or management in the channelisation of state funds to them, proposed alternative sources of funding to uphold ‘Autonomy’ of such institutions as an integrated aspiration (and in view of progressively diminishing the already meagre state resources).59 Kakkar claimed, culture is often to recognise the creative capacity of production and progress of human kind; the propensity to differ from and to collaborate with each other. And in this country, it is precisely here that the Indian Government has played a larger-than-life role in shaping these human circumstances.60 The government’s attitude towards art and culture can be read from its various policy statements, official declarations, seminars, workshops, etc. organised from time to time. According to Kakkar, the kind of art promoted in these Akademis was more in tune with the idea of art imported from western anglicised traditions, a point also endorsed by Peter Sutoris in his study of the FD (see below). For example, it replaced the Indian concept of ‘commune’ art which meant the involvement of the entire commune in the production of a certain piece of art, for example a mural; Akademis, instead, encouraged the development and promotion of the personalised, independent, and individualistic skills of the artists in their creations, a trend which developed with the great masters of the West.61 Kakkar’s study comments on the state of the prevailing cultural scene, the post-independence Indian state’s effect on art practice in terms of establishment of Akademis, bureaucratic institutions, and policy prescriptives, commenting on the policy perspective and orientation of the government on art and culture and the talk of a perceived need for a National Cultural Policy, and analyses a draft proposal circulated by the Department of Culture, Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), to muster urban public awareness on a perceived need for a National Culture Policy, devoting one entire chapter on the Haksar Committee Report. In another two chapters, she discusses the cultural infrastructure present at the time of independence, the establishment of the national Akademis, the Sangeet Natak Akademi and the Lalit Kala Akademi,62 and the procedural workings, achievements, and flaws of the Sahitya Akademi. Kakkar argued,

20  Cinema, State, and Scholarship There was a particular orientation with which the Indian elites started on their path of national development and a peculiar context in which the concept of institutions of art promotion like the Akademis was imported into India. Such institutions which were to be autonomous in their functioning yet largely State funded, were to be established in a newly independent nation which aspired for the kind of modernity which illustrated a certain kind of affluence characteristic of western nations.63 The Akademis were a part of the larger political task of ‘nation building’, expected in their inception to facilitate shaping of a ‘sensibility’ which would guide and reflect India’s entry into modernity.64 Her investigation into the three Akademis shows that the FFC/NFDC was nowhere near the massive structure and respectability these Akademis were assigned by the Indian state. Her study gave some idea about the hurdles of administering culture in a vast sub-continent like India. These three Akademis were national in character and the government prioritised them in terms of the allocation of funds and other resources to them. Peter Sutoris’s work on the FD (2016) takes the discussion on state, culture, and institutions to another level of scholarship on the subject. He uses a novel methodology to study development and progress in post-independent India by analysing films made by the FD between 1948 and 1975. The key concepts his work uses are development thought and its cinematic representation in India. His thesis constantly deals with the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) as the FD worked under it.65 Sutoris investigates themes like FD films making any difference to ideas about development that prevailed among India’s ruling elites,66 if the state’s development policies during the Nehruvian period were modelled on the British colonial ideology of bringing progress and civilisation to ‘the masses’, and how far these films illuminate the degree of inclusiveness found in the state’s development ideology during this period. According to Sutoris, “Analysis of Indian government films offers unique insights into these debates, which are pivotal to the economic and social history of twentieth-century India, and into questions related to the theory, practice and study of development and filmmaking.”67 His study manifests the interplay of multiple agents – including politicians, civil servants, and filmmakers – who shaped the content and form of each individual film. According to him, “The political elites’ definitions of development, the visions of modernity held by civil servants involved in the production process, and individual directors’ notions of aesthetics and of the purpose of film were among the factors that intersected at the FD.”68 His work complicates the historiography of state conceptions of development during the Nehruvian period; it brings scholarly interest to the previously under-researched field of Indian documentary film history, and makes a case for incorporating film analysis into the study of development, exploring the benefits and limitations of such a methodology. The book pursues the

Cinema, State, and Scholarship  21 interdisciplinary research method lying at the intersection of film studies and development studies. For Sutoris, FD films are a case study of the cultural dimension of Nehruvian developmentalism, showing that the Nehruvian vision was coloured by ‘Orientalism’. Sutoris has used David Ludden’s concept of development regime (1992, 2005) which focuses on ways in which the colonial ideology of progress influenced the political elites. Sutoris elaborates on this concept by bringing in two other sets of actors – government bureaucrats and filmmakers – who helped mediate the understanding of development. These government bureaucrats, “predominantly male, uppercaste urban-dwellers, English speakers, and often trained in Western education institutions,” brought into the FD “middle-class visions of modernity that broke away from the ‘traditional’ lifestyle of the past” surpassing Nehru himself in “their enthusiasm for the virtues of industrial modernity.”69 The filmmakers active in the FD in the 1950s were exposed to and found inspiration in European, Asian, and American cinematic traditions. By the late 1960s, the FD’s ‘golden period’, the influence had broadened to the French New Wave and Czech puppet animation. According to Sutoris, The cinematic medium as a marker of modernity (and modernisation) also became a platform for the expression of elite filmmaking practices through the process of experimentation. As a result, the filmmakers of this period created a small sphere of autonomy independent from the interests of state patronage.70 He makes a critique of some of these most famous filmmakers in chapter six for being unable to overstep “the philosophical boundaries of Nehruvian developmentalism.”71 For Sutoris, Nehruvian developmentalism had two strands – “political goal of achieving technocratic progress and its cultural project of moulding a new Indian identity.”72 Economic and industrial aspects of Indian Cinema, and the FFC/NFDC and New Indian Cinema

The social and cultural aspects of Indian cinema received maximum attention from film scholars. The highly important economic aspect of the industry has rarely been studied. Rikhab Dass Jain’s (1960) work is the first on the economic and industrial aspects of the Indian film industry. With a foreword written by Dr. S. Radhakrishnan, then the Vice-President of India himself, the work is an asset for researchers of Indian cinema.73 Jain’s personal investigations showed that 96 per cent of producers depended on borrowed finance, “and their working capital is almost loan capital.”74 His study of 135 cases of producers revealed that the sources of finance were the Marwaris, moneylenders, certain Maharajas, persons coming under the influence of the producers out of relations, friendship, or attracted by the glamour of the film industry, distributors, exhibitors, studio owners, laboratories, film stars, and

22  Cinema, State, and Scholarship raw material dealers. The bulk of the investments, however, came from the distributors and exhibitors.75 His study reveals a sad picture of “independent” producers and their ways of raising finance and getting credit. Only eight per cent of such producers commanded respect and reputation to enjoy a status equal to that of producers having studios. The rest either lied, begged, cheated, or struggled forever to raise finances.76 One of the consequences of financing difficulties, according to Jain, was producers tending to add all such things in the film, which would please the distributors, financiers, or would help in making a quick sale of the picture at a good price, affecting the quality of the picture.77 He pointed out how and why, due to lack of assets with the producers, the question of financial help from the Scheduled Banks did not arise in the country at that moment, and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) also did not permit any bank to render financial assistance to the film producers in the country.78 He quoted B.N. Sircar, a famous producer, director, and studio owner, a member of the Film Enquiry Committee of 1951, whereby he said that ‘no Government can ever help the film industry financially. Moreover, when our Government has to do so much more useful work for the welfare of the nation, it is not fair on the part of the film industry to seek financial help from it’.79 Jain endorsed Sircar’s views, and accepted that the then government had limited resources “to meet out vast undertakings, which are more important than the film industry.”80 In this context, he discussed and examined the Film Enquiry Committee’s recommendations to establish a Corporation.81 But he also criticised the Second Five Year Plan which promised “very little” for the film industry that gave to the government about “fourteen crores of rupees” every year at that time by way of taxes.82 Jain wrote that in the 13 years of independence, the film industry had not made any significant progress, and was found to be going through “a period of agonising if not calamitous contraction.” Also criticising the industry for being unable to bring any improvement on its own, Jain regretted that the government had also not made much provision for it in any of the two Five Year Plans. While the government took some steps, e.g. state awards to films, the setting up of an Export Promotion Corporation, a Film Institute of India and a Film Finance Corporation, the imposition of new taxes and censorship whims etc., at the same time, lessened the spirit of assistance. The government had not accorded national recognition to cinema in a true sense, ignoring the vital issue of its importance in the economy of the country. According to Jain, Improvement cannot be possible until the protection of the industry becomes a cardinal point in official policy and until it is realised that no other industry contacts as many lives of the population so intimately and significantly as does the film industry of the country.83 Referring to the motion picture industry as a “social-cum-art industry,” he suggested,

Cinema, State, and Scholarship  23 The fate of this industry…has been in three hands, the Commerce and Industry Ministry, the Finance Ministry and the Information and Broadcasting Ministry. Each ministry wants to raise the standards of this industry over-night as if through a magic. The interest of this huge and growing national industry should be lodged in the hands of one good father, i.e. in one ministry, who can take right care of it.84 A second intervention in the economic study of Indian cinema was done by Ashok Mittal (1995). Issues that he covered in the book are the film industry as a commercial venture, cinema theatres and seating capacity, the production, distribution, and exhibition of films, cinema prices, a behavioural model of the entertainment market, demand and supply of entertainment, and a detailed study of the entertainment tax (two chapters on this issue, with a case study of Uttar Pradesh). According to Mittal, Cinema industry may be said to have evolved as a natural fusion of technology, art and economics. Out of the technological mechanism of projecting moving pictures invented by Edison, the efforts of showmen or rather producers like Melies and Griffith created an art.85 He discussed the NFDC briefly under “Government’s Film Promotional Activities” along with institutions such as the FD, FTII, NFAI, and Directorate of Film Festivals (DFF).86 In the new millennium, Tejaswini Ganti (2012) mediated with her detailed work on the Hindi film industry’s production sector, with a special focus on Bollywood.87 She covers the period from post-1996 to 2012. It is a major work of research, on an underrepresented aspect of film studies. The book discusses in detail the corporatisation and gentrification of Hindi cinema post-1996. The book was helpful in shaping some of the arguments in Chapter 6 of this book, on the effects of globalisation and Indian cinema, and helped understand how and why the New Cinema started getting sidelined once the mainstream got “gentrified” due to economic reforms and grant of industrial status in 1998 by the Indian government. Sheena Jain, as early as 1981, covered the FFC in her MPhil dissertation on the developmental sources and institutional structures of Indian cinema.88 She discusses the FFC in a chapter titled “The Processual Aspects of Indian Film Making: Industry and Institutions,” divided into two parts, pre- and post-Second World War. She pointed out an important fact, which this book also makes evident. The constitution of the FFC had overlooked something obvious, that there were limited exhibition outlets in the country. Since distributors themselves often financed various film ventures, showtimes were booked for their films, made especially according to “the dictates of the box office.” In this situation, no one was willing to risk showing films which were “different” and unable to earn money.89 Jain analysed the success of some of the early FFC-financed films, which

24  Cinema, State, and Scholarship caused a flurry of excitement and jubilation among film makers and film critics. The phenomenon was noted as an index of the sophisticated tastes of the audience, with the implication that distributors had misinterpreted audience tastes, the latter having no option but to see what was offered to them. But the stranglehold of the organisational structure of film making in the country was too strong for this insight to have an immediate or even sustained impact.90 Mira Reym Binford (1983) conducted perhaps the first focussed study of the state patronage of Indian New Cinema, including the role of the FFC in it.91 As a freelance documentary film writer, Binford had lived and worked in Bombay in the late 1960s, and got to experience “at first hand” the emergence of India’s New Cinema. Much of her thesis is based on ideas and materials collected when she worked in India during the 1960s and early 1970s. She saw films, talked with existing and would-be filmmakers, visited and took part in many of the programmes and institutions which her study examines. Binford proclaimed, Nations struggling to protect or establish their own national cinemas, whether in Europe or the Third World, might well envy the situation of India, which has not only a thriving national cinema with a massive audience, but also a dynamic “New Cinema” of growing international stature. In a largely rural nation known for its great poverty, such cinematic abundance seems anomalous and deserving of analysis.92 She described India’s New Cinema as a “movement of dissent,” finding its existence as “a paradox” amidst a dominant commercial cinema.93 The central question of Binford’s study is “Did the Indian government play a significant role in the development of India’s New Cinema?”94 The answer, according to her research and analysis, is in the affirmative. Binford rightly observed, “In Third World communication research, as in cinema studies, film policy is a relatively neglected area of research.”95 She developed her own areas of state support to examine the role of the Indian government in the emergence of India’s New Cinema. She used an opinion survey along with field observations to formulate dimensions of state support for analysis. She proposed in her study that the Indian government’s film support stimulated the growth of India’s New Cinema. The state support measures which acted as a “catalyst” to India’s New Cinema were support for film societies, film festivals (International Film Festival of India, IFFI), national film awards, film training (FTII), and film finance (FFC).96 Binford’s study examined and assessed the roles these measures played in relation to New Indian Cinema’s development. She uses Jorge Schnitman’s suggested comprehensive policy as a broad framework for her study.97 Schnitman’s historical analysis of the role of state protectionist policies in the growth of the Argentine cinema concluded that state protectionism was necessary for the survival of mass

Cinema, State, and Scholarship  25 media industries in developing countries, also suggesting the requirement of comprehensive policies to create conditions ‘for the utilization of mass media for socially useful purposes’. His suggestions included restrictive measures, such as import barriers and screen quotas, designed to protect the domestic market from domination by films from abroad, and supportive measures, such as loans, subsidies, and prizes, designed to stimulate film production. Binford made a point, useful to remember for the purpose of this book, quoting Guback (1969) on the development of post-War cinema, whereby he said, ‘Strange, but the most progressive, avant-garde, and original artistic work in the postwar cinema has come, not from subsidy-free Hollywood, but from the subsidized industries of France, Italy, Britain, and Sweden’.98 According to Binford, India lacked an explicitly articulated film or cultural policy, a claim made by Kakkar, too. In the film field, India combined features of the United States and European philosophies regarding the role of government in the creative arts. Considerable opposition existed in India to the formulation of an explicit film or cultural policy, “Nevertheless, the role of the Indian government as arts patron and media monopolist has grown greatly since India’s independence, and dependence on state aid is widespread and profound.”99 She historically analysed Indian government programmes in the five areas of film societies, film festivals, awards, training, and finance, and the role of these programmes in the evolution of India’s New Cinema. The analysis included a tabulation of data designed to measure the impact of each of the five state support measures on 30 prominent New Cinema directors.100 More than half of the directors benefitted from most of the five government-supported measures, and all five measures had an impact on a substantial proportion of these directors. Though Binford resisted from making an absolute claim on a direct causal link between a particular aspect of government policy and the growth of India’s New Cinema, however, she wrote, plausible explanations of the relationship between specific government programmes and New Cinema development can be advanced, which can, in the context of socioeconomic, political and cultural factors, provide a basis for an overall evaluation of the Indian government’s role with respect to New Cinema.101 Some of the features of New Cinema that Binford discussed are opposition to commercial cinema, heirs of neorealism, themes of tradition and change, assigning a political role to cinema in transforming India into a more equitable society (e.g. K.A. Abbas, Mrinal Sen, Shyam Benegal, Saeed Akhtar Mirza, Goutam Ghose, Rama Reddy), censorship liberalisation, stylistic diversity, and aesthetic innovation (mainly Shahani and Kaul, and then Sen, Mirza, and Ketan Mehta). She discusses the FFC in chapter three of her book as one of the five state support activities stimulating the emergence of India’s New Cinema. Drawing mostly from FFC annual reports, she claimed,

26  Cinema, State, and Scholarship the FFC’s first phase (1960–8) was “quite undistinguished, both aesthetically and financially” except for a few films by Satyajit Ray.102 She put the period 1969–75 under Phase Two, and discussed the policy shift under B.K. Karanjia and the importance of Bhuvan Shome. She explained the stopping of funding in 1975 as a response to press criticism of the FFC for funding “esoteric experiments,” and parliamentary and ministerial concern about the FFC’s financial viability.103 The post-1976 period was categorised under Phase Three. According to Binford, during this phase, “The FFC seemed to be aiming for the best of two worlds—trying to avoid the most criticized and to preserve the most applauded aspects of its earlier policies.”104 Binford, through her study, recognised the role of FFC loans in launching the majority of New Cinema careers since the late 1960s, especially critical for “neophyte and avant garde filmmakers.”105 She also acknowledged that, despite various constraints, these Corporation-funded films were among those on “the cutting edge of social criticism,” succeeding in “extending the boundaries of expression thematically as well as stylistically.” She also found that the crucial areas of distribution and screening were left to take care of themselves, resulting in New Indian Cinema’s continuing dependence on the existing channels of commercial distribution, largely hostile to or unwilling to take risks, with New Cinema films having difficulty obtaining regular release and access to wider audiences.106 Aruna Vasudev’s comprehensive book on the New Indian Cinema (1986) provides “an introductory overview of the evolution of an alternate cinema in India and the attitudes that grew with it and around it.”107 The book offers a detailed discussion of cinema from Bengal, Karnataka, Kerala, and Maharashtra, with a separate chapter discussing such filmmakers for whom “the shape of the film is as significant as its substance, and who work from a deep understanding of the nature and potential of the medium.”108 Her approach to the movement is more film- and individual-centric, rather than institutional and historical. She briefly touches upon the FFC (chapter four, titled “The Middle Path”) in helping give rise to the “low-budget, straightforward, coherent, mildly thought-provoking cinema” as an alternative to “the cinema of spectacle.”109 She discusses the FFC through the films it financed. Some books also appeared in Hindi on New Cinema/Naya Cinema in the 1990s indicating a growing interest in New Indian Cinema.110 Sumita S. Chakravarty (1996) took up Indian popular cinema as a mediated form of national consciousness.111 She discusses New Cinema under the head “The Authenticity Debate,” and attempts “a problematization of the categories [of New Cinema] themselves; an analytics of the new cinema that does not polarize but sees it as part of a much larger crisis of articulating the fractures of modernity.”112 She found the term “new cinema” “confusing when viewed analytically.”113 She discussed New Cinema within the impetus given to it by the Italian neorealism, the question of its political project, “its self-image as an agent of social change, its vision of the role of the filmmaker as architect of a progressive national consciousness,”114 in terms of good and

Cinema, State, and Scholarship  27 bad cinema,115 and its production context, the FFC. Chakravarty then analyses New Cinema feature films like Garm Hawa, Kalyug, Tarang, Godhuli, Manthan, Aakrosh, Ardh Satya, etc. under various themes like nation, epic narrative, nation-building, and aggression. She concludes that the New Cinema is a cinema based on negativity, which cannot create a progressive and secular national culture, its ideology of regionalism and authenticity cannot perhaps spark a substantive change in consciousness. She comes to this conclusion after analysis of a selected few films, many of which have “exceedingly bleak” vision, and end with death and destruction.116 This is laughable. The burden which some film scholars and critics put on New Cinema, of offering solutions to the nation’s problems and “consider the possibilities of a language of the popular that people can identify with”117 is not only unfair but also unscholarly, as the same scholars have problematised the concept of the “popular” vis-à-vis “mass” and “folk” in India. The present book, by bringing in the perspectives of the New Cinema filmmakers, projects a counter-narrative to these allegations on New Cinema and its practitioners. Chakravarty at one point blames the New Cinema’s “elite” filmmakers for having an aversion to mass culture. One wonders how she will read films like Mirch Masala and Bhavni Bhavai, and see filmmakers like Kumar Shahani and Mani Kaul, who have extensively used folk culture in their films. Madhava Prasad (1998) dedicates a chapter to the FFC and New Cinema in his ground-breaking work on Hindi cinema.118 He studies cinema as “an institution that is part of the continuing struggles within India over the form of the state.”119 His study foregrounds state as a political rather than a purely administrative entity, and identifies social bases of the coherence of cinematic ideology, or lack of such a coherence. Part II of the book brings in the discussion on New Cinema and Middle-Class Cinema. He explains the “new”-ness of New Cinema as a product of the “brief period of political crisis” from the late 1960s to the mid-1970s. The dominant textual form of the social genre had come into crisis “under the twin pressures of state intervention in cultural production and social changes brought about by political upheavals.”120 According to Prasad, two “proto-genres” were created, the New Cinema and Middle-Class Cinema, while also leading to a transformation of the dominant textual form in the direction of a populist “aesthetic of mobilization,” the angry young man films, the Amitabh Bachchan films. According to Prasad, a state agency like the FFC’s entry into feature film production was part of a “strategy of cultural intervention,” forcing the industry to respond in the manner described, resulting in “the emergence of a developmentalist realism,” a statist realism, which produced “a spectatorial point of view coinciding with the gaze of the state.”121 He takes up the discussion on statist realism in detail in chapter eight where he concludes the study with an analysis of the first three films of Shyam Benegal as “instances of an evolving developmental aesthetic employing a statist realism.”122 He, however, also acknowledged, “Although the developmental narrative comes into its own only with Manthan (1976), both Ankur (1974) and Nishant (1975) contribute to its

28  Cinema, State, and Scholarship construction by employing strategies of distancing which produce the peasant/rural poor as an object of study and sympathy.”123 According to Madhava Prasad, the New Cinema was a state-sponsored movement which sought “to give substance to the idea of a national cinema.”124 Prasad understands the formation of genre of realism, as espoused by the New Cinema, as a feature of capitalist culture. The FFC, from 1969, changed its policies to take up production, thereby, establishing “a parallel industry with an alternative aesthetic programme.”125 According to Prasad, “No longer content to produce newsreels as an instructional supplement to the entertainment film, the government was now expanding the sphere of state-sponsored production to the aesthetic realm.”126 Prasad acknowledged B.K. Karanjia’s editorship of Filmfare in providing “crucial media support for all aspects of the new cinema movement.”127 He sounded sympathetic to Mani Kaul and Kumar Shahani who were “ridiculed as an elite preoccupation for which the masses had neither the time nor the inclination” resulting in their names becoming “a convenient shorthand for the denunciation of experimentation.”128 With FFC films receiving all the awards and foreign festival entries, it was perceived that the privilege of serving as India’s national cinema would be monopolised by the FFC sector, ceasing all the process of bargaining with the government for concessions, incentives, and other forms of co-operation. The continued production of experimental films under the government’s support implied “real long-term consequences for the mainstream industry.”129 According to Prasad, Shyam Benegal’s Ankur inaugurated “the commercial exploitation of the political dimension of the FFC’s aesthetic project.”130 Prasad argued that Benegal’s developmental aesthetic, “was based on the appropriation of regional realism [a result of FFC policy], and its elaboration as national cinema, while retaining the regional content as the object of a strategy of framing that produced a spectator position, allied with the developmental perspective of the state.”131 In conclusion, Prasad said, the FFC’s intervention in film production can be read as a story of the establishment of a research and development facility, which conducted a variety of experiments from which the commercial cinema picked up and exploited the most viable forms, leaving the less viable ones to be pursued by individuals who came to be identified with aesthetic preoccupations irrelevant to the national culture.132 Ira Bhaskar has expressed her dissent with Prasad’s views on the FFC/New Cinema. Bhaskar agreed that the New Indian Cinema, while being aesthetic, did possess a “missionary zeal” with many of its directors focussing on exposing “the ills of Indian society.”133 According to her, “The significance of FFC was thus literal – in the films it made possible – but it was also more symbolic in that it generated a certain confidence about cinematic possibilities. Moreover, the critical and popular impact of the films created an excitement about a new kind of art cinema.”134 The FFC films became “a node around

Cinema, State, and Scholarship  29 which a robust thinking about alternative cinema practices cohered.”135 After briefly discussing various trends within the New Wave, in Hindi and regional languages, she puts forth a theoretical understanding of the movement, bringing in Bazin, Barthes, Lukacs’ writings on realism, etc. She differs with Madhava Prasad’s understanding of ‘aesthetic realism’, seen as “the modern state’s hegemonic project.”136 She prefers Lukacs’ critical realism over an Althusserian position on realism, as a more effective model for approaching the cinematic realism of the New Wave’s realist project. Bhaskar defends the New Wave’s realism, refusing to call it propagandist, rather, it had a critical perspective on the role of social structures that dehumanized the oppressed, and was a cinema committed to social transformation. In fact, the documentary recording of everyday life had a political aim – that the lives of ordinary people and the experiential voices of the marginalized should be of crucial significance to any reconstructive social project and must be taken account of at the center. It is this focus that was central to the New Wave political realist films that were, I would claim, thoroughly imbued with a critical impulse rather than that of state legitimization as the project of ‘nationalist realism’137 She, like a few others above, pointed out to the issue of distribution and exhibition of the New Wave and how lack of it led to its demise. Some new approaches have been recorded in the last decade in the study of alternative cinemas in India. Scholars like Ashvin Devasundaram have referred to the New Indian Cinema as one of the cinematic “parents” to the new independent (AKA Indie) Indian cinema, apportioning some attention to the role of the NFDC and its Film Bazaar in his appraisal of avenues of Indie funding, distribution and exhibition in the post-2000s.138 Certain facts emerge very clearly from the above scholarly engagement on state, cinema, and the state’s patronage of alternative film cultures. State patronage was a unanimous demand for the creative arts in post-independence India. The Indian state agreed to give this patronage to fulfil three key objectives: nation-building, integration, and development. There was a global precedence to active state efforts with regard to art and cinema. New Cinema was trending in the 1960s across the world with a key interest in inquiry into the human condition. The majority of work done on Indian cinema revolves around popular cinema, studied within the parameters of melodrama, modernity, tradition, and as a tool for creating consent for elite politics. It has also been agreed that cultural policy occupies substantial policy space and therefore should be studied to understand state efforts to articulate national identity and public philosophy, more so in countries like India, where culture has been an administrative creation. The MIB, and Ministry of Culture, through its autonomous bodies like the FD, FFC/NFDC, and the three national Akademis, have played a key role. The only way to study the Indian government’s presence in art and culture is through studying these

30  Cinema, State, and Scholarship cultural institutions, by studying their objectives, reasons for their successes and failures, their structural deficiencies, sources of funding etc. It is equally important to study Indian cinema from an institutional angle. Government reports, press periodicals, and film magazines emerge as important source materials, which help read the government’s attitude towards art and culture. Fewer works have been published on New Indian Cinema, in general, and on the FFC/NFDC in particular. Although Mira Binford, Sumita Chakravarty, Madhava Prasad, and Ira Bhaskar have dealt with the two subjects, a comprehensive institutional and policy analysis of the two Corporations was never pursued by film scholars. However, their studies have established certain fundamental facts, which need not be revisited or questioned. That the government, through the FFC/NFDC, did play a significant role in the development of India’s New Cinema movement is an all-accepted fact. It is acknowledged that without the FFC, New Cinema would not have arrived, and without the NFDC, it would not have been sustained till the 1990s. In spite of this, the scholarly attention that the FFC/NFDC has received has been limited to fragments, like a few articles, a section in a book chapter or a paragraph, and they are consistent with the key arguments presented in this book. The story of the FFC/NFDC is dynamic and has many actors, the state and filmmakers being only two of them. My line of argument incorporates the existing narratives of FFC/NFDC history and expands on them by including a body of primary sources, interpreting them from the institutional and policy studies prism. It tries to present a counter-narrative to a statist understanding of the New Cinema and the FFC/NFDC. The book argues that there were multiple players writing the history and policies of the two, influencing both the movement and the Corporation. Interestingly, when I probed Kumar Shahani on state patronage to the FFC/New Cinema, he urged me to see the culture question more deeply, as he believed, it all was part of aspiration as well as a “propaganda machinery.”139 Apart from the state patronage, he pointed out the presence of private and foreign money supporting filmmakers in the south. Like a true philosopher of cinema, he urged me to “look up at an entire mind set, not just patronage… how knowledge itself is conditioned…unless one has a perspective, the conclusions are very dangerous.”140 Similarly, Shyam Benegal complicated the alliance between state and New Cinema movement.141 He brought references from world cinema, like Italian neorealism, the French New Wave, German Expressionism, the revolutionary cinema of the USSR, and indicated that, the New Cinema, including the one in India, was a response to “philosophically very trying times.” He discussed “situations” that helped the rise of New Cinema-like movements impacting the world. In the Indian case, he referred to the presence of a Nehruvian idealism, which made one look at who one was.142 He explained New Indian Cinema as a (natural) progression upon various things that were happening at that time, historical scenarios, film institutes, etc. He said, “There are certain times in history when these things start to happen…we were all creatures of a certain kind of Nehruvian

Cinema, State, and Scholarship  31 thinking.”143 By bringing in these first-hand narratives, the book argues that the New Indian Cinema was not simply a result of a “brief period of political crisis” from the late 1960s to mid-1970s, but rather that the desire existed since independence, and continued and flourished even after the mid-1970s. Realism and authenticity, as patronised by the FFC/NFDC and New Indian Cinema, may be a feature of capitalist culture, but are we not risking branding an entire generation of filmmakers, deeply committed to Indian ethos and tradition of story-telling, as mere “capitalists”? The book disrupts some of these long-held understandings of the FFC/NFDC and New Indian Cinema. Notes 1 See, Lloyd and Thomas, 1998. For them, the more immediate issue was “the place of culture in the formation of citizens and the legitimation of the state” (p.10). Their book draws from Raymond Williams (culture and society) and Gramsci (‘ethical state’, ‘the night-watchman state’). 2 Bombay’s name was changed to Mumbai in 1995. I use the old name as the book mostly deals with events till or before 1995. 3 Anand, 1963, p.144. 4 Deprez, 2013, p.151. 5 Ibid. p.152. For more on the FD’s role in India’s nation-building, see Roy, 2007; Sutoris, 2016. 6 Jawaharlal Nehru remained the Chairman of the Sahitya Akademi from its inception to his demise in 1964. 7 Anand, 1963, p.139. 8 Ibid. p.142. 9 While talking about the formation of the FFC, Kumar Shahani remembered Lenin through this quote. Personal interview with Kumar Shahani, New Delhi, 3 May 2016. 10 Lenin, ‘Lenin Decree (USSR, 1919)’, 2014, p.19. 11 Ibid. 12 Lenin, ‘Directives on the Film Business’. 13 For more on it, see Binford, “Media Policy as a Catalyst to Creativity,” 1983, p.5 (footnote 1). 14 See Street, 2014. Street has demonstrated the key role played by the Film Finances Ltd., separate from the NFFC, in encouraging new directors and artistes “during a period of flux and transformation for the British film industry.” She also shed “new light” on the cultural and political economies of the British New Wave. The existence of the NFFC, as endorsed by Street, paved the way for ‘a new pattern of production and distribution in which creative individuals have as much say as impersonal mammoth corporations’ (p.24). The Film Finances Ltd., in this context, became involved in providing completion guarantees for some of the most significant films of the British New Wave. 15 Balador, ‘French Cinema and Government Control’, Screen, 26 June 1981, p.14. 16 Ibid. 17 Ibid. 18 Also see Roger Maridia, ‘The “New Wave” in French Film’, Screen, 1 April 1960, p.6. There was a sense of dissatisfaction with regard to the aesthetics of French cinema. A new generation of French filmmakers, spread over the Cinema Institute, the Cinémathèque, and the film press, had high dreams and ambitions. Then came a specialised magazine, Les Cahiers du Cinéma, in 1951, which is widely credited to have roused French public opinion in favour of the

32  Cinema, State, and Scholarship much-awaited evolution in French cinema. It was founded by Jacques DoniolValcroze and André Bazin. And by 1959, the impact of the revolutionary “New Wave” was felt after Truffaut’s The 400 Blows (1959) won the prize for best direction, and Marcel Camus’s Orfeo Negro (1959) won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. According to Maridia, “…we are face to face with something new. Something has changed in the French film. The atmosphere appears new and is glowing with a kind of renaissance.” Individualism, freedom of conception, and non-conformity in working methods were highlighted as some of the main characteristics of the French New Wave. 19 Lopez, 1997, p.136. 20 Aufderheide, 1991, p.61. 21 Neorealism in Indian cinema seems to have started with Satyajit Ray’s Pather Panchali (1955). However, many trace the history of Indian cinematic neorealism to V. Shantaram, and Bimal Roy’s films, e.g., Duniya Na Mane (1937) and Do Bigha Zameen (1953). The Indian New Cinema movement, starting officially with Bhuvan Shome (1969, Mrinal Sen), carried forward neorealism more aesthetically and professionally. This movement is referred to by various names in India, ‘Art Cinema’, ‘Parallel Cinema’, ‘New Cinema’, and ‘New Wave Cinema’. I am using ‘New Cinema’ because Mrinal Sen and Arun Kaul use this term in their ‘Manifesto on New Cinema’ (1968) (discussed in detail in Chapter 3 of this book). Also see, Rochona Majumdar’s essay (2016) asking and answering the question as to what is or was the Indian art film. She wondered, “it is not at all clear when and by what processes such a nomenclature came into circulation and gained general acceptance in the country.” She not only tracks the career of the term in India, but also registers the aspirational nature of the category ‘art cinema’. Majumdar, 2016, pp.581–2. Some of these aspirations are discussed in Chapter 2 of this book. Majumdar remarked, “The apparent stability of the category of art cinema was the result of a conjuncture of an elitist and pedagogical project around “good” cinema” (p.582). 22 For an all-encompassing account of the advances that were made in post-War feature filmmaking in Europe, see Manvell, 1966; and Whyte, 1971. 23 Govind Nihalani, and Ajit Duara, ‘Govind Nihalani’, Cinema in India: An NFDC Publication, Bombay, Annual 1991, p.73. 24 Ibid. 25 Ibid. 26 Chaudhuri, 2005, p.150. Also see, Abeyesekera, 1996–7. 27 Bilal, 2017, p.4. 28 Ibid. 29 Ibid. 30 Chaudhuri, p.152. Also see, Mokammel, 1998; Mokammel, 1999; and Raju, 2012. 31 Personal interview with Saeed Akhtar Mirza, Mumbai, 27 June 2018. 32 Deshpande, 1991. 33 See, Dickey, 1993; Baskaran, 2009; Dwyer, 2000; Dwyer, 2014; Gokulsing and Dissanayake, 1998; Rangoonwalla, 1982; Juluri, 2013; Kaul, 1998; Lutze and Pfleiderer, 1985; Virdi, 2004; Mazumdar, 2007; Mishra, 1985; Das Gupta, 1992; Nandy, 1995. 34 See Nandy, 1981; Nandy, 1995. 35 Pandian, 1991, p.759. 36 Pandian, 1992, p.13. 37 Ibid. p.11. 38 Ibid. 39 Ibid. p.12.

Cinema, State, and Scholarship  33 40 Ibid. pp.12–3. 41 Ibid. p.13. 42 Ibid. p.14. 43 Ibid. 44 See, Vasudevan, 1991. 45 Ibid. p.266. Also see, Vasudevan, Winter 1995. One of the points that this paper tries to counter is the Satyajit Ray and Calcutta Film Society school of criticism of commercial film in India. In their criticism, according to Vasudevan, “the spectator of the popular film emerges as an immature, indeed infantile, figure, one bereft of the rationalist imperatives required for the Nehru era’s project of national construction” (p.308). As this book will suggest, the New Cinema filmmakers did not have anything against the audience watching popular cinema; instead, they were opposed to the production houses generating a certain kind of content, and also the agencies that monopolised the distribution and exhibition channels, preventing “good” cinema from reaching to the audience. They had faith in the common masses’ sensibility, provided their cinema reached them. 46 Vasudevan, November 1995, p.2809. Also see, Vasudevan, 2010. Chapter nine of the book has been of particular interest to this study where he has analysed some of the FFC/NFDC-financed films, namely Tarang, Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron, Albert Pinto Ko Gussa Kyun Aata Hai, and Naseem, under the theme of body and city. 47 Mukhopadhyay, 2013, p.2. 48 Ibid. pp.4–5. 49 Ibid. pp.13–4. See chapter five in same, especially pp.205–09, for a section on the film industry and the Indian state. 50 Ibid. p.17. 51 Ibid. p.18. 52 Rudolph, 1984, p.1. Some of the contributions in this book were initially prepared for a panel on cultural policy in India at the Thirty-Third Annual Meeting of the Association for Asian Studies held in Toronto, Canada, in March 1981 (p.v). 53 Ibid. pp.1–2. 54 Ibid. p.2. 55 Ibid. p.3. 56 Ibid. p.9. 57 Kakkar, 1993. 58 Ibid. p.xiii. 59 Ibid. p.xiv. 60 Ibid. 61 Ibid. p.7. 62 She took up a case study of Lalit Kala Akademi for her PhD, submitted in 2000, with similar objectives, methodologies, and sources. See Mehta, 2000. Her thesis found that the Akademi fell short of realising its nationalist objective of creating a shared platform for artists practising different forms of visual arts to come together, debate, and share their views. Over the years, the Akademi grew into a centralised bureaucratic organisation wherein various channels of providing inputs into policy formation through the feedback mechanism were successfully closed. 63 Kakkar, 1993, p.222. 64 Ibid. p.241. 65 In the Foreword to the book, Arvind Rajagopal noted, “The history of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting is little known and less understood, almost as if it were still a colonial institution standing apart from the society it oversees.” Rajagopal, 2016, p.xii.

34  Cinema, State, and Scholarship 66 Anubha Kakkar also emphasised the role of Indian elites in building cultural institutions and framing their policies. 67 Sutoris, 2016, p.4. 68 Ibid. p.6. 69 Ibid. pp.17–8. Regarding the three national Akademis, Kakkar had made similar claims. See above. About the FFC/NFDC and New Cinema, similar claims were made throughout their career, as this book shows in various chapters. 70 Ibid. p.19. 71 Ibid. 72 Ibid. p.20. Peter Sutoris gave a talk on his research on the FD at the University of Mumbai either in 2011 or 2012. It was after attending his presentation that I decided to take up this project on the NFDC; his talk assured me that such a work is possible. 73 Jain, 1960, p. not given. The book, an outcome of Jain’s PhD thesis submitted at Agra University, came out in 1960, the year FFC was founded. 74 Ibid. p.94. 75 Ibid. 76 Ibid. 77 Ibid. p.97. This is a point the Film Enquiry Committee Report also discussed in detail while recommending the FFC. 78 Ibid. p.102. 79 Ibid. 80 Ibid. 81 Ibid. p.103. 82 Ibid. p.235. 83 Ibid. p.236. 84 Ibid. p.237. 85 Mittal, 1995, p.20. Mittal was at the Department of Economics, Aligarh Muslim University. 86 Ibid. pp.38–9. 87 Ganti, 2012. 88 Jain, 1981. 89 Ibid. p.140. 90 Ibid. pp.140–1, also see, pp.164–7. 91 Binford, “Media Policy as a Catalyst to Creativity.” An MA Thesis was submitted at University of California-Los Angeles in 1974 on New Indian Cinema by Susan Louise Heinz. Binford refers to this thesis in her study. Binford quoted Heinz concluding, ‘without the financial support of the Film Finance Corporation the new cinema would not exist. There might be an isolated film or two, but significant levels of production would be absent’. Heinz further acknowledged, as cited by Binford, ‘for the record it is important to recognize that without the FFC the vitality present in Indian art films would barely exist’. Ibid. pp.182–3. 92 Ibid. p.2. 93 Ibid. p.4 94 Ibid. p.6. 95 Ibid. 96 Ibid. p.7. 97 See Ibid. p.8 for details. Also see Binford, ‘State Patronage and India’s New Cinema’. 98 Binford, “Media Policy as a Catalyst to Creativity,” pp.9–10. 99 Ibid. p.10. 100 Ibid. p.12. 101 Ibid. p.16.

Cinema, State, and Scholarship  35 102 Ibid. p.171. 103 Ibid. pp.176–7. This aspect is discussed in detail in Chapter 4 of this book. 104 Ibid. p.178. 105 Ibid. p.195. Also see p.196. 106 Ibid. p.195. 107 Vasudev, 1986, no page number (Preface). 108 Ibid. 109 Ibid. pp.34–5. Publications Division, Government of India came up with an introductory volume on the New Indian Cinema, comprehensively compiled by Bibekananda Ray in 2005. According to Ray, “Many people see it [India’s offbeat cinema] as an aberration from the more voluminous mainstream cinema but few will deny, as this author believes, that it is a vehicle of truer creative selfexpression, reflecting the ‘conscience of the race’.” See Ray, 2005, p.1. The NFDC is discussed in two pages (pp.238–40) under Government Intervention (Chapter XXIII). 110 See Madaan, 1990; Tiwari, 1996. 111 Chakravarty, 1996, p.8. 112 Ibid. p.237. 113 Ibid. p.238. 114 Ibid. p.239. 115 Ibid. p.242. 116 Ibid. p.267. 117 Ibid. 118 Prasad, 1998, p.vii. 119 Ibid. p.9. 120 Ibid. p.24. 121 Ibid. 122 Ibid. p.25. 123 Ibid. 124 Ibid. p.121. 125 Ibid. p.123. 126 Ibid. However, as Chapters 2 and 3 of this book show, this was not the case. The state was pressurised to first commission the Film Enquiry Committee, which submitted its report in 1951, recommending a film finance corporation, a film institute, and a film archive. It took almost a decade of manoeuvring from the film fraternity for the government to establish these three important institutions. The government did not expand its sphere willingly, it was forced by such a desire on the part of the young filmmakers who wanted to make a “different” cinema, without getting involved in wrongful funding practices. Even after formation, the FFC, later the NFDC, never received as much support and patronage as the FD or the three national Akademis. This present study, by bringing in evidence from the late 1940s up to the 1960s, and by including the discourses on “good cinema,” successfully challenges many of Prasad’s claims on New Cinema and the FFC. 127 Ibid. p.128. 128 Ibid. 129 Ibid. p.129. 130 Ibid. p.130. 131 Ibid. p.131. Ira Bhaskar criticised Prasad’s understanding of New Cinema realism. See below. Anuradha Dingwaney Needham also made a “substantive engagement” with this perspective in her book on Shyam Benegal. See chapter five, ““Making these cause films”: cinematic renditions of the developmental agendas of the (nation-)state,” in Needham, 2013, pp.149–59. She focussed on Manthan

36  Cinema, State, and Scholarship as it allowed her to “circle back to the critique regarding Benegal’s presumably uncritical advocacy of developmental agendas for which Manthan has served as the paradigmatic cinematic text” (p.148). She includes two more films, also concerned with “developmental issues,” Samar and Hari Bhari, revisiting Benegal’s “prior interests” and updating them. She believed, contrary to Prasad’s readings, that Benegal’s films complicate the concepts of state, developmental ideologies, and realism “in significantly meaningful ways” (Ibid. p.xii). In his overt effort to other Shyam Benegal’s cinema from the New Cinema circle, Prasad shared Kumar Shahani’s views on Benegal and his cinema. The criticism, however, was not on the basis of subject, form, or content of Benegal’s films. The objection to include Benegal in the category of New Cinema practitioners was based on him being funded by a private, capitalist, advertising agency, and his earlier career as an ad filmmaker. The Marxist disdain for a capitalist means of production seems to have guided this (unfair) censure and Othering of Shyam Benegal from New Cinema. Shahani had strong sentiments against the advertising industry; he found it fascist, which appealed to “the basest.” Personal interview with Kumar Shahani, New Delhi, 21 June 2016. 132 Ibid. p.131. 133 Bhaskar, 2013, p.19. She has used the word ‘New Wave’ “because the phrase conveys quite forcefully the sudden upsurge and spread of new cinematic forms in the different language film industries of the country in the 1970s–80s. The terms ‘Parallel’ and ‘Art’ predate the New Wave, and ‘new cinema’ does not convey appropriately the strong impact of the Film Finance Corporation intervention on film practices in different regions” (Ibid. p.32) (note 3). 134 Ibid. p.23. 135 Ibid. 136 Ibid. p.28. 137 Ibid. 138 Devasundaram, 2016, p.6 & pp.96–8. 139 Personal interview with Kumar Shahani, New Delhi, 24 May 2016. 140 Ibid. 141 Personal interview with Shyam Benegal, Mumbai, 16 June 2015. 142 Ibid. 143 Ibid.

2

Situating the Desire for a New Cinema (1950s)

Kumar Shahani, during a conversation, pointed out the presence of “the national aspiration to create a niche for artistes” responsible for the creation of the Akademis, film institute, etc.1 Shyam Benegal stated how the urban Parsi theatre’s influence had brought a dependency on melodrama, song, and dance in Indian cinema, making it the main form of cinema, until some people felt that “this form was actually a procrustean bent, you couldn’t manoeuvre.”2 This chapter situates this desire for a New Cinema in India by tracing those discourses which reflected the need and aspiration for such a cinema. These discourses around a new cinema not only hastened the formation of the FFC, but also had a long-term impact on the directions the New Cinema movement would take in India. The filmmaker and the state had diverse visions of filmmaking. However, they both agreed on one thing, the state’s help in improving the conditions of the Indian film industry. “What Is Wrong With Indian Films?”, Satyajit Ray (1948) The desire to have a ‘world class’ cinema, reflecting an Indian ethos, existed among young filmmakers since the time of India’s independence. Such a desire, with a touch of disappointment, was expressed in an essay written by Satyajit Ray. Written a year after India’s independence, the essay first appeared in the Calcutta Statesman in 1948. The essay clearly pleads for either having a parallel filmmaking practice along with the Bombay-based Hindi cinema or to even change how Indian cinema looked in general. In the essay, Ray lamented the condition of Indian cinema and asked why it is never shown outside India. Calling cinema “the century’s most potent and versatile art form”,3 he questioned the quality of Indian cinema made at that time. Ray snubbed the excuses given by the producers, technicians, and directors preventing them from making a diverse kind of cinema. He wrote, “The producers will tell you about the mysterious entity ‘the mass’, which ‘goes in for this sort of thing’, the technicians will blame the tools and the director will have much to say about the wonderful things he had in mind but could not achieve because of ‘the conditions’.”4 According to him, “better things have been achieved under much worse conditions”.5 Giving the example of the internationally acclaimed post-War Italian cinema,6 he found DOI: 10.4324/9781003335436-3

38  Situating the Desire for a New Cinema (1950s) the reasons in the fundamentals of filmmaking in India. According to Ray, the elementary confusion whereby the Indian film industry equated movement, “the all important function of cinema”, with action and action with melodrama, and the influence of the American cinema were the two main factors responsible for the poor state of affairs in the Indian film industry.7 He argued that Indian cinema did not need gloss, but needed more imagination, more integrity, and a more intelligent appreciation of the limitations of the medium…What our cinema needs above everything else is a style, an idiom, a sort of iconography of cinema, which would be uniquely and recognizably Indian…the truly Indian film should… look for its material in the more basic aspects of Indian life, where habit and speech, dress and manners, background and foreground, blend into a harmonious whole.8 Ray needed “Indianness” in Indian cinema. For Ray, only a drastic simplification of style and content could bring some hope for Indian cinema. But the then existing practices – starting a production without adequate planning and sometimes without a shooting script, lack of a strong, simple, and unidirectional narrative, and forcing musical numbers into films – went against such simplification and stood “in the way of the evolution of a distinctive style.”9 He cited two films showing “rare glimpses of an enlightened approach”.10 The Indian People’s Theatre Association’s (IPTA) Dharti Ke Lal (1946, K.A. Abbas) was, according to Ray, “an instance of a strong simple theme put over with style, honesty and technical competence.”11 Uday Shankar’s Kalpana (1948) was “an inimitable and highly individual experiment”, which showed “a grasp of filmic movement, and a respect for tradition.”12 He wondered, “It is incredible that a country which has inspired so much painting and music and poetry should fail to move the film-maker.”13 Ray put high emphasis on an iconography of cinema uniquely Indian, reflecting Indian ethos and Indian life. He attacked American cinema’s influence and praised Italian neorealism. He asked for less glamour and more content, and demanded simplification of style with an adequately planned production and shooting schedule. The then 27-year-old Satyajit Ray, who was already active in the film society movement in Calcutta,14 wrote a very important proposition for a New Cinema in India. Before discussing the Report of the Film Enquiry Committee, I wish to briefly refer to a PhD thesis written on Indian cinema in as early as 1950. Written by Panna Shah, and submitted at the Department of Sociology, University of Bombay, the thesis put the film producers at the centre of the debate, who were like a conglomeration of many adventurers each going his own way… Many of them have no knowledge of the art of the cinema and merely take to film production in the hope of minting money. We have too

Situating the Desire for a New Cinema (1950s)  39 many independent producers whose failures, and often unscrupulous business methods, have brought general discredit to the industry…Such individual enterprise without any organizational basis is probably one of the greatest weaknesses of the film industry in India.15 The presence of ‘adventurist’ film producers, the producer’s forced reliance on a film financier, or distributor for finances, and a lack of financial resources were other problems coming in the way of progress for Indian films. Exorbitant rates of interest on the money borrowed for production, and financiers not willing to invest in the “risky” motion picture industry, were some of the reasons for a general lack of financial support. According to Shah, “This crippling financial bogey can only be overcome by the establishment of a sound Film Corporation willing to loan capital at reasonable rates of interest.”16 He stressed the need of having the producers, directors, scriptwriters, and technicians trained, and establishing a Film Institute and Council on the lines of the Cinematograph Council of Great Britain.17 He was optimistic about its possibilities, “There is no reason why such a system, if intelligently and impartially administered, should not be successful in this country. It would go a long way in achieving a higher standard of films in the new India.”18 While Ray asked filmmakers to make the most of the existing situation and produce a better and more distinctive cinema, Shah wanted the state agencies to come to the rescue of the independent producers and the film industry in general. They both, and many others, desired a common thing: “a higher standard of films in the new India.” Though the British colonial government had taken an interest in Indian films, they did not do much to develop the indigenous Indian film industry. Rather, they allowed films from Britain and the USA to dominate film demand in India. The colonial regime also used censorship to prevent Indian filmmakers from making certain kinds of films and controlled the content of these films. They instituted an Indian Cinematograph Committee in 1927, under the chairmanship of T. Rangachariar, to study and survey the condition of the Indian film Industry.19 The Recommendations were put into cold storage. Certainly, after independence, the film industry expected the government to recognize it as a legitimate industry and to grant it the infrastructural and credit support that the economic policy promised for other industries. In return, the film industry offered to serve as an instrument of public instruction or, as I. K. Gujral, Indira Gandhi’s Information and Broadcasting Minister, was to describe later, to pay a ‘social tax’ in the form of socially relevant, progressive themes and messages.20 The first government of the newly free India, under Jawaharlal Nehru, was aware of the importance of films in its nation-building and modernising mission. The FD was already set up in 1948, to make the ‘new citizens’ aware of

40  Situating the Desire for a New Cinema (1950s) various developmental work done by the Indian state.21 Yet, it needed more coaxing to take interest in the feature film industry, which needed large scale reforms as upheld by Shah’s research as discussed above. The Film Enquiry Committee (1949) The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting noted in 1948–9 that an enquiry into the film industry was necessary. The last enquiry was conducted in 1927–8. A fresh enquiry was necessary in view of the growth of the film industry since that time, in order to examine how the organisation of the industry could be improved and on what lines its future development should be directed.22 A Film Enquiry Committee was formed on 2 September 1949 by the Government of India to “make recommendations regarding its further development as an industry and as a medium of education and entertainment”.23 According to Kumar Shahani, “the intention of calling for that report to be written was absolutely Nehruvian…it fitted into the kind of state that Nehru imagined…should be created for the Indian nation”.24 The Committee was constituted by a Resolution of the government of India in the MIB dated 29 August 1949. As per the Resolution, the government of India did regard “the importance of the cinema in modern life and the magnitude and complexity of the problems relating to films”, making it essential to conduct a thorough enquiry into the film industry.25 Of the three important terms of reference given to the Committee, one of them was, “To examine what measures should be adopted to enable films in India to develop into an effective instrument for the promotion of national culture, education and healthy entertainment.”26 (Emphasis added). The Chairman of the Committee was S.K. Patil (Member, Constituent Assembly), and the rest of the members included M. Satyanarayana (Member, Constituent Assembly), V. Shantaram (Rajkamal Kalamandir Ltd., Bombay), B.N. Sircar (New Theatres Ltd., Calcutta), Dr. R.P. Tripathi (Head of the History Department, Allahabad University),27 V. Shankar (I.C.S., representing MIB), and S. Gopalan (Secretary of the Committee). The Committee faced various kinds of resistance and criticism ever since its inception. The selection of members of the Committee was not liked by the industry. There was no representative in the Committee from south India’s film industry. The lack and delay of responses to questionnaires showed that there was “insufficient appreciation by the industry and the public in general of the scope, functions and importance of the enquiry.”28 This still did not deter the Chairman from visiting and collecting information from film industries in the USA, UK, and various countries of Western Europe and East Asia, on his personal expenses. The Committee did succeed in compiling an extensively researched Report. The Report was divided into ten chapters and an appendix, with the tenth chapter covering its various recommendations on the issues of organisation and the supply of raw materials and equipment. The rest of the Report dealt in detail with

Situating the Desire for a New Cinema (1950s)  41 a historical review of the condition of the industry, film under the law, film and the public, issues of film production, distribution, and exhibition, supply of raw materials and equipment, and finally the factors affecting the film industry. It is crucial here to discuss the contents of the Report released in 1951, for several reasons. One, to determine the state’s perception of cinema and its vision with regard to the largest film industry in the world; two, to study how it planned to institutionalise such an industry; and three, to see how cinema, part of the cultural sphere, became a matter of policy, and a tool of newly independent India’s modernising mission. Report of the Film Enquiry Committee (1951)

The Committee found a practical unanimity on the role of films in national life, their potential for the public good, and the need for proper regulation of film enterprise. But the Committee also received a unanimous complaint from the industry that the stranglehold of numerous laws, rules, and regulations by various authorities from police officials to Ministries at the Centre, without any single authority to co-ordinate or supervise them, was suffocating the film business.29 The Committee found this complaint well-founded. Commenting on the virtual ban on the construction of cinema houses by the state governments, the Committee expressed its disappointment, We are unable to comprehend, much less to commend this attitude. Films are becoming increasingly popular: they have rare potentialities for nation-building use. Cinema-going is almost the only national pastime of such universal appeal.…We are convinced that public authorities can justify themselves, not by ignoring the role of cinemas in life but by acknowledging it and conceding them a due place in the essential nation-building activities of the community and the State.30 (Emphasis added). The Committee understood films in three ways: as a means of communication, as a work of art, and as a product of industry. It made a critique of the attitude which understood cinema only as entertainment and called such a view more harmful than regarding cinema as “inherently evil”. In the Committee’s judgement, A film…can help readjust attitudes, the relations between different members of a family unit or of different communities in society and promote idealism or some ideology. It can develop ethical ideas, fairness and tolerance and even produce selflessness and sacrifice.…A film enlivens while it entertains, it teaches while it amuses, and it creates a world of impressions and ideas in which humanity at times seeks refuge from frustration, discontent and the hard realities of existence.31

42  Situating the Desire for a New Cinema (1950s) Addressing the issue of realism and escapism, the Report set out a foundational motto for the forthcoming FFC and the New Cinema movement, Providing an “escape” into an “unreal” world should be condemned when that world is based solely on wish-fulfilment, and enables the subject not only to escape his responsibilities but to enjoy the sensation of having discharged them. On the other hand, escape into an ideal world where the highest principles hold sway can have the effect of motivating right action and bringing about in this world, the conditions that are depicted in the ideal world. “Escape” by itself is not reprehensible, provided the place and the manner in which escape is sought are correctly chosen.32 The Committee suggested to the producers to make films which sharpen the judgement of the people watching them. Propagation of ideas of freedom, justice, duty, or sacrifice, according to the Committee, was not exclusively the state’s responsibility; propagating these doctrines through films was not disgraceful, and the film industry had an equal responsibility to propagate these ideas for the welfare of the nation. The Committee maintained that a film has similar social responsibility as press or radio and the approach towards a film must be “positive, constructive and healthy.”33 The Committee maintained that to ignore or underestimate the important cultural and sociological significance of films and its valuable formative role would be highly dangerous. These aspects make it incumbent upon the State and the community to shed their apathy or indifference and to ensure that the films which are passed for exhibition or which are seen, are healthy and desirable and make their due contribution to the building up of national character in its diverse aspects.34 (Emphasis added) The Committee wanted producers to get out of the vicious circle of increasing production costs which required large audiences. It rather encouraged producers “who would have the courage to make economical pictures.”35 It also disagreed with the assumption that the working class who goes to watch a film, who is not educated, are “inherently coarse in their tastes”.36 The evidence laid before the Committee showed otherwise, that the “appeal of the finer parts of a film is not altogether lost on them and their powers of discrimination are by no means blunt or stunted.”37 The audience was given the full benefit of the doubt in its selection of a certain kind of cinema. The Committee was confident in its inference that if films of a better type are produced and if the producers and distributors will, in full realisation of their responsibilities to the public, eschew their present methods of publicity and give a new turn to the wheel,

Situating the Desire for a New Cinema (1950s)  43 they can bring about a radical alteration in the course of the entire industry. Instead of resting on its outmoded oars, the industry will sail, with a spirit of adventure and enterprise, on new and clear waters, reflecting in the absence of turbidity the image of art and culture and providing for the eager eyes on shore a setting at once pleasing to the vision, entertaining to the mind, and exhilarating to the senses. We have no doubt it is in this conscious and planned attempt to serve the better instincts of humanity rather than the base standards of taste that lies the stability and security of the industry.38 (Emphasis added) In summary, the Report expressed its discontent with the notion of cinema as pure entertainment. It understood films in three ways, namely, communication, art, and industry. It condemned escapist cinema which led the audience to an unreal world of fantasies. The Committee reminded the producers of their social responsibility in spreading doctrines of freedom, justice, etc. It also asked them to make low-budget films. It called upon the producers and distributors both to leave their present methods to bring about a radical alteration in the film industry. Asking the state and the community to shed their indifference to cinema, the Committee highlighted the importance of films in building a national character. It was this perception of cinema that was going to be the foundational principle of the FFC. By the late 1940s, the activity of film production in India was virtually distributed between Bombay, Bengal, and Madras. Unlike Hollywood, where the production of films was concentrated in the hands of a few concerns, India was distinguished by a plethora of producers. The Indian Motion Picture Producers Association (IMPPA) (1937) was the only organisation concerned exclusively with producers. IMPPA was largely found to be helpless in suggesting or enforcing any internal changes in the industry. The Committee also noted a lack of talent, e.g. in the field of story writing, acting, music, and various other areas of filmmaking. A suggestion for an institution where filmmaking talents could be trained in all its aspects was placed by many witnesses in front of the Committee. The Committee’s vision of the technicians and their qualifications was, though highly idealistic, achieved through the FTII.39 While addressing the production problems, the Committee took the USA film industry’s setup and efficiency as the standard. There the story was written and finalised first by the producer, then the producer chose a director for taking charge of the film, who had to work in close consultation with the story writers so that the “rendering might be sympathetic”. The budget was prepared at the Production Office, where the manpower and materials required were estimated. During this stage, the director worked in consultation with the art director and the cameraman. Sometimes, sketches were prepared as models; the story was also discussed with the music department and after a satisfactory consultation with everyone, the film got ready to go on the floor. A shooting schedule was also prepared. This planning was

44  Situating the Desire for a New Cinema (1950s) done and necessary because it was essential for a producer to get his entire shooting script approved by the PCA.40 However, things were very different in India. There was no planning. The script was mostly kept secret, the producer was also often not aware of the financial side of the project, and the story would not be final nor the shooting schedule.41 Based on its extensive survey, the Committee came to the conclusion that in India, with efficient planning, the total length of time spent on the actual shooting of most pictures should not exceed four months and a picture can be ready for screening in five to six months from the commencement of shooting.42 Such a planned shooting would have led to cost cutting and could have been motivating enough especially for the independent producers. The need for a planned production was highlighted as one of the potential cures to various ailments of the Indian film industry. It was repeatedly suggested to the Committee to make the scheduled banks advance money to film producers as a possible solution to the problem of financing the film industry. However, the Committee rejected this suggestion on various grounds.43 It came to a conclusion that the question in India was not of finding additional capital, which was there, but rather of making the flow of capital from the source to the industry continuous and comparatively easy and smooth.44 It was for this purpose that the Indian film industry was asking for an FFC-like institution, the analogy was of the FFC established in the UK. The Committee felt “the suggestion deserves close consideration, if for nothing else, at least because of the almost universal acceptance it has received from different categories of witnesses who have appeared before us.”45 The Committee was convinced that to make such a Corporation work successfully, it was essential to exercise supervision over the productions, in order to ensure the repayment of the advances, but also to bring some sort of order and rationalisation in the industry.46 However, as per its calculations, the then prevailing unlimited competitive production and earnings limited by the number of theatres did make it definite that a certain amount of capital invested each year would be lost totally. The Committee considered it “inadvisable to form a Corporation to finance an industry which must face an inevitable deficit at the end of every year.”47 While the Committee wanted some reforms in the form of cost cutting in production, and constructing more cinema houses to precede the Corporation (the wisest suggestion, only if it was followed), the industry suggested a reduction in the entertainment tax. But the Committee believed that the reduction in entertainment tax was not the answer to the internal chaos and disorganisation of the industry, but the answer lay within it. The Committee held the poor quality of films produced responsible for the lack of returns on the capital invested and rejected the view that high rates of interest were the sole reason for the situation in the industry. According to the Committee, an arrangement for corporate finance required greater control over the production side of the industry. One would need to ensure that the element of risk was minimal. The corporate authority would need to be satisfied that the picture had all the elements which would

Situating the Desire for a New Cinema (1950s)  45 make it a box-office success “without at the same time sacrificing the canons of propriety and good taste.”48 Given this situation, the Committee saw that the Indian film industry needed a PCA.49 This Administration would have to be assisted by a Reference Bureau which could help producers with information about stories, actors and actresses, background material, etc. which would further help exclude objectionable material and improve the quality of films.50 The Administration and the Bureau would have to be closely linked with the proposed Corporation, with one of its representatives in the PCA. Approval of the Administration would automatically qualify a projected production for financial assistance; the Corporation would decide the question of actual financial aid on financial merits. The Committee felt that the Corporation should aim at providing the entire capital required for production. Unlike the FFC in the UK, which went to the assistance of independents, in India, the Committee suggested it necessary for the Corporation to assist also the studio-owning producers, who generally find themselves handicapped by a lack of working capital, because a major portion of their resources got invested in studio premises, equipment, and similar capital assets.51 The various suggestions made to the Committee for raising capital for the Corporation were: the state should contribute the capital, that a certain portion of the profits of the producers should be compulsorily invested in the Finance Corporation, a tax should be made on the entire output of the industry and on foreign films imported into the country, an additional surcharge should be levied on the prices of admission, a portion of the entertainment tax should be diverted for the purpose, and so on.52 The Committee did insist on one thing, at least one-fourth of the budget should be contributed by the producer.53 It also suggested that once the picture was completed, they should be allowed to make their bids for the distribution rights, under the supervision and subject to the approval of the Corporation. Such a system of competitive bidding was likely to place the producer and the Corporation in a better bargaining position and allow them to secure more positive terms.54 Producers were also expected to reduce their working costs, and if possible, the total length of the film.55 The Report stated frankly that the film industry suffered from too little realisation of government responsibility. Cinema’s role in nation-building was not recognised, and the government pushed the industry to “the capricious handling of unqualified, ill-equipped individuals.”56 The Committee praised the almost self-supported progress made by the industry so far, and proposed that if the industry had received government support earlier, the results would have been richer, not only in a monetary sense, but “also in values which are more worthy of prize and greater objects of pride and pleasure.”57 The Committee also made an overall assessment of the poor standards of film journalism, the ineffective and unorganised voice of the cinemagoer, and the quality of films getting poorer, both in a technical and artistic sense. The Report believed,

46  Situating the Desire for a New Cinema (1950s) The themes are stereotyped; the triangle of love seems eternal; the plots are monotonously uniform in pattern. The contents of the film are marred by previous successes of the same features. There is scant realisation of the danger of too much repetition of a box-office hit. The presentation of life in “socials” is either unrealistic or exaggerated… On the whole, we find that there is a tendency to treat the story or the theme as the least important element in the production of films as mirrors of life, either contemporary or of the past.58 It seemed to the Committee that if “the general level of artistic, aesthetic and moral qualifications is to improve, a determined bias must be given to the life of the community” (emphasis added) by the state through encouraging community theatre, amateur theatricals in educational institutions, the literary talent, and by providing facilities to those who wish to make the stage and screen a career.59 While assuring organisational regulation, the Committee asserted individual freedom and initiative in the film industry, We are not enamoured of State regimentation in the field of art and entertainment. We feel therefore that the remedies which we must devise for the ills from which the industry is suffering must allow the minimum of State interference and the maximum of opportunity to the industry itself to set its own house in order. Whatever plan be devised must therefore be based on the industry finding its own feet in course of time and being in a position to shape its destiny in the best interests of both the community and the industry.60 The Committee rejected the suggestion to nationalise the industry and found it wrong to approach the films from the point of view of any other industry. The Committee was convinced It would be as suicidal for thought and expression to follow uniform and regulated patterns in this field as in the realm of books. The regimentation of ideas and art would make beauty subservient to the rule of thumb, culture submissive to the will of authority and entertainment subordinate to the philosophy of the State. We have no doubt that this would result in the standardisation of art, which would be fatal to its growth without making industry any the more efficient; the combination of the two would introduce an unhealthy check on individual initiative and enterprise which are indispensable for idealistic conception, and artistic expression.61 The Committee rather favoured combining the elements of laissez-faire and regimentation “to make this valuable medium a useful and healthy instrument of both entertainment and education – a means of uplift and progress rather than of degeneration and decay.”62 According to the Report,

Situating the Desire for a New Cinema (1950s)  47 while the State and the community should provide the necessary stimulus and corrective, the industry should be allowed to bring out its own latent power to reform itself and that while State and public vigilance and interest should be ever active to prevent the industry from straying into the path of error and failure, the industry should be able to exercise its own powers and functions of self-control and self-regulation. We do not think that this approach is a counsel of perfection though we regard the cry of nationalisation a counsel of despair.63 (Emphasis added) On the organisational side, the Committee recommended setting up a statutory Film Council of India as the central authority to superintend and regulate the film industry, “to act as its guide, friend and philosopher”, and to advise the central and state governments in regard to various matters connected with the production, distribution and exhibition of films, enforcing standards of quality which would make the film “a cultural agent and an instrument of healthy entertainment.”64 According to Madhava Prasad, Although it never came into actual existence…the role of the idea of a Film Council in post-independence film history is of interest as an attempted remedy for the problems of uneven capitalist development. The state was being mobilized here as an ally of one segment of the industry, in order to break the hold of the distributors and exhibitors over film production, and to achieve a degree of independence for the production sector.65 The Committee had also contemplated that gradually the Council should take over both the PCA recommended by the Committee and the Board of Censors already constituted by the government. The Committee had felt, “it is through such an institution rather than through its own direct agency or intervention that the Central and State Governments can succeed in making films the real and effective instrument of art, culture and healthy entertainment.”66 It was given statutory powers with certain regulative and supervisory authority over the industry to intervene in disputes and to enforce standards of production (through PCA) and professional conduct. The Committee assigned ambitious functions to the Council.67 These included the promotion of film libraries, clubs, and societies, publication of a film journal, encouragement of the stage as a training ground and as an experimental field for the film industry and as an allied cultural and entertainment institution, and the establishment and maintenance of a central film library, a Story Bureau, and a Casting Bureau. The Committee supported the idea of transferring the production industry to the control of the Centre, as it would help “in the implementation of a co-ordinated policy of guidance in the production.”68 In this regard, the Committee came to the conclusion that the formation of an FFC was both urgent and essential.69 To emphasise the urgency of such a Corporation, the Report insisted,

48  Situating the Desire for a New Cinema (1950s) If the film industry is to be rehabilitated and its future as a great nation building enterprise to be assured we see no escape from regulated finance made available through an institution which could be depended upon to observe the rules of payment and to render genuine help and assistance to the industry.70 (Emphasis added) The Committee viewed that the Corporation should have a capital of Rs. one crore71 with the authority to borrow another Rs. one crore with the previous sanction of the government of India. The Committee suggested that at least one-half of the capital should be raised by the central and state governments together. As “a real service to the film industry and a productive investment”, the Committee expected the state governments to contribute at the initial stage five per cent of the revenue that they collected from the entertainment tax.72 Some of the particularities that the Committee emphasised about the FFC were that the producer should raise on his own at least 25 per cent of the capital required, that the Film Finance Corporation should be associated through its expert representatives and at an appropriate stage with the functioning of the Production Code Administration, that the terms and conditions to be settled between the producer and the distributor must be within the cognizance of the Corporation and finalised only with its approval, that in making loans care should be taken that the advance is made in instalments, second and subsequent payments being made only after satisfactory accounting of the utilisation of previous instalments, that the share of the contribution by the producers deposited with the Corporation should be the last to be used, and that the first claim on the distributor’s advances or the producer’s earnings should be that of the Corporation.73 The Committee did point to the possibility for scheduled banks to make funds available to the Corporation at reasonable rates of interest so as to enable it to advance loans to the producers at a rate not exceeding nine per cent, or so. Response to the Film Enquiry Committee Report and its Recommendations

The Report was released on 2 March 1951 in Bombay and published in October 1951. The four highlights of the Report picked up by the national press were the Film Council, PCA, FFC, and the rationalisation of taxes.74 S.K. Patil, the Chairman of the Committee, was reported to have highlighted the rationalisation of taxation resulting in a lightening of the burden on the film industry, and recommendations for the development of the industry on lines ultimately leading to “self-administration without Governmental control” as the two main features of the Report.75

Situating the Desire for a New Cinema (1950s)  49 In the wake of the release of the Report, the press took notice of the situation prevailing in the Indian film industry. The Times of India (TOI) carried a detailed report on the genesis and history of the Indian film industry.76 The feature-length article gave an altruistic picture of film production, one of the three main branches of the Indian film industry, and the many evils that the manipulative financier brought to the field. It agreed that a film finance corporation, as demanded by the film industry and recommended by the Committee, would be of enormous help to the industry as it would possibly lead to a general fall in the interest rates charged by the financiers.77 While welcoming the recommendations made by the Committee of a centralised PCA, the Film Federation of India (FFI) demanded that ‘this art industry’ should not be made submissive to government control and regulation, and that the powers of the film council and the PCA should be only of an advisory nature.78 Y.A. Fazalbhoy sympathised with the heavily overburdened Film Council, “One becomes almost dizzy to read what the Film Council has to perform. This superbody which is desired to be created with statutory powers in so many spheres has no power, it is important to note, to licence the actual producer in ordinary circumstances.”79 The executive authority still lay with the central government. The suggestion of a PCA was found to be nothing different from nationalisation. It was advised that the recommendations be examined by an Expert Committee to check the practicality of these recommendations. Fazalbhoy also criticised the fact that the Committee did not go into the full financial aspects of the costs of operations of the Film Council. He also suggested getting the aspect of nationalisation investigated.80 However, speaking at a reception held in Bombay in March 1952, S.K. Patil dismissed the general fear among some producers of the nationalisation of the industry due to the proposed Film Council and the PCA. He was reported to have said that during the framing of the report, the idea of nationalisation was “at no time entertained”.81 On another occasion, Mr. Patil was reported to have criticised the government for not implementing the recommendations of the Enquiry Committee.82 He also made an interesting point on why the film industry was receiving “step motherly treatment”; it was because it did not form part of the portfolio of any Cabinet Minister, “It was tagged on to the Ministry for Information and Broadcasting simply because it was an unwanted child. Nobody knows “who its father is and it has been given to a department which already has two children (Information and Broadcasting).””83 In 1954, when the recommendations were finally discussed in Parliament, Mr. Patil was disappointed again at the callous attitude of the government and at its turning down of the most important recommendation of the Report, i.e. the FFC.84 The government had declined the establishment of a film corporation with the usual excuse of the “priorities of expenditure to meet the urgent requirements of the development projects and programmes of the Five Year Plan”. The government had also rejected one of its other central suggestions,

50  Situating the Desire for a New Cinema (1950s) the forming of a statutory Film Council of India citing similar reasons.85 Mr. Patil opposed the government’s proposal to establish a National Film Board which was to direct and supervise the work of the proposed Film Production Bureau and the Film Institute. He said that such an arrangement would be an “enlarged edition of the present Central Board of Film Censors”.86 First International Film Festival of India (1951) Indian diplomacy was using its soft power in the year 1951–2. The First Asian Games were held in New Delhi in 1951, to be followed by the first IFFI held across four metropolitan cities of India – Bombay, Madras, Delhi, and Calcutta, over six weeks. It was also the first in Asia.87 Why is it important to discuss the IFFI here? Two reasons can be given in summary; one, to highlight the cinematic and aesthetic exposure it gave to various young Indian filmmakers who then got inspired and chose to give a distinctly radical direction to the Indian film industry, and two, to analyse the debates the Festival raised in the national press on what cinema is and how to make a distinctly Indian film, which made filmmakers and film lovers reflect upon the art of cinema. The MIB Annual Report gave the following reasons for organising the Festival: With a view to providing opportunities to the public as well as to the film industry to see some of the best films produced in various countries, to study the progress made in the field of film production and to exchange ideas for the benefit of the industry in the country it was decided to organize an International Film Festival in India…Besides enabling the people to see the best films produced in the world, these festivals contribute to the development and progress of the film industry in the country in which they are held. They promote healthy competition and help the art of film-making by encouraging interchange of ideas.88 The New Cinema filmmakers, in various interviews, have confessed to the role played by the international films they saw at this Festival in the development of their sense of cinema and filmmaking. In an essay written in The Statesman on 5 January 1982, Satyajit Ray shared his memory and opinion on the Festival. It is crucial to read him in detail here: If the quality of films were the sole criterion, surely one of the best film festivals ever held anywhere was the first international film festival in India in 1952. This took place just two months after I had started shooting Pather Panchali…As soon as we learnt that the government was planning a film festival, we published in our bulletin [Calcutta Film Society bulletin] a long list of foreign films which we felt should be

Situating the Desire for a New Cinema (1950s)  51 included in the festival. We sent a copy of the bulletin to the ministry in Delhi, and I must say that most of what we recommended did eventually turn up. Few festivals before or since have provided such a feast of outstanding films…For the film buffs – present writer included – it meant a steady diet of four feature films a day for a fortnight. We rushed from one cinema to another, barely recovering from the effect of one mighty work before another impinged on our consciousness, reeling at day’s end, but fresh the next morning for further adventures. It would be wrong to say that the first international film festival changed the course of Indian cinema…but the impression left on the discerning filmgoer was deep and lasting.89 Mrinal Sen, who was a medical representative at that time, wrote in his diary, 10 a.m. - 12 noon Visiting doctors: 4 will do. 3 p.m. At Purna Theatre: Rome, Open City by Roberto Rossellini 6 p.m. At Menoka: Jour de Fete by Jacques Tati 9 p.m. At Light House: Miracle in Milan by Vittorio de Sica90 Similarly, Shyam Benegal remembered the Festival in this way, Soon after I entered college I had my very first exposure to films from Europe, particularly Italy. Bicycle Thieves, Shoeshine, Miracle in Milan and Bitter Rice were among them. These had come as part of the First International Film Festival held in India and had presumably found Indian distributors. Some Soviet films came in at the time and I saw Mark Donskoi’s films based on Maxim Gorky’s novels apart from Battleship Potemkin and the first part of Ivan the Terrible. I found the film experience offered by these films far greater than most of the films I had seen before this.91 Many film scholars also noticed and wrote on the impact of the Festival on young filmmakers of that time, and the Indian film industry in general. P.K. Nair, the famous film archivist and founder-director of NFAI, called the Festival “the most significant event that took place in the post-Independence India.”92 He wrote, For the first time local audiences and filmmakers were exposed to the neo-realist cinema of Italy – De Sica’s Bicycle Thieves (1950) – and the hitherto unknown cinema of Japan (Yukiwarsio [sic], Children of Hiroshima and Kurosawa’s Rashomon) and of the works of the great Soviet Masters, Eisenstein and Pudovkin. This came as a great revelation to many as the only foreign cinema Indians were exposed to till then was that of Hollywood. Exposure to world cinema had its impact

52  Situating the Desire for a New Cinema (1950s) on some of our filmmakers. Bimal Roy’s Do Bigha Zamin (1953)…and Raj Kapoor’s Boot Polish (1954)…were direct outcome of this impact.93 Sagnik Chakravartty recognised that The ‘realist’ trend in Indian films gained impetus from the 1952 International Film Festival…Huge crowds were drawn by films from the Soviet Union, People’s Republic of China, Italy, Japan etc. at the festival. This proved that the Indian film-goers tired of Hollywood, were eager to see on the screen common-people struggling in an [sic] hostile world for a better life and decency.94 The IFFI opened in Bombay on 24 January 1952 and then moved to Madras, Delhi, and Calcutta.95 An open space of about 20,000 sq. yds. was laid out at Azad Maidan for different activities of the Festival.96 Three open-air theatres, a garden to hold receptions for foreign delegations, and the Film Industry’s Exhibition displaying stalls of the leading producers and distributors formed some of the important sections. The educational halls were so arranged as to trace the development of the film industry in India, the leading personalities who built up the industry and the technique of the production of motion pictures. A total of 50 feature films and 79 documentaries from the world over entered in the Festival.97 Roberto Rossellini, Ingrid Bergman, and Vittorio De Sica, film stars Nur Jehan and Swarnalata were some familiar names in the list of guests. Russia sent a group of 12 renowned Russian film producers, headed by M.N. Semenon, Deputy Minister of Cinematography, USSR. Mr. Semenon was reported to have said that his country had been able to combat illiteracy through the medium of cinematography and suggested that India should devote more attention to the development of her film industry in order to educate her people.98 The five festival theatres in Bombay included the Strand, New Empire, Excelsior, Kum Kum, and the Azad Maidan openair theatre.99 The TOI summarised PM Nehru’s message: Mr. Nehru, in a message to the Festival, laid emphasis on the influence of films on people’s lives and on the need for concentrating more on quality than on “quantity production.” He advised the Indian film industry to “introduce artistic and aesthetical values in life and encourage the appreciation of beauty in all its aspects.” “If our film industry keeps this ideal before it,” Mr. Nehru added, “it will encourage good taste and help, in its own way, in the building up of new India.”100 Famous filmmaker Frank Capra was reported to have said in a press conference that Indian producers must “give” something of their own and not imitate foreign films as this was the only way to put Indian films on the international screen.101 Dr. Marinucci, the Italian delegate, said,

Situating the Desire for a New Cinema (1950s)  53 there was a “strong call for realism” in Indian pictures. That would ensure a wider market for Indian productions. Indian films with a complete Indian background, Indian theme and Indian talent – that was what was required, he said. “A truly national picture makes an international picture,” he added, and said that Indian films should not be “American-like.”102 Delegates from the USSR and Hungary did mention films like Dharti Ke Lal (1946), Neecha Nagar (1946), and Chin Mul103 being shown in their respective countries and appreciated.104 Some film critics also complained of the lack of any serious attempt to discuss, during the Festival, “the problems of the filmic craft in India in the light of the rich experience of Russian, Italian, French, and other foreign directors and artists.”105 Questions that Ray had asked in 1948 were raised again. This introspection occurred due to the exposure to world cinema provided by the Festival, Why is it that the Indian films should…not create more authentic pictures of contemporary social reality as the works of the Italian masters of the cinematic art do, interpret history in a more emotionally convincing and socially significant way as the Russians do or try to enter the realm of poetry as the French do.106 Citing examples like The Path of Hope (1950), Adib highlighted how with almost no words, emotive scenes can be depicted. The realism of Italian cinema was praised for its ability to achieve such visual quality where words are not needed. The better use of non-professional actors and the director’s greater skill in shooting on location was noticed as reasons behind the Italian success. De Sica’s Miracle of Milan (1951) was also cited for its imaginative combination of fantasy and reality. He explained, what gives emotional depth to these pictures is their humanity – poetically tender feeling for human beings with all their foibles…Our scenario writers and directors have to learn that social content…can only flow from human beings – whose experiences the audience relives – in conflict with a social system. What our film artists have to learn is the art of creating characters which are believable and of ruthlessly cutting out everything that is not emotionally convincing…the Indian film artists have yet to learn to go beyond cinematic cliches to a simpler filmic diction charged with a more sincere emotion, a greater tension and a richer meaning.107 During the Festival, Capra was invited to write an article for the TOI. By way of giving “personal hints” to the Indian filmmaker, he emphasised and repeated the need to remain “Indian”,

54  Situating the Desire for a New Cinema (1950s) Do not copy American or any other non-Indian forms. True art springs from the native blood and soil…For stories look around you. You are part of the great awakening of a great people. Dramatise this awakening…Make pictures that please you, not what you think will please others…Never refer to audiences as “masses.” People are not masses, but individuals like you and me…Improve your equipment, but remember you make the pictures, not machines…Look for a good story first. Stars are secondary…Human hearts are the same everywhere. If your picture appeals to Indian hearts chances are it will appeal to audiences all over…Let there be hope in your pictures, not frustration. Criticise the fools, expose the frauds, lambast the greedy, laugh at the pompous, but praise the merciful, the just and the good.108 He left a manifesto for an alternate cinema for the young and enthusiastic filmmakers in India, who were just exposed to globally renowned and cinematically rich films. Because the festival toured in four metropolitan cities, film lovers across India watched world cinema, which did leave deep and lasting impressions on both the filmmaker and filmgoer. The government also entered into various trade agreements with international production and distribution houses. Most importantly, the Festival gave a push to ‘realism’ in Indian cinema.109 Even the common film audience got to be introduced to this genre of feature film, and understood why it is so important to enrich the content and style of a feature film. A ground was getting prepared for what was to come in 1955 (Pather Panchali) and then in the late 1960s (Bhuvan Shome-Sara Akash-Uski Roti). The enthusiasm which filmgoers showed in watching non-Hollywood films, proved that there was an audience in India for a realist, non-melodramatic, less glamorous cinema. This audience, literate or not, had the sense to appreciate a Bicycle Thieves and a Rashomon. Experiences were shared by foreign filmmakers with their Indian counterparts on arranging finance to make these kinds of films. From government officials to the common film lover, everyone started discussing the need for quality in cinema. The press covered various discussions and discourses around the issue of (absence of) filmic craft in India and demanded that we learn from our French, Italian, and Russian counterparts. This did not mean moving away from Indianness. The message and long-term impact of the Festival can be summed up in what Capra said – “Remain Indian.” Film Seminar, Sangeet Natak Akademi (1955) After the submission of the Film Enquiry Committee report and the successful organisation of the first IFFI, cinema was emerging as a serious subject to be discussed. After the government, filmmakers, and the press, the autonomous cultural bodies, too, started taking an interest in cinema and

Situating the Desire for a New Cinema (1950s)  55 its discourse. Accepting that cinema was emerging “as a force which must be channelized to the best interest of our people”, the General Council of the Sangeet Natak Akademi decided to sponsor a Film Seminar, “the first of its kind in the annals of the motion picture industry of India”, to be held in February 1955.110 The object of the Seminar was “to direct a collective probe into the many facets of film industry and to assess its role in our national life.”111 Devika Rani and Prithvi raj Kapoor acted as the Directors of the Seminar, and its proceedings were conducted under the Chairmanship of B.N. Sircar.112 The Seminar was inaugurated in New Delhi by Jawaharlal Nehru on 25 February 1955. It went on till 4 March 1955. B.N. Sircar, talking in the inaugural session, understood film as the most important art form of that day. He expressed his optimism, I see a great future, a glorious future, for Indian films. Before long, I expect Indian films to be exhibited to crowded houses all over the world, and they will earn not only money for our country but also reputation for beauty, goodness and truth. India must and will make its distinctive contribution to the film art of the world and I am confident it will.113 Nehru, in his inaugural speech, said that the government must take interest in a thing in which millions were interested. He started his speech in Hindi and said, हर ाँ मे एक एक आदमी खास चीज़ जानता है है कि सिनिमा आजकल की दु निय जिसका असर उसपर काफ़ी है . इसलिये हमे इसमे दिलचस्प लेनी है और इस से ाँ होना मिनारएक कामाक़ू यह ल बात है . अच्छ बात है कि जो लोग इस काम से खास तौर से ताल्लक़ रखते है वे आपस मे मिले, सलाह और मशवरा करे. क्ोक�ि इसी ों पर तरह रोशनी पेचपड़ती ीदा सवाल है . ज़ाहिर है कि जैसे फिल्म इन्डस्टर को इसमे ाँ की हुकू दिलचस्प मत कोहै भी उसी काफ़ी तरहदिलचस्प यह है .114 Without wishing too much interference by the government in the film or any art-based industry, Nehru further elaborated on the issue, inevitably the Government, not with any intention to compete, nevertheless is likely to compete, with private ventures in films; it itself might produce – not, of course, of the same type only, whether it is documentaries or whether it is specialised films for children and others. Not again with the desire to compete, but to some extent the results might be a setting up of standards by a certain measure of competition.115 The three key points that emerged through his speech were the likely competition with private filmmaking, the state entering film production, and the setting up of standards by competing on content and production values.

56  Situating the Desire for a New Cinema (1950s) This Seminar was unique in the sense that the industry people themselves participated in it enthusiastically, presented papers, and shared their views frankly on various aspects of filmmaking. V. Shantaram asked, in his paper, if a producer should exploit the baser instincts of his audience by providing him cheap, vulgar, and obscene entertainment or if he should try to elevate its taste by appealing to its finer aesthetic sense of beauty and truth.116 He asked the artist to produce a picture which conformed to the Indian classic definition of art symbolic of Satyam, Shivam, Sundaram.117 He reminded the producers of their social obligations and responsibilities, which according to him, was “no longer a matter of theoretical discussion”. Rather, he categorically emphasised, “It is the manner in which he plays this role and fulfils his obligations that will determine not only the progress of the film art in India but the progress of the nation itself.”118 Many such voices were emerging during this time which connected filmmaking with the progress of the nation-state. The New Cinema movement itself desired not only to redefine Indian cinema aesthetically but also aspired to mark filmmaking as a national activity. On the much-debated question of the ‘filmmaker’s burden’ to create an ideal and reformed society, Dilip Kumar said, A refined society has to develop itself first. The need for an alert and live community is essential before the conscious producer can survive or thrive. It does not imply that the Indian producer should give in to conditions that are a legacy of hundreds of years of cramped and subjugated living and thinking. I have said all this only to point out the depth and the immense magnitude of his task and duties in catering to a community that has yet to crystalise itself in the matter of living, thinking, education and artistic wants.119 Kishore Sahu read a paper on independent producers and their contribution to the film industry. In his passionate speech, he expressed his disillusionment with the government, its lack of support, and total apathy to the film industry. He fervently pointed out the contributions of the film producers in nation-building, Have not we, the film producers of India, taken part in our own way in the struggle for freedom? Have we not kept the millions and millions of our people entertained all these years? Have we not made pictures with patriotic themes? Have we not presented our social problems? Have we not depicted the good and evil that exist in our society? Have we not preached reforms in our films? Have we not donated lakhs of rupees to the various national causes from time to time? Have we not helped and co-operated with our leaders and our Government in popularising Hindi throughout the length and breadth of this vast continent of

Situating the Desire for a New Cinema (1950s)  57 India?…Why then, may I ask, should our industry not receive recognition or its due reward at the hands of our Government?120 The lack of adequate finance was the biggest of the producers’ problems. Sahu appealed for lower rates of interests, training institutes, libraries, clubs, more theatres, and a restriction of the import and playing time of foreign films through a quota system. In short, he appealed for “State patronage, without which no industry in any country can survive or flourish.”121 Bimal Roy, supporting Sahu’s appeal, requested the government add one more ministerial department, the Ministry of Art and Culture, which would “come in closer contact with us and all other artistic and cultural movements in the country”.122 Bimal Roy, Kishore Sahu, and K.A. Abbas, all endorsed and repeated the urgent need for a Financial Corporation, suggested by the Film Enquiry Committee, but “put in cold storage by the Government”.123 Though no resolutions were passed at the Seminar, in the papers presented and the discussions following the papers, several suggestions were made, and the Sangeet Natak Akademi was requested to follow up on them. Some of the recommendations included: one, reduction in the entertainment tax collected by the state governments, for the benefit of the film industry, e.g. by subsidising the production of films having educational and aesthetic value; two, the government should establish a Film Finance Corporation to give loans to producers at reasonable interest rates, to advance money to owners of studios for building up specialised departments, and, to start research centres and technical institutions dealing with different branches of filmmaking; and three, holding annual contests or competitions with substantial prizes for the best stories suitable for films.124 The FFC in the Making One sees two united voices emerging from filmmakers and producers: that there is a need to change the way Indian cinema looks, and that financing and changing the production ethics is the key to bring radical changes in the Indian film industry. Many from within and outside the film industry saw the state playing a crucial role in bringing these two changes. Though the state was present in all these debates and discussions, in providing a platform to the film community to come together and discuss the issues troubling the industry, it was still hesitant to take up its responsibilities towards the film industry. The recommendations of the Film Enquiry Committee were yet to be taken up seriously by the government. The press reported in May 1954 that the government had rejected the FFC plan.125 Dr. B.V. Keskar, the then Minister of Information and Broadcasting, presented a statement to the Parliament on the action taken by the government on the recommendations of the Film Enquiry Committee. The government had decided instead to set up a National Film Board with a view to “developing the film as a medium of national culture, education and healthy entertainment”.126

58  Situating the Desire for a New Cinema (1950s) The Board was to direct and supervise the work of two new bodies, the Film Production Bureau and the Film Institute. The Film Production Bureau would give advice on scripts, offer guidance to producers on various aspects of production such as story, scenario, artistic talent, and cost estimates. It would provide a library and research service. The functions of the Bureau would be purely advisory. The Ministry told the Parliament that in the present state of the industry, the setting up of a representative statutory Film Council of India, as recommended by the Enquiry Committee, would not be advisable. It was feared that such a Council, at this stage – when there are diverse elements in the industry in different stages of development and with the attendant difficulty of reconciling several interests – would find it difficult to wield authority and take the responsibility of shaping the affairs of the industry. The Government would, however, be prepared to encourage any move on the part of the film industry itself to form a Film Council based on voluntary co-operation.127 The Committee’s recommendation for an FFC was found “unacceptable both in view of more urgent commitments under the Five-Year Plan and the business risks involved in the proposal.”128 It only offered ‘suitable machinery by legislation’ if producers were inclined to find necessary funds for a corporation by contributions or otherwise. The government had, however, decided in principle to provide suitable grants for specific purposes such as the production of educational and children’s films. In October 1954, State Awards for Films were inaugurated “to encourage production of films of a high aesthetic and technical standard and educative and cultural value”.129 Films like Shyamchi Aai (1953) and Do Bigha Zamin were presented with the President’s Gold Medal and Certificate of Merit respectively. These decisions received a mixed response. The FFI urged the government to help stabilise the film industry by creating a film finance corporation as early as possible on mutually acceptable terms and conditions.130 By September 1956, the government yielded to the demand for a finance corporation. News came that the government had decided to constitute a National Film Board and a Film Finance Corporation to help the development of the motion picture industry.131 First rejected, it was later realised that the film industry with its “tremendous educative and entertainment values, should be given State aid for proper development.”132 The proposed Board was to have, as its constituent units, the present censorship organisation, a production bureau, and a film institute. The FFC would initially have a capital of Rs. one crore. The Bill to this effect was introduced in the Rajya Sabha on 10 December 1956.133 The National Film Board was being set up “to promote the development of film as a medium of culture, education and healthy entertainment.”134 The FFC was to render financial assistance to film producers by way of loans. The Annual Report also informed that the form

Situating the Desire for a New Cinema (1950s)  59 and details of organisation and the general principles governing the method of financing were being worked out.135 However, there was again a long silence on the formation of the Corporation and the Board. While replying to a debate on the Cinematograph (Amendment) Bill in Lok Sabha in December 1958, Dr. Keskar stated that the government was taking steps to establish an FFC “on a modest scale”.136 He also said that the preliminary work in this direction was already over, and the question would have been taken up much earlier but for the financial difficulties of the government. He also advised the gathering of producers, exhibitors, distributors, and film artistes to organise itself on sound business lines to overcome its financial and other difficulties.137 He invited the industry’s co-operation in achieving the ideal of a “wealthy and prosperous country”. He also stressed that the film industry was essentially a “social industry”. It provided entertainment and also served as a medium of instruction to the masses. It had, therefore, an important part to play in the evolution of society. It should not divorce itself from the society from which it drew its sustenance. Ministers still used phrases like “duty to society”, “people’s and the country’s welfare in their minds”, and films having a “beneficial influence” in their speeches and statements while talking about the film industry.138 Mr. Keskar was told that the Indian film industry was still facing the problem of lack of finance, and the high rates of interest which the producers had inevitably to pay the financiers were aggravating the problems. A suggestion was placed with the Minister that the Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) could help the industry, with its large funds, by advancing loans. The Film Finance Corporation Limited finally came into existence in March 1960. It started functioning in May 1960 in its Bombay office, with the appointment of a nine-member board of directors with Mr. N.D. Mehrotra, a retired Income-tax Commissioner, as Chairman.139 The main objectives of the Corporation were: to promote and assist the film industry by providing, affording, or procuring finance, and/or other facilities for the production of films of good standard and quality with a view to raising the standard of films produced. The FFC started with an authorised capital of Rs. one crore to be subscribed entirely by the government of India. Concluding Remarks This chapter traced two issues: a rising desire for an alternative cinema, and the involvement of the state, in various roles, in this desire. Young filmmakers and cinephiles, exposed to world cinema, were questioning the role of cinema in society, and the existing popular notions of entertainment-based cinema. They, and the state also, wanted to bring wider changes in the way one looked at cinema, making it global, realistic, and socially responsible. For this, structural changes were required, at the level of production, financing, and training. The film industry was not capable of taking this enormous responsibility on its own. It needed the state to intervene in a regulatory, but

60  Situating the Desire for a New Cinema (1950s) non-interfering, way. The demand for a Film Finance Corporation emerged to be the most important demand of this decade. The state, with initial hitches and hesitations, finally provided the FFC. Notes 1 Personal Interview with Kumar Shahani, New Delhi, 24 May 2016. 2 Personal Interview with Shyam Benegal, Mumbai, 15 June 2015. 3 Ray, 1976, p.19. 4 Ibid. p.21. 5 Ibid. p.21. 6 Vittorio De Sica’s Bicycle Thieves (1948) has been a representative feature film of this genre, and is regarded as the masterpiece of Italian neorealism. The film was released in Italy in November 1948. Indian filmmakers, including Ray himself, have confessed to have been influenced and inspired by this film. In an interview, Goutam Ghose confessed how, when he saw Bicycle Thieves in a film society, he was “absolutely moved and shaken”, “It was a dramatic change from the kind of films I was used to. It introduced me to realism, to the power of the medium.” See, Goutam Ghose and Indira Dayal, ‘Goutam Ghose’, Cinema in India, Annual 1991, p.32. 7 Ray, 1976, p.21. 8 Ibid. pp.22–3. 9 Ibid. p.23. 10 Ibid. 11 Ibid. pp.23–4. For an excellent analysis of IPTA’s role in shaping Indian cinema in the 1940s and 1950s, see Chakravartty, 2005. 12 Ray, 1976, p.24. 13 Ibid. 14 Satyajit Ray was one of the nineteen founding members of the Calcutta Film Society, founded on 5 October 1947. The members wanted to create a conducive atmosphere for ‘intelligent film-making’. For more, see Cherian, 2017. 15 Shah, 1950, p.263. 16 Ibid. pp.263–4. The recommendations of the Film Enquiry Committee were not yet published; the demand for a finance corporation preceded the constitution of a Film Enquiry Committee in 1949. Kumar Shahani also remembered the rate of interest to be almost 200 per cent, borrowed from and repaid to people having black money, etc. Personal Interview with Kumar Shahani, New Delhi, 3 May 2016. 17 Shah, 1950, p.264. 18 Ibid. p.265. 19 A precursor to the 1949 Enquiry Committee, the document is a fascinating and significant read. Its recommendations on financing and training of artistes and technicians were to reappear in the 1951 Report. On financing, it pointed out a “vicious circle” present in the industry, “the exhibitor does not get enough suitable Indian films because the producer does not produce them; the producer does not produce them because he is short of finance; if he produced a better type of film he would get a better return; but he does not do so because he is short of finance. It is not however entirely a question of finance, it is a question of imagination, of enterprise, and of culture.” (pp.47–8). The Committee had recommended creation of a centralised Cinema Department as a part of the Commerce Department of the Government of India. It had generally concluded that cinema is of great national importance as it contributed its share to the general revenue of the country, and therefore must receive liberal treatment from

Situating the Desire for a New Cinema (1950s)  61 the ­government (p.147). See, Report of the Indian Cinematograph Committee, 1927–1928, 1928. 20 Prasad, ‘The State in/of Cinema’, p.126. 21 See Chapter 1 in this book for a detailed discussion on the FD. 22 Report of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting 1948–49, p.23. 23 ‘Development of Film Industry: Inquiry Committee Appointed’, The Times of India, 2 September 1949, p.7. 24 Personal Interview with Kumar Shahani, New Delhi, 3 May 2016. 25 Report of the Film Enquiry Committee, p.1. 26 Ibid. 27 Dr. Tripathi was associated with the Allahabad School of History, regarded as ‘nationalist and liberal’ school of historiography working mainly on history of Medieval India. The eminent historian Satish Chandra was his student. 28 Report of the Film Enquiry Committee, p.3. 29 Ibid. p.17. 30 Ibid. p.28. 31 Ibid. p.42. 32 Ibid. 33 Ibid. p.43. 34 Ibid. p.46. 35 Ibid. p.48. 36 Ibid. 37 Ibid. 38 Ibid. p.49. 39 See Ibid. pp.73–4. A.K. Bir, K.K. Mahajan, Shama Zaidi, and Vanraj Bhatia, all FTII alumna, have contributed immensely to the New Cinema in India. 40 The PCA was set up by the USA film industry in the 1930s in order to advise them on the aspects which were likely to displease or offend the various sections of the public or the censors in countries where the film may be sent. It represented the efforts of the film industry to reform itself before the public or the state interfered more drastically in the matter. See Report of the Film Enquiry Committee, pp.85–6. 41 Ibid. p.87. 42 Ibid. p.95. 43 Ibid. p.99. 44 Ibid. p.101. 45 Ibid. 46 Ibid. 47 Ibid. p.102. 48 Ibid. 49 For details, see Ibid. pp.194–7. 50 Ibid. p.102. 51 Ibid. p.104. 52 Ibid. pp.104–5. 53 Ibid. p.106. 54 Ibid. 55 See Ibid. p.139. 56 Ibid. p.172. 57 Ibid. p.174. 58 Ibid. pp.175–6. 59 Ibid. p.182. The three national Akademis, the NSD, and the FTII fulfilled this demand. 60 Ibid. pp.182–3.

62  Situating the Desire for a New Cinema (1950s) 61 Ibid. p.184. 62 Ibid. p.185. 63 Ibid. 64 Ibid. pp.187–8. 65 Prasad, ‘The State in/of Cinema’, p.131. For details on the Council, See Report of the Film Enquiry Committee, pp.188–94. 66 Report of the Film Enquiry Committee, p.189. 67 See Ibid. p.190. 68 Ibid. pp.198–9. 69 Ibid. p.201. 70 Ibid. pp.201–2. 71 A crore is the sum of ten million. 72 Report of the Film Enquiry Committee, p.202. 73 Ibid. 74 ‘Need to Set Up Statutory Film Council: Recommendation By Inquiry Committee’, The Times of India, 12 October 1951, p.5. 75 ‘Rationalisation of Taxation: Film Inquiry Body’s Recommendation’, The Times of India, 3 March 1951, p.5. 76 ‘Indian Film Industry: Genesis and History’, The Times of India, 24 February 1952, p.III. 77 Ibid. 78 Ibid. p.V. 79 Y.A. Fazalbhoy, ‘Indian Film Industry and Film Enquiry Committee’s Report: Role of the State and the Public’, The Times of India, 24 February 1952, p.V. 80 Ibid. 81 ‘No State Control, Says Mr. Patil, Improving Film Industry’, The Times of India, 11 March 1952, p.5. 82 ‘“Present Taxation will Ruin Film Industry”, Government Attitude Deplored’, The Times of India, 27 December 1952, p.3. 83 Ibid. Having a Chalachitra Akademi, on the lines of other three national Akademis set up in the 1950s, under the Ministry of Culture, remained an unfulfilled dream, even after Karanth Committee’s (1980) strong recommendations favouring its formation. For more, see Cherian, 2017, pp.8–11. 84 ‘Action on Film Inquiry Body Recommendations, Mr. Patil Asks Govt. to Revise Decisions’, The Times of India, 27 May 1954, p.3. 85 Ibid. 86 Ibid. 87 See Pandya, 2017. This article shares some rare photographs from the Festival. 88 Annual Report on the Activities of the Information and Broadcasting Ministry and Its Attached Units for the Year 1951–52, pp.42–3. Also see, Binford, “Media Policy as a Catalyst to Creativity”, pp.83–125 for details on the role of the IFFI in India’s New Cinema movement. 89 Ray, ‘Our Festivals, Their Festivals’, pp.130–1. 90 Robinson, 2004, p.82. 91 Benegal, ‘Foreword’, in Ray, Satyajit Ray On Cinema, p.x. 92 Nair, 1999, p.22. 93 Ibid. Abbas-Kapoor’s Shree 420 (1954) can also be included in the list. 94 Chakravartty, 2005, p.32. 95 ‘Film Festival of India: Non-Competitive Show’, The Times of India, 21 December 1951, p.9. Also see, Khandpur, 1985. 96 ‘Elaborate Plans for Coming International Film Festival’, The Times of India, 13 January 1952, p.2.

Situating the Desire for a New Cinema (1950s)  63 97 ‘22 Nations’ Film For Festival: Hollywood Stars for Bombay’, The Times of India, 20 January 1952, p.3. 98 ‘Russian Screen Stars in Bombay: Delegates for Film Festival’, The Times of India, 21 January 1952, p.3. 99 ‘Film Festival Starts Today: Inauguration by Minister’, The Times of India, 24 January 1952, p.7. 100 ‘First of Its Kind in Asia’, The Times of India, 25 January 1952, p.1. 101 ‘Films as a Medium of Education’, The Times of India, 26 January 1952, p.8. 102 ‘Film Producers Abroad: Aid Given by State’, The Times of India, 1 February 1952, p.9. 103 Perhaps the reporter meant the Bengali film Chinnamul (1950), directed by Nemai Ghosh. The film is regarded as the first Indian film dealing with the Partition of India. 104 ‘Foreign Interest in Indian Films: Delegates’ Hope’, The Times of India, 31 January 1952, p.5. 105 See Adib, ‘Life and Letters: Beyond Cinematic Cliches’, The Times of India, 8 February 1952, p.6. 106 Ibid. 107 Ibid. 108 Frank Capra, ‘Making a Good Film’, The Times of India, 2 March 1952, p.6. The TOI also received a letter to editor by a Mr. M.D. Nadkarni from Bombay, supporting all the advices given by Capra to Indian filmmakers. Mr. Nadkarni wrote in his letter, “Ours is no doubt an age of experiment. Nevertheless, continuous experimentation at achieving something new has more often than not tended to engender a craze for things modern and a dislike for things Indian. Mr. Capra’s very first hint to “remain Indian” has therefore a special significance in this context.” See, ‘Making Good Films, To The Editor, Times of India’, The Times of India, 6 March 1952, p.6. 109 Chakravarty, 1996, wrote a separate chapter on national identity and the realist aesthetic. According to her, the debate on realism in the 1950s had implications for the “politics of self-representation.” p.81. She elaborated her point, “the achievement of realism in a film becomes a mark of value, a sign of sincerity and truthfulness on the part of the filmmaker and of “authenticity” of the material presented. This was particularly true during the postindependence [sic] period, when such qualities crystallized the hopes of a nation in search of its “true” identity and trying to assign meaning to the complex process of change. As the medium with the potential power to bring India symbolically face-to-face with its own image(s), the cinema found itself implicated in paradoxical ways in the whole cultural response to nationhood.” pp.80–1. According to her, realism was “the masquerading moral conscience” of the Indian intelligentsia in their assumed role of national leadership during the fifties. 110 Report 1953–1958, p.45. 111 Ibid. 112 Sircar was also one of the members of the Film Enquiry Committee (1951). 113 Film Seminar Report 1955, p.9. The Seminar had received delegates from China who specifically mentioned the premiere of Do Bigha Zamin (1953) among the literary and art circles in Peking, which was “highly acclaimed by those who saw it, will soon be dubbed into the Chinese language and released for public screening all over China.” p.72. Satyajit Ray’s Pather Panchali was yet to be released. Released in Calcutta in August 1955, the film was going to change the way the world looked at Indian cinema.

64  Situating the Desire for a New Cinema (1950s) 114 Ibid. p.10. Nehru had said, everybody knows that, in today’s world, cinema is a special thing which affects a person immensely. Therefore we need to take interest in it and it is only fair that this seminar is conducted here today. It is a good thing that people who are related with filmmaking meet and consult each other. This helps in throwing light on complex issues. It is clear that the way film industry has taken interest in the seminar, the government also is fascinated by cinema in similar ways. 115 Ibid. p.15. 116 Ibid. p.74. 117 Ibid. 118 Ibid. p.78. 119 Ibid. p.85. 120 Ibid. pp.94–5. 121 Ibid. p.95. 122 Ibid. p.97. 123 Ibid. p.99. 124 Report 1953–1958, pp.47–8. The NFDC incorporated the third suggestion only in the 1980s. 125 ‘National Film Board to be Established Soon’, The Times of India, 20 May 1954, p.5. 126 Ibid. 127 ‘National Film Board to be Established Soon’. 128 Ibid. 129 Report 1954–55, p.2. Also see Binford, “Media Policy as a Catalyst to Creativity”, pp.125–46 for details on the role of government instituted film awards in India’s New Cinema movement. 130 ‘Film Finance Corporation: Federation Urges Establishment’, The Times of India, 16 June 1954, p.7. 131 ‘Film Board & Finance Body To Be Set Up: State Aid to Develop Industry’, The Times of India, 21 September 1956, p.1. 132 Ibid. 133 Annual Report 1956–57, p.36. 134 Ibid. 135 Ibid. 136 ‘Film Finance Corporation: Govt. Is Taking Measures’, The Times of India, 20 December 1958, p.9. 137 ‘Organisation On Sound Lines Needed: Keskar’s Advice to Film Industry’, The Times of India, 18 July 1961, p.5. 138 ‘Keskar Willing to Look Into Grievances of The Industry’, Screen, 5 February 1960, p.1. 139 ‘Finance Corporation Starts Working, Mr. Mehrotra Is Chairman’, Screen, 20 May 1960, p.1.

3

Formation of the Film Finance Corporation New Cinema Gets Institutionalised (1960–74)

Some major events falling within the purview of this chapter need to be mentioned at the outset. These events had policy-level effects on the workings of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, the Indian film industry, and the FFC, thus affecting the progress of New Cinema, too. Events like the introduction of colour films in 1961, the India-China War of 1962, Nehru’s death in 1964, the India-Pakistan War of 1965, followed by Lal Bahadur Shastri’s death, the drought and famine of 1966, 1967, and 1968, resulting in the Five Year Plans being put on hold, the India-Pakistan War of 1971, and India’s involvement in the Bangladesh War of Liberation, and various instabilities occurring in Indian politics from 1974, leading to the declaration of Emergency in 1975, must be kept in mind while reading this chapter. These events disrupted the Indian state’s support for the FFC and the New Cinema. The making of nationalist/patriotic films like Haqeeqat (1964), Shaheed (1965), and Upkar (1967) also reflect the changes at the popular cultural level. The FFC and New Indian Cinema in the Pre-Bhuvan Shome Period (1960–8) The Film Finance Corporation was registered on 25 March 1960 as a company under the Companies Act, 1956. The authorised capital was Rs. one crore. The Government was the sole shareholder and the then paid-up capital was Rs. fifty lakhs.1 It functioned under the Ministry of Finance. The formation of the FFC was a result of years of deliberation over the problem of finances, and how to enable a producer to make a film without being pressurised by distributors and exhibitors. The press was already congratulating the film industry for the formation of the FFC and predicted that it would help stabilise the “state of trade”.2 It called the formation of the Corporation “the most important step taken by the Government to help the industry”.3 It was believed, “With sufficient prudence and vision, the Corporation can be developed into a model institution serving the industry.”4 However, the selection of members of the FFC’s board of directors, who were “well versed in fiscal or administrative matters and not conversant with filmic affairs” became the first point of criticism, a valid one, against the FFC. Dr. Rikhab Dass Jain demanded industry representation on the board of directors of the DOI: 10.4324/9781003335436-4

66  Formation of the Film Finance Corporation Corporation;5 without which the FFC could not achieve the “desired goal”. He also advised that the Corporation should base its policy primarily on commercial considerations and ensure that the films financed not just recover their costs but also make profits. Unlike others, he was supportive of the loan conditions, which “may seem drastic” but “is sure to reduce the risk of losses”. However, he also speculated elsewhere that due to the controlling and interfering nature of the Corporation’s policies, it was “quite idle to believe that the so called talented producers would like and prefer to work within the frame-work of the Corporation.”6 The FFC invited applications for loans from October 1960.7 The printed application was to be submitted in triplicate, accompanied by a fee of Rs. 250 and a deposit of Rs. 2,500. A copy of the script and a synopsis in English were also required to be submitted along with the application. The application form ran into 11 pages and sought information like the applicant’s total income, sources of income during the past five years, and his movable and immovable assets, including the films produced by him. He was asked to state the period during which he expected to complete the film and also arrangements for its distribution. The deposit sum of Rs. 2,500 was refundable in case a loan application was not sanctioned or if an applicant withdrew his application within 15 days. The deposit amount was readjusted against the repayment instalments in cases where a loan was sanctioned. The applicant to whom a loan was sanctioned was to have to invest 25 per cent of the total cost of production on his own before he was given a loan instalment by the Corporation.8 An initial objection to this specific term came from producer-director Vasant Joglekar, who was hopeful that the FFC may help experimentation on the Indian screen to some extent, provided it made some changes in its loan conditions. Many new producers may not have had the required 25 per cent amount too, and the situation would force them to go to the private distributor to arrange for this sum, continuing the old order. Thereby, he suggested, the first one in the list of many to join sooner, that the FFC could have its own distribution network, too.9 It was reported that for that time a loan amount in each case was not to exceed Rs. 3,50,000.10 On the rates of interest, two different provisions were fixed, seven and a half per cent in cases where the security furnished by the applicants was to the satisfaction of the Corporation, and nine per cent in other cases. If a producer promptly repaid the loan, he could be given a rebate in the rate of interest. To build up a reserve fund, another provision entitled the Corporation to claim about one per cent of the gross receipts after the film was released. To assist the FFC in the scrutiny of loan applications, a ten-member advisory committee, composed mostly of representatives of the film industry, was formed.11 Mr. B. Nagi Reddi, president of the FFI was asked to accept the chairmanship of this advisory committee. Other industry people whose consent to be on the committee was sought included Devika Rani, Mehboob Khan, Prithviraj Kapoor, Satyajit Ray, and Devaki Bose. They were invited as individuals, and not as representatives of the film industry. Reddi strongly demanded that the

Formation of the Film Finance Corporation  67 government give the advisory committee a representative status so that their advice and opinion could carry due weight with the government and ensure compliance in the industry.12 The FFC procedure of receiving loan applications and responding to them was subjected to criticism from film producers in Bengal.13 The Bengal Motion Picture Association (BMPA) viewed the FFC bye-laws and regulations to be extremely cumbersome which would only cause delays in the disposal of applications for loans.14 In a meeting between the then FFC Chairman G.B. Kotak and the FFC Board, and the executive committee of the Eastern India Motion Picture Association and a number of Bengali producers, in Calcutta, the question relating to the detailed procedure of obtaining loans from the Corporation was discussed. Producers and members of the film industry expressed their “righteous indignation at the reported insistence of the Corporation on sufficient security against the loans.”15 Due to stiff terms and conditions including the security to be furnished, there were not sufficient applications for such loans. Producers contended that they were not in a position to afford or offer any security and, if they were so able, they would not have any need to approach the Corporation for a loan. They felt that this insistence on requisite security would frustrate the primary object of the Corporation which was to solidify sufficient financial assistance to producers without resources.16 Another criticism raised was regarding the type of film the Corporation should finance. The Screen editor N.G. Jog believed that the FFC should avoid losses, keep its assets liquid, and operate by “commercial” rather than “cultural” standards. He wrote: The main objective of this body is not…to improve the standards of our films, though this it might make an indirect contribution towards that end. In the initial stages, one may not expect it to go out of its way to encourage only off-beat ventures.17 The FFC Chairman Mr. Mehrotra responded to some of these issues.18 He pointed out some technical glitches in appointing an industry representative in the directorate. He asked if a producer would give an undertaking that he would not take part in any production activity till he was on the board of the directorate so that there would be no accusation of bias from him or the Corporation. He said that the Corporation granted loans after it was satisfied with the good faith of the producer, if the story was good, and had a good director. On questions of delay in granting loans, he explained that where the public money was involved, there was bound to be some delay. He clarified that the FFC was more responsible to the Parliament than to anyone else. One of the FFC directors, K. Subrahmanyam, advised industry members regarding the security and other details required in the application forms not to be frightened or alarmed by such demands on the face of it. In spite of these assurances, the FFI annual report (1962) expressed its dissatisfaction with the FFC bye-laws and the rules and regulations which were

68  Formation of the Film Finance Corporation framed without taking the film industry into confidence. According to the report, “Under the present bye-laws, the producer will find himself handicapped in the pursuit of his normal production. The object of financing by the Corporation – healthy promotion of production activities – stands little chance of successful achievement.”19 However, some producers lauded the “efficient working” of the FFC. Veteran Kannada producer-director-actor R. Nagendra Rao described the FFC as a “boon to the hard-pressed small budget producer.”20 He said that the regional language film productions could gain much from this organisation. His Kannada film, Vijayanagarada Veeraputhra, was the first Kannada movie to be completed and released with the FFC’s financial assistance. He also denied having faced any red tape or delay in his dealings with the Corporation. In April 1962, it was reported that the FFC had sanctioned two fresh loans amounting to Rs. six lakhs for films to be produced by private parties.21 The Corporation had, in the two years since its inception, granted loans totalling Rs. 32 lakhs to nine producers for the production of films. Three years were fixed as the maximum period within which the loan ought to be returned. The Chairman Mr. Mehrotra was reported to have said that the aim of the Corporation in extending loans to film producers was to stimulate the production of good quality, progressive films. He also said that the story was the most important factor in deciding on an application. The Corporation also requested the Union Finance Ministry to allow it to use discretion in deserving cases to reduce the application scrutiny fee of Rs. 2,500 as well as the pre-application spending of 25 per cent of the total investment of the film that was insisted upon before the loan was extended.22 The request was apparently made in view of the film industry’s plea to the Corporation that both clauses be reasonably reduced. These discretionary powers were granted to the Corporation and it was notified that it may no longer be essential for a producer to invest 25 per cent of the budgeted cost of a film before approaching the FFC for a loan. The board of directors of the Corporation was vested with the discretion to reduce or increase the percentage.23 The deposit to be made by a loan applicant was also reduced from Rs. 2,500 to Rs. 1,000. The second annual report of the FFC showed a net profit of Rs. 27,000 as against the previous year’s loss of Rs. 18,000. However, the report was criticised for not giving any clue as to what principles or factors guided the institution in sanctioning loans.24 The Corporation was advised to operate on commercial standards,25 like any other industrial financing body. Screen believed, “The Corporation’s utility will increase if it…adopts a firm and business-like policy.”26 The India-China War of 1962 brought another kind of burden on the state and the film industry. The film industry responded very positively to the call for donations.27 Mr. Kotak had reported that the Emergency imposed during the Indo-China War had shelved he Corporation’s hands-on issues of the FFC assisting the construction of studios and cinema houses in some of the key centres.28 The gross income of the FFC for the year 1962–3 was

Formation of the Film Finance Corporation  69 Rs. 2,67,346.54 as against Rs. 1,12,233.50 of the previous year and the net profit, after providing for all known liabilities amounted to Rs. 1,64,904.75 as against the profit of Rs. 27,179.30 of 1961–2.29 According to the report, “The steep rise in the gross income is mainly due to increase in interest on larger advances to the producers during the year and higher interest on deposits with banks.” The government of India had provided in its 1963–4 budget an advance of Rs. 10,00,000 on interest to the Corporation. The press wanted the government to double the FFC’s authorised capital and found this advance of only Rs. ten lakhs as a “half-hearted measure” which would not provide much help to the Corporation.30 The total number of loans sanctioned to 34 producers up to 31 March 1963 amounted to Rs. 99,17,500. A record number of loan applications, 46, were received by the FFC from film producers during the period 1 April 1962 to 31 March 1963, as against 16 received during the previous year.31 Of these, 25 applications worth Rs. 67,29,000, were accepted. As per the language-wise breakdown of the applications received, producers of Hindi films were highest in applying and getting accepted from the FFC’s inception till March 1963. Of the 53 received, 20 were accepted. It also showed that very few applications were received for films in regional languages. The Corporation’s record did not seem to be very encouraging on the recovery of loans, which was slow due to the sluggish pace of production. The modest-budget pictures, financed by the Corporation, were not in demand by the distributors, however purposeful and of high standard they may be. Though recommended by its advisory committee, largely composed of industry men, Mr. Kotak, its Chairman, did not favour the FFC undertaking either distribution or exhibition. The public was also noticing there were incomplete FFC films.32 Amidst some of these criticisms, administrative control over the FFC was transferred from the Ministry of Finance to the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting in August 1964, and the transfer was largely welcomed by the industry.33 By 1965, the FFC started talking about artistic considerations as criteria to sanction loans. M.D. Bhat, the newly appointed Chairman, declared in an interview that the Corporation was eager to provide financial help to promising producers who aspired to make artistic pictures.34 Consideration had also been given to the question of inducing some reputed and established producers to make films with the Corporation’s aid. The Union Deputy Minister of Information and Broadcasting, Mr. Pattabhiraman, referring to the criticism that the method of giving loans to producers by the FFC had failed and that it had lost heavily due to its “puritanic and biased attitude”, said that it had been decided now that 50 per cent of the loans would be given purely on a commercial basis and the remaining on artistic considerations. The government would not mind even losing money if quality films, which would bring prestige to the country abroad, resulted from loans of the latter variety.35 At the fifth annual general meeting held in Bombay in 1965, M.D. Bhat emphasised that the box-office record of the FFC-financed films should not

70  Formation of the Film Finance Corporation deter the Corporation from providing finance to producers who wish to produce films of good quality, different from films of the formula type that are generally acceptable to the cinema-going public. In that case, the Corporation must be prepared to bear losses arising on account of the failure of such films at the box office.36 In the background of the India-Pakistan war (1965), the FFC decided to finance films “dealing with various problems which face the country today as a result of threats to our territorial integrity and national solidarity”.37 The war and the resulting situation affected the functioning of the MIB. Many of its media units were diverted toward war propaganda and publicity, “keeping up the morale of the people and explaining civil defence measures through the radio, press, films and other media of communication.”38 The fifth annual report of the directors showed that the Corporation suffered a loss of Rs. 1,28,917 as against the previous profit of Rs. 2,58,274.39 The bad debts increased from Rs. 1,40,255 to Rs. 5,91,844 in 1964-5. Bad debts amounting to Rs. 3,86,602 were written off – the first write-off since the establishment of the Corporation. The Centre rejected the FFC’s proposal to enter the production field, without citing any reason.40 From 1960 until December 1965, the Corporation had received 151 applications for an amount of Rs. 466.65 lakhs, sanctioned 47 loans totalling Rs. 136.47 lakhs, disbursed Rs. 102.42 lakhs, and recovered Rs. 29.33 lakhs. Eighteen films financed by the Corporation were released during this period. Ten of these won awards given by the government and other agencies. Suffering losses in 1960–1 and 1964–5, the Corporation claimed to have earned some profits in the remaining years of 1961–2, 1962–3, and 1963–4.41 A review of the FFC’s working was placed before Parliament.42 The salient facts to be noted were that the FFC had run into losses during three of its six years of existence and that about half of its loaned amounts were in arrears. The FFC suffered a loss of more than Rs. five lakhs during 1966–7, according to its annual report. Bad debts and rising interest charges on loans from the government were given as two reasons for the losses.43 The rate of interest was raised from nine per cent to 12 per cent per annum on new loans sanctioned to producers from 1 April 1966. It was noted that if even after including popular elements in its films, the FFC had failed to do sound business, and something was radically wrong with its entire approach and working. With statistics of 161 applications, 46 sanctioned loans, and 21 released films so far, the FFC seemed to be not a “much-sought-after source of available funds.”44 Way back in 1965, the Kher Committee45 had recommended that the FFC adopt a “realistic” policy towards film financing. It suggested that the Corporation should increase its capital to “provide more liberal facilities purely on a commercial basis”.46 The Committee also recommended the construction of new cinema theatres to ensure better exhibition facilities for films financed by it, which would also serve as a “deterrent to higher film rental”.47 Director Tapan Sinha pointed out that, so far, the FFC had failed in boosting the

Formation of the Film Finance Corporation  71 production of experimental pictures due to the bad execution of its policies.48 He made a suggestion that the FFC appoint five “intelligent directors” and give them a free hand in selecting subjects and making pictures as they like. He observed that since no financier would take the risk of investing in experimental films, the FFC should help films in this category, which were essential for the progress of the industry, side by side with commercial films, without which the industry could not survive. He said elsewhere, “The whole country is undergoing vast changes. An intellectual revolution is in the offing and this is just the prelude. New blood, new outlooks and ideas are needed in every walk of society.”49 And demanded, “If the Film Finance Corporation has suffered frequent losses in the past why should not a fresh body be set up with only the noted film-makers of India on its board? Must there always be a chairman deputed by the Government?”50 During 1967–8, the FFC did not give out any fresh loans. The Corporation sanctioned loans of Rs. 35,73,996 for 16 films.51 The total amount of loans not yet paid as on 31 March 1968 was Rs. 48,45,631.52 From 1960 to March 1968, the FFC had sanctioned loans amounting to Rs. 1,63,54,102 for 69 films which included Rs. 8,60,246 for 18 documentary/short films. Though the Corporation was able to recover its advances in full from 19 films, the progress of repayment was not satisfactory. The Corporation was making all the effort to get the released films “fully exploited on the best possible terms”, and incomplete films completed and released, even by advancing marginal loans to facilitate the process of eventual recoveries.53 Five films were released in 1968 and the Corporation was able to recover its loan with interest from one of these five films.54 The Corporation had approved a scheme for enabling it to embark upon the distribution of films either by itself or through a subsidiary distribution office. The FFC’s proposal to construct four cinemas, one each in Bombay, Madras, Calcutta, and Delhi was under the active consideration of the government.55 The then chairman Himmat Sinh tried to justify the losses and bad debts as inevitable since the Corporation was mainly set up for the promotion of motion picture art. He argued that more than 50 per cent of the loans sanctioned had been realised by the Corporation. He claimed that the Corporation had been able to encourage new talents in filmmaking, who, normally, could not have received loans from financiers who usually advanced money on films with box-office potential. Screen disagreed with many of these claims.56 The FFC till then had released on an average only four pictures a year, as against the country’s then output of 300 per year. “Therefore, the impact must be inevitably almost nil.” Another suggestion proposed dividing the FFC into two sections, “one running at a known loss, sponsoring individuals or groups and not just providing loans. Two or three such experiments a year would be to their credit. The other section would take calculated risks on available talent.”57 Meanwhile, Screen reported that the FFC had sanctioned a loan of Rs. 1,50,000 to “Calcutta’s Mrinal Sen” for the production of his Bhuvan Shome in Hindi and Gujarati.58 By then, Satyajit Ray’s Charulata and Nayak

72  Formation of the Film Finance Corporation had already been released and received well by national and international audiences and award committees. A mixed reaction emerged on the FFC’s performance and the direction India’s New Cinema was taking in these foundational years. While issues related to loans and its complex procedure, and apathy towards distribution and exhibition was affecting the FFC’s legitimacy, the Corporation had succeeded in inculcating a desire for realism in Indian cinema as expressed in letters to editors written by film lovers. Various speeches given by national leaders also pointed to their changing attitude towards the importance of films in a welfare state. Some credit for this active official approach to cinema must be attributed to the Corporation. The Problem of Distribution and Exhibition

The existing structure of distribution and exhibition, dominated by the “star system”, was often cited as a reason why the FFC films were unable to reach the market. The FFC did examine certain schemes for control of the distribution of FFC-financed films.59 The advisory committee of the FFC had asked whether it would be logical for the Corporation to have its own distribution set-up or to enter into permanent contracts with distributors in various circuits. The then Chairman of the FFC, N.D. Mehrotra, indicated that the Corporation might think of constructing or acquiring cinemas in big cities as the acute theatre shortage had encouraged exhibitors to dictate their own terms.60 The proposition of going to the government to require all theatre owners in the country to exhibit Corporation-financed films for some days a week was also thought about. However, he made it clear that the Corporation would not like to make such a request unless it had exhausted all other means of ensuring that films financed by it reached the public. It was also talking with distributors, though the response was not encouraging.61 The final decision to enter the exhibition field was taken at a meeting of the board of directors of the FFC held at Madras in April 1965. Director K. Subrahmaniam said that the FFC would set up a new corporation to construct theatres and acquire old ones. A discussion was also ripe on the urgent need for art theatres, theatres, and exhibitory spaces for the kind of films financed by the FFC. The press noted how due to a lack of interest by the distributors these films were failing to bring back the money, and that “it is imperative that in any scheme to rehabilitate Indian films, the financial assistance for production should be supported by exhibition facilities.”62 State’s Vision for Cinema as Social Task, and A Growing Desire for Reality Effect It is important to discuss some of the official speeches delivered by government officials, including the Prime Minister, on several occasions of celebrating the Indian film industry. These speeches are indices of the official attitude to cinema. They provide a window to the state’s imagination and vision for

Formation of the Film Finance Corporation  73 the responsibilities of film, the film industry, and the filmmaker. It helps us understand several policy-level discussions in the 1960s and later. It is curious to note the constant emphasis on the word “social” – social industry, social mission, social task, and social responsibility – and a need for reality effect, importance of story, etc. in these speeches. Dr. B.V. Keskar, the then Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting, acclaimed the ideal of a “wealthy and prosperous country”, in attaining which he invited the industry’s co-operation.63 He emphasised that the film industry was essentially a “social industry”. It had an important part to play in the evolution of the social order, and, therefore, “It should not divorce itself from society from which it drew its sustenance.”64 VicePresident Dr. S. Radhakrishnan asked filmmakers to provide the sense of direction which was lacking in national life. He asked them to look upon their work as a “sacred mission”.65 He was reported to have said that all films were educational and their one purpose was to help us become better, better-informed, and build character. He was also happy at the “qualitative and quantitative” progress registered by Indian films as evidenced by the recognition granted them in international fetes. Gopala Reddy, Minister for Information and Broadcasting, complimented filmmakers for “realising their heavy responsibility at this stage of India’s development” and for their endeavours to produce films which combined social issues with entertainment. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru was reported to have said, “Produce quality films, which will portray the true, the good and the beautiful, films which will combine entertainment with education, films which will turn out to be the real cultural ambassador of our land.”66 Making a stirring call to film producers, directors, and artistes, President Radhakrishnan expressed the hope at another State Awards for Films that they would “try to raise the mental climate of our country to a higher level.”67 He said, “Films are…for stirring the very depths of our conscience and making us live not on the surface but from the very depths of our beings.”68 Satyanarayan Sinha, Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting, spoke of the “onerous responsibility” of film producers to society at large and said that, while making films, they should not forget the vital need for keeping alive for posterity the rich and enduring cultural traditions of our great country.69 Indira Gandhi, the then Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting, while delivering the convocation address at the Film Institute of India in Pune in August 1964, emphasised picking up stories from India in films and stressed the need for “encouragement of the non-conformist” adding, “There is an element of risk for he (non-conformist) may turn out to be a crank but it is equally possible that he may be a genius.”70 She stressed that high-budget films and big stars did not assure a great impact of a film. She exhorted the students of the Institute “to improve the level of the industry and to infuse new ideas in it”. At a reception given to her by the South Indian Film Chamber, she urged film producers to project a proper image of India to the rest of the world,71 calling upon them to publicise these treasures in a manner that would attract people

74  Formation of the Film Finance Corporation to visit the country from abroad. By doing this, the industry could also hope for export, and get over some of the difficulties such as the raw stock shortage. She assured them that the government had no intention of interfering with the creative role of filmmaking or of bringing about regimentation of film production. She openly supported the newcomers by saying that the biggest works of art were turned out by newcomers and that not all newcomers to the field were opportunists or adventurers. At the presentation of the State Awards for Films, Dr. P.V. Cherian, Governor of Maharashtra, appealed to the industry to use the film medium to sustain the common values of life and promote a sense of belonging to one great nation among the people of the country.72 He compared a film with the puranas (ancient scriptures) and itihasaas (histories), a filmmaker with a kathak (storyteller), and emphasised the culturally unifying role of cinema. For him, films could play the role of a cultural ambassador for contemporary India, and this highly important function – the sustenance of common values of life and promotion of a sense of belonging to one great nation – must be discharged with a sense of national duty. On another occasion, Mrs. Indira Gandhi reiterated her earlier conviction that the film medium should be used “to know ourselves and to show to others the many-sided personality of our country”.73 She also repeated her appeal to the film industry to open its doors to young talent allowing it the opportunity of experimenting with new interpretations and original ideas. As Prime Minister, she clarified her stand on cinema at the presentation of State Awards for Films, “The cinema plays a great role in education but I am not one of those who value it only for its educational potentialities. I believe that entertainment is in itself a legitimate purpose.”74 She believed that films have contributed, in numerous ways, to fostering a sense of oneness in our country. While speaking at a Bengal Film Journalists’ Association, Raj Bahadur, the Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting, urged film critics, artistes, and technicians to bend their efforts towards the realisation of the noble social mission of Indian films.75 Films, he reminded the industry, must be regarded more as an instrument of art towards achieving social welfare, progress, and integrity, than as a commercial enterprise. He called upon film people to set a code of conduct so that they could guide themselves and their work and help the national government and the people in building a healthy and progressive society. Responding to this, the Screen editor S.S. Pillai called upon the three important parties to cinema – the filmmaker, the film press, and the government – to make a complete change in their thinking and approach.76 According to Pillai, a filmmaker, while giving vent to his artistic urge, must remain alive to the social responsibilities and influences of his potent medium. He asked the press to take cinema seriously and not perpetuate the fallacy about films being the sole work of the stars who act in them. The press had to support the small, independent filmmakers with something intelligent or purposeful to offer, and thus make a contribution towards socially significant films. The government must make the tax exemptions more liberal without prescribed preconditions.77

Formation of the Film Finance Corporation  75 So far, the dominant tone in the official attitude to cinema remained complimenting, directive, and optimistic. While delivering the Presidential address at the Seventeenth Annual Filmfare Awards Distribution, I.K. Gujral, the Union Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting, said, The true role of cinema is to awaken, arouse and stimulate. Being primarily entertaining, cinema need not, indeed, should not teach in the formal sense. Its role is not that of a mentor but of a sensor. It can become the eyes and ears of our age. To be that, it must help the people intensely experience life by bringing issues into sharp focus. If it fails there, it appears to me, it cannot succeed anywhere.78 The late 1960s witnessed an intense dialogue on cinema as art or commerce. While some were expressing their optimism that art and commerce can go together,79 others were trying to establish cinema as an art. S.K. Ojha wrote, “..​.let us regard the cinema as an art that has no limitations and be tolerant of one another, banded together in one fraternity for making rare artistic, realistic experimental movies, leaving the final judgement to those for whom they are intended.”80 After going through letters written to the editor and several feature articles (in Filmfare and Screen), one senses the Indian filmgoers’ desire for seeing more “realistic” Indian films. A wish was expressed to watch more true to life films, with an Indian content and method of story-telling with a reduced budget. A consensus was getting created on the need for better stories and an artistic execution of those stories. These were common film buffs, though based in urban India, who were expressing these desires. Rajammal Anantharaman craved “A little more reality, a little more purity in music and dance, a little more authenticity in background sets and costumes, simple humour without vulgarity and a toning down of cheap glamour and all loudness. What a difference it will make?”81 Writer-director-producer K.A. Abbas, whose film Dharti Ke Lal had won international fame for its realistic effect, attributed the low quality of Hindi films largely to the elements borrowed from Hollywood and the imitation of American culture. He criticised the government’s policies which put a ban on many good films from Europe, but allowed a free flow of Hollywood films, which were “detrimental to the cultural integrity of our society.”82 C.V.K. Sastry, production controller of B.R. Films, after his return to Bombay from a six-week tour of Europe, revealed there was little chance of Indian films making their presence felt in Europe.83 According to Sastry, “In Europe, film people told me that, unless Indian films had something different to offer from their own product, they would not be interested in their exploitation. And in this connection, Satyajit Roy [sic] was often mentioned by them.”84 A Screen reader from Nairobi (Kenya) stated similar views and shared how Indians living in Kenya and the surrounding territories of Tanganyika and Uganda had given up watching Indian films and turned to American movies. The reader wrote, “India

76  Formation of the Film Finance Corporation should seek and employ new talents in film story writing – those who can revolutionise the whole trend of tradition and give something new, appealing and entertaining.”85 Another reader wrote, pointing to a lack of public interest in a film like Bandini, The standard of present-day films is so uniformly low that, whenever a really good film is exhibited, the response from the public is not so encouraging. This is because they are unable to find appreciation for such a film, having already acquired a taste of the inferior ones.86 Amar Jeet blamed the audience for the negligible number of experimental films being made in India. He wrote, “When a realistic film flops in the commercial sense of the term, it is not the film-maker but the audience which flops. It is no fault of the director or writer who has tried to be original and uncompromising.”87 A reader from Chandigarh criticised not only the “ill-constructed, ill-woven” stories “devoid of real interest and divorced from real life”, but also grumbled about a lack of “accomplished actors and actresses”.88 Another reader complained of a lack of reality in Indian cinema.89 Yet another reader demanded more “artistic values” in Indian cinema.90 This reader also referred to remarkable films that producers like New Theatres of Calcutta, Prabhat Theatres and Hans, and V. Shantaram, Guru Dutt, Bimal Roy, and B.R. Chopra made in the past. She expected the general public to give proper encouragement to producers making purposeful films. Filmmakers were writing in the press sharing their thoughts on “ideal” filmmaking practices. Talking of a sense of weariness that films had caused among the “intelligent film-goer”, Tapan Sinha warned the future filmmaker to not ignore this weariness if he has to survive, and that “the film of tomorrow…must mirror the thoughts and sentiments of viewers who will be more critical than indulgent.”91 Favouring films that provide high ideals to the common man in a simple language, producer L.B. Lachman cited examples of Satyajit Ray, De Sica, Kurosawa, and many “protagonists of the avantgarde movement” who “withstood the tidal wave of million dollar spectacles which storm box-offices throughout the world.”92 He attacked the snobbish attitude of some eminent filmmakers, whereby they said, ‘We have made the film the way we wanted to make it. Take it or leave it.’ He opposed this arrogance and suggested that “a little consideration” for the people could go a long way. That said, he further clarified, a filmmaker does not have “to pander to the base instincts in him [people] but should take into account his capacity to imbibe the highly accomplished film-makers’ ideas and ideals. It is particularly necessary in our country, where millions still grope in the darkness of ignorance and illiteracy.”93 He also expressed his “unflagging” faith in the “inherent desire in a cinema-goer to elevate himself.” The Symposium Sub-committee of the Third IFFI (January 1965) discussed issues like film as a reflection of national life and culture, box-office and the films, contribution of acting to the success of a film and the star system, the role

Formation of the Film Finance Corporation  77 of the director and technicians, and the importance of the story in a film.94 Indian censors were also blamed for the lack of realism in our films.95 It was pointed out that “good films and big budgets seldom go together in the peculiar set-up of Hindi film-making.”96 According to Bikram Singh, “By a certain set of circumstances the Hindi film is prevented from serving a cardinal and well known function of the cinema – which is, representation of reality.”97 Trying to understand the reasons behind such an attitude, Singh cited two factors which discouraged Hindi filmmakers from adopting realism in their films – “the dark fear of the straitlaced, ridiculously unrealistic and childishly bookish censorship which operates in India”, and second, the fear of the box-office, which Singh found more valid.98 Mulk Raj Anand also sympathised with the “high pressure Art-film” which faced two important difficulties: lack of responsible financial investment and distributors. He rightly said, “the distributors all over the country have got so used to purveying of vulgarity that they will seldom book a film, which has any air of novelty, pretensions to artistry, or is in any way unlikely to create a demand among the regular low pressure visitors.”99

The FFC and New Cinema were not operating in a vacuum. Various developments, at the industry level, were affecting its movement too. In March 1968, the Indian Motion Pictures’ Association announced that from April all film production in Bombay would be suspended. The announcement followed its failure to reach any kind of working agreement with the exhibitors. In February the same year, disagreements had arisen between the producers and the distributors, who wanted to place the risk of a flop film entirely in the hands of the producers, and asked for the advance given by the distributor to be repayable to him as loan money. Many producers refused to sign any such contracts. This crisis, involving the three main sectors of the film industry – production, exhibition, and distribution, went on for a year. The FFC failed to rise to the occasion, though its importance was further highlighted during this crisis.  Rahul Singh expected the FFC to be more decisive and set aside part of its profits to support the “producers with interesting, off-beat ideas”.100 From 1960 to 1968, the FFC’s aims and objectives were still not very clear. It kept providing finances to already established filmmakers like V. Shantaram, Mohan Sahgal, Shashadhar Mukherjee, Gajanan Jagirdar, Raman Desai, Hrishikesh Mukherjee, and Satyajit Ray. Manmohan Chaddha, a film writer and analyst understood this period of the FFC in this way, and rightly so, It was believed that a good film-maker needed a good amount of money to make a good film. He had to borrow this money from the market at existing high rates of interest. Therefore, the objective of FFC was assumed that if it can help the film-maker borrow money at six or eight

78  Formation of the Film Finance Corporation per cent interest rate per annum, he/she will be saved from paying thirty or forty per cent interest rate per annum and can make good films. This was the reason why FFC loaned money only to established film makers in its initial years, so that there was a guarantee of the loan being repaid.101 The Hindi films that the FFC financed from 1961 to 1968 include – Godaan (Trilok Jetly), Stree (V. Shantaram), Begana (Sadashiv J. Row Kavi), Amar Jyoti (Raman B. Desai) (all 1961),102 Pyas (Phani Majumdar), Anokhi Baat (Gian Sachdev), Punar Milan (Narendra Dave), Apne Huye Paraye (A.K. Chakravarty), Char Dham (S.N. Tripathy), Biradari (Ram Kamlani), Nai Umar Ki Nai Fasal (R. Chandra), Aag Aur Pani (Kundan Kumar) (all 1962), Arman Bhara Dil (Raj Rishi), Umeed (Nitin Bose), Nawab Sirajuddaullah (Ramachandra Thakur) (all 1963), Noorjehan (M. Sadiq), Devar (Mohan Segal) (both 1964), Main Bhi Ma Hun (Madhukar Pathak), Do Dooni Char (Debu Sen), Rang Mahal (incomplete), (Babubhai Mistry) (all 1965), Sambandh (Ajay Biswas), Sajan (Mohan Segal), Majhli Didi (Hrishikesh Mukherjee), Bhuvan Shome (Mrinal Sen), Anubhav (Basu Bhattacharya), Naya Zanam (Zul Vellani) (all 1966), Dastak (Rajinder Singh Bedi), Sara Akash (Basu Chatterji), Uski Roti (Mani Kaul), and Heer Ranjha (Chetan Anand) (all 1969).103 It was only after the success of Bhuvan Shome and Sara Akash that the FFC could take a decision to provide loans to new filmmakers, and not just the established ones. Films made on literary works were emphasised and supported. Scripts based on the works of Nayi Kahani/New Story writers like Mohan Rakesh, Kamleshwar, Nirmal Verma, Ramesh Bakshi, and Jainendra Jain, were submitted to the FFC for loans.104 From 1968 to 1980, the FFC made it easier for first-time filmmakers to make their films. I.K. Gujral, the Union Minister of Information and Broadcasting, was appreciated for his interest in the development and a deep understanding of good cinema. The New Cinema Manifesto (1968) In his introduction to a one-of-its-kind study on film manifestos written in various parts of the world, at diverse times, Scott MacKenzie wrote, film manifestos pervade the history of cinema yet exist at the margins of almost all accounts of film history itself. An examination of this elision raises not simply the question of whether manifestos have changed the cinema…but whether the act of calling into being a new form of cinema changed not only moving images but the world itself.105 MacKenzie also observed how the film manifesto had been used by the radicals and reactionaries to state their “key aesthetic and political goals.”106 The “Manifesto of the New Cinema Movement”, written by Arun

Formation of the Film Finance Corporation  79 Kaul107 and Mrinal Sen, was first published in Close Up (India) in July 1968. Kaul and Sen found the Indian film at the time, especially Hindi cinema, “at its lowest ebb”.108 They blamed multiple factors for reducing the Indian film industry to a sorry mess, namely, increasing costs of production, rising star prices, excessive rates of interest charged by financiers, wider acceptance of “black money” transactions in all sectors of the film industry, along with an unbelievable dearth of ideas and imagination.109 Referring to the New Wave in France, and the Underground in USA, Kaul and Sen felt that it was time that India launch such a movement as the climate was suitable to nourish it.110 Kaul and Sen termed such a “regular, conscious movement for better cinema” the New Cinema Movement.111 They attempted to define and mark the objectives of New Cinema thus, New Cinema…involves methods and conditions of film-making, the relationship between the creative artist and his audience, awareness of the changing grammar, expanding powers and soaring ambitions of the film medium. New Cinema offers the film-maker…the indispensable freedom to realise his vision, untrammelled by all considerations except creative and aesthetic. New Cinema looks upon a film as the personal expression of an individual artist. New Cinema aspires to the conditions in which a film would bear the distinct stamp of the creative artist behind it and not of a studio…New Cinema engages itself in a ruthless search for “truth” as an individual artist sees it. New Cinema lays stress on the right questions and bothers less about the right answers. New Cinema believes in looking fresh at everything including old values and in probing deeper everything, including the mind and the conditions of man. New Cinema seeks the clues to mankind’s riddles in men’s personal relationships and private worlds.112 To ensure that these objectives were achieved, New Cinema was expected to be a self-sufficient structure embracing all three branches of filmmaking, production, distribution, and exhibition, so that the exhibitors and distributors did not claim the right to interfere with the process of filmmaking by virtue of financing a film.113 Kaul and Sen wanted the New Cinema to develop a new audience, too, and not just make new films. Along with an enlightened filmmaker, an equally enlightened audience was a major constituent of New Cinema. Apart from film societies, Kaul and Sen stressed the need for art theatres, to begin with, in Bombay. It was expected that such a movement would recover the entire investment of the New Cinema films from the revenue of the art theatre chain. To enable such films, with a limited, minority audience, recover the invested capital, Kaul and Sen earmarked certain features to keep the budget low – lowest possible cost of production, shooting on actual locales, “post-dubbing”, and as far as possible, a continuous schedule of shooting.114 A special panel was to examine scripts and make a decision whether they deserve to be taken up by the New Cinema Movement or not.

80  Formation of the Film Finance Corporation It was decided that subjects in human as well as cinematic values – whether based on reputed literary works or originally written – would be favoured for filming. The New Cinema films were supposed to be director oriented; he was to be the arbiter and principal architect responsible for the film’s quality.115 The three circuits of distribution of these films, as imagined by the Manifesto, were: Academy Cinema chain, the Film Society Circuit, and regular commercial circuits.116 The questions one may ask here are, did the Indian New Cinema Manifesto change cinema? Did this act of asking for a new cinema change the world itself? And, did the FFC succeed in executing the Manifesto? B.K. Karanjia and Change in FFC Policies In January 1969, B.K. Karanjia was appointed as one of the Directors of the Corporation.117 He was already working as the Filmfare editor and continued to be so. He was appointed as the Acting Chairman of the FFC from 19 April 1969, after Himmat Sinh’s resignation.118 He continued to remain the FFC Chairman (honorary) till his resignation from the post in 1975.119 When Karanjia took over the chairmanship, The outlook was quite dismal. Almost the entire paid-up capital had been eroded. The Corporation had mistakenly entered the box-office race with commercial film makers, but because it lacked the latter’s resources the race was lost before it was run. It seemed to me on a cursory viewing that all that was left for me to do as Acting Chairman was to preside over the Corporation’s obsequies.120 The first thing Karanjia did, in consultation with the Secretary of the Union Finance Ministry, Mr. S. Nargolwala, the well-known critic Chidananda Das Gupta and the other FFC directors, was to take the crucial decision to finance low-budget films, preferably but not necessarily in black and white. Karanjia disclosed that the Corporation intended to grant loans to talented and promising filmmakers, from the Film Institute or outside, who, in the prevailing conditions in the film industry, could not hope to get finance in the market.121 The FFC adopted the policy of granting small loans up to Rs. two lakhs and Rs. two and a half lakhs, and to insist, in the case of loans in excess of this amount, on some collateral security besides the negative of the film. While reducing losses, this step was likely to encourage the making of low-budget, black-and-white, off-beat films. The other major plank of the FFC’s new policy included to encourage those newcomers to film the works of eminent writers in Hindi and the national languages, which go “beyond purely commercial objectives, reflect our cultural heritage and aspirations and carry a promise of enriching the lives of those who will see them.”122 These steps were taken to fight two major ills of the film industry – a star-centred narrative, and blind copying of foreign films. As Karanjia put it, “This, then, was the

Formation of the Film Finance Corporation  81 “formula” adopted by the FFC – low-budget films, talented new film makers, Indian stories.”123 During the seven years (1969–76) of his Chairmanship of the FFC, 36 films were financed. In the very first year of his taking over as Chairman, writer, producer, and director Rajinder Singh Bedi’s Dastak was granted a loan of Rs. two lakhs by the FFC,124 and in October 1969 the FFC sanctioned a loan of Rs. 2,15,000 to Basu Chatterji, proprietor, Cineye Films in Bombay, for the production of Sara Akash in Hindi.125 Mani Kaul’s Uski Roti and Kantilal Rathod’s Gujarati film Kanku were also given loans in the same year. It was also decided to own low-cost, semi-permanent cinemas, besides setting up distribution networks in all the territories, beginning with East Punjab, where its distribution office had already started functioning.126 The MIB noticed this important change in the FFC policy “from the so-called box-office formula to more valid cinematic values.”127 Bhuvan Shome-Sara Akash-Uski Roti

This section takes stock of the long-awaited arrival of the Indian New Cinema Movement with the production of three important films (all in Hindi). The critical and commercial success of these films are often cited to have brought the New Cinema in India. These three films won awards and praises, while also inviting critical responses. While Bhuvan Shome and Sara Akash were received well by the popular audience, Uski Roti did not get a release as it was found to be “too difficult to comprehend” by many reviewers. These, and the others that followed, fulfilled the criteria of an FFC-formula film – low-budget, talented newcomers, and Indian stories. It also established the FFC as the official patron of India’s New Cinema. Bhuvan Shome

Mrinal Sen’s Bhuvan Shome, his tenth feature film, won many national and international awards.128 Sen, already a well-noticed filmmaker in Bengal, was inspired by the belief that filmmaking was not a highly “expensive” proposition, as proved by neorealism in Italy and the New Wave in France. A band of young men and I, the oldest among them formed a team. We borrowed the equipment from a sympathetic dealer on reasonable terms, collected money from the Film Finance Corporation and selected actors from among non-professionals and semi-professionals. We went to Saurashtra for our locales.129 The film was completed in 31 days. The music was recorded in an apartment on quarter-inch tape. He shared stories from the making of the film: there was always a crowd, always a mass of new faces almost all turbaned locals. They gave us information on local customs, dialect, food

82  Formation of the Film Finance Corporation and all, and thus helped us to “grow” on location. Having come in contact with them, our ideas grew, the rough outlines of our venture took a definite shape, a stylistic and thematic unity. New story situations were added on location…The Film Finance Corporation asked me if it could be possible to make a 13,000 feet long film. I said it would be 10,000 feet at the outset. And no song, no dance, no intrigue, no “curves”, no glamour photography either, making lavish use of diffusion glasses. The cost of production? Not even 50 per cent of the sundry expenses of an average film in Bombay. The FFC conferred, decided to take the risk and gave us the green signal…While making “Bhuvan Shome”, we, the unit members, challenged the authority of the Establishment, defied the rules and made desperate efforts to create new conventions.130 In Bhuvan Shome, Sen broke the conformist narrative pattern, “I realized the time had come to say something new, in a new style. The political environment had been changing since 1967. Cinema, at that time, in respect of structure, seemed over-saturated. So I tried to search for a new form.”131 While filming Bhuvan Shome, Sen had only two predominant considerations: the tools of the medium and the art form. And so he went ahead to do “certain new things,” to indulge in certain “experiments.” This was made possible because the FFC did not tell him what to do and what not to do during the filming. He expressed his gratitude to the Bombay press for “building up a case for this kind of film, a case for sanity.” He said, “With your anger and mine too, and the tolerance of the distributors…we can look forward to a better climate.” Bhuvan Shome grossed Rs. 1,44,000 during eleven weeks in Bombay.132 The wonder of making a film in Rs. 100,000 in 1968 can be assessed by the fact that, as Sen shared, in those days, a film star in Bombay was paid ten times the entire cost of Bhuvan Shome only for acting. According to Sen, the film captured the loneliness of the protagonist by using gentle humour, and was a kind of comedy which would poke fun at the morality which dominated our society…My intention was never to ‘tame’ a tough bureaucrat. On the contrary, my intention was to corrupt a bureaucrat suffering from Victorian morality, yes, by using his own yardstick. But funnily, the popularity of the film was on the belief that I had humanised a tough bureaucrat. This was far from my intention.133 The film had done well in Calcutta where the gross collection at the Elite and the Tiger cinemas during its five weeks’ run came to a lakh of rupees. The film was also released at the Dreamland in Bombay daily for morning shows only and its gross collection during its 11 weeks’ run was Rs. 1,44,401. In spite of all the awards, positive reviews, and good box-office run, Sen’s efforts to get tax exemption for the film in various states in India proved futile.134 He stated that unless the state governments encouraged artistic films by tax

Formation of the Film Finance Corporation  83 exemption it was difficult for producers like him to continue to make such films.135 Distributor Kamal Barjatya also observed that there was an urgent need for art theatres in Bombay where artistic and off-beat low-budget films could be released and could get a fair return. Screen reported that Bhuvan Shome could be released by Rajshri Pictures at the Minerva Talkies in Jaipur for morning shows only.136 On the “discriminatory” morning show timings on working days given to Bhuvan Shome, B.K. Karanjia, as the editor of Filmfare, wrote a strongly-worded piece: there is a potential audience for this film, which in fact is being denied the opportunity to see it and form its own opinion. In the present distribution and exhibition set-up this amounts to a conspiracy to deny our audiences anything except the routine stereotyped entertainment they have been getting since the war years.137 Readers from Bombay had all praises for Bhuvan Shome. A Filmfare reader wrote, “The value of a work of art lies in its ability to convey. To convey each and every person something of special value to himself. “Bhuvan Shome” has that quality.”138 R. Swaroop Shyamsaika felt that Bhuvan Shome was “joyous and beautiful” at its core: it is coy Suhasini Mulay who embodies this joyous grace…Bhuvan Shome’s brief encounter with the girl and her environment is the most memorable part of the film. Beautifully photographed and handled with an admirable combination of warmth and gentle irony, it is an exquisite piece of work.139 Mrs. Sheela Pradhan congratulated Mrinal Sen for producing and directing the film.140 She also praised the FFC, “which now seems to have realised its objectives in discriminating potential film-makers from the routine-formula-film producers.” She found the film remarkable for many reasons, viz., “Excellent photography, brilliant music score, based on classical melodies, fresh acting talent, a neo-realistic approach, free from studio limitations, and a dynamic short story, far from the monotonous boy-meets-girl theme.”141 K.D. Asman praised the locale of the sand dunes in the film, called it “an ideal example of creative cinema” and supported that it should be exempted from entertainment tax.142 S. Swaminathan regretted that the film had been released only for matinee shows at the Krishna. Praising the acting, photography, and music, he believed, “Films like “Bhuvan Shome” can cause the so-called film crisis to vanish and can also bring a drastic change to the present Hindi cinema.”143 However, the Screen film reviewer found it “short of a masterpiece”.144 The reviewer did acknowledge that the film “heralds the birth of a new trend as well as movement in Hindi cinema that is at once refreshing, welcome and overdue.” But, “Taken as an art film in the context of international cinema, it does not make an impact of any serious degree,

84  Formation of the Film Finance Corporation either with its content or style, preferring to remain rather like an enjoyable, little film, having little to convey.”145 When some viewers called Bhuvan Shome boring,146 sarcastic reactions came by at Filmfare via post-box. One reader from Kanpur, who liked the film, wrote, maybe people would not have been so bored if, “instead of showing bare railway tracks with some unknown voice singing in the background, he had shown Sharmila Tagore (come to that, Rekha isn’t bad either!) in the train, and Dev Anand or Rajesh Khanna singing Kishore’s song.”147 Sara Akash

It was Basu Chatterji’s first film, someone who was already established as a leading figure of the film society movement in India. Following on the tradition set by the New Cinema Manifesto, the film was based on Rajendra Yadav’s novel Sara Akash (Hindi, 1951). The entire shooting was done in an old house in the Raja Ki Mandi area of Agra and other places in the city and took 25 days.148 The film was released in April 1971 in Apsara theatre in Bombay for morning shows. Critically receiving mixed reviews, Sara Akash did good “business” at the box-office. The Times of India film critic praised the film for its freshness, A distinguished example of creative film making, it is so fresh in technique, so imbued with artistic integrity, so abrest [sic] of the idiom of the contemporary international cinema that it dazzles like an oasis in the arid desert that the Hindi film scene has been for quite some time.149 According to the critic, “Basu Chatterji’s triumph lies in capturing the rhythm and tang of life in a typical lower-middle-class joint family of U.P. with all its tangled pattern of relationships, all its routine, little and big absurdities.”150 The critic, all the same, accepted that the film is not a “profound” film, and the ending is pretty clichéd; but he praised Chatterji for brilliantly realising it with “the deceptive simplicity of its technique”.151 The Screen reviewer, on the other hand, criticised Sara Akash at the story and plot level for lacking any “particular mission” as such, though he highly praised it for its modern filmmaking techniques and a freshness not seen in Hindi cinema so far, except Bhuvan Shome.152 A letter, praising Sara Akash, written by C.D. Coelho from Bombay to the Filmfare editor, was given the best letter prize (worth Rs. 25 in cash). Coelho wrote, Realistic stories true to Indian life are the need of the day. Stories which will make humanity aware of itself. The success of “Sara Akash” – the fact that it has won appreciation from the discerning and the mass – belies the common notion that the Indian audience does not appreciate artistic films. Let’s hope it encourages film writers to deal with modern problems, and to present old truths in contemporary settings.153

Formation of the Film Finance Corporation  85 After the successful run of Bhuvan Shome and Sara Akash in Delhi theatres, a reader from Delhi wrote, “It is time the commercial film producers spend their ill-gotten wealth to build better cinemas and leave film making to the real artists.”154 At the National Film Awards, K.K. Mahajan got the award for excellence in black and white cinematography in Sara Akash, and Basu Chatterji received special commendations.155 Uski Roti

When Satyajit Ray saw Uski Roti, Filmfare reported him to have said that perhaps the best compliment to the FFC was that the making of such films was now possible.156 Based on Mohan Rakesh’s short story with the same title, Uski Roti (A Day’s Bread) was the third in the trinity cited together heralding the New Cinema Movement in India. Mani Kaul was 25 when he made the film, fresh from the Film Institute. Compared to the other two, Bhuvan Shome and Sara Akash, Uski Roti was far more different, rather difficult, in its form and execution, experimental, close to the French avantgarde. It could not be released in theatres unlike Bhuvan Shome and Sara Akash, and got restricted to festival and film society screenings.157 Many people failed to understand the film. Dev Anand was quoted to have wondered, ‘How can you call it a motion picture? The picture don’t move.’158 Radha Saluja, one of the upcoming and bold actors of the early 1970s and a passout from FTII, when asked if she sees art films, commented, I saw “Uski Roti” and I couldn’t follow it. Knowledgeable people have said it’s brilliant. I won’t argue with that, but I do know that no “Uski roti”, no matter how brilliant it is, is going to change the diet of the cine-going public in the country, because it will always remain an “Uski Roti”. It will never become my ‘roti’ or that of the public.159 Kaul shared the reason behind the film’s slowness in many interviews; he said that the film is about waiting, which is why it is ‘deliberately’ slow. When he was asked ‘what was the plot and what was going on in the film’ at a nonprofit screening, Kaul replied, When I made A Day’s Bread, I wanted to completely destroy any semblance of a realistic development…Indian women are very close to the idea of tradition, and this woman’s actions implied much more than her just being subservient to him [her husband]. Really, there is no plot at all in the film…I was living as a “paying guest” with a family at the time I made A Day’s Bread. At a dinner with a group of people, the man in the family was explaining, “Mani Kaul has made this film where there is a woman who goes to the bus stop and waits…,” when his wife interrupted to say, “William, you’re telling them the whole plot!”160

86  Formation of the Film Finance Corporation A reviewer in Filmfare compared Uski Roti with a chaupai meter of Hindi verse for its slow pace, “There is very little camera movement. Mostly the camera selects a place to stand static. Characters enter the frames and go away when they have finished.”161 The writer advised the readers that if they get a chance to see this film, they “should enter the theatre to come face to face with a mood…You should try to grasp every image. Then the film may turn out a highly rewarding experience.”162 Noting the panic that such films created in commercial circles, the writer wrote, “Exactly. That is the object of new cinema.”163 For another writer, Uski Roti demanded, “like much modern art, to be viewed repeatedly, with patience, before you can hope to grasp what it has to communicate. “Uski Roti” is certainly the most consistently daring experimental Hindi film to be attempted to date.”164 When the film could not get a theatre release, Mani Kaul was asked if it bothered him that the public had not been able to see Uski Roti, he confessed, It bothers me. The factors that have acted against me are: the economics of making a feature film, even a low budget one; the fact that there are people in the commercial film industry who would like to repress it; and an audience conditioned to receiving extravaganzas.165 That said, Kaul was still very hopeful about the future of Indian cinema. He was sure that “if the government does not abandon its recently found low budget policy, there is no dearth of talent in this country to make this a memorable period in the history of Indian cinema.”166 He was hopeful of “a smaller group [of filmmakers] with an academic background and unflagging zeal that is totally committed to the new cinema. It is undoubtedly taking big risks. But sooner or later such a group will make an impact in its own way.”167 Kumar Shahani’s Maya Darpan (based on Nirmal Verma’s Hindi story), and Awtar Krishna Kaul’s 27 Down (based on the Hindi novel Athara Sooraj Ke Paudhe, by Ramesh Bakshi) continued the experimental risk of Uski Roti. The FFC sanctioned a loan of Rs. 2,50,000 to Shahani for Maya Darpan.168 It won Special Mention awarded by the festival jury at the 26th Annual Locarno Film Festival. The citation given to Maya Darpan read, “for the courage and the rigour with which the director has tried to pave a new path for the Indian cinema.”169 Raised Hopes for the FFC and New Cinema

With these five films, in five years, it seemed that the New Cinema had finally arrived in India, and the FFC had gained legitimacy as an official benefactor of the movement. Henceforth, any film financed by the FFC was clubbed under the New Cinema rubric. Critics were happy about the Hindi motion picture heading for “a new era”.170 Bhuvan Shome was seen as “the antithesis of all that is meretricious, escapist, formula-ridden and unrealistic in Hindi

Formation of the Film Finance Corporation  87 films.”171 Credit was given to these films for establishing “this new movement for sincerity and non-commercialism in Hindi films.”172 Information Minister I.K. Gujaral was reported to have said in the Lok Sabha that films produced with assistance from the FFC had “succeeded in introducing a new wave in Indian films.”173 He praised the role of the FFC in encouraging young and dynamic filmmakers, “committed to wielding the tool of cinema for true creative expression, fearless probe of the contemporary reality and exploration of new creative avenues”.174 The Ministry expressed its confidence in the impact of the FFC, which had “successfully shifted the emphasis from the so-called box-office formulae to more valid cinematic values and if the progress is allowed to continue, films financed by the Corporation may well turn out to be trend-setters.”175 There was a euphoria created on the success of these films. Bikram Singh proclaimed the arrival of the “non-conformists”, who were making films “which are designed not to satisfy the kinks and whims of full-witted purveyors of “what the audience wants” but to express their makers’ creative urge.”176 This new approach to filmmaking was exploring themes never before touched upon in Indian cinema. According to Karanjia, “They attempt to probe reality, ferret out truths however unpleasant, portray characters not in black and white but in a hundred hues of grey.”177 The new directors had moved “from the makebelieve of studio sets to the squalor and sunshine of the streets”.178 The actors resembled the people in the audience. These films hold out “the promise of the kind of personal, perceptive, provocative and socially committed cinema that we have admired in European films ever since the first international film festival in India.”179 Mrinal Sen pointed out a certain inclination among a very small section of the film traders ready to encourage productions of, as they said, “the “Pather Panchali” type.”180 Films started being made by “nonmarketable” people.181 He affirmed, “It seems we have arrived. It seems, with zeal almost missionary in its intensity, we are fast heading towards a New Cinema, towards a new look – something fresh, unconventional, dissenting, iconoclastic.”182 He also emphasised mobilising minority spectators scattered all over the country for the benefit of low-budget films, getting them readily accepted as “a sound commercial proposition.”183 Similarly, M. Siroya considered the year 1971 as a revolutionary year in the concept of film-making.184 With the FFC’s support, filmmakers like Sen were encouraged to go antiestablishment, “When we say we have to make low-budget films, we act against the Establishment, disproving one of their vital tenets – that film making is an expensive proposition and, therefore, nobody else’s business.”185 Renowned critic of world cinema Dr. Roger Manvell was quoted to have acknowledged the FFC’s contribution, The hope for Indian film as an art lies…with a new, younger generation whose works, helped by the Film Finance Corporation, can continue to establish a taste for less conventional subjects and treatments… Together, these films, and others being presented in script form by

88  Formation of the Film Finance Corporation aspirant directors to the Film Finance Corporation, reveal a new life in the Indian film which needs support both inside and outside India.186 Various film festivals helped spread the New Cinema movement among the common audience. A FFC film festival was held in New Delhi in December 1972. It was a week-long festival at the Regal Theatre and included 13 films. These films were: Maya Darpan, Uski Roti, Badnam Basti, Padi Pisir Barmi Baksha (Bengali, Arundhati Devi), Ek Adhuri Kahani, Shantata! Court Chaloo Ahe, Ashad Ka Ek Din, Gun Sundari No Ghar Sansar (Gujarati, Govind Saraiya), Swayamvaram, Kanku, Bilet Pherat, Aakrant (Girish Vaidya), and Charulata. The festival was a “conspicuous” success at least in terms of the “enthusiasm” that it generated. “Filmgoers were drawn to it almost as if they would be by a festival of European films.”187 For D.S. Roy, from Delhi, the festival was a “long awaited event”. Agreeing to the indispensability of change in the audience taste for a healthy development of the film industry, he gave full credit to the FFC “for the guts” it showed in financing films like Uski Roti and Ashad Ka Ek Din, which otherwise would never have been made.188 He also credited the FFC for the emergence of some excellent technicians, cameramen like K.K. Mahajan, and composers like Vijay Raghav Rao.189 Another festival was held at London’s National Film Theatre, under the sponsorship of the British Film Institute. Opening with Mani Kaul’s Ashadh Ka Ek Din, the festival covered Maya Darpan, Aakrant, Sara Akash, Badnam Basti, Swayamwaram, Dhakom (Tamil), and Bilat Ferat as well as some non-FFC but off-beat films like Matira Manisha (Oriya), Interview (Bengali) and Vamsha Vriksha (Kannada).190 Another festival was inaugurated at the All India Radio auditorium in Bombay.191 Opening the festival, Pratibha Patil, Maharashtra’s Minister for Social Welfare, praised the FFC for encouraging the production of artistic films but wanted the Corporation to expand its activities in the field of distribution as she felt that distribution of such films was essential. Another festival of FFC-backed films was being held in Paris and later in Belgium and Switzerland. These films were also to be shown in university circuits in the US.192 An Indian cinema week was held in Paris from 17 to 23 January 1974. Organisations like the Asian Perspective, the French Association of Art Theatres, Air India, Films Division, and the FFC had helped in the preparations. Among the feature films shown, which were all FFC-financed, were Sara Akash, Uski Roti, Maya Darpan, Samskara, Bhuvan Shome, and Garm Hava.193 Karanjia hailed it as a success and wrote, “The response accorded to “Garm Hava” needs to be particularly highlighted: The fact that such a sensitive and even controversial theme had been approved by Government was held up as testimony to India’s enlightened view of the arts.”194 Banks were reassured by the success of the FFC films, and agreed to be part of a co-financing arrangement with the Corporation. The MIB gave the green light to the FFC and Dena Bank to implement the plan for granting loans to film producers. As per this scheme, the Dena Bank agreed to finance

Formation of the Film Finance Corporation  89 loans on a 50–50 basis up to a maximum of Rs. 75,000 to the maker of a feature film duly guaranteed by the FFC. The first borrower under this plan was Mrinal Sen, who was advanced Rs. 75,000. The United Commercial Bank of Calcutta, one of the nationalised banks in the country, agreed to finance Mrinal Sen’s next film, Chorus. The bank offered a total of Rs. 4.5 lakhs. Sen rightly pointed out that if the nationalised banks came into this field in a big way, the financing of films through dubious sources would end and may lead to the cessation of the evil of “black” money in films.195 The Screen editorial found the step as “revolutionary”, “symbolic of the new outlook”, one which “augurs well for the film industry”.196 The success also reflected on the government’s attitude towards the FFC and upon the FFC’s own performance. The central government advanced a loan of Rs. 20 lakhs for the financing activities of the Corporation during 1970–1. The Corporation was able to repay a further amount of Rs. 3,43,939 against loans of Rs. 50 lakhs drawn earlier.197 The FFC directors had great “pleasure in putting on record the fact that the recent decision of financing in the main low-budget films yielded good results.”198 The Corporation submitted a scheme for approval to the government of extending its activities to the two inter-related fields of distribution and exhibition, which was approved in a limited way. The government also decided to give to the Corporation a subvention at the rate of ten per cent of loans granted in each year. It also received a loan of Rs. 12 and a half lakhs for acquiring theatres on lease, in the four principal cities of Bombay, Madras, Calcutta, and Delhi.199 Mohan Rakesh, a famous Hindi writer, was included as one of the Directors, along with Hrishikesh Mukherjee. In 1971–2, the gross income of the Corporation rose to Rs. 7,45,510 from Rs. 5,34,038 in the previous year. During the same period, the central government advanced two loans of Rs. 12 and a half lakhs each to the Corporation – one for exhibition activities and the other for financing activities.200 The importance of Bhuvan Shome for the FFC’s career can be gauged by the fact that the Report used phrases like “pre-‘Bhuvan Shome’” and “post-‘Bhuvan Shome’” period to narrate the changes in the FFC.201 Once again, the Directors had great pleasure in putting on record the fact that, The Corporation’s efforts have met with a fair measure of success as the films in the post-Bhuvan Shome period have won several national and inter-national awards as well as considerable critical acclaim, besides setting new trends. They have also met with a fair measure of audience acceptance, as can be evidenced by the returns of loans.202 In the National Awards for 1970 and 1971, the FFC-financed films won eight awards.203 After a long wait, V. Shantaram inaugurated the first art cinema sponsored by the FFC at the All India Radio auditorium in Bombay. The inaugural attraction was Mrinal Sen’s Ek Adhuri Kahani. K.A. Abbas and

90  Formation of the Film Finance Corporation G.P. Sippy, speaking on the occasion, demanded more art houses throughout the country, and to exempt all art films from entertainment tax.204 Indeed, the period from 1969 to 1972 was ground-breaking in the history of Indian cinema. FFC-financed films became trendsetters, creating a base for a healthy film revolution. It succeeded in introducing a new wave in Indian films. Even a private advertising agency called Blaze Enterprise was encouraged to finance and support Shyam Benegal’s first three films, including Ankur. The rise of Indian Middle Cinema as represented by Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Gulzar, and others, was a direct result of changes brought by this new wave in film language and audience taste. Undoubtedly, the FFC and Indian New Cinema Movement tasted legitimacy. However, the euphoria ended very soon when details of unpaid and bad debts started coming out. The FFC faced charges of favouritism in selecting scripts and granting loans, was challenged in court over the rights of Uski Roti, bad debts were going to pressurise the FFC to go commercial, and the lack of policy and execution level commitment to distribution and exhibition was to halt the progress of New Cinema. All this was to lead to a suggestion of merging the FFC with the Indian Motion Picture Export Corporation (IMPEC), and to create another Film Corporation. Euphoria Fizzles Out Too Soon An apologetic disclaimer by the FFC directors as well as its statutory auditors started appearing in the annual report from 1972–3 about the inevitability of losses at the FFC as an “organisation engaged in promotional and social activity”.205 Of the 52 feature films released till March 1972, loans were fully recovered only from 22 films.206 No fresh loans were issued to the Corporation during 1973–4. The Corporation had to request the government for postponement of the repayment of a certain amount of principal and interest. The bad debts forced the Corporation to bring back a long overdue suggestion of co-financing with the banks.207 Of the Rs. 2,30,18,894 amount of loan disbursed between 1961 to 1974, only Rs. 1,12,76,819 could be repaid, which was less than half the amount.208 Being criticised for its inability to get the loans repaid and regularly burdened with outstanding loans, the Directors justified, “…even our statutory Auditors have stressed the promotional role of the Corporation and have further stated that the work of the Corporation has definitely achieved considerable part of its social objectives of ‘producing highly praiseworthy high class product and promoting good class entrepreneurs’.”209 The FFC also sought the auditors’ help to push for a tax exemption to improve its financial position. Supporting the claim for exemption from income tax, the auditors referred to some of the Object Clauses of the Memorandum of Association of the Corporation, which were mainly promotional, assisting, and aiding in nature.210 Based on these clauses, the auditors concluded that the Corporation was set up “to render assistance

Formation of the Film Finance Corporation  91 to the film industry with an ultimate aim of correcting the industry of corroding and corrupting element therein with the objectives of doing away with evils that had already tarnished the image of the industry.”211 The major revenue sources of the Corporation were in the nature of earnings on “service rendering activities rather than profit or profit making activities of the Corporation.”212 Referring to a specific clause from Income Tax Act 1961 regarding income from property held for charitable or religious purposes,213 the auditors applied it to the Corporation and pushed the case for income tax exemption, “and thereby enable the Corporation to save and still widen and expand its useful activities.”214 Comparing the financial position of the Corporation to “a glass house on a windy sea shore”,215 the auditors found a “strict accountancy test” for the Corporation as unreasonable.216 The mass recognition given to and national and international awards won by the FFC-financed films, along with bringing into limelight many young artistes of immense talent, and a check on black money was also highlighted while seeking more concessions for the Corporation.217 Hence, the auditor suggested, “recovery by Central Government of its loan to the Corporation may be considered of lesser importance.”218 The Corporation did set up a sub-committee for recovery of loans, which met periodically to consider various aspects of recoveries of outstanding loans. Art cinemas were not managed well. In spite of an increase in the number of shows per day, the Corporation incurred a “modest loss” from the running of the Akashvani Cinema, its only arthouse cinema, inaugurated with so much zeal.219 Mohan Siroya, the President of Ankur in Bombay, pointed out how the FFC failed to present its own films in Akashvani auditorium. He expressed his disappointment, My association is also serving as a film society. When we approach the FFC or the producers of such “New Wave” films to allow us to exhibit them (on payment, of course!) for the benefit of our members, their apathy becomes apparent when none responds to our quest…How the FFC can achieve its avowed objective to help film audiences in general to become more discriminating when the FFC itself denies that opportunity to enthusiastic and enlightened audiences?220 The Corporation acquired Maharashtra Rangayan Auditorium in Delhi on a temporary basis for a period of three months. It did not succeed financially and the FFC incurred a loss of Rs. 59,513.221 The Corporation widened its activities by entering the distribution field and obtained the distribution rights of some of their films. It also obtained a loan of Rs. five lakhs from the government as working capital for distribution activities.222 From November 1973, the Corporation was also assigned the work of canalising the import of raw stock, the export of films, and the import of feature films. All these were done to help the FFC earn extra money. But these additional burdens put on the FFC were opposed. The Screen editor wrote, “It is fast being

92  Formation of the Film Finance Corporation realised in many quarters that this is hardly the right way of shaping a new cinema movement.”223 The FFC had not even tried to export its own films and its personnel was not capable of dealing with film exports.224 It was also suggested that the FFC’s emphasis on financing low-budget films (with good subjects), earlier, was not a socialist or aesthetic decision, it was rather an economic decision to bail out the FFC from financial losses.225 Suggestions kept coming asking the FFC to “go commercial”. The 58th Report of the Estimates Committee of Parliament noted that the FFC management should have been aware of the fact that films are primarily a means of entertainment and, unless the films financed by the Corporation provided good entertainment to the people, they would not be acceptable to the masses and would not yield return to the producers.226 The Corporation was advised to keep entertainment and commercial aspects in view while giving loans to producers. The government had to check the feasibility of public appeal as criteria to give funds to films. It also expressed concerns about the nonrelease of FFC films. The Committee suggested that the movies produced by the FFC should be reviewed periodically by a high-level panel of experts, once in two years at least, so as to make sure that finances were being canalised for the approved objectives and would not result in adding to the shelves films which did not have sufficient public appeal and, therefore, did not get screened at an adequate scale to pay back the loans incurred. The Committee stressed that, in reconstituting the Corporation, the government should give full representation to producers of proven standing and other artistes who had made their mark.227 People started calling the FFC a “squanderer of public funds”.228 The FFC’s attitude to constantly use Bhuvan Shome “as an example to claim credit and used as a shield against public criticism and onslaught” was criticised.229 Clarifying that there was no problem if the FFC underwent occasional losses in its attempt to encourage genuine and talented producers, Gaur demanded transparency on the losses.230 The FFC was also blamed for lobbyism while sanctioning loans. Karanjia, holding the position of the Chairman of the FFC and editor of Filmfare at the same time, was also questioned. His position could lead to biased reviews in favour of the films financed during his tenure by the Corporation.231 The FFC’s apathy to the distribution and exhibition of its own films had already come under criticism. Gaur shared how Tarachand Barjatya made some unfavourable compromises with the theatre-owners to get Bhuvan Shome released, At that time, “Khilona”, a box office hit distributed by Barjatya was running at the same theatre in its regular daily shows, and the impact of the matinee was not felt to a greater extent hence the cinema owner agreed to screen “Bhuvan Shome” every morning. Had the distributor been someone else instead of him, the screening would not have been possible.232

Formation of the Film Finance Corporation  93 For Gaur, the Indian New Wave films only sold sex, which was an “antisocial recipe”.233 He wrote, Barring a few exceptions, Indian new wave films are nothing but a decoction of such drugs which act as slow poisons. The days are not far off when society will be completely engulfed by these dragons with tongues stretched out to poison the victim by their bite unless he realises in time the dangerousness of such reptiles and decides to keep away… The young frustrated movie-makers should better take up other jobs where their pedantry and hypocricy [sic] may have scope.234 The attack did not stop here. I.S. Johar, president of IMPPA, had issued a statement demanding a public enquiry into the FFC losses. He also said that the Corporation should not exclude commercial films from its field of financing.235 A.L. Srinivasan, president of the South Indian Film Chamber of Commerce and vice-president of the FFI, called for a probe into the method of financing of films followed by the FFC.236 He also complained of regional biases in the FFC against the Tamil and Telugu film industry.237 Parliament was also increasingly becoming critical of the FFC. Murasoli Maran, MP from Tamil Nadu, used some severe words against the Corporation, No producer with self-respect will ever go to this corporation to get a loan. Instead of making a pilgrimage to this corporation, if he makes a pilgrimage to Varanasi or Badrinath at least he can get the solace that his next birth will be useful. Here at the (FFC) he wastes his energy, money and time. If you want to make the Film Finance Corporation a success and to help the film industry, you should finance commercial ventures and liberalise the rules and regulations.238 On the suggestions to the FFC to start financing big-budget, colour, and commercial films side by side with low-budget “art” pictures, Karanjia said that the Corporation was not in a position to do so as it had only Rs. 20 lakhs in a year for financing films and this was not sufficient to finance even one “big” film.239 Apart from this, the question of granting loans to commercial movies did not arise as the primary objective of the Corporation was to encourage promising filmmakers who, in the prevailing conditions in the industry, would not get finance from conventional sources.240 As opposed to Karanjia’s cautious explanation, Kumar Shahani addressed this issue of a “created” dichotomy between commercial and art cinema, and the FFC’s efforts dubbed as wastage of public money in an essay published in Seminar (December 1974). Shahani alleged, One feeds the masses with opium and then one complains that art is inaccessible to them. One extracts the surplus value of labour and then divides it arbitrarily into public and private money. Recently some

94  Formation of the Film Finance Corporation “socially committed” critics have called the few worthwhile experiments sponsored by the F.F.C. a waste of public money. Radicals in this country often do not seem to recognise how capital is amassed or profits made.241 He was worried, justly, that this unfound criticism and pressure was to have a negative impact on the government’s attitude towards the FFC,242 and the FFC’s attitude towards selecting scripts. Pointing out internal stagnation where the FFC had financed only one film in eleven months and may have rejected scripts with potential artistic merit, but without “safe”, commercial propositions, Shahani feared that the hopes the FFC had raised “by its courage” may fall. He criticised the government for its “half-hearted reformism” and feared, “Pushed back from this reformatory…the cineastes will go back into the underworld of smuggling Fagins who have built India’s comprador cinema upon its major port towns.”243 Another major complaint that had emerged was the FFC’s ill-treatment of some well-deserving applications and filmmakers in the past, and refusing to sanction loans to scripts which went on to win awards and wider public acceptance. Films like Motilal’s Chhoti Chhoti Baten, which bagged a President’s award, and Ismail Merchant’s The Householder were denied loans by the FFC.244 The need for a probe into the method of financing of films followed by the FFC became more acute when the Ayengar Loan Controversy surfaced. Vishwanath Ayengar was the winner of the first Screen Gold Medal and the first Pathy Award for direction and screenplay writing at the FTII in 1967. He subsequently made a number of documentaries for the Delhi Television Station and was also commissioned to make documentaries for the Bombay Television Centre. Ayengar complained that the FFC had rejected his application for a loan without giving any reasons. The coverage of rejection on the front page of Screen led to a “loan controversy”.245 In a press statement, Ayengar stated that he was advised to submit a “better script” and a “better proposal”. The Chairman of the FFC, Mr. Karanjia, refused to discuss the rejected script, pointing out that the comments of the script committee and the names of those who had made them could not be disclosed because the FFC did not like to have any argument with the filmmaker or enter into any controversy with him. Ayengar found the FFC attitude “far from desirable” and “capricious”. He wrote, “the FFC should confine its discretion to deciding who be encouraged to make a film rather than talking in terms of scripts and proposals.”246 V.P. Shah wrote to Screen and denied these allegations. As per the FFC version, Ayengar applied for a loan for the production of a Hindi film titled Main Jaun Kahan (“Where Do I Go?”). Shah wrote, despite Mr. Ayengar’s rather rude and self-opinionated attitude, the Chairman of the Corporation had a discussion with Mr. Ayengar for not less than twenty minutes and explained to him why his script was

Formation of the Film Finance Corporation  95 refused a loan. The Chairman encouraged Mr. Ayengar to submit another proposal with a better script in view of Mr. Ayengar’s distinguished training at the Film and Television Institute.247 Ayengar was also allowed to meet the technical adviser, who informally communicated to him the script committee members’ comments on his script. The script committee had rejected it for being “an amateurish attempt unlikely to yield either a good new-wave film or a successful commercial proposition.” Ayengar denied Shah’s claims that Karanjia had asked him to submit another script.248 He accepted that Karanjia had put him in touch with Shah, who then put him in touch with the technical officer. Karanjia replied to these claims and counter-claims, The whole conversation is a garbled version of what was actually said. I do not wish to prolong this silly controversy any further except to advise Mr. Ayengar that, having applied for a loan to the Film Finance Corporation, he should be able to take the rejection of his application like a man. Not all the silly controversies he now rakes up can make up for the serious deficiencies of the script he submitted to the Corporation.249 Ayengar refused to respond to the “unparliamentary” language used by the Chairman.250 Ayengar’s friend from Madras, V. Srinivas, came out in his support.251 Another reader, A. Sahai from Lucknow, congratulated Screen for publishing Ayengar’s allegations against the FFC and its Chairman B.K. Karanjia. He seemed to be angry with FFC and charged it with carrying on its “silly policies on the whims of its Chairman.”252 He called the FFC “the flattery fantastic corporation”.253 The public sided with Ayengar in this controversy. Two readers from Ajmer wrote to Screen expressing their shock to learn that the FFC had rejected Ayengar’s application, as they had seen his good work.254 B. Patel from Delhi supported Sahai and Ayengar in this controversy.255 Azeez from Trichur, an FTII pass-out, narrated his experiences against the FFC’s loan sanction procedures and lack of transparency.256 Another controversy on the exhibition rights of Uski Roti highlighted the lack of clarity on copyright at the FFC. On a notice of motion taken out by Rochak Pandit, of Rochak Pandit Productions, in a suit filed by him against the FFC, the Bombay City Civil Court granted an ad-interim injunction restraining the defendants from showing either privately or publicly the film, Uski Roti, in India or abroad.257 The movie could not be shown at the Akashvani cinema on Republic Day as part of the film festival sponsored by the FFC. The complainant alleged that though the defendants had advanced a loan for the film’s production, he alone remained the sole owner of the film and he alone had the exclusive rights for distribution of the film and that, in trying to screen the film without his consent or authority, the defendants and their chairman, B.K. Karanjia, were claiming to themselves rights which

96  Formation of the Film Finance Corporation were not conferred on them by the loan agreement. It was insisted that the defendants had acted in bad faith and had shown the film abroad without the complainant’s consent even before the film was commercially released in India and that they had not properly accounted for the prizes and money earned on the film abroad. It was alleged that the defendants had attempted to blot out the complainant’s name and banner from the film and that they had obtained illegally the possession of the film’s prints from the Famous Cine Laboratories at Tardeo (Bombay), which had processed the film and were required to preserve the film with them. The complainant submitted that, though the film had been pledged as a security to the defendants for the loan advanced, he remained the sole and exclusive owner, and that the defendants as mortgagees had no right to exploit the security to his detriment as mortgager. Apart from loans and procedural laxity, the FFC invited criticism of its script committee and “decadent” story writers “without whom the loan from F.F.C. cannot be got sanctioned.”258 Neeta Sehgal from Delhi wrote, “the Film and Television Institute diploma holders should create a revolution now within the FFC to break this clique of writers and outsiders who are exploiting this organisation for selfish interests.”259 However, supporting voices found such blames disastrous, and believed that the FFC was being “penalised for past losses with which the emerging cinema had nothing at all to do.”260 The Financial Express asked whether it is too much to expect our state governments, which have been securing large amounts – to the tune of Rs. forty crores per annum – in the form of entertainment tax, to release to the FFC at least ten per cent of the receipts for lending to producers at a low rate of interest on a longterm basis.261 The attack on the FFC was also extended to the Indian New Wave/New Cinema, as it was patronised by the Corporation. Many renowned filmmakers and producers degraded the Indian New Wave as a movement. B.N. Sircar, of New Theatres, and winner of the Dadasaheb Phalke Award, could not easily reconcile himself to the “new wave”, or ‘whatever it was called’. But he felt that ‘gimmicks and technical contrivances’ should not be mistaken for a new kind of cinema, which ought to have the necessary coherence and clarity.262 Satyajit Ray stressed the importance of “survival” as the preliminary factor for any filmmaker or even any financing body, like the FFC. He said that for this there should be a keen sense of responsibility about the recouping of the investment, through the film being viewed by a paying audience.263 He disagreed with the state’s view that film should fulfil a social task, which was being imposed to a certain degree on the New Cinema Movement.264 Vijay Anand expressed an attitude largely shared by mainstream Hindi filmmakers about the New Wave. He called it a ‘pale imitation of its Western counterpart’.265 He saw a deeper government and press alliance in establishing this New Wave movement in India, and made some fanciful claims,

Formation of the Film Finance Corporation  97 The Government is obliged to give this backing because it has to justify the existence of its film financing set-up. For this, the picture it finances are dubbed as New Wave films…And, since the Government is afraid that Parliament might ask what it has done with public money, it is giving awards and certificates of merit and so on to these films to cover their weaknesses since they are not seen by any sizable audiences.266 Karanjia made a forceful attack on these criticisms based on a created category of films, i.e. New Wave. He wrote, The myth of the Indian “new wave” has been perpetuated by certain interested parties, including some distinguished film makers, and the myth is sought to be demolished by the very people who perpetuated it in the first instance! The Corporation itself has never claimed to sponsor anything so ill-defined or presumptuous as a “new wave”.267 He clarified that the FFC simply wanted to capture the lost “Indianness” in Indian cinema, “breaking new cinematic ground” in the circumstances prevailing in the Indian film industry at that time. Another general feeling was that, though the intentions of the FFC in sponsoring the movement were commendable, the New Wave had not succeeded in raising an audience of any significance on its own. Firoze Rangoonwala asked an existential question, “Where is the enthusiasm and the audience that the movement was supposed to generate?”268 Criticising the style borrowed from Bresson or Godard, Rangoonwala pointed out the dangers of alienating and antagonising the crucial “middle audience” – people on the verge, who were genuinely attracted to the movement but prone to be very easily lost when faced with films they could make no meaning of.269 An argument to the contrary was forwarded that the place of any new movement in filmmaking should be judged not by its capacity to create an audience but rather by its ability to produce unusual films capable of progressively changing audiences’ taste for better and decisively influencing ways of filmmaking.270 Mani Kaul, while replying to questions raised by speakers at a not-for-profit screening of Uski Roti, said it was wishful thinking to imagine of any movement to replace the existing cinema totally in any way, and creating an entirely new set of films and audiences. The significance of any movement did not lie in producing a ready audience but in giving rise to films capable of coining a new idiom of expression in film so that future filmmakers could use it as a new tool to interpret ideas and facts around them in life.271 People defended the Indian New Wave by attacking the ‘commercial’ film which were far more imitative of the Western films.272 Dileep Padgaonkar criticised commercial cinema operating in a “social vacuum” because it is naturally conceived as a “merchandise meant for the consumption of a socially and culturally heterogeneous audience”.273 The popular films remained profoundly conservative, did not question the social and moral traditions, rather upheld

98  Formation of the Film Finance Corporation them zealously. According to him, it was only state assistance to “serious cinema”, through bodies such as the FFC, which could “bridge the gap between the modernising political and economic progresses and the cultural backwardness represented by the retrograde products of the cinema industry.”274 (Emphasis added) The FFC could not put up a confident defence to these allegations or counterattack the over-zealous criticisms of “wasting the public money”. The losses that it incurred during 1960 to 1968 haunted it even after its success, though brief, in 1969–72. Even after putting Indian cinema on the world map, the FFC could not fight back the pressure to go commercial. The political instability from 1975 to 1979 was to further slow down the pace of the New Cinema Movement. In spite of these concerns, the FFC did finance the following films during 1970–4: Shasha (incomplete) (Arjun Dev Rashk), Ashad Ka Ek Din (Mani Kaul), Phir Bhi (Shivendra Sinha), Ek Adhuri Kahani (Mrinal Sen) (Arun Kaul was the producer), Badnam Basti (Prem Kapoor), Trisandhya (Hindi & Malayalam) (Raj Marbros) (all 1970), Sankalp (Ramesh Saigal), Grahan (Manjul Prabhat), Maya Darpan (Kumar Shahani), Aakrant (Girish Vaidya) (all 1971), Garm Hava (M.S. Sathyu), 27 Down (A.K. Kaul), Dak Bangla (Girish Ranjan) (all 1972), Parinay (Kantilal Rathod), Duvidha (Mani Kaul) (both 1973), and Tyag Patra (Ramesh Gupta) (1974).275 The NFC is Suggested and FFC Faces an Existential Crisis Before the much-needed success of Bhuvan Shome, the financial crisis had started seeping into the FFC. The IMPEC was also facing criticism over its inefficiency to help the film industry export its products abroad on good terms.276 In March 1969, I.S. Johar, the IMPPA president, for the first time, suggested that the FFC and IMPEC should be amalgamated, with the hope that “the combined strength” of the two institutions could serve the film industry in an effective way.277 The new chairman of IMPEC, A.M. Tariq, promised to consider the suggestion, and revealed that there was some thinking among the concerned officials on similar lines. IMPEC irregularities, etc., had stirred the idea of a National Film Corporation (NFC)/NFDC.278 The Deputy Minister for Information and Broadcasting, D.B. Sinha, said in the Lok Sabha that, in accordance with the government’s national policy on films, it was proposed to take a series of steps for the integrated development of the film industry as a whole through a Film Council and a “multifunctional” National Film Corporation in public sector.279 A hint was also given that the IMPEC would be amalgamated with the NFC and that the FFC would remain a subsidiary of the new corporation.280 The press supported the idea, “Given the chaotic conditions under which the cinema industry in this country continues to work the government has sound reasons to set up a body to bring some order into its affairs.”281 Having foreign film distributors in the country again was said to be a great help if the new corporation could

Formation of the Film Finance Corporation  99 do that. The proposed corporation’s profits could be used to finance serious films under the protection of the FFC, providing subsidies to theatres agreeing to screen serious films for a specified period every year, until the government set up its own chain of theatres, and quality control on the industry through the NFDC’s handling of imported raw stock were some of the other suggestions that came by. An ‘imaginative leadership’, like that of the FFC, was sought for the proposed NFDC, too, away from bureaucratic ways of functioning. Concluding Remarks The period from 1960 to 1968 was marked by trial and error. The FFC was trying to figure out how to monitor loan disbursals, assure investment returns, and above all how to negotiate its promotional objective with an economic usefulness. Non-release of many of its films led to an increasing amount of bad debts and several loan waive-offs. The Corporation’s failure on the distribution and exhibition front led to a wider debate on its legitimacy as a financing agency. The year 1968 marked a shift. The movement got its own Manifesto, written by Arun Kaul and Mrinal Sen, and found its broad objectives defined. With B.K. Karanjia taking over the Corporation as Chairman in 1969, the Corporation’s policies became clearer and in favour of low-budget, artistic, literature-based feature films. New Cinema finally arrived under the patronage of the Indian state. The success of Bhuvan Shome and Sara Akash, and critical and international attention given to Uski Roti and Maya Darpan, along with Garm Hava, did bail out the Corporation and the New Cinema Movement for some time. The period from 1969 to 1974 was the most successful, and controversial, period in the Corporation’s formative years. It witnessed its Bhuvan Shome moment, got pulled into court on Uski Roti, and received criticism for favouritism and lack of transparency on loans. Reports of rising bad debts, and the failure of art cinema houses brought back the legitimacy question of both the institution and the cultural movement. New Cinema filmmakers were called by various names, and blamed for wasting taxpayers’ money for their personal ambitions. By 1974, while the J.P. movement was on, and India was preparing for an internal Emergency, the FFC and New Indian Cinema faced their first moment of existential threat. The government and the film industry started talking of forming a new national film corporation into which the IMPEC would be merged, and the FFC would work as a subsidiary to the proposed national corporation. The next chapter discusses the formation of the NFDC in detail. The narrative coincides with the J.P. movement, the declaration of Emergency, and the political chaos and instability that followed. Notes 1  A la​kh is​ the ​sum o​f one​ hund​red t​housa​nd. 2 M.S. Ahluwalia, ‘Film Finance Corporation Can Stabilise State of Trade’, Screen, 3 June 1960, p.5. According to Ahluwalia, it was the Secretary of the MIB, Mr. P.M. Lad, who decided to think of the recommendations of the Report of the

100  Formation of the Film Finance Corporation Film Enquiry Committee. The government had not shown any interest in the Report till then. Ahluwalia gave Mr. Lad the credit for the formation of the FFC “as it was he who initiated its consideration by the Government and ceaselessly pursued it.” 3 ‘Film Financing’, Screen, 3 June 1960, p.8. 4 Ibid. 5 Dr. Rikhab Dass Jain, ‘Trade Need Rationalisation To Ensure Success To F.F.C.’, Screen, 24 June 1960, p.6. A fair discontent was expressed in the press on this issue. It was called an “unfair exclusion”, sort of an “apartheid against the people of the film industry”. Government’s reason for rejecting such an offer to include industry people that they may be partial in their advice was not convincing at all. The Screen editor N.G. Jog wrote, “barring entry to the F.F.C. directorate to men who have expert knowledge of movie business is like writing the Ramayana without Rama or the Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark.” See, ‘Unfair Exclusion’, Screen, 24 June 1960, p.8. 6 Jain, Economic Aspects of the Film Industry in India, p.103. 7 ‘Applications For Loans Invited by F.F.C.’, Screen, 28 October 1960, p.1 & 4. Corporation’s first loan was given to Trilok Jetly, producer-director of Godaan (Hindi, based on Premchand’s famous novel), in March 1961. Godaan was sanctioned Rs. three and a half lakhs with an interest of nine per cent per annum. See, ‘More Loans By FFC Under Consideration’, Screen, 10 March 1961, p.1. 8 See, ‘F.F.C. Scheme For Aiding Producers’, Screen, 11 May 1962, p.1. Two of the most common “handicaps” expressed by producers seeking Corporation loans were related to the two amounts, the scrutiny fee of Rs. 2,500, and proof of 25 per cent of investment. In an informal chat with Screen, N.D. Mehrotra justified both the provisions, which, he said, were only for aiding serious film producers, and ‘to avoid frivolous applications” along with ensuring that the producer “would seriously concern himself with the production.” 9 ‘FFC May Aid Experimentation On Indian Screen, Says Joglekar’, Screen, 25 November 1960, p.14. 10 ‘Two Panels for Loan Application Scrutiny’, Screen, 7 October 1960, p.4. 11 ‘Industry Notables Among FFC Advisers’, Screen, 7 October 1960, p.1. In July 1960, when the Supreme Council of Motion Picture Producers of India, represented by S. Mukerji, J.B. Roongta, B.R. Chopra, and Bimal Roy met N.D. Mehrotra on the issue of industry representation, they were told that giving any other kind of representation, other than on the technical advisory committees, to the industry on the pattern of the FFC was held “not feasible” by the Government of India. See, ‘F.F.C. Panels Likely to Have Industry Men’, Screen, 15 July 1960, p.1. 12 ‘Loan Application Disposal by F.F.C. Delayed, Centre Yet To Pass Bye-Laws’, Screen, 12 August 1960, p.1. 13 ‘F.F.C. Procedure Entails Red Tape: Criticism in Bengal’, Screen, 2 December 1960, p.1. 14 Producers in Madras also felt the same. See, ‘FFC Formalities Are Too Stiff, Producers Feel’, Screen, 11 November 1960, p.4. 15 ‘FFC Loan Terms Too Stiff, Bengal Producers Feel’, Screen, 19 April 1963, p.15. 16 Also see ‘Sivaji Ganesan Wants F.F.C. Procedures Revised’, Screen, 16 December 1960, p.1; and ‘FFC Capital Meagre And Loan Conditions Stiff, Says A. L. Srinivasan’, Screen, 23 December 1960, p.13. 17 ‘Film Finance Corporation’, Screen, 9 December 1960, p.8. Indian Motion Picture Distributors’ Association’s annual report later highlighted that the spiralling production and exhibition costs were the trade’s biggest problem, therefore

Formation of the Film Finance Corporation  101 the emphasis on commercialism. See, ‘Spiralling Production, Exhibition Costs Are Trade’s Biggest Problem, I.M.P.D.A. Annual Report Says’, Screen, 16 June 1961, p.11. 18 ‘F.F.C. Will Aid All Bonafide Producers, Mehrotra Assures Trade’, Screen, 14 April 1961, p.13. 19 ‘Fall In Production Has Shaken Whole Trade And Industry, F.F.I. Annual Report’, Screen, 5 January 1962, p.11. 20 ‘Producer Lauds “Efficient Working” of F.F.C.’, Screen, 5 January 1962, p.13. 21 ‘Rs. 6 Lakhs As FFC Loans For Two Movies’, Screen, 20 April 1962, p.2. 22 ‘FFC Appeal To The Finance Ministry For Greater Discretionary Powers’, Screen, 24 August 1962, p.7. 23 ‘Rules Governing F.F.C. Made More Liberal’, Screen, 14 September 1962, p.1. 24 ‘Corporation’s Performance’, Screen, 12 October 1962, p.8. 25 Earlier, Roongta, the IMPPA president, was reported to have said that the utility of the FFC would be greatly increased if the Corporation would extend aid on the strength of the commercial prospect of any film project for which aid was sought and give less weightage to moral and cultural values in its theme. See, ‘Roongta Pleads For Easier Terms For FFC Loans’, Screen, 21 September 1962, p.16. 26 ‘Corporation’s Performance’. 27 ‘Big Response To Nation’s Call, Donations Pouring Into Defence Fund, Industry Machinery Set A Moving’, Screen, 2 November 1962, p.1. Also read, ‘War Efforts And Film Industry’, Screen, 16 November 1962, p.8. 28 ‘Distribution Machinery For F.F.C. In View, Loans only on guarantee’, Screen, 17 January 1964, p.1. 29 ‘FFC profits up: annual report’, Screen, 26 July 1963, p.4. 30 ‘Film Finance Corporation’, Screen, 2 August 1963, p.8. 31 ‘Record demand for FFC loans’, Screen, 26 July 1963, p.14. 32 See, Z.A. Ahad, ‘FFC-Aided Films’, Screen, 19 July 1963, p.2. 33 ‘FFC now under I. B. Ministry’, Screen, 21 August 1964, p.1. 34 ‘More Effective FFC Aid To Industry, End production delays, says new chief’, Screen, 26 March 1965, p.1. Also see, ‘An opportunity’, Screen, 26 March 1965, p.8, for the editor’s opinion on the new adjustments to be made by the FFC. 35 ‘FFC plan to aid output of artistic films’, Screen, 4 June 1965, p.12. 36 ‘Loan Finance For Quality Films: Box-Office Failures “Should Not Deter F. F. C.”’, Screen, 19 November 1965, p.7. 37 ‘FFC loans: new priority’, Screen, 29 October 1965, p.1. 38 Report 1965–66, p.2. 39 ‘F. F. C. losses through bad debts: nearly Rs. 4 lakhs written off’, Screen, 19 November 1965, p.1. Also see, ‘Discretion for financing’, Screen, 26 November 1965, p.8. According to the editor S.S. Pillai, “The Corporation’s approach of playing safe…does not seem to have paid dividends…A more dynamic and enlightened policy is called for in respect of backing films which have art and purpose wrapped in entertainment, and hence run more chances of commercial success than the “safe” entertainers.” The FFC’s tighter provisions were making borrowing money “unattractive”, resulting in reducing number of applications received in 1965 from 36 to ten. The FFC was asked to use its discretion for financing the “right type of films”. 40 ‘Centre against F.F.C. producing films’, Screen, 10 December 1965, p.15. 41 Report 1965–66, p.59. 42 ‘F.F.C.’s Plight’, Screen, 14 April 1967, p.10. 43 ‘FFC Reports Rs. 5 Lakhs Loss in 1966-’67, Bad debts caused by film failures’, Screen, 25 August 1967, p.1. Also see, ‘FFC reports of yet another year

102  Formation of the Film Finance Corporation of loss’, Screen, 1 September 1967, p.11. The writing off of bad debts was done with a view to present a correct picture of the accounts and did not debar the Corporation from pursuing legal and other steps to effect recoveries from the defaulters. The debts were considered doubtful either because legal action had been taken against the producers concerned for the recovery of dues, or because the release of the film was considered doubtful in the near future, or on release or full exploitation of the film, the amount was considered doubtful of recovery. 44 ‘F.F.C.’s Plight’, Screen, 14 April 1967, p.10. 45 This Committee was appointed by the Government of Maharashtra to inquire into the wages and service conditions of the employees of the production sector of the film industry in the state. 46 ‘Liberal financial aid to film industry urged’, The Times of India, 25 April 1967, p.5. 47 Ibid. 48 ‘FFC must boost experimental films, says Tapan’, Screen, 27 October 1967, p.2. 49 Tapan Sinha, ‘More Liberal Govt. Outlook Essential’, Screen, 28 April 1967, p.8. 50 Ibid. 51 Eighth Annual Report and Accounts 1967–68, p.6. 52 Ibid. p.4. 53 Ibid. p.7. 54 Ibid. p.8. 55 ‘F. F. C. May Distribute Films, Build Cinemas, Centre studying proposals’, Screen, 24 May 1968, p.1. 56 ‘Film Finance Corporation’, Screen, 27 September 1968, p.10. 57 Diana Singh Roy, ‘The Indian Cinema: What ails it?: The Producer at Bay’, The Times of India, 24 March 1968, p.10. Also see, Bhaichand Patel, ‘What’s Wrong With Our Film Industry?’, The Times of India, 28 March 1971, p.A5. 58 ‘FFC Loan For Mrinal’, Screen, 1 November 1968, p.1. 59 ‘Will FFC Distribute Films It Aids?’, Screen, 29 March 1963, p.4. 60 ‘F.F.C. may construct cinemas’, Screen, 2 October 1964, p.13. 61 Also see, ‘‘State Governments must stand guarantee for FFC loans’’, Screen, 10 January 1964, p.11. This was an old suggestion by the former FFC Chairman Mr. Kotak, too. Such a step was already under contemplation of the West Bengal government. Mr. Kotak believed that this step would go a long way in ‘helping new talent as also the old guards to continue to produce healthy films’. 62 For details, see, K.T. John, ‘Angry Men of Indian Filmdom’, The Times of India, 18 September 1966, p.6. 63 ‘Organisation On Sound Lines Needed, Keskar’s Advice To Film Industry’, The Times of India, 18 July 1961, p.5. 64 Ibid. 65 K.N. Subramaniam, ‘“Film-Making Is A Sacred Mission”, Radhakrishnan On Producers’ Responsibilities, State Awards Presented’, Screen, 27 April 1962, p.1. 66 ‘“Show India In Her New Garb”, Nehru’s plea to industry, Bombay Gala Inaugurated’, Screen, 13 December 1963, p.1. 67 Pandit Shimpi, ‘Strive To Raise Country’s Mental Climate, President’s call at awards fete’, Screen, 1 May 1964, p.1. 68 Ibid. 69 Also see, ‘Our films must reflect the national purpose, says Radhakrishnan’, Screen, 8 May 1964, p.7. Dr. Radhakrishnan emphasised the importance of films in maintaining the cultural traditions of India which had been harmony, interracial, inter-religious, and inter-cultural understanding. He hoped, “all those connected with films – producers, directors, actors and others – will cherish these ideals and will try to raise the mental climate of our country to a higher level.”

Formation of the Film Finance Corporation  103 70 ‘Mrs. Gandhi at Film Institute’, Screen, 7 August 1964, p.2. Also see, ‘New Outlook’, Screen, 14 August 1964, p.10. 71 ‘Raise quality of films, Mrs. Gandhi tells producers’, Screen, 2 July 1965, p.15. 72 ‘Help sustain values of life, national integration, Governor tells film men’, Screen, 4 June 1965, p.3. 73 ‘Mrs. Gandhi calls for better standards’, Screen, 4 June 1965, p.3. 74 ‘PM lauds film’s role as an entertainer’, Screen, 3 June 1966, p.13. 75 ‘Role of Film Industry In Welfare Society, Raj Bahadur’s emphasis’, Screen, 20 May 1966, p.1. 76 ‘Cinema and Welfare’, Screen, 27 May 1966, p.6. 77 Ibid. 78 I.K. Gujral, ‘Is Indian Cinema Really Adult?’, Filmfare, 22 May 1970, p.31. 79 See, ‘“Mamta” producer feels art, box-office can blend’, Screen, 17 March 1967, p.8. 80 S.K. Ojha, ‘Artistic endeavour to make cultural films’, Screen, 17 March 1967, p.14. 81 Rajammal Anantharaman, ‘More Realistic Depiction Of Life In Films Is Worth The Trouble’, Screen, 21 October 1960, p.5. The writer was a Judge of the Juvenile Court in Madras, and vice-president of the Madras Film Society, the Theatre Group, and the South Indian Society of Painters. 82 ‘Abbas Urges State Aid To Producers To Tone Up Films’, Screen, 3 March 1961, p.7. Abbas referred to the famous Hindi writer Premchand who tried to introduce realism in Indian films as early as 1930-31, when he produced his revolutionary picture Mill Aur Mazdoor, which was released six or seven years later after drastic censorship. Also see, ‘Mehboob Wants Protection For Industry’, Screen, 10 March 1961, p.1 & 4. Every year over 260 pictures were imported into India from the US and Great Britain. Against this not even one picture was taken by them from India. He appealed to the Minister, “We can also make pictures for the world market. Give us the facilities and give us the protection instead of giving protection to industries irrespective of quality and price of their product.” (p.4). 83 ‘Our Films Must Have Something Novel To Offer’, Screen, 3 August 1962, p.4. 84 Ibid. 85 Taj Janoo, ‘Our Films Abroad’, Screen, 1 February 1963, p.2. 86 V.R. Vaswani, ‘Low Standard’, Screen, 2 August 1963, p.2. 87 Amar Jeet, ‘Movie Realism Need Not Always Be Sombre Pessimism’, Screen, 8 June 1962, p.5. He made Hum Dono under the Nav Ketan banner, which was later selected as the official Indian entry at the International Film Festival in Berlin. 88 Jagdish Lal, ‘Poor Standard’, Screen, 5 April 1963, p.2. 89 Humayoon Mirza, ‘Realism in Films’, Screen, 18 May 1962, p.2. 90 P. Anuradha, ‘Undesirable Trend’, Screen, 18 May 1962, p.2. 91 Tapan Sinha, ‘Films Of Tomorrow Must Mirror People’s Thoughts’, Screen, 21 September 1962, p.14. 92 L.B. Lachman, ‘Films Must Purvey High Ideals To Common Man In His Own Language’, Screen, 4 January 1963, page number not clear.* His production house L.B. Films made films like Anari, Anuradha, and Mem Didi, all of them directed by Hrishikesh Mukherjee. *(I have digital copies of Screen, where, often, page numbers are not clear due to over or under exposure of light, or the page cut or dog-eared. This is also applicable to various Filmfare issues.) 93 Ibid. 94 ‘Symposium on Cinema and Society at Delhi fete’, Screen, 17 July 1964, p.12. 95 Nasir Husain, ‘Who are responsible for lack of realism in our films? – the censors’, Screen, 28 July 1967, p.8.

104  Formation of the Film Finance Corporation 96 Hemanta Kumar, ‘Good films and big budgets seldom go together’, Screen, 29 September 1967, p.8. 97 Bikram Singh, ‘Hindi Cinema – A Rootless Phenomenon’, Filmfare, 27 October 1967, p.35. 98 Ibid. 99 Anand, 1967, p.8. 100 Rahul Singh, ‘Anatomy of a Crisis: Moment of Truth for Film Industry’, The Times of India, 27 March 1968, p.8. 101 Chaddha, 1990, pp.404–05 (author’s translation). 102 The years in bracket in this paragraph denote the year of the FFC loan sanctioned to the respective film and not their release year. 103 Annual Report 1979–80, 1980, Annexure VI, pp.2–4. 104 The New Cinema Movement in India was preceded by Nayi Kahani/Naya Afsana/New Story movement. The Nayi Kahani movement in Hindi literature specifically started after independence, centring on the new concerns faced by the newly independent citizens of India. In 1960, the year FFC was formed, a journal titled Nayi Kahaniyaan (New Stories) started its publication under Shri Bhairawaprasad Gupt as its editor from Rajkamal Prakashan, New Delhi. See, Tiwari, 1996, p.299. Writing in its anniversary issue in May 1962, Rajendra Yadav wrote, “The storyteller requests to see the person in its totality. His goal is to achieve the person as a complex process of his social environment, mental conflicts, and practical demands of life.” Ibid. One can see, Nayi Kahani and New Cinema shared many common grounds and affected each other. New Story and New Cinema’s parallel concerns with regard to the life of the new man in the newly independent India, and their curious union during the 1960s and early 1970s on screen could be subject of a separate study. Nayi Kahani inspired the new directors in several ways. Nayi Kahani, Nayi Kavita (New Poetry), and Naya Cinema (New Cinema) were the cultural reactions to their complex times. They opened windows to complexities of life and its realities, individual consciousness and how to reach society through the individual, a neutral portrayal of human emotions, middle-class consciousness of life, awareness of modernity and problems of self and pride, symbolism, and experimentation in art. However, it is a point worth noting that none of these New Cinema directors worked on the talented line of work produced by the women writers of Nayi Kahani, like Usha Priyamvada, Mannu Bhandari, and Krishna Sobti. Was this New Cinema’s gender bias? Also see note 111 below in this chapter. 105 MacKenzie, 2014, p.1. 106 Ibid. p.8. 107 Arun Kaul worked as assistant director for many films, was associated with the films of Sukhdev and K.A. Abbas, produced Ek Adhuri Kahani directed by Mrinal Sen, and was associate producer of Sen’s Bhuvan Shome and Interview. He was executive producer of Buddhadeb Das Gupta’s Andhi Gali and worked on many screenplays, including those for Ijaazat and Lekin by Gulzar. One of the leaders of the film society movement, Kaul edited Close-up, a serious film magazine, and served on the National Executive of the FFSI from 1964 to 1972. See, Indian Cinema 1991, DFF, MIB, Government of India, New Delhi, 1992, pp.101–02. 108 Kaul and Sen, 2014, p.165. 109 Ibid. 110 Ibid. p.166. 111 The words “new”, “novo”, “nouvelle”, and naya were widely used in various literary and cinematic movements occurring in various parts of the world post1940s. In Hindi cinema, with the success of Naya Sansar (1941), it was Abbas

Formation of the Film Finance Corporation  105 who became the apostle of the “Naya” trend of giving titles, and twisting stories to somehow include a progressive element. A movie titled Nai Kahani was produced in 1943, directed by D.D. Kashyap. Abbas set up a production company with the same name in 1951, Naya Sansar Films. Raj Khosla and Jal Mistry also started a production unit titled Naya Films (New Films). Nayi Duniya was a film magazine printed during this time. Kardar chose an alternate title for his new film as Nai Duniya, Prabhat made Nai Kahani, Navyug tried Naya Tarana, and there also followed Nai Zindagi, Naya Zamana, and so on. B.R. Chopra produced Naya Daur in 1957, and FFC financed Nai Umar Ki Nai Fasal in 1965. Also see note 104 above. 112 Kaul and Sen, p.166. 113 Ibid. p.167. 114 Ibid. 115 Ibid. p.168. 116 Ibid. 117 Ninth Annual Report and Accounts 1968–69, 1969, p.7. 118 ‘FFC Acting Chairman’, Screen, 16 May 1969, p.18. 119 Burjor Khurshetji Karanjia (B.K. Karanjia) started his career in the Indian Civil Service in 1943 but soon resigned from it to become the founding editor of Cine Voice in 1947, and later Movie Times. In 1960, he was appointed editor of Filmfare which he left only in 1978 to edit Screen, the weekly trade paper of the film industry. In addition to his editorial responsibilities, he was the author of two books and several short stories, adviser to the FTII, member of several international film festival juries and, between 1969 and 1975, director and then Chairman of the FFC. Both through his writings and his chairmanship of the FFC, he played a pioneering role in the emergence of a New Cinema movement in India. See, ‘Juries’, Seventh International Film Festival of India, New Delhi, 3–17 January 1979, DFF, New Delhi, 1979, p. not printed. 120 Karanjia, 1990, p.76. 121 Also see, B.K. Karanjia, ‘New Climate, New Cinema’, Filmfare, 6 December 1968, p. not printed. 122 ‘Film finance unit to grant loans up to Rs. 2.5 lakhs’, The Times of India, 28 September 1969, p.3. 123 Karanjia, 1990, p.77. 124 ‘F.F.C. loan “Dastak”’, Screen, 6 June 1969, p.16. 125 ‘Loan Sanctioned’, Screen, 10 October 1969, p.12. 126 ‘FFC to own low-cost cinemas, start distribution network’, Screen, 24 October 1969, p.16. 127 Report 1969–70, 1970, p.108. 128 See, ‘Venice Medal for “Bhuvan Shome”’, Screen, 15 August 1969, p.18; M.S.M. Desai, ‘Golden Peacock Goes To Italy, Spanish pair get best acting prizes, Jury Award for “Bhuvan Shome”’, Screen, 19 December 1969, p.1; ‘President’s Gold Medal For “Bhuvan Shome”, Utpal, Madhabi – best artistes’, Screen, 4 September 1970, p.1; ‘‘Bhuvan Shome’ best film in BFJA 1969 awards’, Screen, 27 March 1970, p.17; and N.K.G., ‘Inside Calcutta Filmland’, Screen, 31 July 1970, p.4. 129 Mrinal Sen, ‘A Little Madness’, Filmfare, 19 December 1969, p.39. 130 Ibid. K.K. Mahajan told in an interview that they made reflectors themselves on location during the shooting. He said, “In the main location – the house of the girl, we got a cloth made which cost six-seven hundred rupees. There was a tree and we tied up the cloth on the top of it. Small scenes were shot inside the hut where we did not have any light. So I removed the tiles from above the hut, put a white cloth on the top of the hut, did the scene inside and put the tiles back again. All these things happened because you don’t have facilities.” See, Sudhir Mishra,

106  Formation of the Film Finance Corporation Kumar Shahani, K.K. Mahajan, ‘KK is 75 Films Young’, Cinema in India, July 1990, p.8. 131 Sen, 1999, p.120. 132 ‘A Case for Sanity’, Filmfare, 28 August 1970, p.12. 133 Mrinal Sen, and Manjula Sen, ‘Mrinal Sen’, Cinema in India, Annual 1991, p.98. 134 ‘Mrinal urges tax exemption for ‘Bhuvan Shome’’, Screen, 7 August 1970, p.7. 135 Sanjay Kumar from Bombay supported tax exemption for Bhuvan Shome, “the neatest ever of all entertainment films made till today in our country”. He grieved, “Just say “Bharat Mataki jai,” or “Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan” loudly in a film and, even if it lets loose any amount of sex around it, the film will get tax exemption. But not “Bhuvan Shome!” What a shame!” See, ‘Readers Write To The Editor’, Screen, 17 July 1970, p.2. Also see, Screen, 11 September 1970, p.15, for a rich, promotional poster of the film. 136 ‘“Bhuvan Shome”’, Screen, 15 October 1971, p.22. 137 ‘Conspiracy of Denial’, Filmfare, 5 June 1970, p. not available. 138 D.Y. Kanade, ‘A constant joy’, Filmfare, 31 December 1971, p.55. 139 ‘Readers Write To The Editor…’, Screen, 26 December 1969, p.2. For Prasad, under the FFC, “realism became a national political project. Bhuvan Shome represents this dimension of the project. It was a realism devoted to the mapping of the land, producing the nation for the state, capturing the substance of the state’s boundaries.” See, Prasad, Ideology of the Hindi Film, p.190; also see p.192. 140 ‘Readers Write To The Editor…’, Screen, 9 January 1970, p.2. 141 Ibid. 142 ‘Readers Write To The Editor…’, Screen, 23 January 1970, p.2. 143 ‘Readers Write To The Editor…’, Screen, 26 June 1970, p.2. 144 ‘“Bhuvan Shome,” lyrical, fresh, delightful, still falls short of a masterpiece’, Screen, 26 June 1970, p.17. 145 Ibid. 146 See, A. Venketesan, ‘Boring’, Filmfare, 1 January 1971, p.65. 147 S.R.S. Sastri, ‘Poor Mrinal!’, Filmfare, 12 February 1971, p.53. 148 ‘‘Sara Akash’ producer feted’, Screen, 20 February 1970, p.2. 149 ‘“Sara Akash”: triumph of freshness’, The Times of India, 2 May 1971, p.3. 150 Ibid. 151 Ibid. 152 ‘“Sara Akash” is poetic but its story lacks substance’, Screen, 7 May 1971, p.14. See, Dnyaneshwar Nadkarni, ‘Another Low-budget Art Film’, The Times of India, 19 July 1970, p.11, for a less-passionate and sympathetic review of the film. Also see, S.J. Banaji, ‘Sara Akash: bridegroom for sacrifice’, Filmfare, 21 May 1971, p.43. 153 C.D. Coelho, ‘The need of the day’, Filmfare, 2 July 1971, p.51. 154 G. Kaul, ‘Art Film In Delhi’, Filmfare, 18 June 1971, p.43. 155 Annual Report & Accounts 1970–71, 1971, p.7. 156 ‘FFC: “Focus for Incentive”’, Filmfare, 4 December 1970, p. not visible. 157 It won the silver medal in the Fifth International Film Festival held in Milan in July 1973, see, ‘Milan prize for “Uski Roti”’, Screen, 3 August 1973, p.1. 158 ‘Where the dreamers dare!’, The Times of India, 26 October 2007, p.B6. 159 ‘Star Quotes: Radha Saluja’, Filmfare, 12 July 1974, p.11. She was nevertheless hopeful about the capacity of films like Garm Hava or Bazar Band Karo to change public taste. 160 MacDonald, 1998, p.171. While Mrinal Sen and Basu Chatterji celebrated realism in their film, Mani Kaul and Kumar Shahani were trained in anti-realism. The Indian New Cinema movement struggled with these two separate techniques of filmmaking in its formative years. Gradually, the movement was induced to

Formation of the Film Finance Corporation  107 choose realism and realist effect over experimentation, and non-linear, non-narrative language of filmmaking. 161 Arvind Kumar, ‘One day…or was it today?’, Filmfare, 6 November 1970, p.31. 162 Ibid. 163 Ibid. 164 Bikram Singh, ‘Enlarged till the grains show’, Filmfare, 6 November 1970, p.33. 165 J.S. Rao, ‘…To Reach The Static, An Interview with Mani Kaul’, Filmfare, 8 September 1972, p.33. 166 Ibid. p.35. 167 Mani Kaul, ‘Indian Cinema – New Perspectives’, Filmfare, 17 December 1971, p.37. 168 ‘FFC Loan’, Screen, 17 March 1972, p.1. 169 A film lover confessed, “The monotony and isolation of the feudal family and the deep inner conflict between the two generations are well expressed through the characters of the Diwan and his daughter.” See, Dr. Rajen Ajnabi, ‘A near gem’, Filmfare, 29 November 1974, p. not visible. Also see, ‘Some more honours’, Filmfare, 21 September 1973, p.21; Kumar Shahani, and Khalid Mohamed, Cinema in India, Annual 1991, p.109; and, Henri Micciollo, ‘“Maya Darpan” – Figures of Silent Oppression’, Filmfare, 29 June 1973, p.38. 170 Satish Verma, ‘The Return of the Art Film’, The Times of India, 8 March 1970, p.11. 171 Ibid. 172 Ibid. 173 ‘FFC praised for breathing fresh air in films’, Screen, 25 August 1972, p.28. 174 ‘Gujral praises FFC’s role in encouraging young directors’, Screen, 28 December 1973, p.4. 175 Report 1972–73, 1972, p.78. 176 Bikram Singh, ‘The Non-Conformists Are Coming’, Filmfare, 1 January 1971, p.35. 177 B.K. Karanjia, ‘Towards A New Cinema’, Filmfare, 1 January 1971, p.33. 178 Ibid. 179 Ibid. 180 Mrinal Sen, ‘The Non-Marketable People Are Selling’, Filmfare, 4 June 1971, p.29. 181 Ibid. p.31. 182 Ibid. 183 Ibid. 184 M. Siroya, ‘New Wave Films – taste of success’, Filmfare, 6 October 1972, p.45 & 47. 185 Sumit Mitra, ‘An interview with Mrinal Sen, “My First Encounter With Films Was A Disaster”’, Filmfare, 26 January 1973, p.27 & 29. 186 ‘Two Festivals’, Filmfare, 26 January 1973, p. not printed. 187 Bikram Singh, ‘FFC Festival in Delhi: House-fulls for the “untouchables”’, Filmfare, 12 January 1973, p.36. 188 D.S. Roy, ‘Thanks for the guts’, Filmfare, 12 January 1973, p. not printed. 189 Ibid. 190 ‘Festival of F.F.C. films in London’, Screen, 12 January 1973, p.10. 191 ‘Fete of F. F. C. sponsored films in Bombay’, Screen, 1 February 1974, p.10. 192 Ibid. Uski Roti could not be shown at this festival as the producer of the film had obtained an injunction against the screening. 193 For a detailed report of the film week and the enthusiastic reception it got in Paris, see, Henri Micciolla, ‘France Opens Its Doors to New Indian Cinema’, Filmfare, 22 March 1974, p. not printed.

108  Formation of the Film Finance Corporation 194 ‘A Little Revolution’, Filmfare, 31 May 1974, p.2. Also see, ‘‘New wave’ has left the masses high and dry’, Screen, 12 April 1974, p.4. 195 Hameeduddin Mahmood, ‘Bank Loan For Mrinal Sen, Rs. 4.5 lakhs for new venture’, Screen, 4 January 1974, p.1. 196 ‘Bank loans for producers’, Screen, 24 August 1973, p.6. 197 Annual Report & Accounts 1970-71, 1971, p.3. 198 Ibid. p.7. 199 Ibid. 200 Ibid. p.2. 201 Ibid. p.4. A word count analysis shows usage of “pre-Bhuvan Shome” five times, and “post-Bhuvan Shome” eight times throughout the report. 202 Ibid. p.7. 203 For details, see Annual Report & Accounts 1971–72, 1972, pp.9–10. 204 ‘Shantaram inaugurates first FFC art cinema’, Screen, 17 November 1972, p.4. The need for tax exemption for art films, not necessarily FFC films, was also supported by the Screen editor S.S. Pillai. See, ‘Art theatre movement’, p.6, in the same edition. 205 Annual Report & Accounts 1973–74, 1974, p.2. Also see Thirteenth Annual Report and Accounts 1972–73, 1973, p.7 & pp.11–2. 206 Annual Report & Accounts 1971–72, p.4. 207 Annual Report & Accounts 1973–74, p.5. 208 Ibid. p.6. 209 Ibid, p.7. Also see, Thirteenth Annual Report and Accounts 1972–73, p.7, when this explanation appeared for the first time in an annual report. 210 See, Annual Report & Accounts 1973–74, p.15 for the clauses. 211 Ibid. 212 Ibid. 213 Ibid. 214 Ibid. p.16. Also see, Tarachand Barjatya, ‘Movie Industry Merits Relief In Income Tax’, Screen, 15 April 1960, p.5. Barjatya, one of the influential producers of the film industry, sought income tax relief due to the speculative nature of the film business. 215 Annual Report & Accounts 1973–74, p.16. 216 Ibid. p.17. 217 Ibid. 218 Ibid. p.18. 219 Ibid. p.7. Screen covered the “bad organising and functioning” of the Akashvani Auditorium in the AIR building. See, ‘Whither the art theatre?’, Screen, 11 May 1973, p.6. 220 Mohan Siroya, ‘FFC – precept and practice’, Screen, 23 November 1973, p.2. Earlier, the Screen editor had refused to sympathise with the FFC and wrote that Corporation’s own policies and not external reasons were responsible for its losses. See, ‘FFC report’, Screen, 3 October 1969, p.6. 221 Ibid. 222 Ibid. 223 ‘Raw stock and F.F.C.’, Screen, 13 July 1973, p.6. 224 The Film Producers’ Guild of South India also criticised these decisions. See, ‘FFC’s new tasks: Govt. step called “hasty”’, Screen, 23 November 1973, p.1 & 2. 225 ‘FFC Loans Total Nearly Two Crores, Many off-beat movies are beneficiaries’, Screen, 17 April 1970, p.1. 226 ‘Strictures on FFC’, Screen, 17 May 1974, p.6. 227 Ibid. Also see, ‘A Disquieting Estimate’, Filmfare, 14 June 1974, p.3, for Karanjia’s responses to the Committee’s recommendations. He did not agree with many things the Committee felt about the FFC.

Formation of the Film Finance Corporation  109 228 Gaur, 1973, p.114. 229 Ibid. p.115. 230 Ibid. p.116. 231 Ibid. p.118. 232 Ibid. pp.155–6. 233 Ibid. p.212. 234 Ibid. 235 ‘Johar wants inquiry into FFC losses’, Screen, 18 September 1970, p.11. For the FFC’s reply to Johar, see, V.P. Shah, ‘FFC Reply To Johar’, Screen, 25 September 1970, p.2. Shah, the Secretary to the FFC, showed “dismay” at certain factual inaccuracies on the debt recoveries in Johar’s statement. On the commercial-art binary, he wrote that the Corporation did not find this distinction created between commercial cinema and artistic films as valid, and in fact the Corporation had sanctioned loans for filmmakers like V. Shantaram, Bimal Roy, Mohan Segal, Chetan Anand, Kishore Sahu, and established producers like R.D. Bansal and Ram Mukerji. 236 ‘FFC bad debts: ‘ALS’ calls for probe’, Screen, 2 October 1970, p.16. 237 See, ‘No FFC bias against South: chairman’s reply to “ALS”’, Screen, 9 October 1970, p.16. Karanjia wrote that it is not correct that “many” applications for loans for Tamil and Telugu films were received by the FFC. During the years Karanjia was associated with the FFC, only three applications for Tamil films were received. There was not a single application for a Telugu film. Before this, one Tamil film titled Kadavul Thantha Selvam was financed by the FFC. 238 ‘Murasoli Maran critical of FFC, censorship’, Screen, 20 August 1971, p.16. 239 ‘FFC in no position to finance “big” films, says Chairman’, Screen, 9 April 1971, p.19. 240 He pointed out the fact that the FFC did suffer heavy financial losses in the first nine years of its inception in spite of being box-office-oriented. Its latest policy on low-budget films did pay off though. The number of films released as well as the recoveries were almost doubled post-1969. See, B.K. Karanjia, ‘FFC’s Policy’, The Times of India, 15 September 1970, p.8. Also read, Arjun Dev Rashk, ‘Art Is Not A Four Letter Word’, Filmfare, 7 May 1971, p.41. Rashk made a very provocative comparison of the commercial cinema with a “singing-dancing prostitute”. 241 Shahani, ‘Myths For Sale’, p.106. 242 The 58th Report of the Estimates Committee had already directed the FFC to “go commercial”. 243 Shahani, ‘Myths For Sale’. Shahani himself had to wait till 1984 for his second feature film Tarang, which was produced by the NFDC. 244 This issue led to an interesting correspondence between FFC Secretary V.P. Shah and the Screen editor S.S. Pillai. See, V.P. Shah, ‘F.F.C. Report’, Screen, 10 October 1969, p.2. Mr. Shah called it “wholly incorrect” to say that the film Chhoti Chhoti Baten was refused on the ground claimed by the Screen editor. He clarified that the loan was rejected “after balancing the artistic and aesthetic merits of the proposal with the reasonable commercial potentiality of the film”. Regarding The Householder, Shah clarified, “the opinion of the then board of directors… was that the Hindi version of the film might not do well at the box-office.” This admission by an FFC representative that the two films were rejected on commercial considerations highlighted that there was a mismatch between the FFC’s theory and practice. The then FFC Chairman had claimed that “the films the Corporation would like to encourage are films which, going beyond purely commercial objectives, reflect our cultural heritage and aspirations and carry a promise of enriching the lives of those who will see them”. FFC did not follow its own policy in practice.

110  Formation of the Film Finance Corporation 245 ‘“Capricious” refusal of loan by FFC’, Screen, 27 October 1972, p.1. 246 Ibid. 247 ‘FFC denies allegations’, Screen, 3 November 1972, p.1 & 4. 248 ‘Readers Write To The Editor’, Screen, 17 November 1972, p.2. 249 ‘Loan Controversy’, Screen, 24 November 1972, p.2. K.N.S. wrote a brief, sarcastic take on the entire controversy, sounding anti-Ayengar. See, K.N.S., ‘The dough – or else!’, Filmfare, 1 December 1972, p. not printed. He wrote, “Ayengar, like most would-be borrowers, is a firm believer in democracy. You know – all borrowers are equal but some are more equal than the others…When a loan is refused, some papers write about it. When a loan is granted, no one interviews the beneficiary. The FFC seems to be losing either way. So why not say “Yes” all the time instead of “No” sometimes?” 250 ‘Ayengar Replies’, Screen, 8 December 1972, p 2. 251 ‘Loan Controversy’. 252 Ibid. 253 Ibid. 254 ‘Readers Write To The Editor’, Screen, 8 December 1972, p.2. 255 Ibid. 256 ‘Readers Write To The Editor…’ Screen, 15 December 1972, p.2. 257 ‘Court bars Showing of “Uski Roti” by FFC on producer’s plea’, Screen, 1 February 1974, p.10. 258 ‘Readers Write To The Editor’, Screen, 1 December 1972, p.2. 259 (Miss) Neeta Sehgal, ‘FFC: More Dynamic Policy is Needed’, Screen, 2 March 1973, p.2. 260 J.S. Rao, ‘Letter to the Editor II’, The Times of India, 7 November 1971, p.8. 261 ‘More Funds for F.F.C.’, Screen, 16 April 1971, p.6. Also see, ‘Gujral wants more funds for films’, The Times of India, 30 July 1974, p.7. 262 ‘Sircar in favour of film Council “in principle”’, Screen, 4 February 1972, p.2. 263 ‘‘Film fete needs showmanship’’, Screen, 4 February 1972, p.4. 264 Ray was referring to Union Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting, Nandini Satpathy’s speech (1972), wherein she had criticised the Indian film industry for its failure to perform its social task. See, ‘Indian cinema has failed to reflect our social aspirations – Mrs. Satpathy’, Screen, 28 January 1972, p.12. For a critique of the speech, see, R. Ramakrishna, ‘A Doctrinaire Approach, Mrs. Satpathy’s speech: a critical study’, Screen, 18 February 1972, p.1 & 4. Many, like Ramakrishna, believed, rightly so, that not political/propaganda film, but urgent tax relief for the industry was the only way to solve most of its problem. 265 M.S.M. Desai, ‘Vijay Anand frowns on this “imitation” New Wave’, Screen, 20 April 1973, p.22. 266 Ibid. 267 ‘An Indian Wave’, Filmfare, 3 May 1974, p. not printed. Also see, Bikram Vohra, ‘Art films are on the house’, Filmfare, 31 May 1974, p. not printed. 268 A.A. Baig, ‘“New Wave” symposium discusses role of audience’, Screen, 9 March 1973, p.11. 269 Ibid. Rangoonwala was most likely referring to Mani Kaul’s Uski Roti. 270 Ibid. This point was proved when credit for success of films like Ankur and Rajnigandha were given to the FFC. A reader from Bombay wrote, “The Film Finance Corporation, in spite of so many odds, has succeeded in breaking the stranglehold of the commercial cinema.” See, Shreeniwas R. Mishra, ‘FFC can help’, Filmfare, 13 December 1974, p.10. Another very important reason for success of these films was the space created for them in theatres due to the monopoly of Hollywood films ending in 1971 when the Indian government decided not to review the five-year contract for importing Hollywood films. Indian audience

Formation of the Film Finance Corporation  111 could not only view the films from France, Germany, Japan, Poland, etc., this move also made theatres available for the exhibition of Indian New Cinema films. See, Darryl D. Monte, ‘Bye-Bye Hollywood?’, The Times of India, 29 August 1971, p.20. Madhava Prasad also credited the availability of exhibition time in the foreign film theatres as an important “institutional factor” in the growth of the New Cinema. See, Prasad, Ideology of the Hindi Film, p.190. 271 Baig, Op.Cit. 272 ‘Readers Write To The Editor…’, Screen, 4 May 1973, p.2. 273 Dileep Padgaonkar, ‘The Commercial Cinema: Opium For The Masses’, The Times of India, 3 October 1974, p.4. 274 Ibid. 275 Annual Report 1979–80, 1980, Annexure VI, pp.4–5. The year mentioned in brackets refers to the year of loan sanctioned to the said feature films. 276 The IMPEC was set up in September 1963 by the Government of India. One of its chief objectives was to distribute, exploit, or export films and to promote, guide, and regularise such exports. See, ‘Corporation For Export of Films: Draft Scheme Is Ready’, Screen, 5 April 1963, p.9; ‘Export Corporation Starts Work, All aid assured by Government’, Screen, 27 September 1963, p.1; ‘IMPEC performance unsatisfactory – Shah’, Screen, 29 March 1968, p.6; and, ‘Industry leaders criticise IMPEC master plan’, Screen, 27 June 1969, p.2. 277 ‘Unwise Step’, Screen, 4 April 1969, p.10. Also see, ‘Common chief for IMPEC, FFC urged’, Screen, 11 April 1969, p.4. Johar, after knowing the impossibility of merging the FFC and IMPEC, suggested that the two Corporations could have a common chairman “in the interests of the two institutions and the film industry.” He also advised that, like the IMPEC, the FFC, too, should advance money to “commercial” films, shifting from its present policy of financing only films of “artistic value.” 278 Producers were demanding an inquiry into the functioning of the IMPEC. They were complaining of “improper” functioning resulting into heavy losses to producers. See, ‘Producers demand inquiry against IMPEC’, Filmfare, 6 October 1972, p.17; ‘IMPEC may be wound up: Lok Sabha Questions’, The Times of India, 28 November 1974, p.5. 279 ‘Film Council, National Film Corporation to be set up’, Screen, 11 May 1973, p.18. 280 ‘N. F. C. Will Serve Industry – No Dictation, Gujral defines new body’s role’, Screen, 10 May 1974, p.1. 281 ‘N.F.D.C.’, The Times of India, 30 November 1974, p.8.

4

Whither New Cinema? The Emergency, Disciplining, and Survival Through Merger (1975–80)

National Film Development Corporation (NFDC) The setting up of an NFDC, initially referred to as the National Film Corporation (NFC), was recommended by two Study Teams appointed by the Government of India to consider the grievances of the West Bengal film industry and examine the possibility of re-organising certain particular aspects of the Indian film industry as a whole.1 The Study Teams identified an acute shortage of theatres and the unrestricted commercialisation of the film medium as the two core problems restricting the healthy growth of the Indian film industry. It also noted the FFC’s limited effect on the film industry as a whole. The meagre resources at the FFC’s command did not permit the financing of an adequate number of films which could set a pattern in the industry. The Team suggested the setting up of a comprehensive film corporation which should be largely self-financing and could generate sufficient resources within itself. Such a public sector undertaking “will not only finance films of social and artistic excellence, as the Film Finance Corporation does, but will also be responsible for the import and distribution within the country of foreign films, and eventually also for export of Indian films.”2 This designated film corporation was supposed to generate resources from the profits of the import and export trade. It was not to be entirely dependent on the limited resources that the government placed at its disposal. With larger resources, it was supposed to advance loans for worthwhile films and set up much-needed cinemas. The situation present then in the Indian film industry – export earnings going down, the question of what kind of films would replace Hollywood films whose licences were not renewed, etc. – made establishing a film corporation urgent.3 Intensive work was being done in the two Union Ministries of Information and Broadcasting, and of Commerce to commission the Corporation by October 1973. Separate directorates for raw stock and film festivals, a streamlined Central Board of Film Censors, and an extension of the activities of the FFC were also expected. Disclosing these plans, I.K. Gujral, the then Union Minister of Information and Broadcasting, stated that the government was concerned about the financial framework of the film industry and the difficulties facing new filmmakers, and was studying ways and means whereby an institutional framework could be erected, under DOI: 10.4324/9781003335436-5

Whither New Cinema?  113 which the government could aid newcomers. Referring to the FFC, he said that the government was trying to resolve the problem of a paucity of funds within the ambit of the general institutional changes it sought in the financial structure of the film industry.4 The film industry was keenly discussing the formation of an NFC. A delegation of the FFI, led by its president S.L. Jalan met I.K. Gujral. The FFI suggested that the proposed NFC should be autonomous and be run along the lines of financial institutions to handle the export and import of films. It also advised that a policy board consisting of members both from the industry and government should be set up. The delegation also advocated that the NFC should take over the total assets and liabilities of the IMPEC.5 The film industry had also objected to the distribution of raw stock by the FFC. There was a strong opinion within the MIB against the import and distribution of raw stock through the FFC. It was suggested to channelise this function through an autonomous corporation directly under the Ministry which would also deal with the import and export of films. An announcement to have an autonomous corporation was to be made during the Budget Session of Parliament in February 1974.6 Gujral declared in the Lok Sabha that the proposed NFC, though directly not concerned with the improvement of the film industry, would serve the needs of the industry. He revealed that the proposal for the setting up of the NFC had been worked out in detail but had yet to receive the government’s approval. Dharam Bir Sinha, Deputy Minister of Information and Broadcasting, clarified that the IMPEC would be amalgamated with the Corporation and the FFC would remain a subsidiary of the proposed corporation.7 The entire blueprint was structured on the instructions of the Prime Minister, who was also the Minister for Information and Broadcasting. The NFC was likely to have separate directorates for raw stock and equipment, film financing, distribution and exhibition of films, import and export of films, construction of theatres, art theatres, and the promotion of art films. It was expected that once the NFC was established the government could make a definite effort to restructure the financial network of the Indian film industry for the successful attainment of the new film policy’s goals. The NFC was also to control the numerous activities of the Indian film industry, including censorship, and be the overall governmental agency handling film subjects. It was also to coordinate the activities of various state film corporations in India.8 The Union Cabinet finally approved the establishment of the NFC in July 1974.9 The Corporation was to have an authorised capital of Rs. three crores and a working capital of Rs. one crore. As a public-sector venture, it was to absorb the IMPEC which had been functioning as a subsidiary of the State Trading Corporation. Dharam Bir Sinha disclosed that the Corporation aimed at organising the commercial activities of the film industry in such a way as to generate enough finance by promoting the export of films and boosting foreign exchange earnings for the promotion of films.10

114  Whither New Cinema? The film industry felt threatened by the formation of the NFDC, and feared that the government would nationalise the film industry through it.11 The Corporation was to discharge all functions formerly handled by the State Trading Corporations, IMPEC, and the FFC. The NFDC was given powers such as it could acquire and undertake the whole or any part of the business, property, and liabilities of any person or company carrying on any business which the Corporation was authorised to carry on. It was empowered to employ experts to examine and investigate into the conditions, prospects, value, character, and circumstances of any business or industry connected with the production, distribution, exhibition, import, and export of films and generally of any assets, property, or rights. G.P. Sippy, president of the All India Film Producers’ Council (AIFPC), intervened and clarified that the Ministry was not contemplating any such measure ‘through the back door’ by setting up the NFDC. He pointed out that the NFDC rules and regulations were normal rules and regulations governed by Company Law, and advised producers not to panic by reading between the lines.12 The NFDC was finally set up in 1975 with the broad objective to plan, promote, and organise an integrated and efficient development of the Indian film industry in accordance with the national economic policy and objectives laid down by the Government (emphasis added) with the following principal activities:

• Handling the work of import and export of feature films. • Importing, allocation, and distribution of raw stock and equipment used by the film industry.

• Distribution and exhibition of films through the existing network in the country and also by undertaking a programme of construction of a chain of national theatres. • Promotion of quality films. • Promotion of research and development in film equipment and raw stock.13 A political figure, instead of a film expert or a technocrat, was proposed as the chairman of the new Corporation. Earlier, film experts or technocrats were considered for this important post. It was also learned that the chairman may also be given ministerial status. The members of the board of directors, with a three-year term, were to be appointed by the President of India. These directives indicated a significant change in the government’s attitude towards the “promotion of quality films”. Promotion may or may not have included financial help. The insertion of the word “development” was intentional – the development of the national economy via the film industry. Interestingly, the NFDC did not function from 1975 to 1980, one of the many casualties of the Emergency. It was revived after the IMPEC and FFC were officially merged with it in 1980. From 1975, the Indian state was changing its gear from being a socialist, welfare state to a liberal economy. The imposition of

Whither New Cinema?  115 the Emergency played a key role in this transition. It severely affected the New Cinema movement and the FFC. Emergency and Its Impact on the FFC According to Kaviraj, the Emergency “promised everything to everybody… To the bourgeoisie, it offered a perfect climate of industrial discipline; to the middle classes lower prices and better administration; to the poor the abolition of poverty; to every citizen the assurance of their country’s integrity.”14 Midway through the Emergency, the government tried following a more ‘pragmatic’ economic policy. It diluted the earlier Nehruvian commitment to a reformist bourgeois programme in favour of an economic liberal policy. Some of these measures for economic liberalisation – less emphasis on the public sector, import substitution, administrative planning, and a greater reliance on market forces, price mechanisms, and a strategy of export-led economic growth – were implemented in the later stages of Indira Gandhi’s rule.15 Politicians within the Cabinet had begun to attack the public sector on grounds of its inefficiency and refused to concede that much of the inefficiency was due to the interference and wasteful exploitation of its facilities by the government bureaucracy and politicians. The Janata Party government was not different and allowed a massive campaign to gain momentum for the privatisation of industry and other economic activities, reducing public investment and altering the nature of the investment where it still existed. It also started plans for extending this policy of liberalisation towards greater foreign collaboration in order to obtain more sophisticated technology.16 India experienced its first wave of liberal economic reforms during this time. The Emergency gave many firsts to India. Mediums of communication were used extensively to legitimise the Emergency and create consent for Indira Gandhi’s authoritarian handling of national affairs. According to Rajagopal, by demonstrating that coercion was intimately combined with consent in state-led development, the Emergency led to a heavy reliance on practices of communication to redefine coercion and to stage popular consent.17 Government expenditure increased greatly on propaganda, mostly through the Directorate of Audio-Visual Publicity (DAVP).18 FD films like ‘We Have Promises to Keep’/हमे वायदे निबाहने है pertained to the declaration of the Emergency and its benefits.19 In the pursuit of creating consent, categories of culture and community gained in importance in this period of economic liberalisation.20 Mass media became central in redefining these two political categories.21 Rajagopal innovatively used the Emergency to understand the formation of the new middle class in India, “a category that increasingly defines itself through cultural and consumerist forms of identity, and is less identified with the state.”22 According to him, “The private consumption of this segment of society would increasingly assume and partly replace the productive role of state investment.”23 In the liberalisation discourse, the middle class “was a proxy

116  Whither New Cinema? for state strategy, and a heuristic to indicate its changing relationship with civil society, that was increasingly mediated through corporate capital and staged through technologies of mass communication.”24 During the Emergency, the FFC was recommended to see if it could interest filmmakers on early Indian subjects and historical figures.25 The names of figures like Asoka, Chandragupta, Vikramaditya, and Samudragupta were taken as examples. Feature films based on social themes topped the chart constantly from 1973 (305 films) to 1977 (420 feature films).26 It was followed by crime-based films, which showed a constant decline, too, mostly due to strict censorship rules.27 Legendary, mythological, and devotional were other important themes many Indian feature films were based on.28 There was only one feature film classified as political on the list in 1977.29 The Bulletin noted a considerable rise in the number of ‘A’ (Adult Only) films produced in Hindi in 1978 as compared to 1977. In 1978, 19 films were certified as ‘A’ whereas the figures were six in 1977 and three in 1976.30 Instructions were issued not to permit scenes showing the degradation of women. It was assumed, “As the new outlook gradually permeates the film industry and the instructions are strictly enforced by the Central Board of Film Censors, a new trend would be set for healthy and purposive entertainment.”31 The state’s grip on India’s largest cultural industry got tighter. The Emergency induced censorship rules severely affected the film industry. The enquiry committee formed by the Janata Party government collected and investigated complaints regarding instances of misuse of mass media and other related matters.32 The Committee received eight complaints alleging irregularities in the matter of censor certificates for films. The complaints by and large referred to delays in matters of censorship or the application of rigid and non-uniform standards in imposing cuts before certifying the film as fit for public exhibition. There were two complaints which called upon the Committee to look into the political motives behind the censorship of certain films like Aandhi (1975), Andolan (1975), Kissa Kursi Ka (1978), etc.33 The screening of Aandhi was first suspended because its heroine was supposedly modelled on Indira Gandhi.34 It was permitted only when the producer came out with a revised version. Regarding Kissa Kursi Ka, a CBI inquiry concluded that the film as well as its negative had been stolen and subsequently destroyed.35 Andolan could not be released because the producer was ordered to cut all the portions dealing with violence or the underground movement during the 1942 Quit India movement. It was finally released, tax-free in many states of India, under the Janata Party government, with a press note issued in Screen mentioning the struggle the film faced during the Emergency.36 However, certain films were favoured and power was misused to exempt them from entertainment tax.37 From among the film industry, Dev Anand was in the forefront campaigning for the Janata Party during the elections. He, along with a few other actors, actually floated a political party called Cinema for Democracy (CFD) and supported the Janata Party.38 Jayaprakash Narayan and PM Morarji

Whither New Cinema?  117 Desai had congratulated film stars Dev Anand and Shatrughna Sinha, and filmmaker Chetan Anand for ‘the courageous stand taken by a large section of the film industry during the recent Lok Sabha elections.’39 These three had been invited to be present at Rajghat on 24 March 1977 when Janata Party and CFD Members of Parliament took a pledge in the presence of Narayan, who told Dev Anand that he was glad that ‘people in the film industry had spoken out’. Dev replied that they had done it ‘out of conviction.’ A group of businessmen and professionals, led by Dev Anand, submitted a memorandum to the MPs, demanding repeal of all the Constitutional amendments from the 38th to 44th.40 L.K. Advani, the new Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting in the Janata Government, assured that the film medium would be developed in a healthy and vigorous manner. He stated that the new government was fully conscious of the vital role cinema had to play as a medium of mass education and entertainment. How did the Emergency affect the New Cinema movement and the FFC specifically? The Emergency, firstly, affected the aesthetics of Indian cinema. For Madhava Prasad, it was during the Indira Gandhi years that the dominant Indian popular film form, “lost legitimacy and was superseded by a new aesthetic in which the social crisis was allegorically reformulated as a conflict between people/nation/community, on the one hand, and the state, on the other.”41 Prasad referred to this new aesthetic as an “aesthetic of mobilization”, “in which a figure of populist charismatic authority, ‘representing’ the marginalized, criminalized, subaltern sections of society, emerged as the replacement for the erstwhile aristocratic figure and stages a confrontation between state and community.”42 In Hindi cinema, Amitabh Bachchan emerged as the “paradigmatic figure of this aesthetic”. Films like Zanjeer (1973), Deewar (1975), and Sholay (1975) represented this new aesthetic, refashioning mainstream Hindi cinema. The second offshoot of the crisis in the 1970s, according to Prasad, was the middle-class cinema, which “constructed the middle class as a community that wanted to be left alone, anxious to recover its unity in a situation of crisis.”43 Films like Guddi (1971), Kora Kagaz (1974), and Rajnigandha (1974) belonged to this group. According to Madhava Prasad, the Emergency gave rise to a third segment of film aesthetics, namely “developmental aesthetic” which addressed the citizen as “an abstract, political figure”, and “Rural India featured prominently in these films, but the rural audience was its subject matter not its addressee.”44 Prasad made a distinction between films like Do Bigha Zamin and Mother India, and films of New Cinema e.g. Ankur, Manthan, etc. While the former were “melodramas of class struggle in rural India”, the New Cinema, on the other hand, made “no pretence of addressing itself to a peasant or even a general rural audience. It is about them but not for them. Their primary success lay in redefining the screen as the site for the staging of village India as a distanced spectacle”, Ankur being its “most memorable” example.45 Explaining the developmental aesthetic, Prasad discussed Manthan as “the

118  Whither New Cinema? most consummate example” of this segment, “staging the ideology of the Indira Gandhi regime by using the dairy cooperative as the scene of action.”46 While in the films celebrating the “aesthetic of mobilization”, the state is one of the two entities fighting against each other, in the middle-class cinema the state is absent. However, in the New Cinema, according to Prasad, the state is the frame of representation. The point of view provided to the spectator coincides with the point of view of the state. The spectator is positioned, as citizen, before spectacles of peasant rebellion or reform of feudal society. The spectator’s position is thus detached from the spectacle, making him/her a vicarious onlooker, identifying with the reform-minded bureaucracy.47 Ashish Rajadhyaksha rightly underlined the Emergency’s “complicated presence” in the history of New Indian Cinema. He wrote, “There may indeed be a connection between the state support of independent cinema and the vicious disciplining of the mainstream film industry: a national project around media control gone badly wrong.”48 He rightly concluded that the Emergency affected the form and aesthetics of the New Cinema movement, and called it “aesthetics of state control”.49 Secondly, due to the Emergency, the practitioners of India’s New Cinema found themselves in the middle of a storm. Barnouw and Krishnaswamy share an important incident from Karnataka New Cinema industry. In Karnataka the makers of Samskara felt the hand of the Emergency in a more cruel fashion. Snehalata Reddy, the leading actress in Samskara and wife of its director Pattabhi Rama Reddy, was accused of concealing information about the whereabouts of George Fernandes, a trade union leader whose arrest had been ordered in the Emergency roundup. She was known to be a friend of the Fernandeses. She denied knowledge of his whereabouts and was jailed and questioned for eight months. An asthmatic deprived of needed medicines, she fell seriously ill, and was released only when near death. She died in January, 1977 – five days after her release.50 Mrinal Sen faced an “uncomfortable” situation during a question-answer session after a screening of his film Chorus (1974) at the Berlin Film Festival just a week after the Emergency was declared.51 A young woman asked him how he would relate his film Chorus to the state of Emergency imposed in India. Sen “composed” himself and spoke with pauses between the lines, “true, much to my countrymen’s discomfort, Emergency has just been imposed in India. But, to be honest, I am not aware of the legality of Emergency. So, I do not know when, at what point, I cross the boundary of law. Under the circumstances, I prefer to keep mum and not

Whither New Cinema?  119 answer your question.” I repeated, “Sorry, no answer from me, not a word.” The hall was silent for a few moments. I did not know how it happened, but it did happen and I got a bit emboldened and said, “Got my answer? Have you? I shall not answer. I hope I am clear.”52 Kumar Shahani recounted his memory of the Emergency in a personal conversation, During the Emergency I was invited maximum to Delhi by the universities…it’s all connected with cinema…I came very often to Delhi at the invitation of both Delhi University and JNU. And almost every time I would be surrounded by my body guards.53 He remembered to have addressed the protesting students and talked about films with them. John Abraham was invited to address the students during the Emergency, at a place Shahani referred to as “freedom square”, an open space in the then JNU. He shared how the Shiv Sena “saw me out” from a weekly Doordarshan programme he was doing on film appreciation, “hugely popular”, because, since he did not have the programme in Marathi, he should not be there.54 Saeed Akhtar Mirza’s sister-in-law was arrested and imprisoned, for eighteen months, for supporting a strike. She was a school teacher and taught music and piano to students.55 The FFC and New Cinema was mum during most of these 19 months. FFC’s autonomy was bypassed, and New Cinema’s aesthetic spirit had to pass the test of its contribution to the national treasury. The burden of financial disciplining, utilitarian approach to institutions, and misuse of power by ministers concerned altered the course of the New Cinema movement and the nature and objectives of FFC. These alterations led, firstly, to the mass resignation of FFC Chairperson B.K. Karanjia, along with other important Directors. Secondly, the Emergency gifted the FFC with the recommendations of the Seventy Ninth Report of CPU (1975–6). Several board members, including Chairman B.K. Karanjia, and Hrishikesh Mukherjee, resigned in 1976 protesting against constant interference by state functionaries in the FFC. The Indian Film Directors’ Association (IFDA) passed a resolution, expressing its shock at the resignation of the FFC Chairman.56 The resolution pointed out that “under the stewardship of Mr. Karanjia,” the FFC had worked “a revolution in the film industry”, paved the way for offbeat films, and led the crusade for art cinemas. The resolution said, with the resignations “the entire movement has been nipped in the bud.”57 Aruna Vasudev called this whole affair “one of the early casualties of the Emergency”.58 A reader from Bombay expressed his shock over the resignation, terming it as a “great blow to the growth of the new cinema movement in India, especially when the people have started realising the evils of cheap commercial films.” The reader called Mr. Karanjia a “dynamic and foresighted chairman”, who “encouraged radicals like M.S. Sathyu, Basu

120  Whither New Cinema? Chatterji, Mani Kaul, Kumar Shahani and the late Awtar Kaul to make realistic low budget films.”59The reader credited the FFC films for creating a supportive atmosphere in the Indian film industry which encouraged filmmakers like Shyam Benegal, Girish Karnad, etc. to make similar socially purposeful and artistic films, in various regional languages.60 V.C. Shukla did not let a single chance go away to humiliate, demean, and defame Karanjia and the FFC. That included giving out press statements saying how the experience of his Ministry with the FFC had not been a happy one, providing factual errors relating to its functioning, not acknowledging the letter of clarification sent to Shukla by Karanjia, ignoring the FFC at the IFFI held in January 1976, and replacing Karanjia at the eleventh hour with G.P. Sippy, “known to be a close friend of the Minister’s”, as the Chairman of the Festival Managing Committee. Shukla also tried to influence the FFC’s autonomous decision-making power by writing to an official of the Corporation directing him to sanction a loan for a film that Rajinder Singh Bedi wanted to make. His application had already been turned down by the Board of Directors. This was the first time during Karanjia’s tenure that the Ministry sought to influence the FFC’s discretion in granting loans. Immediately after the mass resignation, the first thing the Corporation did, in violation of the resolution of the Board, was to sanction a loan for Bedi.61 In April 1977, when the Emergency was called off and elections were announced, Karanjia wrote a detailed editorial piece in the Filmfare, discussing how difficult it was to work with Shukla, and other related issues. According to him, due to the Emergency, more “incalculable harm” was done to the film trade than to other spheres of national life.62 Clarifying the reasons behind their resignation, he wrote, “When it became abundantly clear to us that what this Minister [Mr. Shukla] wanted was not one who would stand up for the cause of good cinema but a yes-man, we preferred to resign.”63 He claimed that the circumstances in which he and other directors were “compelled” to resign were “sordid enough.” It took the Ministry more than seven months to accept their resignations and even before they received official intimation of the acceptance of these resignations, the Ministry took steps, for reasons which should be obvious, to censor the news in all dailies. The manner in which one of the resigned Directors became Chairman of the Corporation, without withdrawing his letter of resignation to us, added a touch of slapstick to the entire sorry episode.64 He demanded that the FFC be taken back to its promotional objective, “to be a trend-setter, a catalyst in the film industry.” Karanjia also demanded an inquiry into “the alleged unbusinesslike and unethical practices” indulged in by IMPEC which could damage in the long run the export trade and foreign exchange earnings.65 Karanjia also blamed Shukla for shelving the NFDC

Whither New Cinema?  121 proposal, which was “drafted, thoroughly discussed and, we learn on reliable authority, even approved by the Cabinet”.66 While these resignations and Ministry’s constant interference in the FFC undermined the reputation of the Corporation, the Seventy Ninth Report on the FFC of the CPU (1975–6) and its recommendations regulated the nature and objectives of the FFC and New Cinema, eventually paving the way for the FFC’s merger with the NFDC. Chaired by Nawal Kishore Sharma, the Committee gave recommendations to improve the financial position, streamline the procedure for grant of loans and bring about an all-round efficiency in the working of the Corporation. The Committee recommended that the Corporation should take a “balanced view” of the films for which loans are sought from it and, before sanctioning loans, “satisfy itself in all possible ways that the films would, in all probability, be not only artistic but also have a reasonable prospect of being commercially successful” (emphasis added). The Committee believed that it neither served the film industry nor the Corporation if it helped in the production of a film, “however artistic, which does not attract the public.”67 The Committee was informed that the Corporation had not produced many films on workers’ problems though there were films dealing with village life and social problems. The Committee recommended, “the Corporation should encourage films…on socio-economic problems, family planning, generation of fellow-feeling for weaker sections of society and on themes highlighting unity in diversity in the country etc. and also films which may promote scientific knowledge.”68 The Corporation was advised to thoroughly scrutinise film projects of persons without previous experience as producers or directors “to satisfy itself that these are of high standards and…take all possible precautions to ensure that the public funds will be put to fruitful use and achieve the purposes for which they are intended.”69 Pointing out to cases where Corporation sanctioned fresh loans to producers who had not repaid the earlier loans borrowed from the Corporation, the Committee strongly criticised “the lack of elementary commercial prudence” shown by the Corporation in such cases and recommended that all such cases – pre- and post-1969 – must be investigated with a view to “fix responsibility”.70 The Committee pointed out that recovery of loans “will not only help restore confidence in the financial health of the Corporation but also facilitate the raising of greater resources.”71 It also wanted the Corporation to reconstitute its Script Committee with “imaginative persons” with “proven standing in the film production”, “eminent men of letters” and “representing the youth organisations”.72 The Committee felt that the national and international awards won by the FFC-financed films “should not create a sense of complacency about the quality of the films”, the test of which was “its acceptability by the public for whom the film is primarily made”. The committee was concerned that a large number of the Corporation films had failed this test.73 It wanted the Corporation/Ministry to go deeper into factors accounting for the failure of its films to ensure better public acceptability. Interestingly, the Committee also pointed out that

122  Whither New Cinema? 17 out of the 22 award-winning films were successful at the box office, proving that it is possible to combine quality with public acceptability.74 Asked by the Committee, the Ministry agreed to set up a study team to scientifically study the effect of films financed by the FFC on the audience, not done so far.75 The Committee also advised the Corporation against entering production of films at that juncture, as the Corporation was not ready for such a complex task.76 The Seventy Ninth Report on the FFC of the CPU (1975–6) has to be read as an Emergency document. Its recommendations clearly reflected the Emergency agenda of disciplining and marking the value of an institution on its financial usefulness. The suggestion to make films on workers and weaker sections, family planning, unity in diversity, and themes promoting scientific knowledge clearly reflect the impact of the Twenty-Point Programme, the pet project of the Emergency. The pursuit of a vaguely-defined “balanced view”, commercial success, and ‘fruitful use of public funds’ were given more importance. Thorough scrutiny of loan applications by persons without previous experience hindered the chances of young filmmakers, who had benefitted the most from the FFC. The Committee entirely neglected the twin issues of distribution and exhibition, the monopoly of private agencies, and the difficulties faced by the FFC to intrude on this space. It is unfortunate that the Ministry, though it had agreed, failed to execute the most important recommendation of the Committee, namely, setting up a team to scientifically study the effects of FFC films on audiences. The report received mixed views. An anonymous write-up in the TOI found CPU choosing to assess the FFC’s record in purely economic terms as “most unfair”, as the FFC was primarily promotional in its role.77 He pointed out to the proportionately much larger box office failures, disposing of far greater funds than the FFC by the Indian film industry, which should be of much greater concern to “those interested in the economic health of the Indian cinema.”78 FFC sympathisers demanded grants instead of loans for the Corporation as the government did in the case of three national Akademis. The Committee was found to have “voiced tiresome shibboleths or else proposed formulae which, if followed, will turn the FFC into another profit-seeking film-making organisation.”79 The Screen editor however, congratulated CPU for presenting “a masterly 222-page report” on the FFC, “which should form the basis for any new steps to be taken for streamlining the working of the Corporation, which, despite its weak foundation, could form a sturdy national asset.”80 B.K. Karanjia, still the FFC Chairman, questioned the premise on which these recommendations were based. He wrote that the Committee was competent enough to advise the FFC on how to manage its resources, but was not capable to lay down what ingredients should go into the making of a good film.81 For him, the most sensible suggestion offered in the Report was the need to coordinate production and distribution, as well as import and export of films, through the FFC.82

Whither New Cinema?  123 The filmmakers were divided on the issue of suspending the interventionist policy of the FFC in favour of commercial viability. One group, the experimenters, led by Mani Kaul, Kumar Shahani, Mrinal Sen and others, felt that the FFC should encourage experimentation without insisting on profit-making. Kumar Shahani had said in 1975, as if foreseeing the future, If indeed the FFC succumbs to the dictates of the market…it may end up offering reasonable rates of interest to people whose main concern, however camouflaged, has been to extract as much capital as possible for their own benefit, not for general cultural upliftment.83 Another group, with Satyajit Ray siding with them, insisted that the Corporation’s responsibility was to develop a narrative cinema with realism, authenticity, and ordinariness as primary virtue, “to serve as a ‘leavening’ or, as some preferred to put it, to gradually ‘wean away’ audiences from the vulgar pleasures of commercial cinema.”84 The FFC Board of Directors approved a revised charter of functions for the Corporation, drawn up by the Ministry, in November 1977. One of the key decisions was, “The Corporation will now finance not only experimental and serious films but also films which could be considered as good from the aesthetic, intellectual and social view-points and which have an appeal to wider audiences.”85 (Emphasis added) Such administrative and attitudinal changes resulted in decreasing number of loan applications.86 The clause in loan applications on collateral security in the form of equitable property or a personal guarantee automatically ruled out young filmmakers, including graduates from the FTII. Two of “the most promising film-makers” the FFC had financed earlier – Mani Kaul and Kumar Shahani – were making films independent of it. Mani Kaul, along with 14 other film technicians, had formed a co-operative which was working on a film based on Vijay Tendulkar’s play Ghasiram Kotwal. The members of the co-operative, Saeed Akhtar Mirza being one of them, contributed towards the share capital. They took a bank loan at 15 per cent interest under the scheme for self-employed graduates. The FTII gave them equipment and recording facilities on deferred payment. “The group hopes to make itself financially independent of any producer in this way.”87 While Ghasiram Kotwal saw the light of the day, Kumar Shahani’s two independent ventures could not succeed. And he could make Tarang, only after 12 years of Maya Darpan, with FFC help. Film critic Anil Dharker lamented, “the commercial aspect of the “formula-film” world has rubbed off on the government, and it cannot think of films without thinking of profits.”88 He believed unless the government decided to part with a share of entertainment tax for the development of film industry or consider a small levy on cinema tickets, the FFC, “having rushed out to fight the good fight, will find that it is only a one-armed David while Goliath looks mockingly down.”89 As the FFC had practically ceased to function after the mass resignation by Karanjia and other Directors in 1976, it also eventually gave

124  Whither New Cinema? in to the desire to generate revenue “by supporting films that would have wider audiences and thus recover their costs”, along the way losing sight of “its uniquely inspiring ambition to raise cinematic sensibilities in both filmmakers and audiences.”90 The FFC’s Performance (1975–80) Questions were asked in Parliament about producers failing to repay loans, the increasing amount of outstanding and doubtful loans, and the writing off of bad debts.91 I.K. Gujral reiterated that the FFC had been primarily set up not so much to raise money or get back the money but for promoting certain type of films, and consideration of monetary gains was secondary to improvement of standards. He also pleaded that the FFC should not be judged from its outstanding loans alone, but from whether they had been able to influence Indian cinema scene as a whole or not. He reminded that in an operation of more than ten years involving 126 films, if Rs. 32 lakhs, including interest, were in a doubtful position, it should not cause concern. He said that it should be remembered that the FFC encouraged films which helped in the development of aesthetic taste and possessed a great deal of cultural values. Replying to a supplementary question, he said that the film policy of the government at the moment was both ‘a statement of wishes and facts’, to get good films and to invest more in films.92 Films financed by the FFC, e.g. Umeed, Uski Roti, Duvidha, Grahan, Trisandhya, 27 Down, Jukti Takko Aar Gappo, Dak Bangla, and Parinay were not yet released.93 Between April and December 1975, out of 26 applications for loans, the Corporation sanctioned six with loans amounting to Rs. 4,73,258. The resources available with the Corporation as on 31 December 1975 were Rs. 25.24 lakhs in the marketing account, Rs. 8.67 lakhs in the exhibition account, and Rs. 1.62 lakhs in the financing account.94 The commission earned by the Corporation by the new activity of distribution of raw cine films and canalisation of export of films during this period amounted to Rs. 19,08,049.21. Out of this, the Board of Directors permitted the utilisation of Rs. 15 lakhs to the financing activity.95 The fifteenth annual general meeting, scheduled for 27 December 1975, was adjourned and held only on 21 July 1976.96 The gross income of the Corporation for the year 1974–5 increased to Rs. 38,43,183.64 from Rs. 18,13,006 in the previous year. The gross income included subvention from the government amounting to Rs. 1,12,000 as against the subvention of Rs. 1,69,353 received in the previous year. The Corporation earned Rs. 25,25,456 from its marketing activities.97 While the Corporation recorded a loss of Rs. 7,97,638, under the head “interest on loans on cash basis”, it pointed out to the Corporation’s promotional nature to seek concessions on these losses. It hoped that the government would not only continue the scheme of granting subvention which was instituted since 1970–1, but also scale the rate of subvention higher than at present.98 After providing depreciation and interest charges,

Whither New Cinema?  125 the operation of the Corporation during 1974–5 resulted in a gross surplus of Rs. 16,54,784.99 The Corporation, in consultation with the Auditors, and as advised by the Sub-Committee on Recovery of Loans, wrote off loans aggregating to Rs. 15,41,208.28 in nine accounts relating to the “pre-Bhuvan Shome” period, out of the doubtful debts amounting to Rs. 38.50 lakhs. The entire profits for the year were utilised towards offsetting past losses.100 The share capital of the Corporation continued to be Rs. 50 lakhs, and the central government gave a loan of Rs. five lakhs for distribution activities. There was a proposal for obtaining interest free loans of Rs. 45 lakhs from blocked funds of Motion Picture Association of America, and the Corporation had submitted a counter-suggestion for repayment of this interest-free loan. Of the 21 applications received, seven applications were accepted during 1974–5.101 A total of 31 applications were pending. Seven films relating to the pre-Bhuvan Shome period were without any prospects of completion. Only one film relating to post-Bhuvan Shome period had remained incomplete.102 The Corporation also decided to enter production during this period. A Sub-Committee appointed by the Board considered all the cases in which loans were sanctioned and selected three films for being produced by the Corporation. It was to use part of the funds made available through the MPAA to produce two of these three films.103 FFC films continued winning national and international awards. Parinay and Jukti Takko Aar Gappo won two national awards under best feature film on national integration and best story respectively.104 Another FFC-financed film Duvidha won the Third Prize of a Bronze Hugo at the Eleventh Chicago International Film Festival. Unfortunately, the Akashvani Cinema “which had gained considerable popularity”, had to be closed down under orders of the Ministry in June 1975, for “security reasons”, a major casualty caused by the Emergency.105 The operations of Akashvani Cinema resulted in a loss of Rs. 35,997.50, including the “embezzlement” of Rs. 22,936.17.106 A case of misappropriation was reported to police for necessary action. The Corporation did continue its plan of acquiring distribution rights of its own films. For the year 1974–5, it acquired the rights of Trisandhya, Grahan, Jukti Takko Aar Gappo, and Duvidha.107 As per the Ministry’s orders, Corporation gave work of export of feature films to IMPEC from January 1975. While the Corporation earned some money as service charges from marketing activities, it also received some commission from IMPEC. The Corporation also imported 28 films, 15 of which were released. It held seven film festivals in India in places like Meerut, Calcutta, Cochin, Trivandrum, Calicut, Assam, and Bombay. The FFC-financed films were also included in the Marketing Section of the Cannes Festival and Season of Indian Films held at National Film Theatre, London in May 1975.108 According to the press, all shows were fully booked in advance providing testimony to the popularity of these films with “sensitive” cinegoers. The critics were equally impressed by the artistic quality of these films. Garm Hawa was praised for its “exemplary quality, bewitchingly shot in colour…with a memorable performance by one of India’s greatest

126  Whither New Cinema? actors, Balraj Sahni”.109 Another critic described it as “remarkably mature both politically and cinematically”. Filmfare reported that critics were unanimous in giving credit to the FFC, sponsoring films “which are not dependent on the popular stars or on massive investment but on the main strength of truth and good taste”.110 Some of the other films that the FFC financed during this time were Shatranj Ke Khilari, Gaman, and Arvind Desai Ki Ajeeb Dastaan.111 The Emergency’s assertion on economic usefulness of an institution, CPU’s recommendations to have a “balanced” approach to filmmaking, with a clear insistence on audience acceptability, and the new chairman’s managerial skills deeply affected the functioning of the FFC, and changed the nature of the New Cinema movement. When the FFC resumed proper operations in mid-1976, its tone was changed.112 In an exclusive interview, Jagdish Parikh, the new FFC Chairman, said that the Corporation wanted to remain in the centre of activities of national cinema, instead of remaining in the periphery. He said, “We don’t believe in parallel cinema because parallel lines never meet.”113 In another interview, Parikh said the question of financing experimental cinema had to be viewed in perspective. He remarked that a “good film” must communicate with the audience without degrading their ethos and culture, “A film should not be offensive, but entertaining. At the same time it must stimulate one’s intellect and emotions.”114 The promotion of the alternative cinema would continue, but, the concentration would be on “light and wholesome films” (emphasis added). He clarified that the FFC’s support for experimental cinema would not be allowed to flag; in fact, the number of experimental films financed every year would increase. It was also decided to encourage co-productions between India and other countries.115 Explaining the FFC’s expansion plans, Jagdish Parikh spoke on how the FFC’s activities were at a standstill when he took over in 1976. The government was asking for refund of sanctioned loans of Rs. 84 lakhs. The production activities had been zero, since there was no fund for financing films as the producers who had got loans earlier were not repaying.116 He sympathised with the producers who could not return the loan because past policy was one-sided in the sense that it merely encouraged making of artistic and experimental films but did not provide any exhibition outlets for them so that they could recover their investment. It is because of this that, on his taking over, he prepared an infrastructure for an integrated approach with financing, distributing and exhibiting in order to encourage the healthy growth of cinema in India. The Screen editor supported these changes in the FFC’s outlook under Mr. Parikh.117 These changes were, “welcome departure from the hitherto highbrow stand of the Corporation” and reflective of the government’s equal acknowledgement of the primary entertainment aspect of the cinema.118 According to Mr. Pillai, the Screen editor, the Indian film industry was going through “an exciting phase of transition, responding to the Government’s call to film-makers to lend their creative support in the building of a new India.”119 In this situation, he hoped, “the Film Finance

Whither New Cinema?  127 Corporation can definitely play an active role in helping the national film industry achieve its new objectives and find its own, new identity.”120 He suggested that the FFC come out of its isolation, develop a mass contact and a genuine respect for the cinema as a mass entertainment and education medium, and “go hand in hand with the commercial film industry if it has to really serve its purpose.”121 A separate Director’s Report addressing the Shareholders informed about the reorganisation and restructuring of the FFC in the background of events in 1975–6. Not citing the “variety of reasons”, the Report regretted that the main activity of the Corporation, financing of low-budget artistic films, had come to a virtual halt in 1975–6, as not a single new feature film could be financed during that year.122 According to the Director’s Report, financial implications of supporting artistic films were that these films with high artistic merit had a limited audience and therefore in most cases were unable to recover the investment. Consequently, substantial amount of loans remained unpaid.123 Also, the subvention granted to FFC by the central government since 1970–1 to set off the loss arising out of financing activity partially was stopped altogether during 1976–7. The Directors concluded, merely financing and making of artistic films without making sufficient exhibition facilities available would be self-defeating, and that F.F.C. has as much responsibility to the film-goer as to the film-maker. Moreover, the general approach has been to ensure that eventually F.F.C. becomes a self-supporting organisation, rather than depend upon any external subsidies.124 Keeping in mind these concerns, the Directors, from April 1976, evolved a two-way strategy aiming at an integration of activities bringing about an all-round growth and development of good cinema in the country, and, also ensuring revenue generation, which could be recycled into developmental work.125 Consequently, the FFC’s focus shifted towards developmental aspects of film industry, and “changing the taste of Indian audience” took a back seat. New Cinema movement was on its way to getting corporatised. The FFC had to integrate following activities from 1977:

• Lending support to the development of low-cost exhibition outlets called Janata Theatres.

• Setting up a direct distribution network in commercial centres as well as universities, workers’ welfare centres, and film societies.

• Import of carefully selected films not only from USA and UK, but from other countries, too. Theatre owners were offered a combination package. Distribution of popular foreign films helped significantly in distribution of FFC-financed films, which had a relatively limited audience. • Financing of not only experimental and serious films but also other films which could be considered as good from aesthetic, intellectual and social

128  Whither New Cinema? viewpoints and which have appeal to wider audiences. This meant that the FFC would be financing good films which could be commercially successful and thereby generate some surplus which could be utilised for financing experimental films which may not fully recover their investments, but help in “widening the horizons of film-making.”126 • Contacts were established with several state governments and their film development corporations to bring about collaboration with them, especially in financing of films and construction of theatres. • To achieve an overall objective of helping good cinema as well as generating revenues, the FFC also got itself involved in activities such as bringing about a proper balance in the infrastructure of the film industry, sponsoring film festivals in India and abroad, help co-production ventures, facilitating the much-needed interaction between Indian and foreign filmmakers, helping the growth of film societies and other related activities.127 To signify this changed approach and create a “corporate image”, a symbol was designed, and a special brochure published, and its objectives were clarified.128 Of the five key activities, the developmental activities were more layered and exhaustive. The Seventeenth Annual Report claimed that the FFC operations during 1976–7 resulted in a net profit of Rs. 2.73 lakhs, not enough to support its financing activities.129 The loans outstanding against producers amounted to Rs. 90.28 lakhs.130 The Corporation faced issues like, “Inevitable delays in revival of activities due to shortage of staff, particularly at senior levels, clearing arrears and introduction of new systems, disputes in connection with distribution of foreign films, involvement in International Film Festival without benefit in revenues etc.”131 Compared to 59 in 1971–2, and 29 in 1975–6, the Corporation received only 16 new applications during 1976–7, and sanctioned loans to three of these.132 The general downward trend in number of applications received for loans was a result of two invalid impressions, one, the FFC did not have the resources to finance films, and two, it was interested only in artistic and experimental films.133 In an attempt to promote “better cinema”, the FFC held a seminar to generate more and better scripts, to which, apart from members on the Script Panel, eminent writers, critics, and filmmakers were invited. Though it was recognised that it would be difficult “to define a “good” film precisely”, the Seminar helped in identifying factors which could contribute to generation of better scripts. These efforts helped in producing 15 scripts within six months during 1977–8.134 On the distribution and exhibition fronts, Duvidha was the only film released during this year. The Corporation intensified the distribution of the FFC sponsored films to film societies. It began a special circuit for University and College Clubs, and Workers’ Welfare Centres.135 Special efforts resulted in four films being telecast during 1976–7.136 The closure of the Akashvani auditorium had already resulted in “losing the only suitable outlet that FFC had for its films.”137 The FFC failed to obtain Shakuntalam Theatre in Delhi from the

Whither New Cinema?  129 Trade Fair Authority for its films. FFC-financed films continued to participate in festivals organised by film societies and cultural bodies at places in India, like Vijayawada, Trivandrum, Calcutta, New Delhi, Patna, and Trichur; and abroad like New Zealand and Edinburgh.138 The Corporation successfully organised the Film Market (precursor of present-day Film Bazaar) at the Sixth International Film Festival of India in New Delhi in January 1977.139 A total of 185 feature and short films, both Indian and foreign, were entered in the Film Market Section. The volume of film business concluded at the Film Market was Rs. 1.40 crore.140 During 1977–8, the Corporation focussed more sharply on regional language films, low-cost Janata theatres,141 and coordination with State Film Development Corporations, giving them priority. Cinema is a State subject in India. The FFC took the initiative in starting a dialogue with several Indian state governments and Film Development Corporations in those states, e.g. Punjab, Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, and West Bengal. The Kerala Film Development Corporation reacted favourably in principle to co-financing Malayalam films. Their share was to be in the form of facilities such as studio space, processing laboratories, equipment, recording and re-recording facilities in Trivandrum. In November 1978, the Kerala Corporation decided to have its own distribution and exhibition network. It planned to construct one theatre each in the 11 district headquarters and the taluk (subdivision) headquarters in the state.142 Orissa Film Development Corporation was actively working with the FFC on co-financing and theatre constructions.143 The Orissa government exempted all new cinema houses started since 1 January 1977 from paying entertainment tax for five years.144 A total of 58 cinema halls were granted construction loans by the Andhra Pradesh State Film Development Corporation. A sum of Rs. 50.85 lakhs or a third of sanctioned loans, had been given.145 In total, 70 entrepreneurs availed of this loan scheme for construction of inexpensive functional Janata theatres in small towns and villages. The loan scheme provided for sanction of a minimum of Rs. two lakhs for construction of a Janata theatre. According to Shri Ranga Reddy, the Minister of Finance and Chairman of State Film Development Corporation, the government had already disbursed Rs. two crores under this scheme.146 The West Bengal government had offered a scheme for construction of Janata cinema halls specifically in rural areas.147 In Uttar Pradesh (UP), Chalachitra, the first cinema theatre constructed by the UP State Film Corporation, was inaugurated by Chief Minister Ram Naresh Yadav at Fatehpur on 10 December 1977. The chairman of UP Corporation D.D. Joshi said that it was planned to construct 200 theatres in the state. He added that the target for current financial year was nine cinema theatres, six of which had already been constructed.148 The foundation stone of the first Rs. four lakh Janata cinema was laid at Chatrapur on 16 March 1979. This was a first step towards Orissa Film Development Corporation’s proposal to develop ten Janata cinemas in the semi-urban and rural areas to increase market outlets for Oriya films. The state, till then, had 114 cinemas most of

130  Whither New Cinema? which were in urban areas.149 In Gujarat, the state government framed rules to grant licences to Janata cinemas in villages of towns having a population of not more than 30,000.150 In 1979, the Union government allocated Rs. one crore to the FFC for the construction of low-cost cinema theatres. The FFC was negotiating with state governments on selection of possible sites.151 An award of Rs. 10,000 was announced by FFC in March 1979 for outstanding design submitted for low-cost cinema theatre. The design entries were invited for competition, which was to be held under the aegis of the Institute of Architects, Bombay.152 The Annual Report (1978) acknowledged role of “greater professional management and financial disciplines” (emphasis added) introduced during 1977–8 in helping the Corporation not only generate higher revenues but also finance a record number of films (17 films, including 11 feature films) in one single year since its inception.153 The gross income of the Corporation for 1977–8 was Rs. 68.02 lakhs, as compared to Rs. 36.66 lakhs for previous year. After providing for depreciation and interest on loans taken from government, the operating profit of the Corporation came at Rs. 15.19 lakhs, as compared to mere Rs. 2.73 lakhs of previous year.154 Of the 27 new applications for feature films, 11 were sanctioned.155 A loan was advanced to the producer of Shatranj Ke Khiladi – the first Hindi film directed by Satyajit Ray – for arranging its release and distribution, something the FFC did for the first time in its history. This initiative was welcomed by all interested in good cinema, particularly keeping in mind the difficulties experienced by producers in distributing such films.156 Arvind Desai Ki Ajeeb Dastan and Gaman were two of the five feature films where first disbursements were sanctioned.157 Several initiatives were taken through correspondence and at Film Festivals to establish contacts in various foreign countries to show Corporation’s films to as many audiences as possible in India and abroad. Several export contracts were negotiated and signed on FFC films including Maya Darpan, Garm Hawa, Uski Roti, Padatik, Ek Adhuri Kahani, 27 Down, Duvidha, and Kanku with Mozambique, Romania, Tunisia, Czechoslovakia, Algeria, and Syria.158 Within India, supply of films by the Corporation to Film Societies increased substantially. The UGC lent its support to the Corporation’s University Circuit.159 Due to the Corporation’s efforts, Doordarshan was persuaded to telecast Garm Hawa on an all-India basis on the TV circuit.160 With marginal revenue, some FFC films, e.g. Garm Hawa, Dak Bangla, Donhi Gharcha Pahuna, and Shantata Court Chalu Ahe, were shown commercially in various places. The Corporation continued its efforts to get Akashvani Auditorium reopened, but without success. It also organised many film festivals during this year, and started publishing a quarterly called FFC Film Letter, to provide a regular channel of communication with various individuals and groups interested in Indian cinema and acquainting them with the FFC’s activities and plans.161 Talking about the shift to a new office at Regent Chambers in Bombay in April 1977, the Report said, “The shifting of the Corporation from the previous location to

Whither New Cinema?  131 this new place is in a sense symbolic of its now being “on the move”, as also the fact that its interior decor is modern, functional, economic while retaining its Indian ambiance [sic].”162 Indicating the further corporatisation of “good cinema”, the Report informed, In order to help the management to monitor all the activities of the Corporation, a Management Information and Control System has been evolved. A number of periodic reports ranging from weekly to quarterly…not only help the management in evaluating every activity of the Corporation but also in decision making, formulating policies and laying down priorities.163 (Emphasis added.) During 1978–9, the FFC financed a record number of films, 20 in total.164 It directly distributed 45 imported films with 1822 bookings, earning an income of Rs. 22.21 lakhs. The FFC also began direct distribution of its own films.165 The non-commercial circuit had 377 screenings in 1978–9, double the screenings of 1977–8. The Corporation categorised its evolution in three phases. During Phase I (1960–68) a variety of films with varying budgets were financed. During Phase II (1968–76) the concentration was mainly on financing of artistic and experimental films with low budget. During Phase III (1976 onwards) the focus was “enlarged from only “financing of films” to the “development of “good cinema in all possible ways” which among other things include offering supports in Distribution and Exhibition.”166 It was explained that the FFC financing was no more restricted only to experimental films, which nonetheless “continued to be encouraged more vigorously”, but the finance was extended to all films which “combine high aesthetic and technical standard with wider audience appeal.”167 During Phase III, efforts were initiated to help develop infrastructure for good cinema in the country by pursuing schemes for generating better scripts, promotion for 16mm production, undertaking of theatre financing, equipment financing, pilot project for subtitling and paradubbing, initiating and developing collaborative efforts with state bodies, etc.168 The general approach was “to bring about a congruence between the Corporation’s promotional objectives for developing good cinema in the country and its corporate responsibility for being self-supportive, thereby trying to achieve a socio-economic balance in its operations as a Public Sector Organisation.”169 The Corporation attempted to achieve these through “not only introducing a professional management style in the Organisation but also infusing enlightened enterprenuerial [sic] elements in its activity.”170 A significant feature of this phase was, the expansion of the structured involvement in the activities of the Corporation, of individuals from the film industry with experience and expertise through setting up of various advisory committees related to every major activity of the Corporation. The policies and strategies of

132  Whither New Cinema? the Corporation are now largely based on the advice and recommendations of individuals who are drawn from practically all related segments of the film industry.171 The gross income of the Corporation for 1978–9 was Rs. 142.02 lakhs, which was Rs. 68.73 lakhs for 1977–8.172 Against the total loan of Rs. one crore received from the central government, the amount outstanding at the end of the financial year was Rs. 71.47 lakhs. The interest due on this loan but not paid till March 1979 was Rs. 31.62 lakhs.173 The Corporation had requested the government to convert this loan into equity so that this “liability is eliminated and the Corporation has a more adequate capital base.”174 The Corporation received 34 new applications for loans for feature films during 1978–9. Of these, nine were sanctioned.175 A very significant decision and a promotional step with long-range implications, of financing films in 16mm, was taken by the Directors.176 Five films were sanctioned loans for 16mm production. Govind Nihalani’s Aakrosh, produced by Narayan J. Keny and sanctioned in 1978, was one such film. Among the feature films that received their first disbursement included Tarang, Sanket, and 22nd June 1897. Saeed Mirza’s Albert Pinto Ko Ghussa Kyo Aata Hai (16mm) was also sanctioned a loan during 1979. Among those receiving subsequent disbursement included Arvind Desai Ki Ajeeb Dastan, and Gaman.177 Both films also got completed, and Gaman was released, too, in the same year.178 The loans outstanding in March 1979 against producers amounted to Rs. 103.71 lakhs, which was Rs. 97.53 lakhs in 1977–8.179 At the end of 1978–9, an amount of about Rs. 43.16 lakhs was estimated as doubtful debts. The Corporation made vigorous efforts to recover the outstanding loans through exhibition of these films.180 Legal steps were also taken to intensify the recovery of loans.181 The only major source of revenue then was income generated by distribution of imported films. The income derived from imported films was utilised for financing good films and other activities which promote the growth and development of good cinema in India.182 The FFC effectively distributed its own film Gaman, which was successfully premiered in Bombay in March 1979. This was to be followed by other FFC films like Arvind Desai Ki Ajeeb Dastan, Kasturi, and many other older FFC films.183 Several export contracts were negotiated and signed with countries like the USA, Canada, Czechoslovakia, Fiji Island, and various countries in the Middle East, on FFC feature films e.g. Kasturi, Trisandhya, Uski Roti, 27 Down, Duvidha, Kanku, and Tyag Patra.184 A major effort undertaken was the promotion of FFC films on European TV. The response was encouraging during the Berlin Film Festival, and it was hoped that this would lead to a significant breakthrough for Indian cinema into the European television market.185 Vaughan Rogosin Film of London acquired Western European television rights of 14 Indian films through the FFC. The films included Gharonda, Gaman, Arvind Desai Ki Ajeeb Dastan, Kasturi, Parichay, Mrigaya, Kondura, Bhumika, and Shatranj Ke Khilari (Hindi), Samskara (Kannada), Shantata Court Chalu Ahe

Whither New Cinema?  133 (Marathi), and Kanku (Gujarati). The object of selling these films to Londonbased buyers was to display them to as wide an audience abroad as possible and to get some feedback to help improve Indian film industry.186 The number of non-commercial screenings increased to 377. Two films, Duvidha and Maya Darpan, were sent to the Indian High Commission, Dacca for noncommercial screenings.187 The Corporation was represented at the Cannes, MIFED (Milan), and Berlin Festivals. The FFC films also participated in film festivals held in India, e.g., in Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Bihar, and Kerala.188 Gaman won a Special Award at the Seventh IFFI in New Delhi and also a Special Commendation at the National Awards. Arvind Desai Ki Ajeeb Dastaan won the Film World Special Jury Award as well as Filmfare Critic’s Award. It was shown at the Berlin Film Festival and was also invited to Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes Festival but had to be withdrawn due to technical reasons.189 The Corporation also proposed coproduction ventures with Doordarshan, to provide an additional outlet for talented filmmakers. Both were to co-operate in the selection of script, director, star-cast, and other personnel. Doordarshan was to, however, undertake the actual shooting of the films.190 In order to encourage a greater number of better scripts which the Corporation could finance, a Script Award Competition was instituted with prizes of Rs. 10,000/- Rs. 5,000/- and Rs. 3,000/- for the best three scripts.191 D.V.S. Raju took over as new Chairman from 12 September 1980.192 The FFC got a Managing Director (MD) for the first time since its inception. Some of the new members of the Board of Directors included Sai Paranjpye, Basu Bhattacharya, Ramanand Sagar, Mrinal Sen, Shyam Benegal, and Adoor Gopalakrishnan.193 Highlighting various tasks FFC accomplished during 1975–80, the Director’s Report said, “the Corporation advanced in many new directions while consolidating its earlier activities, so that its amalgamation into the National Film Development Corporation was an apt one, the new name being more indicative of all the activities of the Corporation.”194 The Report enlisted these achievements:

• A record number of 30 films were financed in the last thirty months (earlier average being about six films a year).

• The 16mm movement was given a major boost. • A scheme for theatre financing was initiated. • Co-operation with State Film Bodies was achieved through film and theatre financing.

• India’s first art theatre, Lotus, was inaugurated by the Minister of Information and Broadcasting, Shri Vasant Sathe.195

• FFC-financed films won an impressive array of awards. • The Script and Theatre Design Competitions were highly successful. • The Corporation began to develop an export market in neighbouring countries for its imported films.

134  Whither New Cinema?

• Film Advisory Committees were formed in Bangalore, Bombay, Calcutta, Madras, and Trivandrum.

• Operating revenues continued at a satisfactory level.196 The FFC linked up with Canara Bank and some state governments for financing low-cost cinema theatres in rural, semi-urban, and urban areas to help build a large number of cinema theatres.197 The FFC also set up a Theatre Development Committee to evolve modern, model rules which could be uniformly followed throughout the country.198 The Director’s Report reiterated that the Corporation’s basic objective of making “a deep and durable impact” on quality of Indian films and to inspire “a good cinema movement” could not be complete without a concentrated effort on all fronts – financing, distribution, and exhibition, acknowledging, “Good films are not only to be made, they must be seen and heard in cinema halls.”199 The gross income of the Corporation for 1979–80 was Rs. 77.20 lakhs, half the amount compared to the previous year. After providing for depreciation and interest on the loan taken from the government, and writing off bad debts, the operating loss of the Corporation came to be Rs. 6.49 lakhs. The Report also summarised the “Company’s achievements and its contribution to the national economy during the year 1979–80” (emphasis added). Of the Rs. 77.20 lakhs earned, Rs. 44.10 lakhs was the value added to the national economy, being the surplus after deducting operating expenses.200 The Corporation also contributed Rs. 14.07 lakhs to the National Exchequer in the form of various duties and taxes.201 The Corporation received a total of 40 new applications for feature films, of these 11 were sanctioned.202 First disbursements were given to Albert Pinto Ko Gussa Kyon Aata Hai, Chakra, Chirutha, and Sazaye Maut; subsequent disbursements were given to Tyag Patra, Tarang, and Aakrosh.203 Shyam Benegal’s Kondura was given finances for its distribution. The loans outstanding as on 10 April 1980, against producers amounted to Rs. 123.42 lakhs, as compared to Rs. 103.71 lakhs in 1978–9.204 The Report repeatedly noted, “A filmmaker, particularly of the artistic film, is not necessarily a person with business acumen, equipped to handle commercial distribution of films.”205 In this context, the FFC entering commercial distribution was of great help to its films. Gaman’s release in Bombay was followed by its release in Delhi and UP. Albert Pinto Ko Gussa Kyon Aata Hai was scheduled for a Calcutta premiere, followed by release in Bombay.206 TV market for FFC films were tapped again for countries like Fiji Islands, Arabian Gulf, Bangladesh, and for Czechoslovak TV. Duvidha and Maya Darpan continued to be popular in this circuit.207 Gaman and Shatranj Ke Khiladi were bought by External Affairs Ministry for non-commercial screenings abroad.208 The income gained from Doordarshan screenings was Rs. 74,750. Films like Duvidha and Uski Roti were shown on an all-India basis. Under the Script Awards Competition as many as 121 entries were received. The first prize of Rs. 10,000 was awarded to Pradip Krishen for Massey Sahib; second prize of Rs. 5,000 was awarded to Meena and Bhaskar Chandavarkar for Atyachar;

Whither New Cinema?  135 and the third prize of Rs. 3,000 was awarded jointly to Vijay Tendulkar and Kundan Shah for an untitled script and for a detective story respectively.209 A Committee of Management Executives (COME) was formed in order to suggest methods for improvement and greater efficiency in the Corporation, particularly in relation to staff matters.210 The FFC invited legitimate criticism of its financial disciplining, bureaucratic hassles, ‘management wizardry’, discriminatory attitude towards South Indian film producers, and a lack of good sense in importing foreign films. Biren Bhattacharya shared his “particularly unhappy experience” with the FFC.211 After making ten reels of his film Mayuri (in Hindi) he approached the FFC for a small loan to complete the film. After a screening of the incomplete film for two FFC officials in May 1977, he was asked to put up the loan application. As his film was almost completed and the FFC was to finance barely 20 per cent of the total negative costs of his film, he found it odd that he should be required to deposit a sum of Rs. 2,400 (application and loan processing charges) but the chairman insisted on it. He “somehow” managed the amount and deposited it with the FFC in August. “And since then the FFC has been silent on the subject. Numerous frantic appeals for a decision on my application have been of no avail.”212 On top of all this, when he got back his colour-rush prints from the FFC’s warehouse after six weeks, he found the reels misplaced in the cans, badly damaged beyond any repair. Bhattacharya expressed his disappointment, “To think of it, FFC was formed with the laudable intention of helping talented but needy film makers!”213 Accusing the FFC of bungling, an award-winning Kannada filmmaker alleged that because of the FFC’s inaction and bureaucratic hassles, he lost an opportunity to participate in three prestigious film festivals in West Germany, Italy, and Vienna, and it had been a great blow to his career as a filmmaker.214 Pointing at the FFC’s new corporate symbol, Amrita Abraham commented on its inaction, When the Film Finance Corporation presents a film in a theatre today, a pink double-f symbol comes on the screen silently, partially hidden behind a blank strip of film. That blank film and the silence only confirm that no one knows for sure what FFC is doing.215 A 1975 Board resolution required a producer to put up collateral covering the entire loan and interest (15 per cent). Terming it “financial discipline”, Abraham pointed out how it penalised new “untried” filmmakers, those who had no personal assets to stake and serious filmmakers who, by the nature of their work, could not expect to find a guarantor. This provision also deterred regional filmmakers from approaching the FFC – only six non-Hindi applications were received in the last two years. Calling Jagdish Parikh “a great believer in modern management techniques”, she argued that “no amount of management wizardry is going to balance the FFC’s books. Film making is not like running a steel plant and we know what happens in steel plants.”

136  Whither New Cinema? Evaluating the FFC’s achievements so far, Abraham said, “The new cinema movement is no wave – it’s just a little splash – after 18 years. The FFC should be making and showing far more films now if it is to be more than a little toy for a few people to amuse themselves with.”216 Jagdish Parikh was attacked for doing “little for ‘healthy cinema’.”217 Sethumadhavan blamed him and the FFC for irregularity in supply of raw film and distribution to South Indian producers. Blaming the FFC for its incompetence, he angrily asked, “What right has Dr. Parikh to question the growth of an indigenous industry except to serve its needs honestly and with care?” He highlighted the FFC’s discriminatory attitude towards scripts submitted from South India.218 Also, while the FFC wrote off loans given to producers in Bombay and Bengal as bad debts, “distress proceedings have been instituted against some who received loans for making films in South Indian languages.”219 Sethumadhavan also criticised the FFC’s decision to finance 16mm films without first ensuring fully-equipped commercial theatres to screen them. He criticised Parikh for his “lack of good sense” in selecting foreign films for commercial exploitation in India. Calling Dr. Parikh’s chairmanship as “unjustified”, Sethumadhavan launched a scathing attack on his actions. He wrote, “If an inquiry is instituted into the working of the FFC, more evidence may come to the surface to prove that Dr. Jagdish Parikh is not only incompetent and incorrigible but also not the correct person to hold a vital post.”220 He opposed Parikh’s inclusion in the Working Group for the national film policy calling it “incorrect and unjustified”, as “The vagaries of the FFC are bound to be examined and investigated before arriving at any decision, which is all the more reason why Dr. Parikh should be excluded from this panel, set up specifically for the growth of healthy cinema.”221 A news item printed in the TOI pointed to the decline of the FFC’s stature which was hard earned during Karanjia’s tenure.222 From New to Parallel Cinema: A Journey Through Film Polemics The Internal Emergency declared in June 1975 was an attempt to discipline the nation. From Parliament to family, every unit of democracy was under scrutiny. Contribution to the national economy became an essential factor to judge a unit’s usefulness. This political and economic rigidity pushed many institutions to a sense of existential crisis. The film polemics as collected from government publications, film journals, and press indicate New Cinema and the FFC’s continued struggle to prove their value to fellow filmmakers, the film-viewing public, and parliamentarians as well. While the Emergency had burdened the New Cinema with revenue generation and audience acceptability, Ankur’s success changed its nomenclature, from New to Parallel, parallel to the Bombay film industry, but perhaps never meeting it.223 This possibly also indicated an end to pursuit of “New”-ness in Indian cinema. This section deals with all such highly (mis)opinionated debates on New/Parallel Cinema, and the FFC’s usefulness to the national economy.

Whither New Cinema?  137 At the Fifth IFFI (1975), a two-day symposium was organised on “Parallel Cinema – The Organisation and Approach”.224 Inaugurating the symposium, I.K. Gujral said that Parallel Cinema in India would succeed only if it was closely interlinked with social needs and facilitated social transformation. B.K. Karanjia highlighted the FFC’s role in starting Parallel Cinema, by encouraging emergence of young directors. Well-known critic Gaston Roberge said that, while the efforts of Indian film critics were remarkable in heralding the emergence of a ‘new’ Indian cinema, labelling of new art forms with journalistic jargon was problematic.225 According to Roberge, such identification and classification of films resulted in “important aspects of particular films being overlooked”, which was exactly what was happening with the ‘new’ Indian cinema. According to him, “In fact, there cannot be a real parallel cinema for a long time unless it serves a parallel audience…The creating of a parallel cinema seems too modest a goal. The entire commercial cinema needs renewal”.226 He further explained, the desire for renewal should not become a quest for excellence since certain forms of excellence would alienate the mass audience from the medium. True, renewal implies betterment. But the excellence of a mass medium must be defined in terms of both the medium and its audience.227 For him, the betterment of cinema was the result of a collaborative and planned effort involving a country’s government, industry and public. He exclaimed, “With their cult for art, cinephiles have given too much importance to film authors and their messages. The importance of commercial considerations has been overlooked. A healthy balance ought to be re-established.”228 B.V. Dharap talked of finances, and freedom from state governments and taxation to reform the film industry, whether it is popular, purposeful or Parallel Cinema.229 Charging the “so-called” Parallel Cinema in India with being dominated by the thinking of “the privileged classes” and mostly “inspired by Western examples of off-beat cinema”, Chidananda Das Gupta found it important that the role of Parallel Cinema was seen and judged in the context of Indian reality.230 Das Gupta, after a brief survey of context, concluded that the Indian Parallel Cinema, is the product of the government’s efforts to improve the cinema. It is symbolic of the absence of effort to improve the mass cinema. It shows that the affluent minority of India whose size is that of a major European country like France has grabbed the benefits of development in this area as in all others. The privileged class is in the process of creating entertainment for itself leaving the masses to the mercy of their exploiters.231 With the growth of technology, Das Gupta hoped that Indian cinema would rise to the occasion and provide a cultural leadership in bringing about a change in the outlook of the entire people. He believed,

138  Whither New Cinema? the popular cinema in India today is in need of a massive cultural input. If that can be provided, the need for a parallel cinema kept alive by governmental oxygen will disappear. The parallel cinema will then become the popular cinema’s experimental laboratory for new ideas and techniques.232 Rajan Narayan found the term Parallel Cinema to be one of the many “semantic abuses”, along with the New Wave, non-commercial, transitional and art cinema.233 For him, the word represented “certain very unwelcome tendencies in the cinema”, and was “arrogant and presumptuous” “indicative of a very myopic vision of the medium.”234 For him, filmmakers like Mani Kaul and even Satyajit Ray, for whom cinema was a “self-indulgence”, were of only “marginal significant to the evolution of the medium.”235 He praised “transitional” films like Doosri Sita, Kora Kagaz, Namak Haram, Garam Hawa, Ankur, and 27 Down. These films “represent a clean break from the pure fantasy vehicles which have hitherto been the mainstay of the industry.”236 To Narayan, these films had brought back the realism of the forties of Boot Polish and Awara. What role did the FFC play to bring about these changes in cinema? According to Narayan, “very marginal”, “The Corporation has displayed very little understanding of the dynamics of change. It has no clearly defined perspective. Its working has been characterised by Hamletic indecisiveness and Quixotic impulsiveness. In consequence it has oscillated between elitism and populism.”237 Demanding “an entire package of policies…to create a framework for the healthier development of the industry”, he highlighted the importance of improving audience taste, better deal for the distributors, audience response research, and an extreme suggestion of taking the ‘new cinema’ films directly to the audience via ‘wheels and the tent’. While his suggestions were very important, and the FFC was trying to include them in its agenda, his refusal to give credit to the FFC for bringing some changes in Indian film industry was upsetting. One of the sessions on the second day of the Symposium was to be chaired by B.R. Chopra, with participants like Basu Chatterjee, Kumar Shahani, Chidananda Das Gupta, Shyam Benegal, Rajan Narayan, Sukhdev, Mani Kaul, etc. Kumar Shahani, Dilip Padgaonkar, Mani Kaul, and Rajan Narayan questioned Chopra’s propriety to chair the session. This incident took a “dramatic turn”, when these four, along with many others from the audience walked out in protest against Chopra presiding over it.238 Chopra was reported to have said that he was not against Parallel Cinema, but against some ‘abstract films’ which did not have any audience appeal and which were protected by the government and ‘pseudo-intellectual critics’.239 This remark had irked the ‘protagonists’ of New Cinema. Those who walked out, held a parallel symposium outside the hall under the chairmanship of Ritwik Ghatak. For Kiron Moy Raha, it was a tough task to create a parallel audience to sustain a Parallel Cinema, as “The main line is so predominant and broad that the other line to be parallel has first to wean away a

Whither New Cinema?  139 sizeable section of the adherents of the main line.”240 He claimed to have not known of any country where the state had concerned itself with the promotion of a Parallel Cinema to such an extent as in India. A discussion on Parallel Cinema was also helpful to analyse the social, economic, and artistic situation in India and discuss the problems of Parallel Cinema’s aesthetic approach and business organisation in the context of such analysis. The British expert on films, Charles Cooper, outlined the self-evident need for a Parallel Cinema and its development, the organisational hazards of this genre of films, and the cause they serve.241 According to Cooper, it was the mature filmmaker, e.g. Andrzej Wajda, Sergei Eisenstein, Claude Chabrol, Jean-Luc Godard, Luis Buñuel, Luchino Visconti, and Satyajit Ray, who dramatized aspects of life in his country which enabled people in other countries to learn about the life of people in his country. He believed, “When such films are shown abroad, the general reaction is that this society has the courage and strength to accept criticism of itself, and often a greater sympathy and understanding is engendered of its problems.”242 The kind of appreciation Garm Hawa received (mentioned above) for itself and the FFC proves Cooper’s point. Cooper also suggested a revolving fund to make such national Parallel Cinema. Kumar Shahani, on the other hand, emphasised on film education to remove misconceptions about Parallel Cinema.243 He pointed out how the Parallel Cinema built by the “daring efforts” of the FFC was under attack mainly because of the lack of exhibition facility. Demanding state patronage for Parallel Cinema, Shahani brought back the discussion on creating a taste by certain extension into screen education at schools and a greater access to international cinema to remove “our inherited misconceptions.” He said, One has to restore to our people what has always been attacked and plundered from them: their sensibilities by the cathartic illusion of reality and their perception of the loud mélange of colour and sound…In the fifties, the government, by following an uncompromising policy on music through All India Radio and well-managed conferences, gave rise to a renaissance in classical music and made it accessible to evergrowing masses of people. Will it do the same for cinema, at as great an operational level?244 Sridhar Kshirsagar talked at length about the Indian situation and highlighted how socialist realism could help Indian filmmakers out of the dilemma. He hailed Benegal’s Nishant as having succeeded on this parameter. He explained, It is puzzling that socialist realism…is a genre our critics seem unappreciative of. What is the basis of this genre? Invariably, the expression of revolutionary fervour in what is primarily either documentary or emotional terms, where the film maker considers the ‘message’ and then goes about communicating it in what he believes is the most effective

140  Whither New Cinema? manner. If this calls for drama and incident, then these will naturally form integral parts of the film.245 Six main points emerged from the two-day symposium:

• India must establish an organisation for distribution of good films abroad. • There should be a fresh approach to the production of films through 16mm medium and exhibition through universities and film societies.

• A film appreciation course should be started in universities. • Taxes should be reduced for Parallel Cinema.246 • Those who occupy positions in the government should undergo a refresher course at the FTII.

• The government must make efforts to subtitle all the award-winning language films for distribution in India and abroad. Of these, the first, second, and last suggestion were taken up by the FFC in its agenda, and were carried forward by the NFDC. The others equally important for promoting quality cinema were conveniently ignored. Another outcome of this symposium was the formation of a Co-operative Union of New Indian Cinema (CUNIC) ‘with clearly defined objectives which should give a big fillip to creative cinema in India.’247 Dileep Padgaonkar tried to understand the many “derisive remarks” New/ Parallel Cinema drew. One of the main reasons, according to Padgaonkar, was that it had mistakenly come to be identified with two directors and four films, i.e. Mani Kaul (Uski Roti, Ashad Ka Ek Din, and Duvidha) and Kumar Shahani (Maya Darpan).248 Of all the films financed by the FFC post-1968, only these four could be called experimental; others confined to the “traditional modes of film expression”. Padgaonkar found the identification of Kaul and Shahani with the New Cinema “erroneous” and various charges put against them as “unfounded”. He pointed out how out of every four films taken up for production by the cinema industry, three were never completed, and of those that were completed over 30 per cent lay in their cans for a considerable time and sometime for ever. On the tiff between B.R. Chopra and independent filmmakers, Padgaonkar found it to be “most revealing of some of the basic issues that confront the nation’s cinema.”249 The debates between realists and anti-realists have been at the centre of most of the New Cinema movements across the world, and, according to Padgaonkar, none of them were able to make up their minds about what constitutes the “language” of revolution and what constitutes cinema “language”. While the FFC’s supporters argued that its promotional activities should not be hampered by commercial constraints, its critics asserted that cinema is also an industry.250 Padgaonkar suggested that the FFC and the industry alike had to understand their respective responsibilities towards the national cinema. Padgaonkar asserted that it was undisputed that the state had a major role in promoting growth of purposeful films, even in advanced capitalist countries.

Whither New Cinema?  141 Private producers may support films which do not have a big profit potential, even then, the state offered directors with fiscal concessions or straight subsidies, and special facilities for cinema halls that screened art films. By giving opportunity to the more demanding filmgoer to see non-conformist and non-formulaic films, these states also derived a certain amount of prestige for itself. Padgaonkar affirmed that the FFC’s films had not fared badly even in the strict commercial sense, as nearly 60 per cent of films released in the post-Bhuvan Shome period, paid back their loans with interest. Compared with the high percentage of losses in the film industry, this was no small achievement. Citing the FFC’s task as per its Memorandum of Association, Padgaonkar highlighted, “it is in the very nature of its role to risk losing money for the good and simple reason that it is supposed to encourage untried talent or talent that seeks to steer clear of beaten tracks.”251 He found it “patently unfair” to accuse the FFC of “wasting” public funds. He saw the efforts to change the FFC’s policies and its set-up as needless, and emphasised the necessity to continue to foster a Parallel Cinema and let the public choose the kind of films it wishes to see. Bharat B. Dogra also believed that things would have been far more difficult for the “socially alert film makers” to make their presence felt without radical government measures. He also expected the government to abandon its inertia which had characterised its film policy so far. He suggested to New Wave filmmakers to seriously consider the possibility of reaching the large but untapped rural audience “which hasn’t yet been corrupted by commercial cinema.”252 K.A. Abbas also expected the New Wave filmmakers to not be contented with little theatres and small audiences. The emphasis went back to the people; cinema had to be people-centric. He wrote beautifully on this issue, Art, to my mind, is a social activity – and the cinema is the most social of all the arts…Great cinema, like all great art, must serve the spiritual needs of the people… it must stimulate their imagination, make them indignant against social injustices, must help them to understand life and its complexities, it must help man to understand himself…New wave, old wave, all waves emerge from the ocean, and all waves return to the ocean. The people are that ocean!253 Many noticed a significant improvement in the form and content of commercial films from the 1970s.254 M.S.M. Desai observed that the film writer emerged as a dominant factor in films – almost next only to the director; antiheroes and anti-heroines, more in tune with the common man, with whom members of the audience can identify themselves, replaced “the demi-gods and goddesses of the erstwhile cinema”; and major character artistes had become central points of various feature films. Bringing in FFC films in his findings, he pointed out to these changes being a world trend – neorealism, New Wave, underground cinema – to which, according to Desai, the Indian industry “inevitably” responded.255 The FTII provided better technicians

142  Whither New Cinema? with a professional attitude to the film medium. The FFC-financed films stimulated the trend. He also placed responsibility with the “intellectual emancipation of the urban masses” for these changes, who had become more receptive to a highly evolved art than mere escapist fantasy and, more assertive and vocal.256 M. Shamim acknowledged Indian commercial producers and filmmakers, like V. Shantaram, Mehboob Khan, Bimal Roy, K.A. Abbas, Hrishikesh Mukherjee, and Gulzar, who made an effort to “break the hold of the formula”.257 He praised B.R. Chopra for experimenting with films without songs and dances. Sunil Dutt made a one actor movie called Yaadein which won many international awards.258 Padgaonkar praised the “independent-minded director” for doing away with big budgets, lavish sets, stars, heavily-orchestrated music, and “all the paraphernalia” which went with the so-called formula films.259 He mentioned the impact New Cinema had on the commercial film industry, “with some success to democratise good and meaningful entertainment which was hitherto restricted to small cultureconscious groups.”260 Nirad Mohapatra also acknowledged the contribution of “the new crop of films” in giving a “face-lift” to Indian cinema, by shattering the myth “perpetuated by the so-called guardians of public taste that Indian audiences would not accept anything different.”261 While some praised the commercial filmmakers for supporting low-budget films, Bimal Dutta doubted their intentions, “For the tycoons it merely meant spending part of their finance to exploit the new audience and create an image for their banner, while most of their regular finance went for gross commercial movies.”262 According to Dutta’s calculations, the FFC achieved what it did during 1960–75 by spending just an average of 17 lakhs annually, which was an “insignificant” amount if one remembered how expensive the film medium was. He asked the FFC not to be apologetic for the kind of good work it did in such a small time, and justified the kind of cinema Mani Kaul and Kumar Shahani made with the FFC’s help.263 Recalling the pre-Bhuvan Shome period, when most of the FFC money, given to regular commercial producers who promised “returns” and “entertainment”, sunk in the hope of earning profits, Dutta wrote, “The experience of that period should have taught us that it was wrong to rely mainly on the advice of government officials. The discretion should be in the hands of the board who should decide matters in consultation with technical committees.”264 He sided with the filmmakers being “ruthlessly prosecuted” for repayment of loans, demonstrating that the FFC was dead to the ideals with which it had started off 15 years ago.265 Using metaphors of wine and milk, and flower and cauliflower, he cautioned the FFC to determine its “ware” and plan the distribution accordingly to a selected group of customers, and consider a reasonable profit as enough. He also reminded the FFC of Tagore’s song “Ekla Chalo Re”. For J.S. Rao, the “realistic film, the low-budget film or the avant garde film” emerged as the “true representative” of Hindi cinema, in the context of absolute monetary constraints for good cinema ideas prevailing during that time.266 According to him, though the commercial Hindi films rose real enough social problems,

Whither New Cinema?  143 but solved them by “resorting to fantasy”, without any real confrontation. On the other hand, The serious film maker refuses easy resolutions. Whether it is the loneliness of a woman waiting for her husband in the small Punjabi village of Nakoder (Uski Roti), the abstract pattern of a Nirmal Verma story (Maya Darpan), the woes of partition (Garm Hawa), recapturing a slice of history (Shatranj Ke Khilari, Junoon), plight of the dispossessed in the big city (Gaman), the problems of alienation (27 Down, Arvind Desai Ki Ajeeb Dastaan), the intention is single: the film maker does not arrange a happy ending.267 Blaming the producers, distributors, and exhibitors ganging up against “new” films, only to protect “an assured and stable market”, Rao suspected that the commercial cinema had nothing to gain by improving audience taste, The distributor will never allow more than the grudging morning show to the low-budget film, lest it become a habit with the audience and lest the commercial goose that lays the egg at the box office be killed. Even so a film like the late Awatar Kaul’s 27 Down finds its audience and is running to packed houses in its 13th week in Bombay.268 He lamented how the government had lost an opportunity during the Emergency to exhibit some of the FFC films. Some theatres could have been convinced to screen FFC films, especially in “labour areas” of Parel or Dadar (Bombay), where the local population thronged the theatres once a week no matter which film was screened.269 He also suggested a possible ceiling on the budgets of films in general, which could limit the commercial producer to not turn “every set into a Taj Mahal” and by necessity, they would be directed towards cleaner and simpler ways of making films. Khalid Mohamed also criticised the Bombay films for refusing to learn from experimental films, and constantly appealing to, and not questioning, prevailing morality, encouraging “exclusive” loyalty to the family, faith in “a miracle-working God, and minimal interest in women as persons”.270 While many praised the New Cinema for bringing the countryside on screen, some film critics like Shankar Menon critiqued filmmakers like Benegal to be “an apothecary of the urban consciousness”, making films out of a sense of “urban guilt…with the dilemmas of the city-dweller…to clarify the problems of his surroundings, through visions of the potentialities of the countryside.”271 Responses came to such allegations. Shyam Benegal refuted the claim that he made films that were confined to big centres, and said in an interview, I have received letters from people in very small places. I remember in particular a letter sent by a Harijan woman who was illiterate herself

144  Whither New Cinema? and dictated it to somebody. She wrote to say that “Ankur” was very much like their own lives. I know for definite that “Ankur” had a large working-class audience and they would have been interested in the film because of the socio-economic plus the cultural milieu shown in the film.272 To sum up, except film critics and few cinephiles, the larger audience demanded a more corporatised and disciplined the FFC, a “new” FFC. The state recommended the FFC strive for audience acceptability and generate its own resources and revenue. The Bombay film industry, while partially adopting the rules and filmmakers of New Cinema, was not ready to promote the likes of Kauls and Shahanis. The FFC’s focus shifted from production to distribution and exhibition. The demand for a bigger film corporation caught up along with the need for a comprehensive national film policy. National Film Policy and Merger Quality films need more support in distribution and exhibition than production and financing emerged as an all-pervading truth. This required construction of more cinema houses which, in turn, needed structural, policy level changes, and a better coordination between the FFC and state agencies. Strengthening the FFC was not possible with its meagre authorised capital. So, it was decided to revive and strengthen NFDC, by merging the FFC and IMPEC with it. In addition, complaints continued to be voiced over exorbitant rates of entertainment tax, and lack of bank loans or irrational rates of interest on bank loans taken for making films. The government not only burdened the film industry with exorbitant tax rates that sometimes touched 120 per cent, without putting some of this amount back in cinema; it also imposed countless restrictions on filmmakers.273 The film industry urged the government to treat filmmaking as an industry, make films a central subject, rationalise and centralise taxation – especially entertainment tax – policy, and draw up a comprehensive film policy to solve these acute problems affecting the Indian film industry.274 Emphasis was also placed on development of 16mm cinema against 35mm or 70mm cinema as this had a better chance of getting to the masses, and educating audiences to accept a better type of cinema. To achieve all this, the state was expected to consider adopting a comprehensive national film policy. V.C. Shukla assured of formulating a comprehensive policy for Indian film industry, to be finalised in May and taken up for discussion with film people in June 1976.275 This was to be done to strengthen the film industry owing to its recognition as one of national significance and the pride of place it held as a leading film producer in the world. Nothing significant could be done in this regard during the Emergency. However, the press took a keen interest in the matter. Screen covered the debate on national film policy in three editorial pieces written in late 1977. The Screen editor, Mr. Pillai, suggested ways

Whither New Cinema?  145 to reach a film policy, raising various important questions.276 He asked if the film industry was treated as an entertainment industry, should it come under the Information and Broadcasting Ministry, and called for the setting up of a new ministry of cinematography, broadcasting, sports, and culture. In the second follow-up piece, Mr. Pillai wrote that a national film policy must be an integrated and multi-faceted policy taking into account the diversity of India. He suggested studying the Soviet model, with 15 republics speaking different languages, in this regard.277 He felt that those entrusted with the job of executing a national film policy must be persons who have sufficient knowledge of the subject and who do not have a contempt for the medium.278 He wanted filmmakers of the calibre of Hrishikesh Mukherjee to address the trainees at the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) training institute and conduct a short course on films. These views, while legitimate, were ambitious for a government which continued to show its apathy towards the film industry. The film policies of the Janata Party government were disappointing the Indian film industry by imposing heavy taxes on film prints. Screen went to the extent of calling it “rape” of the cinema medium, which “will keep films away from the common man, in the long run.”279 At a conference of Information Ministers of States, it was agreed upon to adopt a uniform cinema policy and a set of common rules for cinema throughout the country.280 The recommendations that the conference made were:

• To overcome the paucity of theatres, the FFC and the state agencies concerned should coordinate their resources and evolve a common policy to help in the construction of more cinema houses, and release of more quality films. • A specific percentage of the revenue derived from the entertainment tax should be set apart by each state for the development of the film industry in the state.281 A Working Group was finally set up in May 1979, approved by the Cabinet in June 1979, to study the state of the film industry in areas such as production, distribution, exhibition, and taxation, and to suggest a national film policy which would help the growth of Indian cinema.282 The setting up of the Working Group was announced in the Lok Sabha by L.K. Advani, the Minister for Information and Broadcasting. The idea was that there should be uniform policies in matters of distribution, exhibition, and entertainment tax exemption throughout the country. He also agreed that the government should leave creativity part to the creators and artists.283 FFC Chairman Jagdish Parikh was included in the film policy panel.284 The Group was headed by Dr. K.S. Karanth. The members of this Group were Tarachand Barjatya, Manoj Kumar, Shyam Benegal, Basu Bhattacharya, Tarun Mazumdar, M. Bhaktavatsala, Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Ramanand Sagar, Vijaya Mulay, Bikram Singh, and representatives of four state governments,

146  Whither New Cinema? namely Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Punjab, and West Bengal, and a secretary, R.K. Shastri.285 The terms of reference of the group were,

• To inquire into the present state of cinema as an art form and as an instru• • • • •

ment of social change with reference to its role as a medium of information, education and entertainment. To suggest measures for its further promotion and development. To inquire into all aspects of filmmaking, including related activities like production, distribution, exhibition and financing. To examine the impact of the government policies on the film industry with regard to censorship, entertainment tax, excise duty, local taxes, import levies, import and export of films. To suggest measures for promoting the growth of healthy Indian cinema. To suggest measures of state aid to improve Indian cinema in its various forms.286

The decision on the merger of FFC and IMPEC with the NFDC, defunct since its inception in 1975, was also taken during this time. The idea of merging the FFC and IMPEC had germinated in the late 1960s. There was wide opposition to the idea of a merger on various grounds. The Screen editor, Mr. Pillai, rightly remarked that it was unfair on the part of the Indian film industry to just expect enough finance at cheap rates of interest from the FFC and increased overseas earnings from IMPEC.287 He believed that these could have been achieved by “intelligent exploration of the potentials” of these two organisations as they existed in 1969. But a lack of will to explore their potentiality had led to an unjust demand for amalgamation. The FFC and IMPEC were involved in two different activities, financing and export, respectively. Combining these different functions was regarded as unwise.288 He was apprehensive that the FFC, which was analogous to a bank, would become an exporter (which it did become) if it was amalgamated with the IMPEC. At that time, both the Corporations were financially weak and ridden with other problems. Merging them was not regarded as a sound economic policy.289 It was believed, “Each institution can thrive only by maintaining its own individuality and intensifying its activity.”290 The matter slowed down for a few more years, thanks to the success of Bhuvan Shome. The Study Team which had recommended the formation of the NFDC, had envisioned the IMPEC would be wound up and the FFC would become a subsidiary of the NFDC. But the NFDC never really took off and the IMPEC and FFC continued to be independent corporations. By the mid-1970s, with the formation of the NFDC, and the calculated attack during the Emergency on ‘financially inadequate’ organisations, the discussion on amalgamation reappeared. This time, the FFC and IMPEC both were to merge with the NFDC, which had more state capital. By June 1979, things were finalised for the merger.291 The government decided to activate the NFDC, and merge the FFC and IMPEC

Whither New Cinema?  147 with it.292 The Cabinet approved the proposal on 1 June. The objectives of the NFDC were:

• Promote quality films and encourage research and development in film equipment and raw stock.

• Handle the import and export of feature films (a task that was being performed by FFC and IMPEC), import and distribution of raw material and equipment used by the film industry. • Distribution and exhibition of films through the existing network in the country, and also by promoting a programme of construction of a chain of low-cost theatres in conjunction with State Film Corporations where feasible.293 The authorised capital of the NFDC was to be raised from Rs. three crores to Rs. four crores. The registered office of NFDC was shifted from Delhi to Bombay.294 The arrangement now decided upon by the government fulfilled the objective laid down in the NFDC’s charter. It was hoped that the merger would “usher in a new era of promotion and development of good and wholesome cinema with the involvement and cooperation of the Film industry.”295 The merger received a mixed response. Shreeram Bohra, president of the AIFPC, did not expect much from this new set-up for the development of the film industry. The new body, according to Bohra, would only depend on its income from the industry, which gave two and half per cent each year for the import of raw film and export of pictures.296 The then Screen editor, B.K. Karanjia, however, was pleased with the NFDC’s relaunch, “Since 1975 the “National Film Development Corporation” has been a name-plate adorning the entrance to an empty sanctum in Shastri Bhavan, New Delhi”, but the merger notification gave it “a habitation and a name, some substance, too.”297 Having said that, he underlined the lack of clarity on NFDC’s goals. The official statement regarding the amalgamation of the IMPEC and FFC with the NFDC under Section 396 of the Companies Act 1956 was printed in the press. The proposed NFDC (P) Ltd. notified all shareholders and creditors of the FFC and IMPEC to send in their objections and suggestions regarding the proposed amalgamation of the two bodies with the NFDC to the Company Law Board. The notification said that the FFC and IMPEC were proposed to be amalgamated with the NFDC so that their activities could be carried on more efficiently and economically by a single company. After amalgamation, the undertakings of the FFC and IMPEC would stand transferred to and vested in the NFDC, which would then be deemed to be the company resulting from the amalgamation and all the profits, losses, and reserves of both the Corporations, as on the day immediately before the amalgamation, would be transferred to the NFDC.298 The notification issued by the Board of Directors for the IMPEC said that the amalgamation was done “in the public interest” so that “the activities of all the aforesaid

148  Whither New Cinema? three Companies are carried on more efficiently and economically by a single consolidated Company”.299 The NFDC was officially activated on 11 April 1980. Its Board was constituted in August–September 1980.300 Before concluding this chapter, I want to recount two controversial decisions to conclusively reflect and sum up on wider attitudinal changes towards New Cinema, and its wider impact. National awards and Indian Panorama were two important platforms which had recognised and encouraged New Cinema and young filmmakers.301 Both were under threat due to an arbitrary yearning to redefine the “standard” for best feature film, and “paucity of funds” to organise the Indian Panorama. The Jury in 1979 did not find any film worthy of the top award, i.e. the Golden Peacock for the Best Feature Film at the 26th National Film Awards. Chetan Anand, Chairman of the Jury, clarified that the members simply used their rights provided to them as per the regulations that they are free to make recommendations for Feature Films and Short Films that “none of the films in a particular language or category examined by them is of a standard adequate for an award”.302 According to the Jury, a good film, which can claim the highest award automatically, must have, a good theme, a good exposition of that theme in the shape of an effective screenplay, and a good transference of this screenplay to the screen by means of actors, dialogue, visuals, soundtrack, editing, use of colour, sets, location, use of music and special effects…When these three components are of good merit it makes a good film…a film that touches the fringe of greatness, a film that communicates itself to its audiences in an effective way, a film with powerful impact, a film satisfying in its totality. When such a film comes along it will automatically claim the highest Award.303 The actual reason behind not giving the Golden Peacock in 1979 got out when Anand wrote, of late the winners of the most prestigious award of the country were being equated with dull and boring cinema. It was decided therefore, that this year an attempt should be made by this jury to make a point of departure, a turning point to make a beginning towards re-establishing the high prestige this award was meant to carry, so that in time to come the winners of this award are awaited and applauded by filmgoers and film-makers alike as motion pictures of great all-round merit.304 Such a definition and perception of a good film was not only vague but absurd and callous, too. K.M. Amladi wrote an explanatory write-up in the handbook clarifying why many films which won awards in various categories could not win the Golden Peacock.305 The Jury had scrutinised many films for the seven categories, including Golden Peacock. These films included

Whither New Cinema?  149 Tarun Mazumdar’s Ganadevata, Mrinal Sen’s Parashuram,306 Budhadeb Das Gupta’s Dooratwa, Satyajit Ray’s Jui Baba Felunath, Shyam Benegal’s Junoon, Bimal Dutt’s Kasturi, Muzaffar Ali’s Gaman, B.S. Narayana’s Nimajjanam,307 Aravindan’s Thamp, T.S. Nagabharana’s Grahana,308 and Girish Karnad’s Ondanondu Kaladalli. While these films won awards in various other categories, they “failed” to attract the Golden Peacock. Rationalising the decision to not award any of these films the best feature film award, Amladi supported applying a subjective yardstick, since there was no objective or absolute measure, to check a good film, and quoted film critic Kenneth Tynan to support his views, bringing more absurdity to the matter, I see myself predominantly as a lock. If the key, which is the work of art, fits snugly into my mechanism of bias and preference, I click and rejoice; if not, I am helpless and can only offer the artist the address of a better locksmith. Sometimes, unforeseen, a masterpiece seizes the knocker, batters down the door and enters unopposed; and when that happens, I am a willing casualty. I cave in con amore.309 Amladi explained, “Unfortunately, there was no film this year even among the award-winning categories, which fitted snugly into my mechanism of bias and preference, or battered down the door and entered unopposed, as was the case with ‘Ghatashradha’ last year.”310 Then he went on to analyse how the films this year, the list of which is given above, “though good in bits and pieces”, fell short of “its goal when judged in totality.”311 According to Binford, “film awards tend to reflect values the sponsoring organization wishes to project or cultivate, and they function as instruments of social control.”312 By refusing to award one feature film from among the good ones mentioned above, the “autonomous” Jury of the National Film Awards, appointed by the MIB, hinted that they do not want to award films made in such a tradition. The National Film Awards were constituted to change film industry’s goals and encourage it to break away from formulaic and cliché-laden films to produce socially meaningful films. The 1979 decision became a setback for future filmmakers willing to make films in a specific neorealist tradition. The FFC sponsored feature films’ monopoly was also broken with this refusal. It also affected the promotion of regional films and national integration, two important aims of the National Film Awards, constituted in 1954. In another instance of indifference, various government agencies connected with films, especially the FFC and FD, were avoiding their responsibility in organisation of the Filmotsav’80 to be held in Bangalore in January 1980.313 M. Bhaktavatsala, president of the South Indian Film Chamber of Commerce, was shocked to see a suggestion that the Indian Panorama might have to be scrapped due to paucity of funds.314 He wondered whether the Ministry realised the objectives of an international film festival. International

150  Whither New Cinema? press gave the maximum coverage to Indian films screened under Indian Panorama. The Panorama was a very important platform for Indian filmmakers to gain world recognition.315 According to Binford, By giving foreign critics something “new” to write about, the Panorama also eases the way for New Cinema films into international forums. Delegates representing other international festivals often select films from the Panorama for their festivals. Foreign recognition in turn furthers the domestic reputation of New Cinema films, and may make it easier for their makers to obtain funding for future films.316 The Ministry’s attitude showed that it was not interested in the wider prospects of Indian cinema. Pointing out to the lower budget compared to the one allotted for previous festivals, Bhaktavatsala blamed the FFC, “which takes the credit for organising the festival and utilises festival funds for protecting its own image,” and asked that it must make its objectives clear.317 He said the responsibility for the Third World cinema should have been boldly taken up by the FFC, but judging from the quality of films that it imported, it was clear that it was not interested in this. He asked, “Then what happens to the solemn promise that the Ministry made at the last International Film Festival of India held in New Delhi that there will be a Third World slant to our festival?”318 Concluding Remarks This chapter has shown that the state was capable of not only changing the New Cinema movement structurally (through its patron body the FFC), but also suggesting changes in its form and content. The strict disciplining and regimentation unleashed by the Emergency had an adverse impact on the FFC’s functioning. The practitioners of New Indian Cinema found themselves in the middle of a storm. The main activity of the Corporation, namely financing of low-budget artistic films, had come to a virtual halt in 1975–6, as not a single new feature film could be financed during that year. The FFC’s autonomy was bypassed, and New Cinema’s aesthetic spirit had to pass a test of its contribution to the national economy. A revised charter of functions for the FFC was drawn up by the Ministry, with major focus on an appeal to wider audiences. Jagdish Parekh, the new FFC Chairman, pointed to a thrust towards good films which were entertaining as well. The government was not ready to support the Corporation financially beyond a point. This led to the FFC’s major focus on getting shifted towards the developmental aspects of the film industry, and “changing the taste of Indian audience” took a back seat. The New Cinema movement was on its way to getting corporatised. This possibly also indicated an end to a pursuit of “New”-ness in Indian cinema. The Bombay film industry, the most dominant force in Indian cinema, while partially adopting the rules of New Cinema, was not ready to accept

Whither New Cinema?  151 a subsidised, state-aided filmmaking practice. The merger of the FFC and IMPEC with the NFDC, and the formation of a working group on national film policy attempted some damage control, but one knew that all this restructuring was being done to favour entertainment and generate monetary returns. The damage was already done. The National Awards and Indian Panorama were two very important platforms which recognised and encouraged New Cinema and young filmmakers. Both were under threat during this time due to some arbitrary desire to redefine the “standard” for best feature film, and the excuse of a “paucity of funds” to organise Indian Panorama during the IFFI. The next chapter discusses in detail the recommendations of the Working Group, with special reference to NFDC. It assesses the newly revived NFDC’s performance, with regard to the production of meaningful cinema during the 1980s. The chapter does so by situating the NFDC and New Cinema within larger technological changes, namely TV and video, influencing cinema, media, and communication. Notes 1 ‘The Proposed Film Corporation’, Filmfare, 17 November 1972, p. not given. 2 Ibid. 3 Ibid. 4 ‘Govt. To Set Up NFC By October, New film policy being evolved, says Gujral’, Screen, 29 June 1973, p.1 & 8. 5 ‘FFI wants NFC to be autonomous’, Screen, 19 October 1973, p.6 (D). 6 Anil Saari, ‘FFC May Lose New Functions, Another body for stock, for export, import in offing’, Screen, 21 December 1973, p.1. 7 ‘N. F. C. Will Serve Industry – No Dictation, Gujral defines new body’s role’, Screen, 10 May 1974, p.1. 8 Anil Saari, ‘Politician may head NFC’, Screen, 24 May 1974, p.1. 9 ‘Cabinet okays plan for film corpn. [sic]’, The Times of India, 27 July 1974, p.3. 10 ‘New tax scheme for films’, The Times of India, 29 July 1974, p.1. 11 A Screen headline aptly captured this sense of doubt. See, ‘Industry Nationalisation Via Backdoor, NFDC set up with Rs. 3 crore capital’, Screen, 28 March 1975, p.1. It reported that the aims and objectives of the NFDC made it look as though the entire film trade was being nationalised through the backdoor. Also see p.8 of the same edition, for detailed functions of the NFDC, and p.6 for Screen editor’s reaction to the proposed NFDC, who found it to be a “sturdy noose”, “with which the film industry could be hanged conveniently, at any time, whichever Government may be in power.” According to him, with this act, the state had made the film industry “a serf of the Government, leaving no room to have an identity of its own.” See, ‘NFDC: Sturdy noose’, Screen, 28 March 1975, p.6. Filmfare had a different opinion. See, ‘Cry Wolf: The NFDC is coming!’, Filmfare, 2 May 1975, p. not given. Filmfare emphasised that NFDC was “a belated but welcome realisation on the part of Government that what the film industry needs is a uniform, comprehensive, long-range policy instead of piecemeal solutions and fragmented actions.” The editor also believed that a nationalisation of the industry via NFDC was not probable for the Government because of its financial inability “to make any massive intervention in the film industry.” 12 ‘NFDC rules are normal: Sippy’, Screen, 4 April 1975, p.1. Also see, ‘Wolf on the prowl’, Screen, 9 May 1975, p.6.

152  Whither New Cinema? 13 Report 1980–81, 1981, p.38. 14 Kaviraj, 1986, p.1704. According to the MIB Annual Report, “Following the Emergency there was tightening of discipline in the Ministry and its attached and subordinate offices. Instructions were issued…to ensure punctuality in attendance by all officers and members of the staff.” The instructions on discipline and efficiency were seriously followed; records of officers in the age group of 50–55 years were screened. Following this, eighteen officials – of whom eleven were Gazetted Officers – were compulsorily retired from service during the year on grounds of inefficiency or doubtful integrity. Instructions were issued to take appropriate steps against those found “wanting in efficiency or integrity.” See, Report 1975–76, 1976, pp.108–09. 15 Kaviraj, 1986, p.1706. 16 Kaviraj, 1988, p.2440. 17 Rajagopal, 2011, p.1004. 18 See Report 1975–76, for details. 19 Ibid. p.133. 20 Rajagopal, 2011, p.1005. 21 Ibid. p.1005, 1003, & 1007. 22 Ibid. p.1007. 23 Ibid. p.1009. 24 Ibid. p.1010. This important thesis on the middle class was to bloom fully in the 1980s, and Doordarshan, the national television channel, played a key role in it. Rajagopal also claimed that such changes did replace industrial conflicts with communal conflicts. Kaviraj (1988) implicated the Congress under Indira Gandhi, during and after the Emergency, of renegotiating the secular, one of the fundamental definitions of Indian political life. He pointed out to usage of TV by the state to control “religious fanaticism”, by lending the state-controlled media to religious leaders, and giving the “greatest coverage on the TV to routine religious practices.” According to Kaviraj, “A state armed with such suicidal weapons does not need communal parties for its destabilisation. Remarkably, the subversion of the definition of secularism was not done by communal forces and political parties, but accomplished by the state.” See, Kaviraj, 1988, p.2440. 25 Anil Saari, ‘FFC told to encourage historicals’, Screen, 28 May 1976, p.1. 26 ‘Thematic Classification of Feature Films Made during the Last Five Years’, Bulletin on Film, A Monthly Digest for Official Use, January-March 1978, Vol. XXII, Nos. 1–3, National Documentation Centre on Mass Communication, New Delhi, p.7. 27 Ibid. V.C. Shukla had said that it had become necessary to take a hard line on matters related to showing violence, drinking and sex scenes in films, as producers were using the censor office as a bargaining shop. See, R. Ramakrishna, ‘New film policy being formulated – Shukla’, Screen, 14 May 1976, p.1 & 10. Also see, ‘Strict Censorship Has Come to Stay, Shukla’s plain speech to producers’, Screen, 21 May 1976, p.1. For details on negative impact of censorship policy, see ‘Production Work Plummets Down, Flow of finance halts in Bombay’, Screen, 18 June 1976, p.1. The flow of funds, both from financiers and distributors, had virtually halted resulting in over 200 pictures in Hindi in various stages of production being stranded and launching of new films coming down drastically. The worst hit were casual workers like junior artistes, technicians, and musicians. This was happening as financiers were not sure of the fate of the film they would help produce. 28 ‘Thematic Classification of Feature Films Made during the Last Five Years’, Op. Cit. Veena Das wrote an essay on the unprecedented popularity and commercial success Jai Santoshi Maa (1975) received. See, Das, 1981.

Whither New Cinema?  153 29 ‘Thematic Classification of Feature Films Made during the Last Five Years’, Op. Cit. 30 Bulletin on Film, Vol. XXIV, Nos. 1, January 1979, p.2. 31 Report 1975–76, p.10. 32 White Paper on Misuse of Mass Media During the Internal Emergency, 1977, p.1. 33 Popular Hindi films were screened on television to distract people from attending J.P.’s meeting. See, Ibid. p.75, for details. 34 J. Om Prakash, the producer of the film, found it “totally incorrect” and “mischievous too” that parallels were drawn between “the principal characters of my film and certain political personalities.” He made it clear that he and his team did not project or draw any parallel between any “intended or coincidental political figure, either living or dead, with the characters in the film.” He found such propaganda against the film as totally imaginary and motivated. See, J. Om Prakash, ‘No politics in “Aandhi,” says producer’, Screen, 9 May 1975, p.2. 35 White Paper on Misuse of Mass Media, p.17. Amrit Nahata’s new Kissaa Kursee Kaa opened in Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, and East Punjab in December 1977. See, ‘New “Kissaa…” opens’, Screen, 2 December 1977, p.1. Also see, ‘“Kissa” new version will be exactly as it was made originally’, Screen, 5 August 1977, p.1 & 4; ‘Kissaa Kursee Kaa Release Poster’, Screen, 2 December 1977, p.24; and ‘Jail sentence for young Gandhi, V. C. Shukla’, Screen, 2 March 1979, p.1. The District and Sessions Judge had sentenced Sanjay Gandhi and Shukla to two years’ rigorous imprisonment each and a fine of Rs. 10,000 and Rs. 25,000, respectively, in the Kissa Kursi Ka case. They were allowed to appeal to the Delhi High Court against their conviction. They were granted bail after they produced a personal bond and surety. 36 See, “Victim of Emergency, Andolan”, Screen, 2 September 1977, p.12. Also see, ‘Tax relief for “Andolan” in five States’, Screen, 5 August 1977, p.14; Andolan Release Poster, Screen, 5 August 1977, p.23; and ‘“Andolan” has fine music, thrilling action’, Screen, 9 September 1977, p.4. 37 White Paper on Misuse of Mass Media, p.7. Also see, Sudha Tiwari, “The Political, Public, and Popular: Hindi Film Songs of Emergency”, Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, 79th Session, Barkatullah University, Bhopal, 2018–19, Indian History Congress, Delhi, pp. 848–58. 38 M.S.M. Desai, ‘New Minister Will Promote Industry, Aim is no control, says Advani’, Screen, 1 April 1977, p.1 & 10. Also see, ‘Welcome’, Screen, 1 April 1977, p.8; and, M.S.M. Desai, ‘Shukla’s 20-Month ‘Reign of Terror’, Industry speaks out at last’, Screen, 18 March 1977, p.1. 39 Anil Saari, ‘Pat for industry from “J.P.,” and Morarji’, Screen, 1 April 1977, p.1. Also see, A.S., ‘Janata approach to film industry will be rational’, Screen, 1 April 1977, p.11. 40 Also see, ‘Guild hails Morarji Desai’s leadership; wants autonomous status for HPF, FFC’, Screen, 1 April 1977, p.4. 41 Prasad, ‘The State in/of Cinema’, p.142. 42 Ibid. 43 Ibid. p.143. 44 Ibid. 45 Ibid. pp.143–4. 46 Ibid. p.144. When I questioned Shyam Benegal on Prasad’s views on Manthan, he quickly recognised him and said, “Yes, he has criticised my work”; “he damns me forever.” Benegal told me that there were two positions on the co-operative movement, one Marxist/leftist (which Prasad endorses), and another Verghese Kurien perspective. Benegal said, that the extreme leftist position felt that “the

154  Whither New Cinema? co-operative movement was actually an apologia for a capitalist society, a kind of justification for a capitalist society.” But Benegal took Kurien’s way of looking at the co-operative movement, who saw it as a “producers’ co-operative” and not as a “consumers’ co-operative”. In this context Benegal also fondly remembered Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and Jyoti Basu when he was assigned to make Aarohan for the West Bengal government in 1982. Personal Interview with Shyam Benegal, Mumbai, 26 June 2015. 47 Ibid. p.145. Also see, Prasad, Ideology of Hindi Cinema, chapter five. One tends to disagree with Prasad’s hypothesis that the spectator of New Cinema was detached from and did not identify with the rural spectacle presented on screen. This conclusion is based on a biased assumption that New Cinema was seen by a specific class of audience. Most significantly, one has the successful example of the Ninasam film society countering the assumption that “rural” films like Pather Panchali or Ankur could not have been appreciated or understood by rural viewers. See, Jashwant Jadhav, ‘Ninasam: A Unique Rural Film Society’, Indian Cinema 1988, ed. Jag Mohan, DFF, MIB, Government of India, New Delhi, January, 1989, pp.35–9. Ninasam Chitrasamaja, a “rural film society” started in 1977 in Karnataka, not only screened films, but also conducted an annual ten-day Film Appreciation Course, to initiate participants, who were largely teachers, journalists, social workers, students, housewives, and farmers, mostly from rural and semi-rural areas “into the parallel cinema movement, so that they can continue as activists in their respective areas of work.” Jadhav wrote, “its achievements, especially in the dissemination of film culture…can perhaps be best illustrated by an incident that took place during its Janaspandana project. It was at Ullala, near Mangalore, where nearly 1,000 illiterate native fisherfolk until then fed only on popular cinema, had gathered among the coconut trees on the sandy beach to watch Pather Panchali in the open air. They sat absolutely still and receptive all through, and as the film ended, they had tears welling up in their eyes.” p.39. Shyam Benegal also shared, as is narrated later in this chapter, how Ankur had moved the lowest of the low of Indian society. This proves, if exhibited, New Indian Cinema was capable of touching the rural audiences. Also, New Cinema was not just about Ankur and Manthan, or Uski Roti and Maya Darpan. By equating New Cinema with Ankur and Manthan, thereby calling it statist in a certain sense, Prasad committed the same mistake that the other group of critics did by equating it with Kaul and Shahani. New Cinema, as it had emerged, was not a homogenous category, and was significantly divided within itself. 48 Rajadhyaksha, 2009, p.233. 49 Ibid. p.231. 50 Barnouw and Krishnaswamy, 1980, p.274. 51 Sen, 2006, p.122. The chapter where he discusses this particular incidence is titled “Deadly Discipline, When Trains Ran On Perfect Time…” 52 Ibid. p.124. 53 Personal Interview with Kumar Shahani, New Delhi, 3 May 2016. 54 Ibid. 55 Personal Interview with Saeed Akhtar Mirza, Mumbai, 27 June 2018. 56 ‘“Continue the revolution”’, Filmfare, 11–24 June 1976, p.35. 57 Ibid. Also see, ‘Karanjia’s resignation regretted’, The Times of India, 21 May 1976, p.3. 58 Vasudev, 1978, p.158. See chapter eight, “Zero for Conduct”, pp.149–98, in the book for a detailed analysis of censorship and cinema during the Emergency. Shyam Benegal’s Nishant (1975) ran into trouble with the CBFC, and over a conversation, Benegal remembered V.C. Shukla to be “a very rude person”, who

Whither New Cinema?  155 found Nishant to be “a subversive film”. Personal Interview with Shyam Benegal, Mumbai, 26 June 2015. 59 S.A. Kaiser Usmani, ‘Where’s the new cinema?’, Filmfare, 23 July–5 August 1976, p. not given. 60 Ibid. 61 Vasudev, 1978, p.158. 62 ‘For the film industry A New Dawn’, Filmfare, 15–28 April 1977, p.10. 63 Ibid. I.K. Gujral was replaced by Vidya Charan Shukla as Minister for Information and Broadcasting on 28 June 1975. See, ‘Shukla wants new sense of discipline in film industry’, Screen, 22 August 1975, p.15. In his ‘articulate and frank speech’, Shukla said that government was very anxious to treat the film industry as ‘a vital industry in the economy of the country’ and invited them to enter a new era of co-operation and mutual trust. He also warned film journals and journalists against indulging in character assassination and scandal mongering. Shukla also said that TV would be used ‘to build up the nation on proper lines.’ It was going to ‘tell our farmers how to produce more and housewives how they can rear their children better.’ Ibid. 64 ‘For the film industry A New Dawn’. 65 To know more on IMPEC’s failures, see, ‘Bungling Film Exports’, The Times of India, 17 September 1972, p.A5 and 10. 66 ‘For the film industry A New Dawn’, p.11. For more details on how the FFC’s position as a patron of purposeful cinema got affected under Shukla, see, ‘FFC’s untold story’, Filmfare, 13–26 May 1977, p.45. 67 Committee on Public Undertakings (1975–76), 1976, p.16. To this, the government’s reply was, “it is not always possible for the Corporation to anticipate at the pre-production stage the public acceptability/commercial success of a film.” See, Committee On Public Undertakings 1978–79, 1979, p.17. 68 Committee on Public Undertakings (1975–76), p.17. Loans for films like Aakrosh and Tarang were sanctioned in the backdrop of these recommendations. 69 Ibid. 70 Ibid. p.56. 71 Ibid. p.57. 72 Ibid. p.68. 73 Ibid. p.83. 74 Yashodhara Dalmia found this position puzzling; she asked, “if that is the case then why have films which are better than average not succeeded in recovering the loan?”. See, Yashodhara Dalmia, ‘New Cinema: Another Hesitant Beginning?’ The Times of India, 12 December 1976, p.13. She pointed out the lack of exhibition spaces as a key problem. However, in its reply, the government accepted the recommendation and the Board of Directors of the FFC considered the problem critically, as was desired by the CPU, and in detail, “The causes of the box-office failure of the earlier films have been identified. They have formulated a new financing policy which will take care of these factors.” Committee on Public Undertakings 1978–79, p.42. 75 Committee on Public Undertakings (1975–76), p.85. 76 Ibid. p.93. 77 ‘FFC’s Role’, The Times of India, 25 March 1976, p.8. Also see, ‘Which Cinema Culture?’ The Times of India, 29 March 1976, p.8. The Committee’s recommendations on import and export of feature films were found to be confusing. 78 ‘FFC’s Role’. 79 Ibid. 80 ‘What F.F.C. should do’, Screen, 16 April 1976, p.6. 81 ‘A Kind of Cinema Culture’, Filmfare, 16–29 April 1976, p. not given.

156  Whither New Cinema? 82 Ibid. 83 Shahani, ‘The Necessity of a Code (1975)’, p.115. It was a paper Shahani presented at a symposium on Parallel Cinema, at IFFI, New Delhi, in 1975. 84 Prasad, ‘The State in/of Cinema’, p.135. 85 Report 1977–78, 1978, p.32. 86 Dalmia, ‘New Cinema: Another Hesitant Beginning?’ 87 Ibid. 88 Anil Dharker, ‘Towards a New Indian Cinema’, The Times of India, 15 June 1975, p.6. 89 Ibid. 90 Vasudev, 1978, pp.159–60. 91 ‘FFC’s finances: Mr. Gujaral’s clarification’, Screen, 21 March 1975, p.15. 92 Ibid. 93 ‘FFC-backed films not released’, Screen, 21 March 1975, p.15. 94 Report 1975–76, p.36. 95 Ibid. p.37. 96 Annual Report & Accounts 1974–75, 1976, p.2. The incidence of mass resignation had happened by then. 97 Ibid. p.3. 98 Ibid. 99 Ibid. 100 Ibid. 101 Ibid. p.4. 102 Ibid. p.5. 103 Ibid. 104 Ibid. p.7. 105 Ibid. 106 Ibid. Also see p.22, 27, and 44–6 in Ibid. for details. 107 Ibid. p.7. 108 Ibid. p.8. 109 ‘London Critics Discover Our Parallel Cinema’, Filmfare, 27 June 1975, p.29. 110 Ibid. 111 Saeed Mirza explained in an interview that Arvind Desai was a significant departure from the earlier wave of New Cinema, “I felt that there was a tremendous need, specifically in terms of Indian cinema, to combine the prevalent forms – the dramatic with the episodic, the particular with the general.” See, Nalini Rajan, ‘Saeed Mirza: When People Use Language As A Cover’, Filmfare, 16–31 October 1979, p.65. To put it simplistically, Arvind Desai, in its cinematic treatment, was a combination of Saara Akash, Maya Darpan, and 27 Down. Arvind Desai and Gaman both reflect the variations in the language and grammar of the New Cinema movement, which came about as a result of policy level changes within the FFC and the MIB. 112 B.K. Karanjia resigned on 12 April 1976. Jagdish Parikh was appointed as Acting Chairman after Karanjia’s resignation, and as Chairman in September 1976. He was reported to be a management expert with a special interest in film, travel, tourism, and orienting industries. He was a governor on the board of Asian Institute of Management in the Philippines. ‘FFC chief’, Screen, 1 October 1976, p.4. 113 M.S.M. Desai, ‘FFC Expands Its Activities, Distribution and exhibition wings being started’, Screen, 26 November 1976, p.1. 114 Khalid Mohamed, ‘FFC plans to change the pattern of aid’, The Times of India, 25 November 1976, p.7. 115 Ibid. A reader reacting to the interview wrote that the FFC had “abandoned the new cinema movement. It plans to join the mainstream of film production,

Whither New Cinema?  157 which means the promotion of commercial or neo-commercial cinema.” Finding the FFC’s co-production ventures with G.P. Sippy, Warner Bros & Shaw Bros as frightening, he asked, “What next? Will it also involve itself with stunt films and weepy melodramas churned out by our studios?” S. L. Chawla, ‘Retrograde Step: To the Editor, The Times of India’, The Times of India, 6 December 1976, p.8. 116 ‘F. F. C. infra-structure strengthened, says its Chairman, Expansion Plans’, Screen, 16 September 1977, p.1 & 14. 117 ‘F.F.C. – new ray of hope’, Screen, 26 November 1976, p.6. 118 Ibid. 119 Ibid. 120 Ibid. 121 Ibid. 122 Annual Report 1976–77, 1977, p.5. 123 Ibid. 124 Ibid. 125 Ibid. 126 Ibid. The FFC was to adopt, henceforth, a “Robin Hood” approach to developing New Cinema. 127 Ibid. p.6. 128 See, Annual Report 1976–77, Annexure II, p.11 & 12. 129 Ibid. 130 Ibid. p.8. 131 Ibid. p.6. 132 Ibid. p.7. 133 Ibid. 134 Ibid. 135 Also see, V. Verma, ‘FFC’s art cinema plan off: it’s now university circuit’, Screen, 9 May 1975, p.1; and, ‘Varsities show interest in F.F.C. films’, Screen, 23 May 1975, p.8. 136 Annual Report 1976–77, p.9. 137 Ibid. 138 Ibid. 139 Report 1976–77, 1977, p.46. 140 Ibid. p.47. 141 See, ‘Janata cinemas scheme in an advanced stage’, Screen, 1 October 1976, p.4. Also see, V. Verma, ‘New Company to Build 1,000 Janata Cinemas, Shantaram is chairman’, Screen, 10 December 1976, p.1. The films shown at Janata cinemas were to be those with a message and ticket prices were to be only about half of the rates in conventional cinemas which showed conventional films. People in the low-income bracket were supposed to be able to see good films at less expense. At an informal meeting with film journalists held at New Delhi on 27 September 1977, Advani had stated that the government would encourage construction of Janata theatres all over the country to promote the growth and development of film industry. He said that the FFC had been asked to examine the proposal in consultation with state governments. See, Bulletin on Film, 1977, OctoberDecember, Vol. XXI, Nos. 10–12, p.148. The construction of mini-theatres with a capacity of 400 was to be financed by FFC. These theatres were to make available at least 50 per cent of the playing time of regular shows to FFC-films on a first option basis. The Corporation, under the scheme planned to give Rs. one lakh for open air theatres in rural areas. See, Bulletin on Film, July-September 1978, Vol. XXII, No. 7–9, p.199. 142 Bulletin on Film, Vol. XXIII, Nos. 11–12, November–December 1978, p.246. 143 Bulletin on Film, Vol. XXIV, Nos. 1, January 1979, p.12.

158  Whither New Cinema? 144 Bulletin on Film, Vol. XXI, March 1977, No. 3, p.63. 145 Bulletin on Film, Vol. XXI, April 1977, No. 4, p. not available. 146 Bulletin on Film, Vol. XXI, August 1977, No. 8, p. not available. 147 Bulletin on Film, April 1977, p. not given. 148 Bulletin on Film, 1977, October–December, p.149. 149 Bulletin on Film, Vol. XXIV, No. 3, March 1979, p.10. 150 Bulletin on Film, June 1978, Vol. XXII, No. 6, p. not available. 151 Bulletin on Film, Vol. XXIV, No. 2, August 1979, p.2. 152 Bulletin on Film, Vol. XXIV, Nos. 3, March 1979, p.4. 153 Annual Report 1977–78, p.6. 154 Ibid. 155 Ibid. 156 Ibid. p.7. 157 Ibid. Gaman was one of those earliest FFC-financed films which had many popular songs in it, a marked departure from song-less feature films made so far. Muzaffar Ali had approached the FFC for a loan, when “the big men” controlling the commercial films flatly refused to finance the movie, because it was his first film and “because it has a Muslim as its hero and a negative one at that.” See, Pamela Sethi, ‘The agony of migration’, Filmfare, 1–15 October 1978, p.22. Muzaffar Ali believed that a film should not be a subjective expression, saw it as “the medium of the people”, and also initiated MUKT, Marketing Union of Kinemotograph Technicians, which was a body of filmmakers brought together for marketing and distribution of films which were non-compromising, but not non-commercial. See, Sai Paranjpye, ‘Gaman’, Indian Cinema 1978/79, p.96. 158 Ibid. p.9. 159 Ibid. 160 Ibid. p.10. 161 Ibid. p.11. 162 Ibid. 163 Ibid. p.12. 164 Annual Report 1978–79, 1979, p.3. This is one of the most detailed annual reports of the Corporation. 165 Ibid. 166 Ibid. 167 Ibid. 168 Ibid. 169 Ibid. pp.3–4. 170 Ibid. p.4. 171 Ibid. For details of various advisory committees of the FFC and their members, see Annexure X in the same Report. 172 Ibid. 173 Ibid. p.5. 174 Ibid. 175 Ibid. 176 Ibid. For long 16mm was regarded as the inevitable solution offered to lowbudget filmmakers, but few concrete steps were taken to foster a 16mm movement and to make it economically and technically feasible. The FFC took the first steps: eight films to be shot in 16mm and in colour were sanctioned loans, conditions of collateral security were relaxed, and finally 16mm production in India had been given the boost it required. See, ‘Small is Beautiful’, Indian Cinema, 1979/80, p.50. 177 Annual Report 1978–79, p.6.

Whither New Cinema?  159 178 Ibid. Gaman was released at tax free rates for daily morning shows at Maratha Mandir and Satyam in Bombay. See, ‘Classified Ad 21 – No Title’, The Times of India, 8 April 1979, p.3. 179 Annual Report 1978–79, p.7. 180 Ibid. 181 For details, see Ibid. p.8. This step created a big controversy. The filmmakers reasoned that they had paid back the loans by making good films, and after watching their films, no one can say that they have not done their work with honesty and integrity. They also asked the Indian government why it did not try selling these films in markets abroad, where there was good demand for these films. This would have helped increase the return money invested, and these films would have got a wider audience which they deserved. They questioned why, instead of implementing this policy, the government was in a hurry to send these filmmakers to jail. See Chaddha, 1990, p.407. 182 Annual Report 1978–79, p.8. 183 Ibid. p.10. 184 Ibid. 185 Ibid. 186 Bulletin on Film, Vol. XXIV, No. 7, July 1979, p.1. 187 Annual Report 1978–79, p.10. 188 Ibid. p.13. 189 Ibid. p.14. 190 Bulletin on Film, Vol. XXIV, No. 5, May 1979, p.7. More on this subject in Chapters 5 and 6 of this book. 191 Annual Report 1978–79, p.15. 192 Also see, ‘Spilling the teacup’, Screen, 6 June 1980, p.6, for the controversy over his appointment and selection. Raju was the president of FFI before taking over the chairmanship of NFDC, and enjoyed “the trust and following” of all sectors of the industry from all regions of the country. See, ‘FFI wants NFDC board to include all sectors’, Screen, 6 June 1980, p.14. Also see, ‘Karnataka Chamber decries ‘row’ over constitution of NFDC’, Screen, 6 June 1980, p.21. B.R. Chopra found the controversy on Raju’s appointment an exercise in futility. He wanted all sectors of the film industry to welcome Raju’s appointment. See, ‘‘Raju represents entire industry’: Chopra decries rift over NFDC’, Screen, 20 June 1980, p.18. 193 Annual Report 1979–80, 1980, p.2. 194 Ibid. p.5. The FFC was amalgamated with the NFDC with effect from 11 April 1980, discussed below in a separate section. 195 Inaugurated on 28 February 1980, the theatre was temporarily closed so that a new theatre be constructed on the site. This, it was expected, would be available to the Corporation in early 1981. See, Ibid. p.13. 196 Ibid. p.5. 197 Ibid. But, according to NVK Murthy, hostility of the film industry on the one hand and apathy of the state governments in providing necessary land for building cinemas on the other, resulted in this programme not taking off at all. See, NVK Murthy, “The State and Cinema in India”, Indian Cinema 1993, p.20. 198 Annual Report 1979–80, p.5. 199 Ibid. p.6. 200 Ibid. 201 Ibid. p.7. 202 Ibid. p.8. 203 Ibid. p.9. 204 Ibid. p.11.

160  Whither New Cinema? 205 Ibid. 206 Ibid. p.12. 207 When Mani Kaul’s Duvidha was released in Bombay, a reader from Chandigarh found it to be a “good opening” for Kaul whose films “have been lying in the cans ever since their making.” The reader did clarify that he himself did not subscribe to “Mani Kaul’s kind of cinema”, but he felt that his films deserved to be shown to the “intelligent cine-goers”. He found Duvidha to be Kaul’s finest films since “it is free from the Godard-Bresson kind of sophisticated gimmicks.” The reader also hoped that if this film could succeed in holding the Bombay viewers’ attention, it would pave the way for the release of certain other New Wave films like Kumar Shahani’s Maya Darpan which were “rotting with the FFC.” See, Surinder Singh Tej, ‘Readers’ Letters, Mani Kaul’s Duvidha’, Screen, 7 September 1979, p.8. Maya Darpan was screened for an afternoon show at 12 noon, daily, at Opera House, Bombay. See, ‘Morning, Matinee Shows’, The Times of India, 5 December 1976, p.2. 208 Annual Report 1979–80, p.13. 209 Ibid. p.16. Also see, ‘FFC ‘expands its range’ – from script to release’, Screen, 28 March 1980, p.11. 210 Ibid. p.18. 211 Biren Bhattacharya, ‘Film-Maker’s Woes: To the Editor, The Times of India’, The Times of India, 12 December 1977, p.8. 212 Ibid. 213 Ibid. 214 ‘Young producer alleges bungling by FFC’, The Times of India, 23 November 1978, p.4. 215 Amrita Abraham, ‘Maybe FFC Can Start With “Enter The Dragon”’, Filmfare, 1–15 November 1978, p.41. 216 Ibid. p.43. 217 K.S. Sethumadhavan, ‘FFC Chief has done little for ‘healthy cinema’’, Screen, 26 October 1979, p.19. 218 The FFC had declined financing John Abraham’s Agraharathil Kazhuthai (Donkey in a Brahmin Village), due to its ‘offensive title’. See, Hameeduddin Mahmood, ‘Film with an Offensive Title’, The Times of India, 4 June 1978, p.13. 219 Sethumadhavan, ‘FFC Chief has done little for ‘healthy cinema’. 220 Ibid. 221 Ibid. 222 ‘FFC trophies for dog show’, The Times of India, 16 December 1977, p.5. The trophies were announced by Jagdish Parikh to promote their foreign release Benji (1977). They were declared also to “inculcate a genuine interest in the proper keeping of dogs as pets”, and was to be presented to the dog that bore the closest resemblance to the short, shaggy haired mongrel in the film. 223 Though, Madhuri, a well-known film magazine, had already termed it as Samantar/parallel cinema, as early as 1971. See, ‘Madhuri, The Samantar Cinema Issue’, The Times of India, 11 April 1971, p.A12. The term gained momentum post-Ankur. 224 ‘Parallel cinema must cultivate fan patronage – arguments at two-day symposium in Delhi’, Screen, 17 January 1975, p.15. 225 ‘Parallel Cinema: need for a healthy balance’, Screen, 4 April 1975, p.18. Also see, ‘Conflicting views on Cinema of social relevance…’ Screen, 5 December 1975, p.20. 226 ‘Parallel Cinema: need for a healthy balance’. 227 Ibid. 228 Ibid.

Whither New Cinema?  161 229 B.V. Dharap, ‘Parallel cinema: Films and finance – need for a comprehensive Government policy’, Screen, 14 February 1975, p.20. 230 Chidananda Das Gupta, ‘Parallel Cinema: Fusion of art and box-office will usher in golden era’, Screen, 7 February 1975, p.8. 231 Ibid. 232 Ibid. This essay was written during the Emergency, and decades later, Prasad analysed the period on similar terms. See Chapter 1 in this book where Prasad explains the rise of Middle Cinema to be the result of popular cinema’s engagement with the Indian New Wave. Middle Cinema indeed provided that “massive cultural input” to the popular Indian cinema at that time. 233 Rajan Narayan, ‘Myth of the Parallel Cinema…’ Screen, 17 January 1975, p.14. 234 Manoj Kumar, a famous actor and filmmaker in the Hindi film industry, questioned the need for art films. He asked, “Who wants art films? Armchair critics or pseudo-intellectuals?...And what has happened to all those films, the so-called intellectual cinema or new wave or experimental cinema? They are all lying in cold storage. Nobody wants to see them. Not the masses.” He called the experimental filmmakers a “frustrated lot”, who do not know what they are making and for whom they are making, and need the critics to interpret their work as though they are specially made wines. See, M.S.M. Desai, ‘Art films are futile exercises, believes Manoj Kumar’, Screen, 30 September 1977, p.29. 235 Narayan, ‘Myth of the Parallel Cinema’. 236 Ibid. 237 Ibid. 238 ‘Parallel cinema must cultivate fan patronage – arguments at two-day symposium in Delhi’. 239 Ibid. For the full paper he presented at the symposium, see, B.R. Chopra, ‘Answer to problem of parallel cinema’, Screen, 24 January 1975, p.16. 240 Kiron Moy Raha, ‘Essential of parallel cinema’, Screen, 21 March 1975, p.17. 241 Charles Cooper, ‘Parallel Cinema: Way to Closer Ties Between Nations’, Screen, 28 February 1975, p.16. 242 Ibid. 243 Kumar Shahani, ‘Parallel Cinema: Film education needed to remove misconceptions’, Screen, 31 January 1975, p.16. 244 Shahani, ‘The Necessity of a Code (1975)’. 245 Sridhar Kshirsagar, ‘“Realism, Fiction and Modernist Ideals”’, Filmfare, 12–25 December 1975, pp.18–9. 246 In an attempt to promote and subsidise “good cinema”, the MIB recommended to the Finance Ministry and state governments, the CBFC’s suggestion to introduce giving ‘Q’ certificates to films with social commitment, wholesome entertainment, technical quality and intellectual honesty as a positive measure for reforming the commercial cinema, entitling them to a 50 per cent tax reduction throughout the country, irrespective of whether such films may or may not have won a national award. See, Bulletin on Film, July–September 1978, p.199. 247 ‘To The Sixth Film Festival’, Filmfare, 7 February 1975, p. not given. Also see, Anil Dharker, ‘New Indian cinema – Festival’s unwanted baby’, Filmfare, 21 February 1975, p. not given, for more details on the Film Festival and the CUNIC. 248 Dileep Padgaonkar, ‘New Cinema: Battle Lines Are Drawn’, The Times of India, 26 January 1975, p.8. 249 Ibid. Padgaonkar quoted Gene Youngblood, wherein he had said, ‘Commercial entertainment works against art, exploits the alienation and boredom of the public by perpetuating a system of conditioned response to formulas. Commercial

162  Whither New Cinema? entertainment not only is not creative, it actually destroys the audience’s ability to appreciate and participate in the creative process.’ 250 Dileep Padgaonkar, ‘Nursing the New Cinema: Misconceptions about FFC’s Role’, The Times of India, 30 December 1975, p.8. 251 Ibid. 252 Bharat B. Dogra, ‘Committed Cinema: How much “message” can audiences take?’ Filmfare, 28 May–10 June 1976, p.17. Ninasam rural film society experiment, discussed above in this chapter, is one such success story. 253 Abbas, 1977, p.74. 254 M.S.M. Desai, ‘The Changing Film Scene, ’Seventies bring big improvement in form, content’, Screen, 28 February 1975, p.1. 255 Ibid. 256 Ibid. 257 M. Shamim, ‘Of East and West’, Sixth International Film Festival of India, New Delhi, 3–16 January 1977, p. not given. 258 Ibid. 259 Dileep Padgaonkar, “New Trends in The Indian Cinema”, Sixth International Film Festival of India, p. not given. 260 Ibid. 261 Nirad N. Mohapatra, ‘Hurdles in the way of art film producers’, Screen, 9 March 1979, p.8. 262 Bimal Dutta, ‘FFC Today: The emphasis is on “entertainment” and “returns”’, Filmfare, 29 April–12 May 1977, p.38. 263 Ibid. pp.38–9. 264 Ibid. p.39. 265 Ibid. 266 J.S. Rao, ‘The Real Hindi Film’, Indian Cinema 1978/79, p.5. 267 Ibid. 268 Ibid. p.8. Also see, ‘View From The Gallery: 27 Down’, Filmfare, 16-30 November 1978, p.67. The reader from Bombay, Aziz Merchant, wrote, “Excellence is rare, so is a meaningful movie. “27 Down” is a clean movie minus all the box-office trappings and succeeds in catering to the tastes of discerning cinegoers…However, its delayed release (four years after its completion) still remains a mystery.” 269 Rao, ‘The Real Hindi Film’, p.9. 270 Khalid Mohamed, ‘Money is The Muse: Hindi Cinema’, Indian Cinema 1978/79, pp.14–5. 271 Shankar Menon, ‘To Dream the Possible Dream’, Indian Cinema 1977/78, p. not given. 272 ‘How to treat social tensions, violence in films’, Screen, 21 November 1975, p.14. 273 Ashish Rajadhyaksha, ‘Cashing In’, Indian Cinema 1979/80, pp.13-4. B.K. Karanjia advocated that banks and other financial bodies must accept cinema as a legitimate industry and advance loans at reasonable rates. Loans were being given at interest rates of 60 per cent which could ‘wipe out even a man with a super hit.’ It was hoped that, with legitimate financing, the bizarre dealings would end and black money sloshing about would also decrease. ‘The result can only be better cinema.’ Ibid. 274 ‘Festival Seminar wants Government to treat film-making as industry’, Screen, 14 January 1977, p.1; and M. Shamim, ‘‘Make films a Central subject’’, The Times of India, 8 January 1977, p.1. A strong plea for recognition of films as an industry and providing institutional finance for its growth was also made at the twenty-fourth annual conference of the Central Circuit Association held in Amravati (Maharashtra) on 20 June 1977. See, Bulletin on Film, August 1977.

Whither New Cinema?  163 275 Ramakrishna, ‘New film policy being formulated – Shukla’, Op. Cit. 276 ‘National Film Policy – I’, Screen, 18 November 1977, p.8. 277 ‘National Film Policy – II’, Screen, 25 November 1977, p.6. 278 ‘National Film Policy – III’, Screen, 2 December 1977, p.8. 279 ‘Rape of cinema’, Screen, 19 August 1977, p.8. Also read, Anil Saari, ‘Excise Duty Relief Only on Higher Slabs, Disappointment in industry’, p.1 in the same issue. Earlier in June, the AIFPC had decided to challenge in the Supreme Court the validity of the Union budget proposal to impose a ten per cent ad valorem excise duty on the cost of production of films in place of the levy on prints on a graded scale being imposed thus far. The new proposals would raise the levy sixfold. See ‘Industry to go to Court, Six-fold raise of excise duty’, Screen, 24 June 1977, p.1. 280 Bulletin on Film, 1977, October-December, Vol. XXI, Nos. 10–12, p.147. 281 Ibid. 282 Report 1979–80, 1980, p.3. 283 ‘National film policy: panel being set up’, Screen, 4 May 1979, p.1 & 2. Also see, ‘Karanth Body: Industry Critical, No proper terms of reference, representation’, Screen, 18 May 1979, p.1 & 4; and ‘National policy to help growth of healthy cinema: Lok Sabha questions’, The Times of India, 18 April 1979, p.7. The Screen editor, B.K. Karanjia, also felt that, by bypassing “certain important individuals and institutions for membership of the working group set up to evolve a national film policy, the Government has raised legitimate doubts about the group’s representative character and its ability to achieve its professed objective, the growth of healthy (good?) cinema.” Karanjia felt the absence of veterans like V. Shantaram and B.N. Sircar in the group. See, ‘In Search of a Policy’, Screen, 18 May 1979, p.8. It was ironical that the two sectors the working group was going to deal with, namely distribution and exhibition, did not find representation in the group. 284 ‘IFDA welcomes FFC Chief on film policy panel’, Screen, 5 October 1979, p.1. 285 ‘Karanth to head working group on film policy’, The Times of India, 8 May 1979, p.7. 286 ‘Working group on film policy’, The Times of India, 4 November 1979, p.5. 287 ‘Unwise Step’, Screen, 4 April 1969, p.10. 288 Ibid. 289 Ibid. 290 Ibid. Also see, ‘Common chief for IMPEC, FFC urged’, Screen, 11 April 1969, p.4. Johar, as president of IMPPA, after knowing the impossibility of merging the FFC and IMPEC, suggested that the two Corporations could have a common chairman, as it was “necessary in the interests of the two institutions and the film industry.” He also advised that, like IMPEC, the FFC, too, should advance money to “commercial” films, shifting from its present policy of financing only films of “artistic value.” 291 See ‘Govt. to merge 3 film corporations’, The Times of India, 3 June 1979, p.5. 292 ‘FFC and IMPEC merged with National Film Development Corporation’, Bulletin on Films, June 1979, XXIV, No. 6, p.1. 293 Ibid. 294 The decision to shift the headquarter to Bombay was opposed by producers from south India, and they had some very valid points against this partisan attitude. See, ‘NFDC’s Location’, Screen, 25 July 1980, p.6. 295 Report 1979–80, p.2. Also see, ‘NFDC will be an industry-Govt. link, says Raju’, Screen, 26 September 1980, p.2. 296 ‘We told you so! It’s NFDC via the back-door’, Screen, 8 June 1979, p.1. 297 ‘Only a name plate’, Screen, 22 June 1979, p.8.

164  Whither New Cinema? 298 Arun Khanna, ‘Legal process for NFDC formation commences’, Screen, 16 November 1979, p.1 & 12. Also see, ‘Lack of Direction’, Screen, 30 November 1979, p.8. Finding it all very hasty, B.K. Karanjia wrote in his editorial, “The Government, sadly, has no perspective on cinema’s long-term problems. Its piecemeal solutions and makeshift arrangements in place of a national policy betray a sad lack of direction. Its dithering over the constitution of a “developmental” corporation for the last four years and now its pathetic attempt to rush through its formation with only the fuzziest notions of “develop,” show a lack of consistency and even coherence.” 299 ‘Classified Ad 36 – No Title’, The Times of India, 29 November 1979, p.24. 300 Report 1980–81, 1981, p.38. 301 See Binford, “Media Policy as a Catalyst to Creativity”, for a detailed discussion on the importance of these two platforms according national recognition to quality films in India. 302 Chetan Anand, ‘Feature Film Awards: Search for Excellence’, Twenty Sixth National Film Festival, April, 1979, p. not given. 303 Ibid. 304 Ibid. 305 K.M. Amladi, ‘Feature Film Awards: A Review’, 26th National Film Festival, April, 1979. 306 This film had won a prize at the Moscow Festival in 1979. 307 The film was one of the Indian entries at the Warsaw-Poland Film Festival held in June 1980. 308 Grahana was awarded the national award for best feature film on national integration. 309 Amladi, ‘Feature Film Awards: A Review’. 310 Ibid. 311 Ibid. 312 Binford, “Media Policy as a Catalyst to Creativity”, p.125. 313 ‘‘Govt. agencies lax about Filmotsav ’80’’, Screen, 9 November 1979, p.1. 314 Panorama of Indian Cinema was added to the Filmotsav in 1978 by the Festival Directorate which had received enthusiastic response from foreign critics for the 1976 Bombay Filmotsav. See, Binford, “Media Policy as a Catalyst to Creativity”, p.109. According to Binford, various foreign delegates and film critics had hailed the Panorama as evidence of ‘rebirth and hope’ for the Indian cinema. Binford had rightly observed, “In practice, the Panorama’s “window” on Indian cinema is a window on New Cinema.” p.110. 315 See, Bose, 1995. Bose wrote, “inclusion in the Indian Panorama has been coveted as it ensures international showcasing and an avenue to foreign festivals. In addition, it almost always guarantees a television screening, very important for the makers of these films who may face the difficulty of theatrical releases and thus recovering the cost of the film. Through the Indian Panorama, it is possible to trace the path that the new Indian cinema took, and where it stands today.” p.90. 316 Binford, “Media Policy as a Catalyst to Creativity”, p.111. 317 ‘‘Govt. agencies lax about Filmotsav ’80’’, p.2. 318 See, ‘Hrishi’s poser to FFC: of what use awards if film is not released’, Screen, 11 May 1979, p.10. Also see, M.S.M. Desai, ‘FFC inaction is cause of cinema shortage, says Basu Chatterji’, Screen, 19 January 1979, p.4; and Arun Khanna, ‘Third World section at Filmotsav dropped: no funds’, Screen, 23 November 1979, p.1.

5

National Film Development Corporation and the Burden of Development on New Cinema (1980s)

The burden of multi-functionality had already started showing its impact on the Corporation and New Indian Cinema. By the late 1970s, as B.K. Karanjia grieved, the low-budget “New Wave” film was “on the verge of a decent burial…relegated to the pages of history.”1 Karanjia appealed to the newly elected Minister for Information and Broadcasting to ensure closer association between the private film industry and public corporations like the FFC, IMPEC, and NFDC for the larger welfare of the film industry.2 The attitude towards the private film industry was softening; perhaps, the government saw the FFC and New Cinema’s revival via the commercial and private film industry. Filmotsav, known for giving space to low-budget cinema, held a seminar, for the first time, on the big-budget movie in Bangalore in 1980.3 The seminar discussed the need for “big” film and also supported it. The “big” movies were referred to as “the pillars that support the industry”.4 The chairman of the feature films jury, at the 27th National Film Festival, L.V. Prasad, asserted that ‘mass appeal’ films cannot be ignored. He was reported to have said that, since the motion picture was a mass medium, it could not ignore the masses and films, particularly award-winning films, and should be ‘intelligible’ and ‘appealing’ to them. The awards that year were given on the basis of this principle. On this note, he was reported to have regretted that art films tended to be abstract; and appealed to the makers of art films to make them understandable to the common moviegoer.5 Meanwhile, the new Information and Broadcasting Minister Vasant Sathe wanted the Indian film industry to achieve a synthesis of culture and commerce in films.6 Four significant sentiments, to have a long-term effect on New Indian Cinema in this decade, emerged here. They were an appeal for closer collaboration between public and private film bodies, recognition for “big” films, talk of achieving a synthesis of culture and commerce in Indian films, and awards being given to “intelligible” and “appealing” and not “abstract” films. New Cinema and the NFDC were supposed to redefine themselves within the accumulated framework of these newly constituted views. Report of the Working Group on National Film Policy (May 1980) The Conference of State Information Ministers held in New Delhi on 14 November 1977 had recommended a national policy for films in regard DOI: 10.4324/9781003335436-6

166  National Film Development Corporation to its various aspects.7 The Working Group on National Film Policy (NFP) was appointed by the Government of India following this recommendation after consulting the state governments/Union Territories in May 1979. The final composition of the Working Group included Dr. K.S. Karanth as the Chairman, M. Bhaktavatsala, Shyam Benegal, Tarachand Barjatya, Bikram Singh, Basu Bhattacharya, Manoj Kumar, Ramanand Sagar, Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Tarun Majumdar, Vijaya Mulay, Jagdish Parikh, P. Neelakantan, Mrinal Sen, Dilip Jamdar, Manohar Singh Gill as members, and D.V.S. Raju as one of the three Co-Opted Members, among others. Manoj Kumar and Mrinal Sen did not attend any of the meetings of the Working Group. K.S. Karanth, the Chairman of the Group, believed that cinema had “immense potential to mould the mind of man”.8 He found that, in spite of its immense potential, cinema in India was only recognised as a luxury or a form of mere entertainment. According to him, all such efforts to use cinema for creating social awareness and aesthetic sensitivity were “left to individual entrepreneurs”, leading to a lopsided development of this “great medium”.9 The Group strongly believed, If left to a few, who can only exploit its [cinema’s] commercial advantages, it may do more harm than good. On the other hand, if the Government feels that it alone can exploit all its possibilities by making it a part of governmental activity, the medium may be manipulated to achieve narrow political ends, and in worst cases even to the detriment of basic human values.10 The usage of words like progress, enlightenment, and welfare throughout the Report indicates its vision with regard to cinema. The Group recommended that the entire subject of cinema and film industry should be brought within the purview of central policy and control. It suggested a ministerial set-up to regulate, coordinate, and assist in finding solutions to the general problems of the cinema and film industry.11 It suggested that the existing ministry should be called the Ministry of Information, Broadcasting, and Cinema. Recognising the fact that cinema was “the single largest disseminator of popular culture”, the Group believed, one of the broad objectives of the NFP should be to improve the cultural quality of cinema considering its impact upon society. The NFP should also help the Indian cinema by identifying it as an industry of “vital importance” and extending to it the same facilities as were available to other important industries.12 The Group accepted that the availability of institutional finance for filmmaking “alone can liberate the producer from the dominance of the financier, distributor and the exhibitor.”13 The government of Orissa had already recognised film production and exhibition sectors as industries for facilities under state schemes. Recommending institutional finance through banks, the Group suggested preference be given to low-budget films. However, when it recommended

National Film Development Corporation  167 that all film producers should be registered with the NFDC for the allocation of raw stock, it invited a large-scale protest from mainstream film producers. Most importantly, the Working Group suggested the creation of two separate organisations to achieve many of these key objectives – one, the NFDC, to promote the developmental aspects of cinema by attempting to remove the speculative elements of the industry and to bring some order and discipline into its working, and, two, the Chalchitra Akademi, to promote its excellence and develop the artistic possibilities of this powerful medium.14 Did this mean that the NFDC was relieved from promoting quality and the artistic prospects of the cinema medium? No, the Working Group instead asked the NFDC to concentrate on its specific responsibility of financing good quality and artistic films. They recommended that the NFDC should give loans for artistic films on liberal terms with low rates of interest, and asked for the conditions of collateral security to be relaxed “particularly for directors of proven record, for scripts of high standards and for the first film of graduates from the FTII.”15 The resources needed to fulfil such a charter were known to be considerable. Therefore, the Group recommended that the NFDC “should be a financially viable organisation, but because of its developmental role, it should not aim at profit maximisation.”16 Among its 14 recommendations, it suggested that the NFDC commission deserving filmmakers to make films on its behalf to encourage the production of films of high artistic intent. While undertaking the development of distribution and exhibition facilities for films which it finances, and other good films, the NFDC should work on the basis of economic viability.17 The Group also recommended that the Management Board of the NFDC should consist of 50 per cent of Directors drawn from the representatives of the central and state governments and the remaining 50 per cent be drawn from various disciplines of the film industry, with adequate representation provided to filmmakers and technicians generally identified with artistic cinema.18 The Report pointed out three key factors assuring the NFDC’s success, “the proper choice of personnel from the Management Board downwards, the active involvement of film industry in its functioning, and the freedom which the Government allows this organisation to manage its own affairs.”19 In pursuance of the recommendations of the Working Group, a small cell was set in the Ministry in October 1980, to process its recommendations for government decisions. Comments of the respective Ministries, Departments, and the film industry were invited on the recommendations of the Working Group. Suggestions concerning the state governments were discussed in the Conference of State Ministers of Information held on 5 November 1980, and the Conference had generally endorsed the recommendations. Decisions were taken in respect of about 125 recommendations.20 Referring to recommendation 23 that the film industry as a whole should be recognised as an industry and should be treated on par with at least the hotel industry to enable it to avail of the various facilities, the Ministry said that this recommendation was

168  National Film Development Corporation made in order to provide institutional finance to the film industry. Citing the existence of the NFDC for all the needs of finance for film productions and theatre construction, the Ministry said that it was not possible to include these activities in the priority sector for bank financing in view of the speculative nature of the film industry, and the competing demands from other priority sectors for bank finance.21 The Report was not received well for various reasons. B.K. Karanjia called the Report “an astounding document”, “indicative of the prevalent psychology in the country”, and “a frightening portent of the shape of things to come.”22 He wrote, “A comprehensively devised national film policy would have given the film industry strength and power, respect and pride of place in the national economy, whereas the guiding policy of the Working Group appears to have been – pamper the milch cow but shorten its tether further.”23 Hameeduddin Mahmood criticised the composition of the panel, which neglected filmmakers like B.R. Chopra and K.A. Abbas, did not include experts on film technology, and was biased towards the FD and FFC.24 Directors dominated the panel; the report, therefore, revealed “an obsession with “good” cinema, without defining what was good cinema.”25 Criticising the lack of sense of priorities and a futuristic vision, Mahmood wrote, The first commandment of this policy is: “To improve the cultural quality of cinema considering its impact upon society.” Ever heard this notion called “cultural quality”? And then, does such a thing happen under the baton of the Government? Can a Government manufacture a Ghalib or a Kalidasa? Obviously, this very first directive is an outcrop of “Good” Cinema obsession.26 In another follow-up piece, Mahmood wrote, “If the Patil Committee Report was the product of the Statism of the 1950s, the Karanth Report is an outcrop of the Parallelism of the 1970s.”27 He mocked its suggestion of creating a Chalachitra Academy as a solution to all the problems of good cinema. Chidananda Das Gupta was not convinced by the Working Group’s underlying hope that the right infrastructure would take care of the problems of style and content in the Indian film industry. He questioned the framing of a national film policy without examining the socio-cultural and economic issues which determine the form and content of existing cinema and its relationship with its audience.28 The film industry was agitated and found the Report to be influenced more by a particular view of cinema rather than by the problems of the industry.29 Its recommendations on entertainment tax and raising excise levy steeply over eighty prints were regarded as highly regressive which could badly affect Hindi cinema. Suggestion for the registration of producers by the NFDC was opposed. It was argued that to give more control to the NFDC would not be in the interest of film as an industry or as a medium of expression, and was an “unnecessary harassment”. However,

National Film Development Corporation  169 two other suggestions were welcomed: recognition of the film industry as an industry, and more liberal censorship. Committee on Public Undertakings (1982–3) CPU (1982–3) was the second guiding document for the NFDC and New Cinema in this decade. When enquired about the extent to which the main objectives of the NFDC had been realised, the managing director of the NFDC, told the CPU (1982–3), “I would not say that the objectives have been realised 100%. We will continue the attempt. I would say that we have partially achieved what we set out to do.”30 Asked whether the Ministry was satisfied with the performance of the NFDC, the secretary, Information and Broadcasting stated, Yes as well as no. Yes to the extent that the fund made available to this Corporation are very limited and with those limited funds, whatever they have done has gone in the direction of achieving the objectives which have been laid down. No, because it has yet to intensify its working. In our opinion, it has to do some more work to establish itself as an effective corporation.31 When the Committee desired to know the criterion of a good film, the Secretary told, ‘It should have social relevance, try to show reality with the objective of reforming the society as far as possible.’32 He cited Gandhi as an example of ‘a good film’. The Committee was told that the thematic value and the script’s artistic and cinematic treatment were the basic criteria for the granting of loans. Other criteria included background of the applicant and other unit members, economic viability of the proposal, and reasonableness of the budget.33 Asked whether there had been any change in the policy for the financing of films following the Ministry’s letter,34 suggesting suspension of film financing activity till a review was done, the managing director of the NFDC said, There is no change as such except that we want to be very careful at every stage. We will now give the new up coming film makers a chance to produce short features instead of the normal feature films because the risk is less in the case of former. Production of short films with a duration of half-an-hour or one hour can train them and thereafter they can make feature films.35 This decision was a setback to young, talented but inexperienced filmmakers, especially the FTII graduates. Under its 100 per cent financing of films, the Corporation assigned production in full-length feature films to outstanding Directors on its own, based on the merits of the script, executing one of the important recommendations of the Working Group. The ownership of all rights, assets, and liabilities of such films belonged to the Corporation and

170  National Film Development Corporation the money realised from this activity was utilised for the development of good cinema.36 After collecting all the evidence, the Committee recommended that the NFDC should gradually undertake the financing of a larger number of films having social relevance.37 The Committee also wanted the NFDC to take the initiative, under its 100 per cent financing scheme, to sponsor films on subjects like Indian epics, lives of saints, scientists, and great men, freedom movement and working of democracy and democratic institutions.38 Pointing to the issue of lack of funds and the NFDC’s role in promoting good cinema they said, “The Committee desire that availability of finance for more films and theatres should be appropriately enlarged and the NFDC should function in a manner that on the whole sufficient surpluses are generated to make the Corporation a self-financing venture eventually.”39 Commenting on the outstanding loans and revised NFDC guidelines to grant loans, the Committee emphasised, “the Corporation should manage its affairs in a business like [sic] manner. Due care should be taken to ensure that huge amounts are not locked up in arrears, which eventually may have to be written off as bad debts.”40 It is clear that a substantial portion of the CPU’s recommendations focused on issues of the NFDC’s economic viability and becoming selffinanced by behaving in a “business-like” manner. Committee on Public Undertakings (1983–4) After receiving the response from the government on its recommendations, the CPU (1983–4) was surprised to know that the “micro objectives and the Corporate Plan” of the Corporation were still being examined at the management level. Using strong words at this apathy, it desired that “the matter be given immediate attention by all concerned and objectives and Corporate Plan finalised with the approval of the Ministry concerned and in consultation with Ministry of Finance without any further delay.”41 On the Committee’s recommendation to enlarge the NFDC funding, the government replied that though the finance available for disbursement for production of films and construction of theatres was very limited, the NFDC had progressively allotted more funds for this activity. For the film financing including 100 per cent production the allotment of funds made by the NFDC during 1980–1 was Rs. 23.84 lakhs, which increased to Rs. 71.05 lakhs in 1982–3. On the suggestion for the Corporation to generate a sufficient surplus, the NFDC was asked to concentrate on the “Profit Centres” while keeping the “Cost Centres” under control.42 The NFP and two CPUs tried to help the NFDC and New Cinema recover itself from the post-Emergency and amalgamation hiatus. However, it suggested a few compromises to be made by the NFDC, the exclusive patron of New Indian Cinema. Policy level suggestions like public-private partnership, checks and balances on fresh talent, were not healthy for the progress of New Cinema. Emphasis on the NFDC’s economic viability indicated forthcoming pressures on the Corporation and New Cinema. The private film

National Film Development Corporation  171 industry was also not keen to accept the NFDC’s suzerainty.43 Though the definition of good cinema did not change, the burden of economic viability and control on fresh talent was to effectively change the nature and content of New Cinema films. The NFDC’s 100 per cent financing scheme was the best proposal that came out of these deliberations. While more funding was suggested for the NFDC, all the recommendations pointed out to one-point agenda – to make the Corporation a self-financing venture eventually. The Film Industry Crisis of the 1980s Before moving on to discussing the functioning of the NFDC in the shadow of the above-mentioned recommendations and policy-level changes, let’s briefly touch upon various points of crisis in the Indian film industry in the 1980s to understand the challenges in front of the NFDC and the Indian film industry. This section also refers to a few political events and cultural responses from the Rajiv Gandhi government. The industry was going through an exhibition trade crisis.44 Insufficiency of release outlets due to lack of new cinema houses, increasing entertainment taxes, delays in releasing films due to rigid and unimaginative censorship, and “sky-rocketing” prices of raw stocks had brought the Indian film industry to a halt. A wider government apathy was at the root of all these issues. First year of the 1980s indicated a substantial fall in production and it was not a marginal and temporary fall.45 The industry was helpless to alleviate the situation except make periodic representations and create lobbies in the Parliament and legislatures and hope for the best. The Constitution Forty-Sixth Amendment Bill 1981, dealing with sales tax, was seen as the great threat looming large over the industry.46 The Bill redefined the word sale to include transfer, assignment consignment, hire, use, and lease. This Bill was claimed to be “the ultimate nuclear bomb for the industry”, subjecting the industry to multiple taxations in all the sectors – production, distribution and exhibition.47 The 20 per cent curb on publicity and travel expenses for the purpose of computing taxable income, introduced in the union budget of 1983–4, was strongly opposed by the film industry and a memorandum was presented to the then Union Minister of Finance, Pranab Mukherji.48 The delegation also included the then-chairman of the NFDC, D.V.S. Raju. It was pointed out to the government that the film industry differed from other industries in the sense that publicity and travel were more integral to filmmaking and exhibition than it is to other industries. Karanjia had particularly highlighted its impact on low-budget and experimental films, where sometimes the publicity expenses exceeded the production expenses.49 A 20 per cent curb on an industry which was already suffering and groaning ‘under the burden of the heaviest taxation in the world’ was seen as an ‘end of the industry’. He grieved, This is the recurring tragedy of this tribe of entertainers in India that when it comes to sharing the national deficit, they are indiscriminately

172  National Film Development Corporation clubbed together with other industries, but when it is a question of providing fiscal facilities, they are not even recognised as an industry.50 The NFDC as a production concern, likely to produce over a dozen pictures a year, was affected by various taxes imposed by the government. The rise in raw stocks price had directly affected New Cinema. P. Raja Ramdass called this raise “a requiem for new cinema”.51 New Cinema was founded on being low-budget, but, as Ramdass wrote, the Hindustan Photo Films (HPF) price raise placed “the makers of the low-budget films in a quandary.” He blamed the “callous attitude” of various governments and their ministries for restricting “many a creative idea…under bureaucratic indifference and commercial avarice.”52 Big-budget feature films not doing good business was another point of concern. The heavy investment in Hindi film industry brought its own ruin as was underlined by various flops of a large number of multi-starrers, including three films of Amitabh Bachchan, of which Shaan, Sippy’s “most lavish production yet”, was one. In 1980, an average big-budget film cost nothing less than Rs. one crore. The cost of the multi-starrers was likely to shoot up to anything between Rs. two and Rs. five crores. The producers were rushing to the government for “institutional finance” – a euphemism for loans from nationalised banks.53 R.K. Soral believed only the government could rationalise or modernise the film industry, “Turn the black film industry into white now, by providing institutional finance, or soon international black money will swallow up the fast expanding Indian foreign film trade, thus making the domestic industry and trade permanently black.”54 Amidst all the chaos, such facts about the Hindi film industry came to the fore which could shame the Corporation’s much-hyped losses. These facts were revealed to Shabab Ahmed, when he started work on his production Film Hi Film. As per the list, fifty films were lying unused for many years; 30 per cent of the films that were incomplete could not be completed due to ego clashes between artistes or between an artiste and the director; ten per cent of the films were left incomplete because their heroines decided to get married; a single financier had about twenty-two films lying in the cans; and over 2000 picturised songs were lying unused.55 To combat this situation, the commercial film industry was advising itself to cut down on its budget, make fewer films and follow a strict discipline to save itself from flop after flop.56 Some of the other suggestions included a strict enforcement of the “one-day, oneshift” system and a ceiling on the number of pictures signed by artistes.57 G.P. Sippy pointed out that, unfortunately, due to the glamorous nature of the film industry, people forgot that 80 per cent of all films were usually failures at the box office. He agreed with the suggestion that producers should go in for low-budget films. It was also repeated how due to government policies and heavy entertainment taxes, at the end of the business, after distribution of the total collections among the three sectors of the industry, the producers remained at a loss. There were thirteen different taxes imposed on the cinema

National Film Development Corporation  173 theatre industry in Bombay, which included levies charged by the Ministries of Home, Finance, Law, Revenue, and Urban Development besides a levy known as nutrition tax.58 In spite of knowing that the film industry was going through a crisis, it was “astonishing” that the film medium received the least amount in the Seventh Plan.59 While the MIB proposed Rs. 1436.79 crores for Radio, and Rs. 1243.87 crores for television, film was allotted only Rs. 85.73 crores. Out of these Rs. 85.73 crores, Rs. 20 crores were allocated for cinema construction. Out of the amount left, i.e. Rs. 65.73 crores, a “comparatively negligible amount” of Rs. five crores were allocated specifically to the NFDC for film production during the entire period of five years. Various recommendations as contained in the NFP and the two CPUs on the NFDC to enlarge its funding did not make any impact on the government. Karanjia wrote, “Even the Rs. 120 crores proposed only for development of Software in Doordarshan is more than one and a half times the total allocation to the entire film sector!”60 He warned the planners that they could not afford to underestimate the power of cinema as compared to other media of communication. It was also saddening that the Ministry lacked faith in its own agencies like the NFDC and FTII which were trying to do some good work. Commenting on the meagre amount allotted to the NFDC/New Cinema, he wrote, The new cinema…has to be enabled to come into its own, in its own interests and the country’s. Such is the power of cinema that the situation reduces itself to a simple formula – one cannot conceive of a new India without conceding the part the new cinema has to play in it.61 The Indian film industry reacted strongly to these developments. A monthlong strike was launched in October 1986 to protest against the never-ending levies, taxes, and “what actually amounts to an ongoing oppression”.62 The entertainment tax on a ticket in India was the steepest in any part of the world. When the Maharashtra state government announced a new sales tax increase, the film industry decided to say enough is enough; “They were supported by the usually-apathetic tribe of distributors, financiers, and exhibitors. Technicians, junior artistes, and daily-wage workers joined public rallies and demonstrations. Over a 100 cinema halls in Bombay itself padlocked their gates and all studio activity screeched to a halt.”63 The strike was suspended on 10 November, and the government conceded relief measures at the end of December. Apart from external factors, the Hindi film industry was weakened by its own violent, masculine, and sexual content projected on the screen. Rape scenes were often used to provide titillation to the audience without inviting the CBFC’s wrath. Many films used “shower of bullets” as an important plot line to eliminate a character. Such scenes of violence shown in films like Meri Awaz Suno, Andha Kanoon, and Aaj Ki Awaz, brought to mind Indira Gandhi’s ghastly assassination.64 The villains in Indian/Hindi films changed

174  National Film Development Corporation with the times, from an anti-social commoner to a politician, the new “pet hate”.65 Concluding a survey study of various lessons the spectators were learning from Indian cinema, Connie Haham wrote, “That police brutality can be condoned, that only super-heroes can save the day, that a spirit of violence and revenge are acceptable and even healthy, would seem to be the lessons of today’s Hindi films.”66 The violence depicted on screen was not fictitious. It was happening in real in villages and towns of India, either in the name of caste and religion or law and order. One has heard and read about Operation Blue Star, followed by Indira Gandhi’s brutal assassination, and one of the bloodiest HinduSikh riots in Delhi in 1984. The Bhagalpur blinding (1979–80) horrified the masses and scripted the ruthlessness of state machinery. In Maharashtra, the state government’s decision to evict all slum dwellers, mainly from UP, Bihar, and parts of Tamilnadu, who arrived in Bombay after 1985, brought the problem of urban immigration into sharp focus again. The police in Bihar committed extra-judicial killings of 23 landless labourers of Arwal, a small village in Bihar, in 1986.67 The protestors were unarmed and a number of them were women and children. The press reported the frequency of such unjustified encounters in the state of Bihar.68 The rise of religious chauvinism in India, especially in the north, was reported. The Hindu majority was increasingly being organised on militant lines, with the avowed aim of curtailing the sphere of influence of the minority communities. This resulted in a rise in communal friction.69 Ashok Mitra foresaw “a fairly extensive criminalisation of the youth”, and warned against, “a train of events which could end by transforming us into a tribe of wagon-breaking lumpens.”70 In its cover story, the Illustrated Weekly rightly labelled the 1980s as “a passionate decade”; “It was a decade in which so much happened. New dreams were dreamt, and shattered as easily. Hope and frustration, courage and angst went hand in hand. While violence became the key metaphor of our times.”71 In one single decade, India lost two of its PMs in gruesome political assassinations. The Bhopal Gas Disaster occurred in 1984, leaving images of pain, suffering, and health hazards, for at least two generations, leaving aside the long battle for justice. Rajiv Gandhi, the then PM, was “painfully aware” that the health of a society and thus of a state hinged not upon economic parameters only. He perceived the breakdown in the fabric of Indian society as a corollary to the breakdown of cultural values. He decided to take the pursuit and promotion of culture as an issue of great priority. The formation of Zonal Cultural Centres (ZCC) was initiated to consolidate the cultural heritage of India. The ZCCs were expressly aimed at the widest dissemination of culture to give people an alternative to the cinema culture. Much of the activity of the ZCCs was to be organised around festivals and fairs, with national integration as its driving force. Critics called it a “Rs 70-crore experiment in cultural democracy”, the moving spirit, doubted to be not aesthetics but politics.72

National Film Development Corporation  175 To sum up, unlike the FFC, the NFDC was not only responsible for financing New Cinema, it was also burdened, during the 1980s, with the overall development of the Indian film industry. The industry was already reeling under heavy taxation, an exhibition trade crisis, multi-starrers flopping at the box-office, sub-standard, sexual and violent content of films, and an overall callous attitude of the government. The government had clearly expressed its favouritism towards Doordarshan with the film industry and the NFDC being neglected in the Seventh Plan (1985). Though the Rajiv Gandhi government acknowledged the importance of cultural values in creating a healthy society, its ZCCs were formed as an alternative to the cinema culture. The next section assesses the performance of the NFDC during the 1980s, amid these wider policy, outlook, and cultural changes and challenges – to satisfy the Indian government by proving its economic viability, without affecting its primary commitment towards New Cinema. The NFDC and New Cinema in the 1980s This decade was the busiest and most controversial in the history of New Cinema and the NFDC. This section discusses in detail the achievements of the Corporation, the direction it gave to the New Indian Cinema, and various controversies and criticisms with regard to the NFDC’s operations. Satyajit Ray had finally bestowed legitimacy to the New Indian Cinema in 1980, when he praised them for their “serious, rooted subjects” and “imaginative use of modest resources”.73 He wrote, “Where the vast majority of films bypass reality altogether and pander to the lowest common denominator, any effort that spurns these tendencies comes as a radical departure, and is to be applauded.”74 New Indian Cinema also “won the grudging admiration of international critics the world over.”75 At Cannes festival, New Indian Cinema triumphed with a trio of 16mm low-budget productions: Govind Nihalani’s Aakrosh (co-winner of the Grand Prix at the 1981 Delhi festival, shown in the Film Market), Saeed Mirza’s Albert Pinto Ko Gussa Kyoon Aata Hai (Director’s Fortnight), and Rabindra Dharmaraj’s Chakra (also in the Director’s Fortnight). Film critics did notice that “these astounding films of social criticism” were government-sponsored.76 Dorothy Holloway stressed that the prominence of the NFDC with a stand at the Cannes festival enabled the grand entrance of New Indian Cinema into the world film arena.77 After Cannes, the American audience was presented with the Alternate Cinema of India, which opened at the Museum of Modern Art and was to take an extensive tour of the United States.78 A symposium on ‘New Indian Cinema and its Roots’ was held, with Girish Karnad, Govind Nihalani, Kumar Shahani, Mrinal Sen, Shyam Benegal, and Smita Patil as participants. At home, New Cinema was gradually drawing support from young, private distributors. Dhiresh Chakravorty, from Bengal, helped release Shodh, Aakrosh, and Albert Pinto Ko Gussa Kyoon Aata Hai, in Calcutta, “in a rare instance of a “rebel” producer-distributor penetrating the strongholds of

176  National Film Development Corporation big-time distributors and exhibitors.”79 After releasing three of these NFDC films, he announced three more of his own productions, with Mrinal Sen (Chalchitra), Tapan Sinha (Urmila), and Saeed Mirza (Five Star). Chakravorty had earlier successfully supported films like Shatranj Ke Khilari; produced Mrinal Sen’s Akaler Sandhane, and accompanied the film and its director to the Delhi festival and then to Berlin where it was India’s competition entry.80 It seemed a good start for the Corporation and New Indian Cinema post-amalgamation. During April-December 1980 the Corporation received 65 applications for the granting of loans – 32 for film production and 33 for theatre construction. Of these, 22 applicants were sanctioned loans totalling Rs. 87.29 lakhs.81 For the first time, the Corporation entered into a co-production arrangement with Indo-British Films Ltd. (UK) for the production of a film on Mahatma Gandhi. The Corporation had plans to promote the development of the film industry by opening offices in New York, London, and Hong Kong for expanding markets for Indian films, apart from providing facilities for sub-titling, 16mm production units, and video-taping of Indian feature films.82 In the NFDC’s first script award competition, Pradip Krishen won the best script award for Massey Saheb.83 Kundan Shah was one of the two third prize winners for his script called “A Detective Story”. It is most likely that Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron was based on this script. D.V.S. Raju, the NFDC chairman, discussed the 100 per cent production plan in an interview and told that the NFDC wanted to extend it to those “gifted film makers who do not have the resources or business minds”.84 The Corporation was to own the world rights of the film, without interfering in the making. The NFDC Board of Directors meeting, held in December 1982 under the shadow of a controversial letter from the MIB asking the Corporation to stall its financing activities for a while and giving precedence to ‘commercially viable projects’,85 granted loans for five films, after an eight-month ‘freeze’, and also decided to go ahead with one of its own productions.86 The films granted loans included Govind Nihalani’s Ardha Satya, Kamal Swaroop’s Om Dar-ba-dar, and Saeed Mirza’s “Mr. Joshi goes to court for justice”.87 The NFDC’s own production was Tarang, to be directed by Kumar Shahani. N.K.P. Salve, Minister for Information and Broadcasting, reviewed the working of the NFDC. While he expressed his support for “good cinema”, he wanted the NFDC to prepare “financial profiles” of all the films they approved for financing. Mrs. Tambay-Vaidya (MD, the NFDC) confirmed that commercial viability would not be the motivating factor, but a ‘more strict vigilance would be done on the spending of money. In short, we [the NFDC] should not be taken for a ride.’88 She confirmed that there were cases in past when the NFDC was deceived. The year 1981–2 proved to be a challenging year since the Corporation had to undertake and fulfil “uphill tasks in many directions.”89 According to the Directors, “While operating on various fronts, the deliberate use of the word “Development” in the name of the Corporation has…to be constantly kept in mind.”90 They wrote,

National Film Development Corporation  177 Financing of films is one of the basic developmental activities of the Corporation which needs not only pioneering concepts and courage but also the desire and conviction to induce the correct Film Culture in the country…expenditure by the Corporation on production of Good Cinema must be treated somewhat as investment for Research and Development Work, which is inescapable in a country which produces more than 20% of the world’s output of films. While accepting this role, due care has also been taken to review the entire policy of Film Financing from time to time to ensure that money is not frittered away. Because of this, new measures for proper vigilance and control over release of finance and production have been put into operation.91 The Directors reported a “better response” to the films made by the erstwhile FFC and NFDC by film lovers. Quite a few of the loans granted in the recent past had been repaid in full and the recovery against past cases had improved; it was referred to as “a very heartening trend.”92 The two Plan Projects, the Film Centre located at Calcutta, to help the regional filmmakers in the Eastern sector, and the Sub-Titling Unit in Pune, were notable achievements during this year.93 Due to total restructuring of the NFDC, two “important” wings, i.e. the Research and Statistics Wing and Publicity and Public Relations Wing, came into existence.94 The NFDC’s Regional Office in London was commissioned from 1 February 1982. This Office was to help co-ordinate various activities e.g. export, import, co-production, Publicity and PR, IFFI/Filmotsav in India, etc. which needed continuous contact and association with the international film industry.95 The NFDC participated in Film Markets of major international film festivals at Cannes, Moscow, MIFED (Milan), and American Film Market (AFM, Los Angeles). It emerged, in these festivals, that apart from theatrical exploitation, the future for Indian films lay in the ever-increasing television channels over the world.96 The authorised capital of the Corporation stood at Rs. 600 lakhs during this year. The gross income of the Corporation for the year was Rs. 181.63 lakhs. After adding the previous year’s adjustment account, the Corporation had a marginal profit of Rs. 1.76 lakhs. Nine films were completed and 12 films were at various stages of production.97 The Corporation received 179 scripts in its Second Script Award Competition. Dilip Chitre’s Godam (Warehouse) was adjudged as the best among them.98 Akashwani Auditorium was finally taken over on 5 April 1981 for renovation as a regular cinema theatre.99 The scheme for the construction of lowcost cinema theatres received attention from the NFDC and, help from the central government, Canara Bank, state governments, and state film development corporations (of Orissa, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, etc.) was initiated.100 The NFDC sanctioned loans in 37 cases, and six loanees of these had completed their theatres and started screening films. The Corporation tried to facilitate effective distribution of Indian films by purchasing playing time in theatres wherever

178  National Film Development Corporation possible and necessary. It also planned to expand its Regional Offices in Calcutta, Delhi, and Madras so that Indian films could be distributed all over the country.101 Besides hiring playing time in theatres owned by private parties, Akashwani Auditorium was converted into a commercial theatre which started screening films regularly from 12 June 1981.102 Doordarshan continued to be the NFDC’s stable TV circuit partner for its films. The Report also mentioned that the onslaught of video did affect the exploitation of theatrical rights for NFDC films in certain countries of the world. To combat this, the Corporation discovered fresh vistas for Indian films on foreign TV circuits and in the sale of video rights all over the world.103 It took different preliminary steps to set up a Video Transfer Unit at Madras, at a capita cost of Rs. 70.00 lakhs.104 The Directors admitted that the years 1980–1 and especially 1981–2 were “demanding, challenging and difficult”.105 The Corporation faced its “teething troubles” in 1981–2 when many new ideas and schemes were put into operation. The year 1982–3 offered them “the time for reflection.”106 The FFC/NFDC-produced films, once regarded as a taboo, had started selling before release and some were profitably marketed even while under production. The NFDC Directors claimed, “In the process, our products have not become commercial but the Culture sought to be perpetuated has started having its impact both on Cinema Goers and Distributors.”107 According to the Annual Report, the revenue of the Corporation had increased to Rs. 433.25 lakhs.108 This had resulted in a pre-tax profit of Rs. 61.88 lakhs. The profit after tax amounted to Rs. 51.19 lakhs. As a result of this profit, the Corporation was to contribute a sizeable amount of around Rs. 11 lakhs to the national exchequer in the form of income tax.109 According to the Directors, If the year ended 31st March, 1982 could be termed as a year of Installation and Initiation, the financial year 1982–83 has been a year of Consolidation and Stabilization. The year 1982 was declared as the “Productivity Year” by Smt. Indira Gandhi, Prime Minister and accordingly the Corporation formulated measures for improvements in Productivity…the Corporation is poised for further growth in the years to come with qualitative improvement in performance.110 Loans amounting to Rs. 29.30 lakhs were disbursed in 27 cases during 1982– 3. The Directors claimed that there had been a distinct improvement in the position of recovery during 1982–3 and 1981–2 as compared to any other year in the past. The Report claimed that this was mainly a result of Export Contracts negotiated by the NFDC in various International Film Markets of major festivals.111 The NFDC received more money by exporting non-NFDC films and documentaries. The amount of bad debts written off from the 1960s to 1983 stood at Rs. 125.37 lakhs. Vigorous efforts were being made to effect recovery from various possible alternatives, e.g. exports, Doordarshan, sale

National Film Development Corporation  179 of video rights, exploitation of 16mm and 8mm formats, etc.112 The amount disbursed for film financing and production activity had increased from Rs. 23.84 lakhs in 1980–1 to Rs. 71.05 lakhs during 1982–3.113 A total of 16 NFDC-financed films were selected for screening in the Festival of Indian Cinema organised at the Centre Georges Pompidou, France.114 The Directors reported that the performance of export of Indian feature films had shown continuous improvement till 1980–1. However, from 1980–1, the export was declining and had reached a figure of Rs. 1254 lakhs during 1982–3, which included the export of video rights.115 The overall decline was primarily due to the “latest craze” for video, etc. mainly in the major “Traditional Territories” such as the UK, USA, and the Gulf countries. The decline was more pronounced in the case of Hindi films which had gone down by about Rs. 300 lakhs with its share in the total export reduced by about six per cent.116 The positive part was that the Corporation was able to penetrate many new areas belonging to non-traditional territories like Austria, France, Japan, the UK, Holland, Greece, Switzerland, West Germany, Hungary, Scandinavia, etc. It also succeeded in getting Indian films accepted by major TV networks of the world.117 At the Ninth IFFI, held at New Delhi in January 1983, two symposia were arranged, one on ‘Films for Television’, and the other on ‘Struggle for New Indian Cinema’.118 Mallikarjun, Deputy Minister for Information and Broadcasting, said in the Rajya Sabha that the government was continuously monitoring the financial performance of the NFDC and corrective measures were suggested to the Management wherever necessary.119 The Corporation was specifically advised to control expenditure, take investment decisions after thorough examination, observe strict financial discipline in its overall efficiency in financial management, make efforts towards augmentation of productivity, and ensure adequate revenues from assets.120 Malati Tambay-Vaidya told in a press conference that the investment made in 1981–2, in terms of men, materials, machines, and money had yielded significant results and consequently a profit of Rs. 25.34 lakhs.121 The release of Gandhi in India and abroad was cited as the highlight of the year. Under the loan scheme, nine films were under production, including Govind Nihalani’s Ardha Satya. She did concede that the NFDC’s performance in distribution and exhibition of Indian feature films had not been satisfactory. She promised to organise festivals of award-winning Indian films in major cities in India and to regularly screen selected NFDC-financed films. Meanwhile, Hrishikesh Mukherjee was appointed as part-time honorary chairman of the NFDC in November 1983 for three years.122 Rs. 50 lakhs were provided by the government to the NFDC in its budget for 1983–4. The Ministry clarified that based on a periodic review of the NFDC’s performance, the necessary budgetary support was given for its plans.123 As per the statistics, out of the 123 feature films produced/financed, 94 films were exhibited, and Rs. 284.47 lakhs were disbursed, while the amount recovered was Rs. 137.01 lakhs, the amount written off was Rs. 84.87 lakhs

180  National Film Development Corporation and the amount outstanding was Rs. 62.59 lakhs. For the 29 feature films which were not exhibited, the amount disbursed was Rs. 72.20 lakhs, the amount recovered was Rs. 1.42 lakhs, the amount written off was Rs. 28.16 lakhs and the amount outstanding was Rs. 42.62 lakhs.124 During 1983–4, the NFDC sanctioned nine applications under financing and disbursed Rs. 29.30 lakhs. Seven feature films and four documentaries were completed. Under cent per cent financing, the Corporation disbursed Rs. 40.79 lakhs and completed two films during the year.125 Out of 34 applications received, three were sanctioned and Rs. 16.26 lakhs were released; five films were completed during this year.126 The NFDC created a unique record when its films bagged an unprecedented 11 awards at the 31st National Film Festival of India.127 Shanta Singh, pointing out the box-office performance of Ardh Satya, and Saaransh,128 also included in the Panorama, wrote, The stage when it was convenient to label new cinema as something the audience did not want to look at and which the establishment chose to ignore, is over. Today even those borderline film-makers who have long been out in the cold and who swore that the audience was an unnecessary adjunct to cinema, are having to rethink their theoretical premise.129 Highlighting the role of new technologies and how they got reflected in the Panorama films of 1984, Singh said that these films, “represent the new awareness that creativity, in auteur cinema, must move beyond mere artistry in terms of celluloid imagery to innovations that make more creative use of the new technology now available to film-makers.”130 Directors like Ketan Mehta could now design a single mise-en-scène that lasted up to ten minutes with the help of modern, lighter, and far more mobile shooting equipment. With such an addition to film technology, the film maker could cut costs by half or even more. Calling the NFDC-supported films “Cinema of Soul”, she praised the NFDC for producing a film like Party, Immediately after the end a single credit line flashes on the screen – ‘Producer, National Film Development Corporation’. This is at once the most significant and hopeful sign of contemporary cinema. It proves that the takers for the Cinema of Soul are there in the establishment itself, just as it marks the presence of auteurs who have the courage, the clarity, the conviction to make films for their own sake, to communicate a particular truth, world-view, feeling and conviction.131 One of the two major tasks that the NFDC had inherited in 1980 with amalgamation was the creation of a consistent demand for Indian films abroad.132 The NFDC sold Satyajit Ray’s Ghare Baire to the United States for $35,000 and at similarly “unprecedented” rates in France and Britain. The NFDCfinanced films continued to form a small percentage of the total direct exports. In 1983–4, 23 NFDC films (inclusive of video rights) and 115 non-NFDC

National Film Development Corporation  181 films were exported. The share of regional cinemas also increased in direct exports. The international market grew more receptive to Indian films as exports had shown a considerable increase over the previous years.133 The NFDC was able to negotiate deals worth Rs. 28,96,000 at Cannes in 1989. Ganashatru and Piravi contributed to the bulk of the export deals. Ek Din Achanak, Trishagni, and Main Zinda Hoon were other films sold to different countries. However, some filmmakers, including Amol Palekar, were unhappy with the way the NFDC worked in the matter of exports. Malati Tambay-Vaidya responded to this charge and told, We cannot compel buyers to buy a specific film…We can bring the best of Indian films to their attention and then hope that they make the right choice…Take Amol [Palekar], for example…We screened it in two markets – the MIFED in ’81 and then AFM. At both places buyers were just not interested. They found the film too mild, will you believe it! We did sell it to a British company which even advanced a certain amount but is it our fault that it has still not picked up the print?134 The NFDC also set up a Research and Development Cell within itself to fulfil its objective of assisting the film industry in its day-to-day functioning, to keep in touch with the needs of the industry on the technical side, by developing indigenous equipment for various uses in film production.135 In its third film script competition (July 1985), the first prize was won by Arun Kaul and Umesh Kalbag for their script Dharmshetra.136 The second prize was jointly won by S.N. Dheer for Tidarao and Surinder Singh for Marhi Ka Diva. The third prize was won by the renowned scriptwriter Nabendu Ghosh for The Sandstorm.137 The NFDC earned a net profit of Rs. 47.78 lakhs during 1985–6.138 Hrishikesh Mukherjee told reporters that the Corporation, in the field of film production, disbursed Rs. 46.87 lakhs to 15 filmmakers. Another Rs. 21.27 lakhs were invested in the NFDC’s own productions. It financed ten films (including one documentary).139 Of the NFDC’s own production, Debshishu and Massey Sahib was completed during 1985, and Mirch Masala was likely to be completed.140 During 1986–7, 15 films (including one documentary) were approved for granting of loans.141 Script Committee had selected the following scripts for production with NFDC finance: Yatra by Goutam Ghose, Parinda by Vinod Chopra, Sandstorm by Nabendu Ghosh, and Pestonji by Vijaya Mehta.142 Mira Nair had applied to the NFDC for her film Salaam Bombay, in March 1987 for ten lakhs.143 According to her diary entry, on 23 July 1987, the NFDC top management had visited the sets where they were training the children for acting. Tambay-Vaidya and Vijay Tendulkar were part of the team.144 Another journal entry, on 28 August 1987, described her meeting with the NFDC officials, In the NFDC sitting room waiting for an hour after our scheduled appointment for them to see me. Almost nearing the end of our

182  National Film Development Corporation negotiation – or the beginning of our marriage…The financing has created most of my tension and fatigue – and the entrails of the Indian government system of making movies is more than everything I heard it could be.145 During 1987–8, the NFDC succeeded in converting some of the cost centres into profit centres, and some of the new activities turned out to be profit centres. Revenue receipts for the year were Rs. 771.26 lakhs as against the previous year’s Rs. 602.56 lakhs and the profit before tax amounted to Rs. 81.46 lakhs as compared to Rs. 78.09 lakhs of 1986–7.146 Apart from sanctioning loans and continuing with 100 per cent productions, the NFDC collaborated with Doordarshan147 for production of special features/telefilms. The scheme of involving eminent film directors/producers with production of TV films achieved considerable success. TV films like Tasveer Apni (Mrinal Sen), Ranjanwaar (Sai Paranjapey), Aadmi Aur Aurat (Tapan Sinha), etc. were assigned for production – some of them were completed and telecast.148 The National Film Circle continued its screenings at Nehru Centre to popularise good cinema.149 The NFDC’s project of producing and marketing recorded video cassettes proved successful. From video cassettes of foreign films, the activity was extended to Indian classics. Satyajit Ray’s Apu Trilogy was very well received. The NFDC also sanctioned 12 loan applications for construction of theatres involving an amount of Rs. 92.50 lakhs in partnership with state film development corporations and commercial banks, where the NFDC’s share of loans worked out to be Rs. 65.75 lakhs.150 Five films were taken up for production/co-production and two films were approved for grant of loans.151 B.K. Karanjia, the then chairman, said in an interview that he found the NFDC more effective as it had more funds than the FFC.152 On the distribution matter, he accepted that the NFDC was unable to exploit its films commercially because of weak distribution. The NFDC, he informed in the interview, was consulting commercial distributors such as Gulshan Rai and others, to find a way out. Among the NFDC’s future plans, he mentioned starting an organisation called INFACT – Indian Federation Against Copyright Theft – to combat video piracy, establish a research and statistics bureau, and open a film library. In association with the film industry, the Corporation formed INFACT to curb the growing menace of video piracy.153 The Corporation started its own magazine, Cinema in India, a “comprehensive quarterly journal representing the national film industry, with the aim of wider distribution of information on Indian cinema in the country and abroad.”154 In 1988–9, the Theatre Financing Scheme was formulated and put into execution to ensure creation of additional seating capacity in the country and provide outlets for good cinema. Under this scheme, 135 theatres were financed all over the country. Meanwhile, Trishagni was released all over India; Mirch Masala was released in the USA. The NFDC also proposed the idea of government-owned financial institutions, other than banks, funding the making of serious or art films through the

National Film Development Corporation  183 NFDC. The Union Finance Ministry was ‘favourably disposed’ to this idea.155 In its aim of promoting new talents by financing or producing first time directors, the NFDC assisted filmmakers such as Mira Nair, Meherwanji, Raja Mitra, Shaji, Nabendu Ghosh, and Sudhir Mishra. The Corporation gave loans to one film during the period April to December 1988, and six films were sanctioned under the scheme of 100 per cent financing. Six films were approved for co-production with Doordarshan.156 Due to a lack of funds, loans for new theatres could not be sanctioned during this year, and earlier sanctions continued. Continuing with its publication adventure, the NFDC supported and sponsored the first issue of Cinemaya, a magazine on Asian cinema for the “serious film viewer.” It also published Bunny Reuben’s book Raj Kapoor – The Fabulous Showman. Under NFDC Video Classics, launched in December 1989, the Corporation released two Indian films, Duniya Na Maane, and Padosi by V. Shantaram.157 NFDC films continued to be represented in Indian Panorama. The 1989 list included Antarjali Yatra, Pestonjee, Salaam Bombay, and Trishagni. However, it is also to be noted that the once-New Cinema-dominated-handbook started having a brief but separate page of listings on the “Mainstream Indian Cinema”.158 At the completion of ten years of its existence in 1990, the NFDC declared the period from 1980 to 1990 as “a Golden Decade” and “a decade of excellence”. To celebrate the occasion, the Corporation hosted a dinner party for the film industry on 27 April 1990 in Bombay.159 The occasion was also used for a revaluation of the organisation and charting of a more ambitious programme for the next decade. In this decade, the NFDC had completed 67 films, 32 of them by debutant directors; 57 were either released commercially or telecast on Doordarshan, and eighteen films were under production. These films won 68 national and 69 international awards. The tagline below these achievements said, “These are not just figures. They are signs of a new force in the Indian Cinema, and this is only the beginning.”160 While loans for 147 theatres had been sanctioned, 88 of them had been completed.161 The NFDC also took over the Sachinam cinema hall in Worli, Bombay, with a capacity of 395 seats.162 By the turn of the decade, however, the NFDC had succeeded in shedding its responsibilities with regard to the distribution and exhibition of feature films and the creation of new cinema theatres. The arrival of Doordarshan and video had enabled such a stance taken by the Corporation on these two important issues.163 Ravi Gupta suggested the NFDC rather not undertake “such a major task” of constructing theatres, which needed heavy subsidies. He shielded the NFDC on its failure to exploit its films well, and blamed the producers instead, who expected the NFDC to perform “a miracle and distribute the film”.164 On the issue of distribution, he said, “The problem can be better understood when we look at artistic films made outside the realm of NFDC, which face similar distribution problems. NFDC’s own productions and co-productions also paid better dividends than its financed films, since NFDC handled distribution itself.”165

184  National Film Development Corporation Controversies and Failures of the NFDC in the 1980s

The NFDC found itself in the middle of charges of financial irregularities, controversies over official appointments, and (mis)handling of film festivals. It was blamed of sheer negligence, apathy, and lack of professionalism and transparency, on various occasions in the 1980s. Such charges and blames did major harm to its image as the patron of New Indian Cinema. The NFDC was already facing challenges born out of the amalgamation of handling the accounts of the FFC and IMPEC. However, the Ministry was confident that the Corporation would overcome all its teething problems as soon as the Chairman and Board of Directors took charge.166 As discussed above, in its March 1980 Resolution, the Report of the Working Group had pointed out three key factors assuring the NFDC’s success, one of which was a proper choice of personnel from the Management Board downwards. This did not seem to be smooth sailing. Representatives of New Cinema protested and submitted a memorandum to the MIB, expressing apprehension over the fact that the newly revived NFDC board being reconstituted was dominated by makers of big-budget films who would suppress New Indian Cinema.167 As C.S. Lakshmi wrote, the names of the chairman and the members of the board of directors “read like a who-is-who of the film industry in Bombay and Tamil Nadu and a careful remembering of faithful party followers.”168 D.V.S. Raju, President of the FFI, was to be the chairman of the newly constituted NFDC. The other members were G.P. Sippy of the Sholay fame, Gul Anand, exporter; N.K. Goel, industrialist; Aruna Vasudev, writer; Ramchandra Bhate, “an old-faithful who ran a cheap kitchen called the “Indira kitchen””; Tapan Sinha, filmmaker; B.K. Karanjia, editor, Screen; Manmohan Krishna, actor, director and President of the Federation of Film Employees; Basu Bhattacharya, filmmaker; and Bhaktavatsala, a film producer.169 A meeting was held at Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s residence in Bombay.170 M.S. Sathyu, representing the “committed” filmmakers, about 100 of them, presented a memorandum to Vasant Sathe.171 The Memorandum also opposed the NFDC duplicating the same job done by the state film development corporations, e.g. the import and provision of the latest equipment, including plans for 16mm infrastructure. The “main” film industry, on the other hand, felt discriminated against, too, and registered its protest on the issue. Responding to these demands and oppositions, Sathe announced the names of Shyam Benegal, Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Mrinal Sen, and Shanthi Choudhry as four more members of the Board.172 The AIFPC issued a statement decrying the controversy over the appointment of members to the board of directors of the NFDC and the “undue importance” the government had given to art cinema, while ignoring the high potential values of commercial cinema in various fields of human and national activity.173 The protest turned ugly when the statement called the IMPEC and FFC “parasites of the film industry, aided by the Government.”174 While not objecting “to include one or two representatives of the so-called new cinema” in the board, the statement stressed that

National Film Development Corporation  185 the main strength of the NFDC would come only from commercial cinema, and demanded adequate representation for it on the NFDC board, “in the interest of harmonious and fruitful Government-industry relations.”175 When clearing a list of NFDC directors in December 1983, the government made all efforts to compose a balanced and professional board with a pragmatic and positive outlook on cinema and to ensure representation also to the commercial film industry and to as many sections and regions of the film industry as possible. To avoid a lack of continuity, members from the last board like Shyam Benegal, Basu Bhattacharya, Gulshan Rai, G. Aravindan, B.K. Karanjia, Tarun Majumdar, and D.K. Samarsinha Reddy were appointed as part-time non-official directors of the Corporation.176 However, in spite of all the precautions and deliberations, multiple resignations from the Board of Directors of the NFDC exposed that all was not well within the management. Mrinal Sen resigned and was reported to have said, ‘The Corporation, for reasons known to ‘the interior cell,’ is behaving at times somewhat erratically and even extra-constitutionally’.177 It was informed by the Ministry that Sen had tendered his resignation without giving any specific reasons.178 Later, B.K. Karanjia also sent his resignation from his post as chairman of the NFDC to the MIB.179 Vijay Tendulkar had resigned from the board of directors of the NFDC. The National Front government had reconstituted the board, and within few weeks, Vijay Tendulkar, one of the newly appointed directors, submitted his resignation letter.180 The conflict was on an ambiguous term of office. He also claimed that things had been far from orderly at the NFDC. He was upset about the behaviour of the NFDC managing director S. Laxminarayanan.181 The next point of crisis was a letter issued by the MIB instructing the NFDC that it reverse its basic policy and initiate financing for “commerciallyoriented films”. This created a commotion in the press and among practitioners of New Cinema.182 The letter was described as “retrograde directive” and a “policy volte-face aimed at throttling the movement for better cinema”.183 The Corporation was asked to completely suspend film financing activity and not to enter into any new commitment in this regard till such time as a detailed review and the examination of on-going policies and practices was made and a new policy was evolved. The letter expressed the view that the entire approach and policy of the Corporation in regard to financing films required drastic reorientation – that loans purely for commercial purposes (for the sake of making a profit) should be separated from loans for making artistic films, the budget for the latter depending on the profits the Corporation will make. The letter referred to large amounts being written off and accumulation of bad debts in past, threatening the “very viability” of the Corporation. The Ministry’s letter caused alarm since the NFDC Board, in July, had fixed certain new criteria for financing film projects, encouraging experimentation by young and new filmmakers at a considerably reduced risk and also ensuring the production of artistic films by renowned directors. Dr. Gopal Datt wrote an open letter to the Information and Broadcasting

186  National Film Development Corporation minister on behalf of the off-beat filmmakers and suggested that the Minister took some time off his busy schedule and gave them a fair hearing.184 Such a reversal of policies was to mostly affect the young filmmakers, as Govind Nihalani shared in an interview, The script [Party] was submitted in 1981 to the NFDC, before I started work on Vijeta. If it had been approved immediately, it would have been my second film. It was delayed because of that famous attempt by the I and B minister to change the NFDC policy and make it commercial.185 The letter gave rise to another round of arguments between the commercial and art filmmakers, and their respective supporters. Datt disagreed with B.R. Chopra when he said there could not be ‘personal cinema’ (discussed below), as according to Datt, “There would have been no advancement in the film medium without personal cinema.”186 Datt pointed out, whenever there are economic crises, the authorities panic and start looking towards established film-makers or commercial film-makers to save the NFDC. They forget that this way they will not only be scuttling the good work already done with great sacrifice but will also be signing the death warrant of the NFDC. Is there any guarantee that the films to be made by the established and commercial film-makers will be more successful than those made by the new film-makers?187 He reminded the NFDC to rather focus on how these films can reach its intended audiences and bring back the investments. He wished that the NFDC was abolished and all the “dynamic development” undone, and “we could revert to the modest small, low-budget structure of the FFC, to work in peace, with dedication, with knowledge, to reach our intended goals in creativity.”188 B.R. Chopra, representing the commercial industry’s position, contradicted press reports which said “commercial” producers were craving for finance from the NFDC and that the letter from the Ministry to the NFDC to suspend the finance for film production till sometime was a sequel to pressures from the commercial sector.189 He informed that in spite of being on the NFDC script committee, he never sought finance for any of their projects. He also told that the scripts he recommended were those of promising newcomers, e.g. Chakra. Chopra wanted the NFDC to finance “good cinema”, cinema which was not abstract, and was “directed to the conscience of the society”. He opposed the concept of “personal cinema” and insisted on the requirement of an audience, irrespective of its size, for any kind of cinema. He clarified that he was not against experimentation, and that he did not really object to the losses of the NFDC or FFC or IMPEC. His only unhappiness was with the fact that in spite of all the support, it had not been able to do “anything worthwhile in the field of popular acceptance.”190 He made it

National Film Development Corporation  187 clear that he would never like the NFDC “to sell itself to vulgar box-office” for money, but he was certainly interested in examining if it was possible to combine art and commerce without compromising on quality or thematic content. He also reminded that, previously, the FFC was not alienated from the commercial sector, and filmmakers like Mohan Segal and Bimal Roy made films with FFC finance. B.K. Karanjia, while agreeing to an assumption that the NFDC like other public sector undertakings should be run on a profit-making basis, highly disagreed when the Ministry expected that the profits should follow from the Corporation’s film financing activities.191 The profit centres of the Corporation were to commission on the import and distribution of foreign films and canalisation fee on raw stock and film exports. Other profit centres included the 16mm unit at Calcutta, also providing 35mm facilities, a subtitling unit in Bombay and a video centre in Madras. He advised that the losses, whatever amount, incurred under the financing activities, come under the Corporation’s promotional objectives and they needed to be balanced against earnings from its profit centres. Karanjia dismissed the letter as “one more example of confused thinking on the Ministry’s part, a total and inexcusable lack of awareness of the film situation.”192 Referring to the 80 per cent failures of films in previous year, Karanjia wanted to ask the Ministry if it also wanted the NFDC to contribute its quota of flops. Or it would be wiser if the NFDC, struck out boldly on a path of its own, losses notwithstanding, by helping the evolution of trends that can lead to better films and cultivate better tastes in audiences sick and tired of films based on the formula that has proved to be a formula not of success but of failure?193 Further, Screen’s story criticising D.V.S. Raju’s tenure as the NFDC chairman exposed the way NFDC affairs were being handled, questioning its transparency and work atmosphere.194 Raju was charged with allegations like he was ineffective, unable to make any impact, favoured persons known to him, had no interest in or understanding of the better cinema, and was only interested in accepting felicitations and attending functions. Raju objected to the entire story and wrote a letter to Screen, which was reproduced in the journal.195 Raju claimed to have read the said article “with some surprise”. He wrote that the writer of the article never approached him for his comments on any of the charges against him. He accused the writer of playing mischief with the section on answers by the managing director of the NFDC. The “list of charges” and “answers” sought from the MD were unrelated. He found the criticism “motivated” and not “factual and constructive”. He rejected the allegations as rumours “presented as facts”, as the sources of these allegations were not given.196 In its rejoinder, Screen clarified that the sources used to write the article was not from one journalist, but rather compiled from various sources, including journalists, and based on reliable information received from various

188  National Film Development Corporation persons holding very responsible posts “WITHIN the NFDC”.197 The editor B.K. Karanjia and the staff at Screen were “doing their duty to the tax paying public” as “the affairs of a public concern like the NFDC are, we repeat, a matter of public interest and, we may add, they are becoming a matter of grave public concern.”198 The rejoinder also pointed out to Mrinal Sen’s resignation (discussed above), supposedly on the ground of being unhappy with the financial picture of the Corporation and his inability to associate himself any more with it as Director. Another Director of the Board, M.V. Krishnaswami had resigned in protest, raising enough questions on the NFDC’s workings. The NFDC’s apathy to promote and support Indian films during international film festivals was additional point of concern. Various esteemed filmmakers came out openly against the NFDC on this matter. Sadanand Suvarna who produced the internationally acclaimed feature film Ghatashraddha, could not sell the film, neither on his own nor through the IMPEC and NFDC, the experience with the latter two being even worse.199 The ordeal of selling the film had started in 1978–9 and went on till 1981, by which time Kasaravalli had made two more films, and Suvarna was still selling his first film, a fact which spoke volumes about the selling abilities of the NFDC and the help that was rendered by the government to off-beat films. Suvarna complained, “after every festival the NFDC announces that it has sold or helped to sell films worth so many lakhs etc. The truth of the matter is that films are not sold but the contract are signed or finalised subject to approval later or delivery of prints.”200 Many of these contracts did not actually mature, as it happened with Suvarna, and such films were not sold. But the NFDC would never speak about them, creating “an erroneous impression” in public’s mind. Knowing all the ordeal Suvarna went through, Narwekar wondered, “If this is the fate of a film which won the Golden Lotus here and a host of other prestigious awards abroad then God save the film-maker whose film is off-beat but has not bagged any award.”201 Mrinal Sen criticised the NFDC and said in a press conference that the NFDC stall in the Market section of the New Palais did not display any of his posters (Kharij) although his was the only Indian film in the main sections.202 This led him to wonder whether the Corporation was a national organisation or a commercial set-up. No official of the Corporation considered it necessary to be present at his press conference. He said the NFDC’s performance at Cannes justified his resignation from the Board of Directors. The NFDC’s apathy to his film came across as vengeance for Sen’s resignation and exposé of the NFDC. Govind Nihalani faced a similar situation in 1984 at Karlovy Vary, Czechoslovakia, one of the most prestigious film festivals in the world. Ardh Satya was one of the two entries from India. The NFDC sanctioned only two days’ hospitality to Nihalani and Om Puri, whose spirits were further “dampened by the total absence of any Indian official or any publicity material whatsoever for the competition entry.”203 While the organisers treated the film well, by giving it a prestigious night show slot, there was not a single poster or still to display and no one to publicise or lobby for the film

National Film Development Corporation  189 in a festival which was not only highly competitive but also considered one of the top four in the world. It was reported, “Nihalani has been reduced to sitting down and writing publicity notes by hand to be recycled and distributed in the press room”, which was no substitute for the “high pressure publicity” required at the festival.204 On the domestic front, the press criticised the tenth IFFI, organised by the NFDC. R. Raina wrote that its films were appalling except for a few and that organisation collapsed on the very first day.205 Many reasons were cited for the poor performance, but the consensus was on the NFDC’s lack of commitment to the promotion of cinematic art. In yet another disgraceful instance, the Cannes Film Festival, in May 1987, went without a single Indian film in any of its sections. This happened despite the fact that India had entered several films, including Adoor Gopalakrishnan’s Anantram, Shyam Benegal’s Susman, and Ketan Mehta’s Mirch Masala. The reasons for exclusions were never clear, although it was alleged, and denied by the NFDC, that the prints may have reached too late for selection.206 According to TOI, the NFDC’s growing preference for viability over experimentation, reasonable returns over promotion, and commercial and compromising attitude at the artistic level were responsible for the Cannes failure.207 The NFDC seemed to have been losing its credentials as the patron body for good cinema. Ashish Rajadhyaksha reprimanded the FFC/NFDC for not being convinced of its own aims and objectives and being unable to see its role “other than as a petty trader”.208 Shalini Pradhan’s investigation revealed, “it [the NFDC] cannot look after the baby, cannot wean it and ensure that it’s growing up right. Flustered, NFDC often ends up killing its own product.”209 Pradhan rightly blamed the NFDC for fanning “the myth” that people were not willing to see better films, and for lacking “the crusader’s instinct” to get its own films to the screen. She also accused the NFDC of “maintaining a studied silence” and conspiring to make a filmmaker like Mani Kaul “associated with abstruse and obscure film making.”210 She disclosed that Awtar Kaul was suggested by the then chairman of the FFC to have a star in his film to make it “commercially viable”, and that was how Rakhee was cast in 27 Down, bringing in hazards like delays and budget going up. When Vinod Chopra was asked how efficient the NFDC administration was, he replied, It is a total mess. When I go there I don’t know whom to talk to. It has become so faceless. They don’t understand what it means to make a film, they don’t understand cinema, they don’t understand what I stand for, they don’t understand the film makers who are letting go greener pastures to make this kind of film. The only person we depend on is Hrishikesh Mukherjee. He has been a tremendous help. The right kind of people will do wonders to that place. It will then do what it is supposed to do – promote ‘good’ cinema.211 Govind Nihalani attributed “bureaucratic fencing” for preventing the NFDC from setting up an efficient distribution network. Giving the example of his

190  National Film Development Corporation film Party, he said, “It is time NFDC stands firm on its proclaimed philosophy of promoting good cinema. It may be a financial institution, but it is not a profit making organisation.”212 M.S. Sathyu also confessed in an interview that he was making TV serials because the NFDC provided no hope for off-beat filmmakers. Giving the example of how the NFDC treated Damul, he said, NFDC’s marketing strategy is very bad. It does not provide release outlets for the kind of films we make. It releases the films at the wrong time and when the films don’t do well it passes on that burden of loss to the producers and keeps writing nasty letters for recovery of the loans.213 The NFDC’s financing and production criteria also came under criticism. Not everyone, even the ones recognised for their talent by the Corporation itself, who applied for NFDC loans, got it sanctioned. While Dilip Chitre, winner of the best script in the second script competition, managed to get the NFDC to produce a film based on his script,214 the second winner of the competition, Deepak Roy, did not have a good experience in spite of applying for the loan.215 Roy’s draft was on the ‘dehumanisation of a tribal woman in an exploitative social system’ and was titled ‘Aabhas’. Encouraged by the feedback that the script received, including from Malati Tambay-Vaidya, Deepak submitted a loan application to the NFDC for producing ‘Aabhas’. In April 1982, he was invited by the Script Committee in Bombay to discuss the modalities of filming. “Thereafter nothing happened for nine months.”216 He received a letter from the NFDC in January 1983 saying that his script was rejected, without giving any explanation. The letter simply said that the NFDC could not grant any loan and if Deepak would like to have his Rs. 2,000 deposit back or he would like to apply again. He heard from Shyam Benegal, then a member of the NFDC board, saying that the film could not be considered, as the funds for 1982–3 had already been exhausted and the project could well be taken up while financial allocations for 1983–4 were finalised. On 6 April 1983, Benegal wrote back stating that according to the NFDC’s latest policy, ‘loans for productions are undertaken not only on the basis of the script but also on the previous work produced by the applicants’, and this work could include student films, short films, etc.217 Deepak, by then, had completed 13 shorts, and rushed to Bombay to plead his case; “At the NFDC office, everybody turned a deaf ear. An official even told him to forget about the loan as the Government could not encourage rebels like him.”218 Meanwhile, Deepak had initiated a Parliament question on the fate of his script. On 19 April 1983, Deputy Information and Broadcasting Minister Mallikarjun assured the Lok Sabha that while no specific criteria were laid down for sanctioning loans by the NFDC, in this specific case, the competence of the filmmaker was in doubt.219 Deepak was now at a loss to know how “competence” could really be proved, more so when in the past the NFDC granted loans to filmmakers with little or no experience in filmmaking, e.g. Vishnu Mathur (Pahlaa Adhyay), Kamal Swaroop (Om Dar

National Film Development Corporation  191 Ba Dar), Sudhir Mishra’s untitled films, etc., and the shooting of any of the films had not started even after loans were sanctioned. Deepak was quoted to have said, I am not asking for charity. All that I am pleading for is a loan refundable at 15 per cent interest, which no bank will give. If NFDC, which credits my script with an award, cannot do that, how could they justify their cause for good cinema?220 Similarly, Sandip Roy, the director of Himghar (Frozen Home), had submitted the script to the NFDC for a loan in July 1982.221 “After a typical bureaucratic delay” of two and a half years, the Bengal state government agreed to stand guarantor for his NFDC loan and he could proceed with making his first full length feature film in August 1986. On the question of distribution of his film, he said, There is so much talk of encouraging young film makers – but nothing further can happen unless one knows the right people, unless one is on familiar terms with the cultural bosses of the Government. All this convinces me further about the reality which I have tried to portray in ‘Himghar’ – one needs godfathers, Dadas, if one has to exist in a system like ours…I think, Govt. will not take initiative to release my film. Their officials don’t bother! Who am I?222 Basu Chatterjee shared a similar view about the NFDC over the issue of repayment. He said in an interview that getting the money for Sara Akash was not problematic, it was when they came after him for repayment.223 Fortunately he made Chhoti Si Baat, which made some money and he could repay the loan. The NFDC’s control on raw stock created another set of problems for low-budget cinema. Manohar Singh, a famous theatre and film actor, who acted in NFDC-produced films like Party and Diksha, pointed out to constraints that rose due to limited raw stock. He shared, during the shooting of Diksha, that if he asked for another take, he was ‘made to feel guilty’; a third was almost criminal because he could see the director’s face falling. He said, “if the budget is pitiful, an actor feels very tense, he just can’t give his best.”224 While a lack of exhibition spaces was already affecting New Cinema, the Corporation could not protect the existing ones. Akashwani auditorium, “the only outlay for serious cinema” in Bombay, made way for the technical expansion schemes of AIR from April 1988.225 The closure was marked by a film festival at the auditorium.226 The theatre was the only avenue for the release of NFDC-financed films. Producers had lost faith in the NFDC as a canalisation agency for exports, and as a promoter of Indian films. Members of the Film Producers’ Guild of

192  National Film Development Corporation India expressed “no confidence” in the NFDC in a resolution.227 The resolution asked the NFDC to either work according to its aims and objectives or get wound up. Screen also printed some excerpts of a letter written by the Guild Chairman, and Ramanand Sagar, one of the Board members, recommending changes and objecting to certain functioning of the NFDC.228 A major face-off occurred between the film industry and government and the NFDC in 1984. Representatives of the top agencies of the industry protested against the Union MIB and its agencies and virtually decided to boycott them. They met under the FFI in April 1984, and took a six-point decision which was “tantamount to a virtual open declaration of war with the Information & Broadcasting Ministry and its agencies.”229 The meeting decided to disassociate itself from all activities of the NFDC and resolved not to extend any co-operation in the Corporation’s functioning hereafter. Another crucial decision taken was to not allow any NFDC film, either imported by it or bought or financed by it, to be provided with an exhibition facility in the commercial theatres of India. B.R. Chopra described the NFDC’s exploitation of the commercial filmmaking industry thus, I expect you have heard of a thing called Jazia. This was a tax which some of the Muslim rulers levied on Hindus – for not being Muslims. NFDC also levies a similar tax on the commercial films – for not being NFDC films…to develop the National Cinema the NFDC collects a certain percentage from the commercial and popular cinema. After all it can’t afford to become a losing concern. We have to project a prosperous image to retain the sanctity of artistic existence.230 The government continued to review the NFDC’s performance, especially with regard to its outstanding loans and related financial performances.231 The first performance review, conducted in March 1981, emphasised the need for careful mobilisation of all resources for the film and theatre financing activities of the NFDC, implementation of the scheme for co-productions, production of TV films, and action taken on the plan’s schemes, namely the video transfer and subtitling unit of the NFDC. In the second performance review, held in 1981, it was felt that the number of films being financed still remained very small. In its third performance review, held in 1982, the NFDC was advised to reduce the expenditure on personnel and administration and undertake detailed financial analysis, separately for each plan scheme under the overall functioning and profitability. It was felt that greater attention should be paid to export of films and to increase earnings from the distribution of Indian films as well as imported films. It was also felt that a detailed analysis should be undertaken of the performance of the films financed by the NFDC to ascertain the profit and loss earned by it. In the fourth performance meeting, held in 1983, it was repeated that the general performance of the NFDC in the field of distribution was unsatisfactory and there was considerable scope for increasing its earnings through the distribution of imported

National Film Development Corporation  193 and Indian films. It was felt that in the scheme for financing films, special attention should be paid to spending public money so as not to incur loss. It was also decided that the post of Financial Director in the NFDC Board should be created and the appointment made at an early date. In addition to these reviews, two reviews were conducted by the Minister of Information and Broadcasting in September 1982, and December 1982. The emphasis during these reviews was on the need to assess the film financing scheme and to adopt measures to recover the outstanding loans. The Minister said there was scope for improvement in the financial management of the NFDC and asked for stricter control in all activities of the NFDC. The issue of writing off bad debts was also taken seriously.232 On another occasion, the NFDC was asked to “considerably tone up” its financial operations by paying attention to its individual activities.233 It was also reported that an enquiry into the working of the NFDC was in progress as a number of complaints had been received about its working. The government had appointed the former Secretary of the MIB Asok Mitra to go into the working of the NFDC. The outcome of the report was to decide the future of Malati Tambay-Vaidya as the MD of the Corporation.234 By the end of 1985, Tambay-Vaidya emerged as a “controversial figure”. The Ministry had asked her to quit at the expiry of her contract in September 1985 in the background of various allegations against her. However, an order from the PM’s secretariat overruled this order and she was asked to continue.235 The reports against her did not state a single “concrete” case of irregularity, incompetence, or inefficiency. However, Filmfare did report about five prominent filmmakers, namely, Satyajit Ray, Mrinal Sen, Shyam Benegal, Shashi Kapoor, and Amol Palekar236 who had in the past reportedly written a joint letter to the Ministry complaining about her. In addition, there were also individual complaints from Mrinal Sen, Amol Palekar, and Nirad Mahapatra. Alleged financial irregularities were more serious charges levelled against her. The records on profits made from Gandhi were not satisfactory. After her return to the NFDC, the preliminary enquiry into the financial and other aspects of the NFDC, started by the MIB, was reopened. An officer was sent to London to examine matters pertaining to the NFDC’s office there. However, with her reinstatement at the position, Tambay-Vaidya had got the upper hand and in fact succeeded in making allegations against the Ministry itself, and the PMO had already ordered an inquiry into the charge. The NFDC earnings crossing the Rs. 100 lakh mark in 1982–3, barely two years after she took over (in 1980), was her major success.237 NFDC employees were not happy with the Corporation. They were forced to threaten to paralyse the International Film Festival – Filmotsav ’86 – scheduled to open in Hyderabad on 10 January by proposing an indefinite strike all over the country. Various demands were pending with the management due to the ‘negative approach and delayed tactics’ adopted by it. The demands included a 20 per cent wage revision, interim relief, and regularisation of the staff.238 K.K. Mahajan, the official cameraman of many of the

194  National Film Development Corporation New Cinema filmmakers, including Mani Kaul, Kumar Shahani, and Mrinal Sen, said in an interview that the NFDC did not pay its technicians enough, and suggested that the government should put in equal money for workers and production.239 The CBI filed an FIR against an NFDC official in Bombay in February 1986.240 Krishna Gopal, the NFDC executive director (finance), was accused of conspiring with a nationalised bank in getting the sanction of an overdraft of Rs. one lakh without the permission of the NFDC. The CBI stated in its FIR that he had got the amount from the chief manager of the Indian Bank branch at Nariman Point in south Bombay without furnishing any security. He had also opened benami accounts in the bank in the name of nine persons, with all the transactions in his handwriting. While the NFDC remained indifferent to the basic demands of its employees on the lower level, it could not control corruption and financial irregularities on the higher level. The NFDC found itself amid a bigger controversy on sanctioning a loan of Rs. 30 lakhs for Hyderabad’s Ramakrishna Cine Studio owned by the sons of N.T. Rama Rao, the former chief minister of Andhra Pradesh and famous film actor, to set up a dubbing theatre at the Studio.241 The decision was questioned by many, especially those associated with low-budget cinema depending on the NFDC for financial support. The NFDC, chaired then by D.V.S. Raju, justified the loans sanctioned under its equipment and infrastructure support scheme. There were no adequate facilities in Andhra Pradesh, hence this loan was given to set up a technically up to date dubbing studio in Hyderabad. It was pointed out that the same loan application was rejected by the Andhra Pradesh Film Development Corporation in 1988 which was ‘otherwise benevolent towards the industry.’ Ravi Gupta, the NFDC’s MD, also justified the loans, saying that the N.T.R.’s sons do ‘have a right to earn their livelihood’. The loan was given against guarantee of equipment and personal assets. The issue was not as simple as the NFDC officials tried to project it. Manmohan Shetty of Adlabs shared his experience from 1984, when he was sanctioned only Rs. three lakhs for equipment, which he did not take as it was ‘too small an amount’. He was told that the NFDC’s annual budget for equipment was Rs. five lakhs and so it was not possible for it to sanction more. He did not think that the budget was increased since then. B.K. Karanjia had strongly questioned this loan sanctioning. It was this loan which had prompted him to pen his thoughts on his traumatic days at the NFDC as its chairman in 1988.242 He wrote, “The loan may normally be justifiable, but a Telugu Desam minister and a Telugu Desam chairman granting it with almost unseemly haste to a Telugu Desam studio-owner is liable to be misinterpreted, particularly as I understand the loan was refused by the Andhra Pradesh government.”243 In a rejoinder, Ravi Gupta wrote, “What is NFDC’s fault? That the son of a prominent personality, whose contribution to the Indian film industry is significant, happens to be a director of the company to which the loan was approved?”244 Karanjia found the style of functioning in the NFDC to be “highly personalised and tended even to be autocratic.”245 He was particularly disturbed

National Film Development Corporation  195 by the non-observance of financial procedures and was shocked the most by “the total absence of a sense of public accountability.”246 He claimed to have pointed out all this in various memos and letter to the secretary, joint secretary, and the Information and Broadcasting minister himself. He cited two occurrences during his tenure which “brought things to a head.” The first was the purchase of a package of Charlie Chaplin films at “the exorbitant price” of Rs. 50 lakhs. The second was the proposal of hiring out the Corporation’s Shivsagar Estate premises with its mini-theatre. Both these decisions were taken without his knowledge, the second against his wishes and behind his back.247 The hiring out resulted in a loss to the NFDC of Rs. 25 lakhs. Karanjia confessed, “Little did I realise when I accepted the NFDC chairmanship that it would be such a traumatic experience. My seven years’ chairmanship of the FFC from 1969 was much smoother sailing.”248 Karanjia believed that the NFDC needed “a detailed systems study by an appropriate consultant.”249 For him, the NFDC’s financing activities were the only hope for the future, without being hasty to finance only commercially viable projects. Ravi Gupta blamed Karanjia for misleading, and clarified various issues from loan disbursal to public accountability and financial procedures in the NFDC.250 He also discounted Karanjia’s claim that the decision to hire out the Corporation’s Shivsagar Estate premises was taken against his wishes and behind his back. He concluded, “What the NFDC needs above all is people who are constructive. People who will take a stand on issues at the right time. People who will accept their responsibility. Not people who will just sit back and complain.”251 The NFDC and New Cinema can boast of handful of landmarks and achievements in the 1980s. Unlike the FFC, the NFDC was given responsibilities of diverse nature, covering whole of Indian film industry. While the FFC was only a financing body, the NFDC was treated as a policy shaping body. The word “Development” in the NFDC was key to its identity. The NFDC Film Market, Script Award, 100 per cent financing, were some of its major activities in this decade. Though it was regularly directed to prepare financial profiles of all films it financed, it succeeded in producing and supporting some of the boldest Hindi films in its history. Films like Aakrosh, Paar, Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron, Debshishu, Om Dar Ba Dar, Mirch Masala, etc. not only added new grammar to New Cinema, but also made hard-hitting social commentary on growing exploitation, religious hypocrisy, corruption, and political bankruptcy in India. Many of these films also received wider audience acceptance. The NFDC kept receiving regular profits in its accounts. It made an alliance with Doordarshan for the production and exhibition of its feature films (discussed below). The NFDC, in spite of all the pressures, did succeed in promoting new talents like Mira Nair, Nabendu Ghosh, Sudhir Mishra, Kamal Swaroop, and Dilip Chitre. However, the NFDC was regularly reminded by the government to make a balance between the promotion of good cinema and stricter vigilance and supervision on the spending of public money. Words like vigilance, control, supervision, performance, productivity,

196  National Film Development Corporation etc. had, unfortunately, entered the New/Good Cinema lexicon. Reports of the NFDC’s erratic, extra-constitutional behaviour, and regular resignations started affecting its credibility. The Ministry’s letter asking the NFDC to go commercial did slow down its financial decisions. Slowly, a sense did prevail that New Cinema was not a movement and that it had become negligible by the mid-1980s. Controversy over the selection of board of directors, various press exposés against the NFDC, the Corporation’s indifference during film festivals, a lack of transparency over sanctioning loans, and favouritism, all questioned the NFDC’s credibility as a patron body of New/Good Cinema. When Tambay-Vaidya herself came to be at the centre of a controversy about alleged financial irregularities, it seemed to be the last straw on the camel’s back. TV and video added to its legitimisation crisis. Doordarshan, NFDC, and New Cinema To quote Ravi Vasudevan, “We would also have to stay alert to the cultural histories of advertising, radio, recording and television industries as they intersect with the history of cinema”.252 This section deals with Doordarshan’s impact on the film industry, especially on New Cinema. Initially, TV created panic among filmmakers; but gradually it emerged as an aid to the film industry.253 While it did take away a significant portion of the theatre-going public, it also emerged as an alternative channel of screening and exhibition, particularly benefitting the NFDC-financed films. Doordarshan co-opted many New Cinema filmmakers, actors, and FTII graduates.254 The VCR, video disc, and video piracy had already posed considerable challenges to the film industry by affecting its delivery system and production technology.255 Doordarshan was introduced in India in September 1959 with the establishment of a centre at Delhi as a pilot project. Over the years, it expanded its reach and area of activities in the spheres of information, education, and entertainment to achieve several objectives.256 The National Programme was introduced in 1982. The first serial in the “developmental soap operas” genre, a 200-episode chronicle of a North Indian family called Hum Log (We People) was produced by a private advertising agency in cooperation with Doordarshan and sponsored by Colgate-Palmolive and Nestlé.257 Doordarshan got Rs. 35,000 per episode for telecasting Hum Log.258 Various drama, comedy, and mythological serials like Buniyaad (1986–7), Yeh Jo Hai Zindagi (1984), Ramayan (1987–8) and Mahabharat (1988–9), made millions glued to Doordarshan.259 Other popular serials included Hindi film song-based programmes, namely Chitrahaar and Rangoli, and crime thrillers like Karamchand (starring Pankaj Kapoor) and Byomkesh Bakshi (starring Rajit Kapur). Doordarshan telecast a number of serials to cater to the interests of various sections of society. Serials like Subah, Chunouti and Nai Deshayen were specially made for the benefit of the youth. Stree, Shakti and Aur Bhi Hai Rahen were aimed at promoting the welfare of women. Bahadur Shah Zafar, Kala Jal, and Kabir were telecast to promote national integration

National Film Development Corporation  197 and the unity of the country. Hum Hindustani pertained to the theme of health and family welfare. Ramayan had universal appeal and Tamas generated considerable interest.260 Other TV serials namely Rajani, Mr. Ya Mrs., Idhar Udhar, Janvani,261 Newsline, Nukkad, and Quiz Time were extremely popular among viewers. By the late 1980s, serials like Tamas, Ramayan, and Mahabharat had caught the imagination of the country, more so the latter two, with large-scale political and communal consequences.262 Emboldened with mass popularity and government support, Doordarshan entered into making telefilms, and allied with the NFDC in co-production of feature films. The P.C. Joshi Committee’s Report on Doordarshan also recommended the establishment of the Doordarshan Film Development Corporation to judiciously fund the production of TV films.263 In order to make funds available for this purpose, the Committee suggested that one out of the two Hindi feature films telecast weekly by the Delhi Kendra be dropped to save Doordarshan an annual expenditure of more than a crore of rupees, and this amount could be used for sponsoring TV films on themes of interest and value to viewers. The recommendation had some impact when, in the late 1980s, Doordarshan introduced a new scheme to associate eminent producers and directors from the theatre and film industry with the production of serials and telefilms.264 As TV offered a firm contract and a sure income, almost all the major filmmakers, and more so the aspiring ones, aimed for TV assignments.265 Doordarshan opened its own production centres and distribution offices and began to manage and finance its own programmes. It commissioned many leading filmmakers to make 90-minute telefilms. Uma Da Cunha suspected Doordarshan would rival the NFDC and soon emerge as “the main sponsors for the parallel cinema in India. TV’s restriction on length is sure to appeal to foreign markets, where Indian feature films often lose out through being too long and too slow.”266 While TV did reduce the number of theatre-going audiences,267 it also emerged as a rescue point, especially for the New Cinema films. Some even argued that because of Doordarshan’s growth, one did not need smaller cinema houses for the exhibition of art cinema.268 In 1989, Doordarshan started showing programmes for up to 12 hours. Because this time could not be filled in with new programmes, the FFC feature films were shown to fill in the time.269 Mani Kaul’s Uski Roti and Duvidha, Kumar Shahani’s Tarang, Vishnu Mathur’s Pahla Adhyay, were shown on Doordarshan. Party was “premiered” on Doordarshan.270 The NFDC could not ignore Doordarshan’s rising power as a producer and screening avenue. An agreement was signed between the NFDC and Doordarshan to produce good feature films and telefilms with the objective of telecasting them on the national and regional network.271 In 1990 itself, Doordarshan produced five full length feature films commissioning eminent directors under the scheme. These included award winners like Dasi (Telugu, Narasimha Rao), Marrattam (Malayalam, G. Aravindan), Mathilukal (Malayalam, Adoor Gopalakrishnan), Sandhya Ragam (Telugu, Balu Mahendra), Bagh Bahadur (Hindi, Buddhadeb Dasgupta), Daddy

198  National Film Development Corporation (Hindi, Mahesh Bhatt), Thoda Sa Romani Ho Jayen (Hindi, Amol Palekar), and Ishanau (Manipuri, A. Shyam Sharma).272 The collaboration between Doordarshan and the NFDC was commended as a drive to improve the standard of film telecast.273 Doordarshan became the main distribution channel for the low-budget films. Films waited for months together to take advantage of Doordarshan’s sure returns before risking theatrical distribution.274 TV became a fatal seduction for India’s New Cinema talent. Most of them got drawn to the well-sponsored TV serials, apart from telefilms. The flow of feature films from established names was steadily decreasing. While he was still researching for a “massive” 52-episode presentation of Jawaharlal Nehru’s Discovery of India (1988), Shyam Benegal was approached by the Indian railways, and he directed Yatra (1986) for them. Benegal was reported to have acknowledged, “Television has opened new possibilities and I believe it’s going to throw up a lot of talent.”275 Nihalani’s Tamas (1988) had already created quite a stir.276 Saeed Akhtar Mirza, after Nukkad (1986–7), started working on Intezaar (1988), a serial on life observed along a rural railway line, and Kundan Shah was developing Manoranjan (1987), a serial lauding less fortunate film workers. M.S. Sathyu was busy televising stories by the late M.V. Iyengar; Gautam Ghose had just finished a TV project. Post Mirch Masala and Hero Hiralal, Ketan Mehta began on a TV serial titled Mr. Yogi, a satire on matrimony which was aired on Doordarshan between 1988 and 1989; “It was fun, enjoyable, it got a high viewership.”277 While Muzaffar Ali made Jaan-e-Alam (1986), Prakash Jha made Mungherilal (1989–90).278 Basu Chatterjee directed one of the biggest TV hits Rajani (1985). He also made Kakkaji Kahin (1988-89). When asked of being badly affected by TV and video, Basu Chatterjee gave a rather optimistic reply, “good thing TV has come, it’s like a theatre in every home. That’s how I take it…TV is the only way out…a single exposure on TV is better than any theatrical release. So many people see it.”279 In another interview, he said television was the only alternative for filmmakers like him “who can’t conform to the trend of violence and vulgarity in the mainstream.”280 Many of these serials also included known New Cinema actors.281 When Sai Paranjpye started Ados Pados (1985), she brought back Amol Palekar and Rameshwari, who were doing some more serials.282 Another serial called Khandaan (1985) got a galaxy of stars to act in it; Girish Karnad, Tanuja, Dr. Shreeram Lagoo, Jalal Agha, Shekhar Kapur, and Neena Gupta. Supriya Pathak, Ratna PathakShah and Ravi Baswani featured in Idhar Udhar (1985). Apart from exposure, soap operas, telefilms, and introduction of advertising on Doordarshan brought money for many. As Bhaskar Ghose recalled, Mrinal Sen, who also did a serial for Doordarshan, once thanked me, in a slightly mocking, amused tone, for having telecast his serial. ‘My cameraman has built himself a house,’ he said, ‘thanks to Doordarshan’s largesse.’ Saeed Mirza, who made the very popular serial Nukkad, told me much the same thing: ‘I’ve bought a flat, and so has my cameraman.’283

National Film Development Corporation  199 Saeed Mirza accepted in an interview that they turned to TV as it was simply “a matter of survival” for them, along with loving their cinema, “and hopefully we did our stuff with certain amount of integrity…the stuff we did for television.”284 While some people treated art filmmakers joining the Doordarshan as treacherous, few accepted that they contributed a lot to Doordarshan. They gave a foundation which could become a strong base not only for Doordarshan but also for India’s art cinema.285 Analysing some of these feature films and serials, Asghar Wajahat concluded that the concerns in TV serials, like in Mirza’s Nukkad, remained the same – same sensitivity, same perspective on society and art, and definition of life and world, are reflected in their feature films, too. Such TV serials did not stand opposed to their films but rather in support of their larger worldview. Similarly, Doordarshan came to be very useful for feature films like Tamas, which, if it was made for the big screen, would not have got any buyers. Serials like Bharat Ek Khoj proved that how small screen broke limitations of art filmmakers and freed them by providing more opportunities for experimentation. Swapan Mullick combined the efforts of the NFDC along with TV, and wrote, “Young talents may still be talking about hardship but only in relative terms. Television has opened a whole new world of opportunities for recovering costs and remaining engaged.”286 According to Mullick, New Cinema was getting what it wanted thanks to Doordarshan which offered tempting compensations for awardwinners and Panorama entries which were premiered on Doordarshan.287 Some New Cinema filmmakers, though having worked closely with and for Doordarshan, questioned the all-positive verdict given to television visà-vis New Cinema. For Kundan Shah, due to television, the New Wave or ‘art’ cinema was heading for a dead-end. Shah, while accepting that the TV did provide some positive change in the circulation and earning of a New Cinema feature film, the problem of lack of a theatre release still worried these films and filmmakers, because, “for any film aesthetically made, you must have the option of a theatre release”288 and “a climate of creativity for our cinema”.289 For him, it was very important that experiments in cinema continued, “Otherwise, the years of labour put into nurturing India cinema, the Film Archive, the NFDC, the film festivals, the FTII will all be lost, they will be reduced to nought.”290 Pointing out the limitations of a screening on TV, Iqbal Masud also believed that a theatre screening, where people buy tickets to see a film, will have a greater impact in the long run.291 Saeed Akhtar Mirza, while accepting that “any platform is better than no platform”, asked a question, “How do we make TV a venue for good cinema?” According to Mirza, before the two different cinemas, commercial and art, had different production and distribution venues, and the fight was separate; but with TV, both “are in the same boat…And now they are fighting out a ‘Space War’ on TV!”292 He agreed that some big New Cinema filmmakers like Mrinal Sen, Shyam Benegal, M.S. Sathyu, Govind Nihalani, Ketan Mehta, and Kundan Shah were working for television, but this was also a fact that “there’s a

200  National Film Development Corporation widespread feeling of being stifled.”293 According to Kundan Shah, the desire to remain commercially viable and less dependent on the NFDC was forcing his colleagues to turn to TV.294 Saeed Akhtar Mirza also complained, I made three films and the going was awfully rough. You have to get the money back, you have to try hard not to go to the NFDC, you have to try for other producers and they look at you as if you have the plague. You can get killed in the open market.295 When someone questioned his integrity and asked if he had “sold out to the silly box”, he said, “I’ve the track record of Nukkad and Intezar behind me for whatever they’re worth. At least I wasn’t making lousy short stories, at least I wasn’t messing with middle class foibles.”296 Govind Nihalani agreed that, The dependence on TV can affect the parallel cinema in a very destructive way. Because the strength of this cinema comes from its unconventionality and boldness. This is not possible on TV today since it’s controlled by the government and by big money corporations…film makers [also] tend to go for bigger set-ups and bigger stars once they’ve become successful. For the parallel cinema, it’s a time for introspection.297 Quashing the predictions, Doordarshan emerged as a major support for New/Good Cinema in India. It not only provided screening space for the FFC/NFDC-supported feature films, but also made an agreement with the NFDC to co-produce feature films with it. Doordarshan roped in major New Cinema filmmakers, from all regions, to make socially relevant telefilms. New Cinema filmmakers got drawn to tele-serials, too. It brought regular income and work to these filmmakers. It also helped them break their aesthetic limitations and provided more opportunities for experimentation. It was largely agreed that TV did open a new world of opportunities and kept the old and young filmmakers engaged. However, filmmakers like Kundan Shah, Saeed Akhtar Mirza, and Govind Nihalani did point out TV’s negative impact on New Cinema’s creativity, “unconventionality and boldness”. They agreed, rightly so, that it was the desire to remain commercially viable and less dependent on the NFDC that made likes of them and their colleagues to turn to TV. A sense of disillusionment was setting in on New Cinema and the NFDC. Along with facing challenges at the organisational and technological (TV/video) level, they faced a wider criticism on their very existence. This time it became unnerving, as its own chief patrons deserted it. New Cinema: A Delusion? A Big Hoax? An eminent university professor and a reader in psychology conducted a study interviewing young students of post-graduate and graduate courses.

National Film Development Corporation  201 The students were clearly divided in their views on what kind of films appealed to them most. The post-graduate students generally supported intellectual films and also films with political undertones, but the college students expressed a decided preference for films with sex and violence like Sholay, Satyam Shivam Sundaram, The Blue Lagoon, and Summer of ’42. Amongst the ‘New Wave’ films they mentioned Aakrosh and Chakra. The girls on the other hand preferred Ek Din Pratidin.298 Both male and female students were, however, critical of Hindi commercial films. The students had all praise for makers of new genre of films like Shyam Benegal, Govind Nihalani, Saeed Akhtar Mirza, Muzaffar Ali, Gautam Ghosh, Utpalendu Chakravorty, etc. A female student of Presidency College was quoted to have said, ‘There is no means to know life as it is from the traditional films, while the ‘New’ films present life in all its stark realities.’299 They all agreed that the Parallel Cinema can survive only if a taste was created for it by holding seminars through film societies, get adequate state patronage, and quick release outlets in art theatres especially built to exhibit such films. Various seminars were held to discuss the legitimacy of and problems faced by the New Indian Cinema. Most of the speakers at a Seminar on ‘Indian Cinema’ organised by the Indian Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and the Federation of Film Societies of India (Western Region) found it improper to separate films into two distinct compartments of art and commerce.300 Dr. Gopal Dutt pointed out that the demarcation between art and commercial film was based on three factors: the purpose of filmmaking, the quality and character of the creative effort, and the filmmaker’s attitude towards his audiences.301 The Ninth IFFI, Delhi, organised a seminar titled “Struggle for New Indian cinema”, presided over by Basu Bhattacharya.302 The Film Appreciation Group of Youth Forum held a session on the need for a better and more purposeful cinema.303 Govind Nihalani, at the seminar, disagreed with the view that New Cinema was a failure, and asserted that it had made a definite impact. He refuted the charge that the ‘new’ filmmakers did not care for the audience. They rather cared more for the audience as they treated them as a group of ‘intelligent and sensitive people’ rather than as a mass of persons with the mental capacity of an adolescent.304 Smita Patil spoke on the depiction of women in New Cinema and said that it had presented women as persons having their own aspirations, which did differ from commercial cinema which had mostly presented women as sex objects.305 As a chief guest on the Indo-Soviet Good Cinema Day held in Bombay in September 1983, B.K. Karanjia talked about “Good Cinema in India, Prospects and Challenges”.306 While pointing out the challenge of finance as the main constraint faced by “good cinema” in India, he repeated his advice that “good cinema” filmmakers should not confront commercial cinema but modify it from within with their films. Basu Bhattacharya believed that good cinema was no longer helpless and added that the situation in India was probably the best in the world. Samik Bandyopadhyay summed up the early 1980s in New Indian Cinema, when the directors moved into “unfamiliar territories”, broke “new areas of

202  National Film Development Corporation experience”, and touched a level of “cinematic sophistication rarely touched earlier”.307 The 1980s showed signs of a “new” concern for the low caste, minorities, and oppression deeply rooted in Indian society. He illustrated his point by giving examples of Satyajit Ray’s Sadgati (1981), Aparna Sen’s 36 Chowringhee Lane (1981), Adoor Gopalakrishnan’s Elipathayam (1982), and Shyam Benegal’s Mandi (1983). Girish Karnad was grateful to New Cinema for giving a handful of films which one could discuss seriously. Govind Nihalani credited New Cinema for making more and more people believe that cinema was not just for entertainment, it could also be used as a weapon to bring change in society.308 Both praised the FFC/NFDC for their non-interfering attitude. Saeed Mirza told me, while the NFDC needed to be critiqued, it remained an incredible production house, no question about it. It was state sponsored, but the state never intervened, until it’s very important… as producers, to me, not questioning, the finest you can get. We weren’t trapped by market force, we weren’t trapped by stars…it was do as you wish…for me personally, I did as I pleased.309 M.S. Sathyu also told me that the NFDC did not bother him, “the government doesn’t bother you, that way…they have given you an ok…you can even make an anti-government film…they don’t come in the way.”310 Shyam Benegal expressed hope in the younger lot making New Cinema.311 He said, filmmakers like Ketan Mehta and Saeed Mirza, were ‘liberating themselves from some of the constraints’ of old New Cinema.312 While he accepted that the NFDC lacked motivation for distribution of their films, he refused to accept that New Cinema was elitist. For him, art was not elitist, nor was its expression something that only the elite could enjoy.313 Similarly, Kumar Shahani believed, I do think these films are absolutely viable…Supposing we look at it this way, instead of approaching people as basically an audience at which to target the film, if you think of people as community and your film as an expression of their preoccupation and their lives and their forms, will they not accept it?314 Shahani also found it deplorable to be asked about his “target audience”. In a conversation, he said, why should I have a target audience? I am not working for an ad agency, I am not selling soap; I don’t have a target…I make films because, you know, I find suffering all around and I want to do something about it…my own suffering and everybody else’s.315

National Film Development Corporation  203 He took the audience question as a “principle of faith that somebody will watch” his cinema, rather than bothering about it in advance.316 Mani Kaul also rejected that his group did not want to reach to the audience. He refused that he had an audience problem “as much as a distribution problem.”317 Films like his needed to be publicised differently. He echoed Shahani and elaborated, “It’s a myth that I don’t make films for an audience, a myth created by people who are against me. But to begin a film with the presumption that one must appeal to a wide audience is going into mass communication.”318 For him and his colleagues, cinema was not mass communication.319 By the mid-1980s, questions started being raised if it was all over for India’s New Cinema and its patron the NFDC, inviting mixed responses. Rajesh Rathore, calling the NFDC a “Baniya Shop”, posed this question to five filmmakers.320 Shyam Benegal found it ‘fashionable’ to say that the era of small good films was over, he did not think so. He agreed that New Cinema was a partial success; while it did succeed in cultivating an audience, it failed because of improper distribution and exhibition, unlike in Europe where New Cinema had succeeded because it was exhibited well. Aruna Desai, accepting that Parallel Cinema was in ‘the doldrums’, was hopeful of its future, “new cinema will come back to life.”321 Manmohan Shetty, who produced Chakra, Hip Hip Hurray, Ardh Satya, and Aaghat, stressed that if New Cinema survived at all, it would be because of the NFDC. He also suggested making TV films and using Doordarshan for “small” artistic films. Saeed Akhtar Mirza was hopeful that it would not disappear altogether. That said, he did emphasise that the definition of serious cinema was changing and the ‘old guns of art cinema’ will have to modify their ‘mode and attitude’.322 New Cinema was indeed evolving and redefining itself, as its young practitioners were questioning its standardised understanding. Ketan Mehta explained, The idea of there being just one kind of new cinema is an oversimplification to begin with. Every five years, there is a new concept of new cinema. There’s now a new New Cinema emerging on the horizon which has learnt the lessons of the last 20 years. In terms of the historical validity of the kind of films we should have. I am sure you will see it soon, emerging very strongly.323 While Mehta received support from Vinod Chopra, Kundan Shah disagreed with them, and thought that New Cinema was dead, because “I can’t make the kind of film I want” and audiences for it in cinema halls were still inaccessible.324 Shah reminded how the sense of experimentation, good or bad, in New Cinema had died out. Ketan Mehta held to his views and said there were more filmmakers and greater variety in the kind of cinema that was being made then.

204  National Film Development Corporation While the Corporation was praised for its success in establishing a production apparatus for low-budget films, at a time when “lavish production patterns were the rule in an industry held to ransom by a handful of superstars and super directors”, critics found New Cinema’s dependence on government patronage unhealthy.325 With the formation of the FFC, according to Rungachary, control of the New Cinema movement went in “the lily white hands of bureaucrats.”326 He alleged that “academically impressive sounding terms”, e.g. art cinema, New Wave, avant-garde, experimental, alternative cinema, personal cinema were created “to conceal the new cinema’s lack of form, content, direction, and technical skill.”327 His attack became more callous and personal when he attacked Kaul’s Uski Roti, and Shahani’s Maya Darpan, as “orgies of self-indulgence”, “gin-and-lime-films”.328 According to him, such films made New Cinema “the cinema of non-communication”. He gave New Cinema only two choices – “fold up and sink away in the dead of night, or regroup and redefine its basic objectives.” If New Cinema chose to survive, Rungachary expected it to accept few fundamentals, e.g., filmmaking is “an enormously expensive business.”329 While Siddhartha Basu found “committed cinema” to be too socially relevant, ideologically driven, and message oriented,330 and Shoma A. Chatterji criticised them for possessing a “safe-playing, fence-sitting, non-committal attitude”.331 M. Bhaktavatsala, former president of the FFI, and then a Director of the NFDC, used some of the harshest and uncivil words, while attacking the New Cinema filmmakers and their supporters, In the dozen cans of the NFDC are the secrets of many of these sons in law of the country who used the system, the time and the media to their advantage, making films that were not seen, getting away without paying their debts because they won over the innocents of cinema who inhabit for short periods the posts of Ministers, Chairmen and Managing Directors of film corporations by their glib talk – literally making them love their backsides.332 Continuing the unpleasant attack on the New Cinema practitioners, Mahesh Bhatt called them and art film critics “self-fulfilling bastards”.333 He wrote, do these socially-conscious film makers practise what they preach? While they have their chicken and caviare [sic] they discuss hunger and exploitation. They condemn the establishment and at the same time politic for state patronage. At least our industry admits it wants power, money and a better way of living. Unlike these pretentious panderers of art who exploit hunger and deprevation [sic] to elevate their own status in society.334 Bhatt particularly attacked Mrinal Sen. When he chose Amar, Akbar, Anthony over Khandhar, Mrinal Sen said that he would have felt “uncomfortable” and doubted his own creativity had he not proved boring to Mahesh Bhatt.335

National Film Development Corporation  205 B.R. Chopra blamed the government and the NFDC for creating divisions in the film industry, in the name of art and the commercial, “with a view perhaps to rule the industry”, and disturbing “the happy homogeneity of the film world in India.”336 He also said that it was the mainstream, commercial cinema, which, apart from paying major entertainment taxes and huge excise levy, literally ran the FD, provided major base for financing Doordarshan and even contributed to the income of the NFDC, “without any return in exchange.”337 He found the division created between film producers as “alarming” and tragic. He wanted to end this unnecessary division and rivalry between the two, “so that instead of slinging mud at each other we could take notice of each other, learn from each other, give and take”.338 While B.K. Karanjia had already suggested that New Cinema should work with commercial cinema to effect a change from within, Iqbal Masud wanted it to give popular cinema “a fraternal look”, not a patronising or opportunistic look.339 Masud blamed New Cinema of not using and reacting well enough to a variety of issues, of misery, corruption, and opportunism, etc., spread across India in the 1980s. He blamed New Cinema of being “strangely limited, naive (despite its knowingness) and cut off from the vitality of the people.”340 Kishore Valicha also wrote that the true reason for the decline of the serious film lay in its own “inadequacy”, apart from video and other technological advances.341 Despite its achievements, the serious film could not succeed in being “genuinely creative”; “Its failure arises out of its general inability and unwillingness to probe real issues and in its glib acceptance of cliches to cloak its lack of moral and artistic credibility.”342 He illustrated his point by discussing films like Party, Arth, and Subah. Among the reasons cited for the crisis in New Cinema, one was that the concerns these films tackled were “straitjacketed” to meet the international standards of excellence and awards, and they failed “to touch the pulse of the Indian masses.”343 It was assumed to be a less subversive cinema than commercial cinema. Georgekutty blamed the New Cinema aesthetic as the “sensibility of the literate elite in our metropolitan cities” who were angry and wanted change in society but ended up “submitting to the establishment’s notions of art and artistic concerns.”344 Hrishikesh Mukherjee, while referring to his times spent at the FFC/NFDC as “most satisfying” and agreed with the movement, expressed his disagreement with the kind of film that came out of it. Elaborating his disappointment, he said, They are trying to show that their films are different. While it is not so. Their films are pretentious. But Mani’s [sic] Kaul films I find brilliant. He is an exception. When Aravindan and Adoor Gopalakrishnan can keep making films in Kerala, why aren’t Kumar Shahani, Mani Kaul and Saeed Mirza able to? It hurts me, it makes me angry. I feel their films lack a love for the common man.345

206  National Film Development Corporation Saeed Akhtar Mirza situated the general “wilderness” and so-called “pretence” of creativity that the serious cinema was suffering from in the then prevalent political and cultural scenario.346 He found the New Cinema crisis to be reflective of the nature of the then existing Indian state. According to Mirza, there was no sanity, we could not truly claim to be a sovereign socialist democratic republic. There was a vacuum on the cultural and intellectual front. Aruna Vasudev also concluded that the conditions limiting New Cinema’s expansion and evolution were both economic and political.347 She pointed out the state governments’ backing away when it came to exhibiting the films, and a lack of will power to accomplish commercial distribution. Without the two, the New Cinema films had no way of proving their financial viability or of building up “public patronage” that would relieve these filmmakers from permanent dependence on government support.348 Surveying the growth of Bengali films, Ajoy K. Dey lamented about not a single good film made in 1988.349 The Bengal government discontinued the financing of feature films which further worsened the situation. Seeking government intervention and forming of a film policy in these circumstances, Dey wrote, echoing Mirza, “For the public taste for culture is, after all, a by-product of the social, economic and political situations, educational system and cultural policies of a country.”350 By the late 1980s, a general consensus emerged that New Indian Cinema needed to rewrite its aims and objectives. When in early 1990, the conflict between “art” and “commercial” cinema resurfaced, the doubt of the NFDC going commercial reappeared.351 It was also going to get a new board of directors’ panel.352 Et tu, Naseer? Namak Haraam, Naseer?

The spirit which had guided the New Cinema movement and its actors was summed up in what Naseeruddin Shah said in an interview, “Let’s say I’ll have to be relevant to our times. My performances must contain elements of truth, which is recognisable at any time and which is valid for all times.”353 The stress was on relevance, truth, and validity. He believed that it was the responsibility of every creative artiste to reflect his times truthfully so that it can be a record for the future, the only important function that films could serve.354 However, by the mid-1980s, with the burden of development and economic viability, government support shifting to television, and their directors switching to Doordarshan, a sense of disenchantment and disillusionment started prevailing among the New Cinema practitioners and patrons. This segment discusses that emotion, with a special highlight on Naseeruddin Shah’s conversion, a sweeping endorsement of commercial films, and his open rebellion against New Cinema and its filmmakers. Before Naseeruddin Shah, Smita Patil, another star of the New Indian Cinema, had confessed of having made her peace with Hindi commercial cinema. She said,

National Film Development Corporation  207 I have come to terms with reality, it has been a difficult transition, but I made it. Now I can work with any director, in any film and feel comfortable. I am prepared to do any roles, any scenes, bold, bad or ‘boxoffice’ – as long as I am convinced that no one is trying to depict and make use of a woman’s body and sex to make money…355 And then came Naseeruddin Shah’s open rebellion. Shah was quoted to have said, ‘You can’t make a boring brooding film and expect people to sit through it. I’m not snobbish about the so-called art film. I’d any day accept a film made with a sense of fun!’356 No one could believe Naseeruddin to have said something like this. M.V. asked in Filmfare, “Is this a sellout?”357 He described the change, Not only is he stripping down to his briefs and traipsing in the sun, he’s leaping off third floor balconies doing stunts, working out at the gym, acquiring a brand new set of muscles, and signing films with the likes of Subhash Ghai (Karma), for vast sums of money…Does that mean goodbye to those days as the uncrowned king of NFDC sponsored cinema. Et tu…!358 Opening up on his disenchantment with “the better cinema movement”, Shah told in another interview how “In the last 10 years the quality of films within this movement hasn’t improved. No new ground has been broken after the first few attempts, the subsequent ones have been repetitive of themselves.”359 When he was asked whether he would have got the aura that he had then without acting in “off beat films”, he elaborated his defence thus, What you’re saying is pure speculation. What I do know is that I would have proved my worth as an actor sooner or later in any kind of cinema. It was just a coincidence of history that I happened to be around and that I happened to be the actor, offbeat film makers wanted at that time. Whether I made the best of the opportunities is open to debate. It was chance, luck, whatever, that it happened to me and not somebody else. So, in that sense I owe as much to those films as they owe to me. Certainly no favours have been done by either side…It’s time to do something else…I do know that we have to part company with these films makers for a while. Because they’re only making television serials and the few who aren’t, are contemplating films with big stars. I don’t like to complain but I’ve been left midstream. So I guess at the moment I’ll opt for movies which give me my bread and butter.360 He confessed in the interview that working in Mrinal Sen’s Genesis (1986) contributed immensely to his disillusionment and it was an experience he would like to forget.361 When Naseeruddin was asked what made him sign “hard-core” commercial films, he replied,

208  National Film Development Corporation The reason why I am doing these films now is because I’ve always wanted to do them. I’ve never had anything against commercial cinema. The fact that I came to be associated with art or non-commercial cinema was not my doing. It just happened that earlier my commercial films all flopped whereas the other films went on to win awards. Yet, even if I am doing many commercial films today it does not mean that I have entirely switched over from serious cinema.362 The anger and disillusionment deep inside did not take much time to come out when he blasted, But there is no longer serious cinema, at least in Bombay. All those so-called committed film-makers, those so-called Marxists, have very coolly gone over to television. All the great Mrinal Sens, Shyam Benegals and Syed [sic] Mirzas who preached Marxism to us have now ended up lining their own pockets, cheating the actors and cheating their entire units and making money for themselves; yet those creeps are still preaching Marxism. Serious cinema was a big hoax from the start. These guys were making ‘art films’ not because they believed in them, but because they were incapable of making masala entertainers for mass audiences. The moment Doordarshan provided them with an alternative, they ran thither and churned out rubbish like Nukkad and Manoranjan. The reason why serious cinema has died is because the people who were making serious Hindi cinema were a bunch of bloody fakes. I don’t think I’ll ever work with them again.363 It was shocking to have come across such words from Naseeruddin Shah. The fans and cinephiles did react to Shah’s open rebellion against New Indian cinema. In a letter written to Filmfare, Ranjita Biswas from Calcutta found Shah’s outburst against “arty” cinema to be more an expression of his frustration at the commercial Hindi film scene than a genuine ‘I’ve always wanted to do them’ kind of stance… His lambasting art cinema perhaps stems from two reasons: One, every actor yearns for a larger audience and a permanent place in the limelight…Two, making a fast buck is important364 When Mrinal Sen was asked to comment on Naseeruddin Shah’s statements on Genesis, he responded bluntly, He has been terribly ungrateful, a namak haraam to the new cinema movement. It is because of new cinema that he became a name and I’m very grateful that he made himself available to me. I wish he had been a little more careful before shooting his mouth off. I wish he hadn’t made

National Film Development Corporation  209 childish statements. Naseer is a serious, mature actor who has a brat lurking within him. Deny him his lollipop and he gets nasty.365 It was reported that Saeed Akhtar Mirza wanted to cast Naseeruddin Shah as Salim Langda; but he started looking out for “new talent” after Shah’s “dripping vitriol” against his “kind of cinema”. Mirza said, Naseer, I feel, would like a film maker to be a martyr, someone who gets nailed, crucified. Sorry, but I refuse to play this role, I’m no god. If a film maker’s starving, if he’s ready to blow his brains out, then he’s okay. Naseer has stretched this logic too far. For him, all those early films of his don’t seem to matter any more [sic]. But look at the stuff he’s doing now, it won’t be remembered by history.366 Apart from the New Cinema stars, its producers were also disappointed with the movement. Shashi Kapoor, who was on the board of directors at the NFDC, and had patronised “good” cinema by producing films like Utsav, Junoon, Kalyug, etc., confessed in an interview, I was betrayed by the people I chose, they would leave the baby in my lap as soon as a project was over. I never interfered in their work though looking back, I feel I should have given them a piece of my mind. They don’t know how humiliated I feel when financiers, brokers and even their peons talk rudely to me. I’m in a fix but my directors go on to make ad films, they make money selling light-bulbs and hair lotion.367 Elaborating his concept of good cinema, he said, Good cinema is certainly no Naseeruddin Shah. Nor is good cinema the National Film Development Corporation (NFDC). I may be on its board of directors but I’m so sick of it that I didn’t attend its meetings for six months…I haven’t seen too many of the NFDC films; what I’ve seen I’ve disliked. They have a blank screen, then you hear the tak-tak sound of heels, a man enters the frame, keeps walking, exits and the tak-tak ends. Sorry, this tak-tak is not cinema.368 He also said that his future films were designed to sell tickets, to get a wide commercial release, and, “I will never make a film in my life again that’ll only be released at the Akashwani theatre. That place is like a morgue.”369 To sum up, the FFC/NFDC and New Cinema movement were praised for making people believe that cinema can be used as a weapon to change society. Young filmmakers like Ketan Mehta, Saeed Akhtar Mirza, and Kundan Shah,

210  National Film Development Corporation in the 1980s, were redefining and questioning a singular understanding of New Cinema. However, Doordarshan and other technological advancements brought an abrupt halt to its progress. When the government funding shifted to TV, it exposed how badly New Cinema and the NFDC were dependent on government patronage. New Cinema’s star directors joined Doordarshan and started making telefilms and serials for it. With no funding and directors unavailable to make full length feature films, producers like Shashi Kapoor, and New Cinema’s own stars like Smita Patil and Naseeruddin Shah publicly expressed their helplessness, and disenchantment with New Cinema. With its chief patrons, including its financiers, directors, producers, and actors gone to earn money and make profits, there were all indications that New Cinema was heading towards a different kind of transformation. By the early 1990s, with a new government at the centre, it was doubted that the NFDC would again face the diktat of “go commercial”. Prelude to the 1990s By the late 1980s, the Hindi film scene had come to be “Catastrophic and paradoxical”.370 However, according to T.M. Ramachandran, while a doom was predicted for the industry, production of Hindi films was increasing on a regular basis. Even though many famous filmmakers were either idle or had turned to video films or TV, several new producers and directors had emerged. Many believed that these newcomers were perhaps smugglers, drug peddlers, and black marketeers.371 The “financial chaos” in the Hindi film industry had reached such catastrophic proportions that it was impossible for the industry to recover and progress further. Rising prices, including star prices, and various taxes had made things very difficult for any Hindi film producer to invest in a film.372 A total of 80 per cent of the films released flopped miserably. The overseas market too had virtually collapsed.373 Video and TV had already taken over “the hypnotic power” of cinema.374 It was paradoxical that when India needed more cinema houses, the ones existing were getting converted into housing, shopping complexes, and hotels. Bringing the government’s role in improving the situation, Ramachandran wrote, “Ineffective legislative and inefficient administrative measures and an unreasonable taxation policy have pushed the industry to the precipice. Unless the downward plunge is stopped, the day is not far off when the industry will crash disastrously.”375 Discussing the challenges of the 1990s for Indian film industry, B.K. Karanjia also anticipated, “Government will have to shed some of the enormous powers it today exercises over the industry and assume much of the responsibility it owes to an industry from which it is going to draw about 500 crores annually by way of taxation.”376 With the formation of a new government in 1989, the cultural policies were being reformulated. Under the V.P. Singh government at the centre, the “dismemberment” of the “massive” MHRD was started. It signified the new government’s cultural policy, too.377 The department of culture was to be

National Film Development Corporation  211 transferred to the MIB. Performing arts, heritage sites, precious manuscripts and antiques were not surely just meant to be preserved and venerated. “They should be brought out and exposed to the people.”378 These changes, it should be noted, were proposed and implemented in opposition to Congress regime’s festivals and “apna utsavs”. The National Front government proposed “to take culture out of its cardboard boxes and moth-balls.” It was decided to do so through the communication ministry “without the cultural extravaganza and expenditure of the erstwhile regime”.379 The Festivals of India abroad and the reciprocal ones in India were to be scaled down due to its limited resources and the outcry against the extravaganza of the Congress regime. The Directorate of Festivals was to be merged with the Directorate of Film Festivals. The song and drama division, the electronic network of radio and television, and the NFDC were to be used to make culture visible, and project ‘national priorities’. Concluding Remarks The 1980s had rechristened New Cinema as “Good Cinema”, indicating that there was nothing “New” anymore in this Cinema. In a speech, the then President of India, Shankar Dayal Sharma put the responsibility of making society better on “good cinema”.380 Conversely, B.K. Karanjia stressed Good Cinema could only be made and succeed in making a better and more positive society, only if the government assumed much of the responsibility, especially cutting down its greed for hoarding various kinds of taxes from the film industry. It was only the government which could create that “congenial cinematic climate” to help Good Cinema survive at all. Karanjia brought the government back to the centre of the solution to the disorder in the Indian film industry. Sadly, the wave of privatisation in the early 1990s was going to be far more ruthless towards the government-dependent NFDC and New Indian Cinema. The state was to put on the role of a facilitator. The pressures of commercial viability, creating its own funding through profit centres, contribution to the national treasury, and various technological and communication challenges had affected the NFDC’s support for experimental cinema and young filmmakers, while also changing the form and content of New Indian Cinema. The economic reforms of 1991 were to bring a fresh set of survival challenges for the NFDC and an identity crisis for New Indian Cinema. Notes 1 ‘Growth sans prosperity’, Screen, 18 January 1980, p.8. 2 ‘An Open Letter To New Minister for Information’, Screen, 18 January 1980, p.4. 3 N. Narayan, ‘What Is Wrong With The Indian Blockbuster’, Screen, 28 March 1980, p.15. 4 Ibid. 5 ‘‘Mass appeal’ films can’t be ignored: Prasad’, Screen, 9 May 1980, p.15. 6 ‘Wanted: synthesis of culture, commerce in films, says Sathe’, Screen, 9 May 1980, p.15.

212  National Film Development Corporation 7 Report of the Working Group on National Film Policy, 1980, p.1. 8 Ibid. p.iii. 9 Ibid. 10 Ibid. 11 Ibid. p.6. 12 Ibid. p.7. Also see, ‘Cinema as ‘industry’: Delhi’s plan’, Screen, 1 August 1980, p.1; and ‘Facts and figures’, Screen, 15 January 1982, p.1. 13 Report of the Working Group on National Film Policy, p.18. 14 Kumar Shahani and Mani Kaul wrote a letter to Indira Gandhi, dated 2 March 1982, supporting the need to set up the Akademi, “that can undertake research to enhance the quality of Indian cinema…headed by a person whose commitment to the cause is unquestionable, universal and non-sectarian.” Charting six important aims for the Akademi, Shahani and Kaul stressed that parallel institutions like the FTII and NFDC cannot with their existing responsibilities undertake the “pioneering” work of the Akademi. They stressed, “only a purely cultural organisation, functioning at a high level, can achieve deep and long lasting integration of the diverse traditions of our country.” See, Rajadhyaksha, 2015, p.257. 15 Report of the Working Group on National Film Policy, p.19. 16 Ibid. p.65. Emphasis added. 17 Ibid. 18 Ibid. p.66. 19 Ibid. p.67. 20 Report 1980–81, 1981, p.4. 21 Arun Khanna, ‘Information Ministers agree to take cinema on Union list’, Screen, 14 November 1980, p.1. The Report of the Film Enquiry Committee (1951) had expressed similar helplessness, and pointed out to other priority areas for bank finance. See Chapter 2 of this book. 22 ‘More controls?’ Screen, 5 September 1980, p.1. Also see, Sanjit Narwekar, ‘Karanth report urges control on film production, distribution sectors’, Screen, 29 August 1980, pp.1–2. 23 ‘A report of convenience – I: Palliative, No Cure’, Screen, 12 September 1980, p.6. Also see, ‘A Report of Convenience – II: A host of questions’, Screen, 19 September 1980, p.6. 24 Hameeduddin Mahmood, ‘The Karanth Committee report betrays a lack of futuristic vision’, Screen, 12 December 1980, p.18. 25 Ibid. 26 Ibid. 27 Hameeduddin Mahmood, ‘The Karanth Committee Report: a futile exercise in time and thought’, Screen, 19 December 1980, p.16. 28 Chidananda Das Gupta, ‘Report on National Film Policy: Is ‘Big Cinema’ Bad Cinema?’, Filmfare, 1–15 December 1980, p.39. 29 V. Verma, ‘Trade leaders flay Working Group’s ‘superficial’ report’, Screen, 19 September 1980, pp.1–2. 30 Committee on Public Undertakings (1982–83), 1983, p.1. 31 Ibid. p.2. 32 Ibid. p.6. 33 Ibid. p.12. 34 Discussed separately in a section below on the NFDC’s performance and assessment of its working during this decade. 35 Committee on Public Undertakings (1982–83), p.15. This proposal was similar to what the French government had executed in the post-War period in France to improve French cinema. See Chapter 1 of this book.

National Film Development Corporation  213 36 Ibid. p.16. Films like Atyachar, Adi Shankaracharya, Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro, Massey Sahib, Ghare Baire, Party, and Tarang were approved under this scheme. 37 Ibid. p.17. 38 Ibid. p.18. 39 Ibid. p.17. Emphasis added. 40 Ibid. p.19. Also see, V. Verma, ‘CPU suggests more funds for NFDC projects’, Screen, 3 June 1983, p.1 & 8. Keeping in mind the expansion of video and television, the CPU (1982–3) suggested that halls with a seating capacity of 200 to 300 and fitted with a video recorder be made available, alternative to full-fledged cinema houses in rural and semi-urban areas. 41 Committee on Public Undertakings (1983–84), 1984, p.2. Also see, V. Verma, ‘CPU asks NFDC to expedite its Corporate Plan’, Screen, 4 May 1984, pp.1–2. 42 Committee on Public Undertakings (1983–84), p.6. Once again, note the emphasis on “Profit Centres”. 43 The NFDC was assumed to consolidate official machinery “for phased takeover of film industry in the course of time.” See ‘Milestones of 1980’, Screen, 9 January 1981, p.21. 44 Umesh Mathur, ‘Diminishing returns: exhibition trade crisis infects whole industry’, Screen, 2 May 1980, p.1 & 14. The construction of theatres had gone down drastically from 500 a year to 164 in 1984–5. See, V. Verma, ‘Drastic drop in theatre construction activity’, Screen, 2 August 1985, p.1. 45 V. Verma, ‘Fall in Film Production: Two-decade trend in industry reversed’, Screen, 22 August 1980, pp.1–2. 46 V. Verma, ‘Another tough year ahead for Indian cinema’, Screen, 1 January 1982, p.1 & 8. For details, check p.8 in Ibid. 47 Also see, R.G. Khedekar, ‘Sales Tax Bill: Repercussions on film trade, Cinegoers will be the worst hit’, Screen, 27 August 1982, p.1 & 10. 48 V. Verma, ‘Budget curb disastrous for film trade’, Screen, 15 April 1983, pp.1–2. 49 B.K. Karanjia, ‘Taking The Show Out Of Show Business’, Screen, 25 March 1983, pp.1–2. 50 Ibid. 51 P. Raja Ramdass, ‘Raw stock price raise is requiem for new cinema’, Screen, 8 August 1980, p.20. 52 Ibid. 53 Iqbal Masud, ‘How to be a ‘Parallel’ Filmmaker and Still Succeed?’ Cinema Vision India, Vol. 1, No. 2, April 1980, p.94. 54 R.K. Soral, ‘Institutional Finance for Indian Films’, Screen, 18 March 1983, p.8. The fear of black money intruding Indian film industry proved true and showed its impact in the 1990s. 55 ‘A Wasting Industry’, Screen, 3 June 1983, p.16. Also see, Harish Mehra, ‘The Great Film Recession: Hindi cinema in a soup’, Filmfare, 1–15 August 1982, p.37. 56 Anmol Purohit, ‘Industry Must Unite and Enforce Discipline’, Screen, 15 October 1982, pp.1–2. Also see, B.K. Karanjia, ‘Philosophy of the Low-Budget Film’, Screen, 19 February 1982, pp.1–2. 57 See, V. Verma, ‘Stars to work one shift a day? : AIFPC, CAA to persuade stars’, Screen, 23 April 1982, p.1; Pandit Shimpi, ‘Radical Remedies To Combat Recession’, Screen, 30 July 1982, pp.1–2. 58 Shoma A. Chatterji, ‘The Hindi film industry faces its worst recession’, Screen, 3 June 1983, p.16. 59 B.K. Karanjia, ‘Film and TV in the Seventh Plan’, Screen, 8 February 1985, pp.1–2.

214  National Film Development Corporation 60 Ibid. 61 Ibid. 62 Khalid Mohammed, ‘Mainstream Cinema ’86: And the Show Went On’, in Indian Cinema 1986, p.27. 63 Ibid. 64 Indira Gandhi’s assassination was a heavy loss to the film fraternity. B.K. Karanjia, who had a “personal glimpse” with Indira Gandhi during their seven-year association (1969–76), wrote, “She not only turned to cinema for occasional entertainment, she was an enlightened and confirmed cineaste.” She had defended the FFC’s promotional aspect, was against the investment pressure placed on it, and espoused the idea of the FFC being in a position to encourage the production of artistic and quality films. See, B.K. Karanjia, ‘Indira: Enlightened Cineaste’, Screen, 9 November 1984, pp.1–2. For more on the Punjab crisis and wider Hindu-Sikh polarisation, see Rita Sharma, ‘The Police in Punjab: Seething Conflict’, The Illustrated Weekly of India, 3 August 1986, pp.16–7. 65 See, Khalid Mohamed, ‘Fatal Attraction’, The Illustrated Weekly of India, 13–19 November 1988, pp.8–19; and, Khalid Mohamed, ‘The 80s: Entertainment’, The Illustrated Weekly of India, 31 December 1989, p.34. 66 Connie Haham, ‘Lessons the spectators are learning’, Filmfare, 1–15 March 1982, p.35. Curiously, Hameeduddin Mahmood had blamed the NFDC for the “insane violence” that had “corroded” Indian cinema. He criticised the NFDC for patronising imports of similar films, revealing “an abject lack of social accountability.” See, Hameeduddin Mahmood, ‘1982 survey III: Reluctant introspection, persistent crises’, Screen, 11 February 1983, p.17. 67 See, ‘Arwal Massacre: A Government Conspiracy? Report of an Investigation’, 1986. 68 See, S.N.M. Abdi, ‘Darkness At Noon’, The Illustrated Weekly of India, 22 June 1986, pp.8–17. 69 See, Kajal Basu, ‘Perilous Portents’, The Illustrated Weekly of India, 22 June 1986, pp.22–3; and Romesh Thapar, ‘The Hindus: A Call To Arms’, The Illustrated Weekly of India, 7 December 1986, pp.8–17. The Shah Bano case, the opening of the gates of Babri Masjid, and the implementation of the Mandal Commission recommendations gave rise to militant Hindutva, and helped BJP win 88 seats in the 1989 elections. For details on the Mandal Commission and its aftermath, see S. Balakrishnan, ‘Without Reserve’, The Illustrated Weekly of India, 21 January 1990, pp.30–5; and Coomi Kapoor, ‘Drawing The Battle Lines’, The Illustrated Weekly of India, 16 September 1990, pp.22–5. 70 Ashok Mitra, ‘A Matter Of Faith’, The Illustrated Weekly of India, 24 August 1986, p.17. 71 ‘The 80s’, The Illustrated Weekly of India, 31 December 1989, p.10. 72 Rita Manchanda, ‘The Great Leap Forward’, The Illustrated Weekly of India, 9 November 1986, pp.26–9. Manchanda found this exercise in “cultural democracy” to be filtered through “an elitist perspective of culture as a commodity to be disseminated to the masses.” (p.29). 73 Ray, ‘The New Cinema and I’, p.58. The essay was originally published in Cinema Vision India, July 1980. 74 Ibid. p.59. 75 Holloway, 1981, p.26. 76 Ibid. p.27. 77 Also see, ‘NFDC achieves major breakthrough at Cannes’, Screen, 12 June 1981, p.1 & 10. 78 ‘Film India III presents Contemporary Cinema’, Screen, 9 October 1981, p.1 & 10.

National Film Development Corporation  215 79 S.M., ‘He makes ‘barred’ films saleable’, Filmfare, 1–15 April 1981, p.35. 80 The New Cinema movement had indeed attracted private money: Rama Reddy for Samskara, which he also directed, Blaze Film Enterprises for Shyam Benegal, Ravindran Nair for Adoor Gopalakrishnan and Aravindan, Laxmi Narayan for Girish Karnad, S. Suvarna for Girish Kasaravalli, Manmohan Shetty of Adlabs, and Shashi Kapoor of Film Valas for many New Cinema practitioners. See, Uma Da Cunha, ‘India’, International Film Guide, 1987, p.219. B.K. Karanjia wrote an editorial piece praising Shashi Kapoor’s contribution to good cinema. See, B.K. Karanjia, ‘The Star Who Ploughs Back’, Screen, 5 June 1981, p.1 & 2. 81 Report 1980–81, p.38. 82 Ibid. p.39. 83 ‘FFC ‘expands its range’- from script to release’, Screen, 28 March 1980, p.11. 84 Arun Kumar T.R., ‘D.V.S. Raju: ‘A lot can be done and we are at it’’, Filmfare, 1–15 May 1981, p.47. 85 The letter and the controversy are discussed in detail in a separate section below. 86 The NFDC’s scheme for 100 per cent financing implied that the film would then be totally owned by the Corporation. Out of the profits made on the film, however, seven and a half per cent was to go to the director and two and a half per cent to the scriptwriter. The scheme had, thus, been devised to ensure total involvement of the director and accrual of the overflow to the Corporation. Out of seven projects approved for 100 per cent financing, film Atyachar was completed and two films Adi Shankaracharya and Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron were under production. See, Seventh Annual Report 1981–82, 1982, p.8. 87 ‘No change in NFDC policy’, Screen, 31 December 1982, pp.1–2. 88 ‘NFDC resumes financing films’, The Times of India, 24 December 1982, p.3. 89 Seventh Annual Report 1981–82, p.5. 90 Ibid. 91 Ibid. 92 Ibid. 93 Ibid. 94 Ibid. p.6. 95 Ibid. p.11. 96 Ibid. p.6. NFDC films brought laurels to the country. 36 Chowringhee Lane won the Golden Eagle Award for Best Film at the Manila Film Festival; Bhavni Bhavai won a UNESCO Human Rights Award at the Festival of Three Continents, Nantes (France); and Chakra won the Golden Leopard Award for Best Film at the Locarno Film Festival, Switzerland. 97 Ibid. p.7. 98 ‘Chitre bags top prize in NFDC’s script contest’, Screen, 4 June 1982, p.4. 99 The Akashwani auditorium was reopened, “a long-standing need (and a dream for lovers of good cinema)”, in June 1981, with a lot of fanfare after more than five years. See, ‘Akashwani reopens’, Screen, 19 June 1981, p.1. 1981 saw a six per cent growth in theatres, with as many as 595 cinema houses constructed during 1980. See, V. Verma, ‘Six per cent growth in theatres’, Screen, 24 April 1981, pp.1–2. 100 See Seventh Annual Report 1981–82, p.5 for details. 101 Ibid. p.9. 102 Ibid. p.10. 103 Ibid. p.11. 104 Ibid. p.12. 105 Eighth Annual Report 1982–83, 1983, p.5. 106 Ibid. 107 Ibid. p.6. Emphasis added.

216  National Film Development Corporation 108 Ibid. p.8. 109 Ibid. p.8. 110 Ibid. 111 Ibid. p.9. 112 Ibid. p.10. 113 Ibid. p.11. 114 Ibid. p.12. 115 Ibid. p.16. 116 Ibid. 117 Ibid. p.17. 118 Ibid. p.20. 119 ‘Government monitors NFDC’s finances’, Screen, 4 March 1983, p.16. 120 ‘NFDC must observe financial discipline: Mallikarjun’, Screen, 22 April 1983, pp.1–2. 121 V. Verma, ‘‘1982–83: NFDC’s year of consolidation’’, Screen, 22 April 1983, pp.1–2. 122 ‘Hrishi is new chief of NFDC’, Screen, 2 December 1983, p.1. 123 ‘Rs. 40 lakhs for NFDC’s plans’, Screen, 11 November 1983, pp.1–2. 124 Ibid. 125 Annual Report 1983–84, 1984, p.3. 126 Annual Report 1984–85, 1985, p.40. 127 ‘NFDC’s record’, Screen, 25 May 1984, pp.1–2. 128 Saaransh (1984) was financed by Rajshri Pictures, a well-known private production house, and produced by Basu Bhattacharya. 129 Shanta Serbjeet Singh, ‘Introduction’, Indian Cinema 1984, p.3. 130 Ibid. 131 Ibid. p.4. Also see, Screen, 28 September 1984, p.12, for a content-rich advertisement on NFDC titled “Breaking the Barriers”. 132 Sanjit Narwekar, ‘Spurt in NFDC’s direct exports, Non-traditional markets yield rich dividends’, Screen, 8 March 1985, p.1 & 15. 133 ‘Demand for Indian films on rise’, The Times of India, 1 June 1989, p.6. 134 ‘Interview with Mrs. Malati Tambay-Vaidya, ‘We cannot compel them to buy Indian films’’, Screen, 8 March 1985, p.15. 135 See, B.K. Karanjia, ‘Think-tank’, Screen, 18 October 1985, pp.1–2. 136 The film based on this script was Diksha (1991). 137 ‘NFDC script award winners’, Screen, 19 July 1985, p.12. 138 ‘NFDC profit up from last year’, The Times of India, 5 February 1987, p.5. 139 Annual Report 1985–86, 1986, p.5. 140 Ibid. p.37. 141 Annual Report 1986–87, 1987, p.35. 142 ‘At NFDC’, Cinema in India, Vol. I, No. 1, January 1987, p. not given. 143 Nair, and Taraporevala, 2013, p.16. 144 Ibid. pp.42–3. 145 Ibid. p.45. 146 ‘National Film Development Corporation Ltd – 1987–88’, in Indian Cinema 1988, p.155. 147 The co-production with Doordarshan started in 1988, and by 1998, 46 films were produced under this scheme. 148 Annual Report 1987–88, 1988, p.32. 149 The screenings included films from the NFAI, films shown in the Indian Panorama section in each year’s international film festival, and classic foreign films. 150 ‘National Film Development Corporation Ltd – 1987–88’, p.156. 151 Annual Report 1987–88, p.41.

National Film Development Corporation  217 152 Sushama Shelly, ‘No Black Money’, The Times of India, 17 December 1988, p.A2. 153 ‘Institutional News: National Film Development Corporation’, in Indian Cinema 1989, p.81. 154 Ibid. p.82. 155 ‘Centre willing to fund art films’, The Times of India, 23 June 1989, p.21. 156 Annual Report 1988–89, 1989, p.36. 157 Annual Report 1989–90, 1990, p.50. Also see, Cinema in India, December 1990, p. not given (back cover), for an appealing advertisement on NFDC video cassettes, titled “The Second New Wave”. 158 12th International Film Festival of India, p.148. Also see, Iqbal Masud, ‘The ‘Non-Mainstream Cinema’ 1989’, Indian Cinema 1989, p.9. 159 ‘End Notes: At NFDC’, Cinema in India, Vol. IV, No. 3, July 1990, p.17. Also see, ‘A decade in flashback’, The Times of India, 19 April 1990, p.17. 160 ‘End Notes: At NFDC’. 161 ‘A decade in flashback’. 162 ‘NFDC takes over Sachinam theatre’, The Times of India, 19 September 1990, p.3. 163 See Ravi Gupta, ‘National Film Development Corporation’, in Indian Cinema 1993, p.71. 164 Ibid. 165 Ibid. 166 ‘NFDC: South’s Demand Met’, Screen, 9 May 1980, p.2. 167 ‘NFDC Board May Be Reconstituted’, Screen, 16 May 1980, p.1 & 10. 168 Lakshmi, 1980, p.957. 169 Ibid. 170 ‘NFDC’s main job must be to aid ‘good cinema,’ say art film-makers’, Screen, 16 May 1980, p.2. 171 Ibid. Also see Lakshmi, p.958. 172 Lakshmi, p.958. 173 ‘AIFPC Decries Controversy Over NFDC’, Screen, 6 June 1980, p.14. 174 Ibid. 175 ‘FFI wants NFDC board to include all sectors’, Screen, 6 June 1980, p.14. 176 ‘Govt. clears list of NFDC directors’, Screen, 23 December 1983, p.1 & 4. Also see, M. Bhaktavatsala, ‘An open letter to NFDC Chairman’, Screen, 20 January 1984, p.12. Bhaktavatsala had served as a Director of the NFDC Board. 177 ‘Mrinal Sen resigns from NFDC Board’, Screen, 18 September 1981, p.1. 178 ‘Sen continues on NFDC board’, Screen, 4 December 1981, p.13. 179 ‘Karanjia resigns from NFDC’, The Times of India, 29 December 1989, p.3. His resignation is discussed in detail in a separate section below. 180 Nalini Uchil, ‘“Who wants to be humiliated?”’, The Times of India, 11 June 1990, p.17. 181 Ibid. 182 Someone named Tara, in her weekly column written for Screen, actually supported the move. See, ‘Mixed Musings: NFDC aid’, Screen, 5 November 1982, p.5. Another reader, Subhash K. Jha from Patna, found the decision to finance commercial movies and use the money to promote art films “a sound decision” having far reaching consequences for the film industry. See, ‘A balance of advantages’, Screen, 21 January 1983, p.6. 183 Pandit Shimpi, ‘NFDC asked to suspend film financing’, Screen, 22 October 1982, p.1 & 6. Also see, ‘NFDC to discuss film financing’, Screen, 17 December 1982, p.4. 184 Gopal Datt, ‘An Open Letter To The I. & B. Minister’, Screen, 3 December 1982, p.10.

218  National Film Development Corporation 185 ‘All set for the “party”’, The Times of India, 11 November 1984, p.A2. 186 Datt, ‘An Open Letter To The I. & B. Minister’. 187 Ibid. 188 Ibid. 189 V. Verma, ‘Chopra: Industry not keen on NFDC finance’, Screen, 19 November 1982, pp.1–2. 190 Ibid. 191 B.K. Karanjia, ‘NFDC: A Balance of Advantages’, Screen, 10 December 1982, pp.1–2. Earlier, Karanjia had called the furore over the Ministry’s letter “a case of too much smoke over too small a fire.” The off-beat filmmakers had over-reacted over this absurd suggestion, and he expected that majority of the NFDC Board of Directors will not accept the Ministry’s suggestion. He wrote how this letter nonetheless typified “the Government’s film policy one step boldly forward, two steps cautiously back.” He commented that the letter was unwarranted also because of the practical and relevant consideration that with the limited finances at its disposal the NFDC could not possibly ever compete with the commercial filmmakers, the NFDC’s entire capital would not be sufficient to finance one The Burning Train, or, Shakti. See, B.K. Karanjia, ‘This Letter Needn’t Have Been Written’, Screen, 12 November 1982, pp.1–2. 192 Karanjia, ‘NFDC: A Balance of Advantages’. 193 Ibid. 194 The story was published on 18 February 1983, under the title ‘NFDC: Boon Or Bane For The Film Industry’. Unfortunately, this particular issue is not available in my digitised collection of Screen. 195 ‘Raju reacts to ‘Screen’ expose’, Screen, 11 March 1983, p.1. 196 Ibid. p.8. 197 ‘A Matter of Grave Public Concern’, Screen, 11 March 1983, p.8. 198 Ibid. 199 Sanjit Narwekar, ‘Exploiting Off-Beat Films Abroad – the NFDC way’, Screen, 5 March 1982, p.1 & 6. 200 Ibid. 201 Narwekar, ‘Exploiting Off-Beat Films Abroad – the NFDC way’. On the NFDC’s lack of co-operation in promoting filmmakers at foreign festivals, also see, ‘‘Maya Miriga’ producer alleges callousness’, Screen, 20 July 1984, p.14. 202 S.K.M., ‘Mrinal Sen hits out at NFDC’, Screen, 27 May 1983, p.1 & 9. 203 ‘Lack of publicity for Indian entry at IFF’, The Times of India, 8 July 1984, p.5. 204 Ibid. 205 R. Raina, ‘Lack of commitment marks tenth feet’, Screen, 25 January 1985, p.1 & 10. 206 ‘The Cannes Episode: Rethinking Film Festivals’, 1987, p.8. 207 ‘Failure At Cannes’, The Times of India, 19 May 1987, p.8. 208 Rajadhyaksha, 1988, p.38. 209 Shalini Pradhan, ‘Death Of A Movie’, Filmfare, 16–30 September 1985, p.76. 210 Ibid. p.77. 211 Ibid. p.79. 212 Ibid. p.81. 213 M.S.M. Desai, ‘M. S. Sathyu: ‘Doordarshan should not go commercial’’, Screen, 15 November 1985, p.22. 214 Even after winning the NFDC script award, Dilip Chitre had to make countless trips to the NFDC’s office before the funds were finally released for Godam. When the film was selected to be shown at the Nantes film festival in France, Chitre again had to spend “anxious days”, as the print had not reached the festival with the day of the screening approaching.

National Film Development Corporation  219 215 Derek Bose, ‘No NFDC loan for award-winning script’, Screen, 12 July 1985, p.12. 216 Ibid. 217 Ibid. 218 Ibid. 219 Ibid. 220 Ibid. Deepak Roy passed away in January 2017 at the age of 67. He had won several important national film awards for his documentaries and issue-based films. See, ‘National award-winning filmmaker Deepak Roy dead at 67’, India Today, 16 January 2017, https://www​.indiatoday​.in​/pti​-feed​/story​/national​-award​-winning​-filmmaker​-deepak​-roy​-dead​-at​-67​-857792​-2017​-01​-16, date accessed 22 July 2019. 221 Samit Mazumdar, ‘An Interview with Sri Sandip Roy – Director of Himghar (Frozen Home)’, Chalachhitra Prasange, A Quarterly Journal of Film Institute, Calcutta, 1st year, 2nd Issue, Sept–Nov 1987, p. not given. 222 Ibid. 223 Deepa Gahlot, and Basu Chatterjee, ‘The middle-class mandarin’, Cinema in India, Vol. IV, No. 5, September 1990, p.4. 224 ‘Against all odds’, The Times of India, 6 August 1990, p.9. 225 ‘‘Akashwani’ closure, blow to good cinema’, The Times of India, 26 March 1988, p.5. 226 See, ‘Classified Ad 4 – No Title’, The Times of India, 25 March 1988, p.6. The film festival was properly promoted in the press, and included films like Debshishu, Bhavni Bhavai, and Mirch Masala. The NFDC, through the ad, thanked the audience for their patronage and reassured them of “NFDC’s commitment to the good cinema movement.” 227 ‘‘No confidence in NFDC’: Guild’, Screen, 11 March 1983, p.1 & 4. 228 Ibid. See p.4 for details. 229 T. Shankar, ‘Total boycott of Govt. organisations, FFI’s call at Madras meet’, Screen, 20 April 1984, pp.1–2. In November, theatres in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Vidarbha, and Khandesh regions planned to down their shutters for an indefinite period of time if the governments in these states did not effectively implement the amended Cinematograph and Copyrights Act to curb the growing menace of video piracy. See, V. Verma, ‘Cinemas in Central India to down shutters, Protest against ineffective curb on video piracy’, Screen, 30 November 1984, pp.1–2. 230 B.R. Chopra, ‘Of Demons And Goblins’, Filmfare, 1–15 February 1986, p.55. 231 Arun Khanna, ‘Recovery action will include legal proceedings, Ministry stand on NFDC outstandings’, Screen, 3 February 1984, p.1 & 12. 232 ‘NFDC censured: bad debts’, The Times of India, 24 March 1984, p.13. 233 Arun Khanna, ‘NFDC asked to intensify operations’, Screen, 9 August 1985, p.1 & 16. 234 ‘Asok Mitra to probe into NFDC working?’, Screen, 18 October 1985, p.4. 235 Ajay Ahuja, ‘She Won’t Call It Quits’, Filmfare, 1–15 November 1985, p.63. 236 Amol Palekar had decided to sue the NFDC on a breach of contract in relation to his film Akriet. See, ‘Amol Palekar to sue NFDC’, The Times of India, 9 January 1985, p.5. 237 Also see, ‘NFDC chief’s work to be evaluated’, The Times of India, 18 September 1985, p.17; and ‘Mitra report on NFDC in limbo’, The Times of India, 18 May 1986, p.8. According to press reports, the Ashok Mitra Report on NFDC “was consigned to the limbo almost as soon as it was signed, sealed and delivered” on 15 May 1986. Mitra’s report, it was assumed, was severely critical of the NFDC management. See, ‘Mitra report mum on NFDC chief’s term’, The Times of India, 20 July 1986, p.5. 238 ‘NFDC employees threaten strike’, The Times of India, 23 December 1985, p.7.

220  National Film Development Corporation 239 Mishra, Shahani, and Mahajan, ‘KK is 75 Films Young’, p.8. 240 ‘FIR filed against NFDC official’, The Times of India, 5 February 1986, p.3. 241 Nalini Uchil, ‘A loan at last?’, The Times of India, 2 August 1990, p.9. 242 B.K. Karanjia, ‘My Traumatic Days At The NFDC’, The Times of India, 12 August 1990, p.23. 243 Ibid. 244 Ravi Gupta, ‘We Are Okay, B.K.’, The Times of India, 19 August 1990, p.A5. For Karanjia’s response, see, B.K. Karanjia, ‘Behind The Smoke Screen’, The Times of India, 9 September 1990, p.A5. 245 Karanjia, ‘My Traumatic Days At The NFDC’. 246 Ibid. 247 For more details on this matter, and on the face-off between him and Malati Tambay-Vaidya, see, M. Shamim, ‘NFDC board for govt. action’, Screen, 19 August 1989, p.11. It was followed by “an unprecedented resolution” adopted by the board of directors of the NFDC asking the government to intervene. Tambay-Vaidya had survived an earlier controversy on her tenure in 19856. However, the NFDC published an advertisement inviting applications for the post of Managing Director in August 1989. See, ‘Classified Ad 9 – No Title’, The Times of India, 14 August 1989, p.20. Ravi Gupta was appointed the new MD. 248 Karanjia, ‘My Traumatic Days At The NFDC’. 249 Ibid. 250 Gupta, ‘We Are Okay, B.K.’. 251 Ibid. 252 Vasudevan, 2000, p.2. 253 The question of cinema and television was dealt with as early as 1950, when Panna Shah made some precise predictions about the effect of television on films. He wrote, the television “will ensure a large new market, and films designed wholly for television will come into vogue. For apart from live subject matter programmes, it is the opinion of many television experts that film programmes will constitute the bulk of broadcasting.” See, Shah, The Indian Film, pp.256–7. This was exactly what happened in the 1980s with Doordarshan and films. 254 Also see, ‘Four Decisive Factors’, Screen, 9 January 1981, p.21. 255 Ibid. It is not in the scope of this Chapter to discuss video technology affecting the Indian film industry. For details on this issue, read chapter two in Tiwary, 2018. The press widely covered the paranoia and related discussion on video. See, Amarjeet Ranu, ‘Growing menace of video: Can the film industry survive its onslaught?’ Screen, 23 October 1981, p.1 & 10. V. Shantaram found the video boom as a menace for Indian film industry. See, V. Verma, ‘Video boom: Dismal future for cinema, Shantaram suggests three-pronged action’, Screen, 13 May 1983, pp.1–2. For a defence of video technology, see B.K. Karanjia, ‘Video: A New Territory?’, Screen, 19 August 1983, pp.1–2; Khwaja Ahmad Abbas, ‘In Defence of Video’, Screen, 2 September 1983, p.13; and ‘Video is a boon’, Screen, 8 July 1983, p.6. The video was referred to as a boon especially for the low-budget New Wave art filmmakers and also to film societies. A lowbudget art filmmaker could sell his product to the video cassette manufacturer and make at least ten lakhs. The NFDC had already entered the video cassette market. Nevertheless, TV and video pirated cassettes had affected directors like Shyam Benegal, who had a sizeable audience, as their “loyalists” were watching their films on video. See Mohammed, ‘Mainstream Cinema ’86: And the Show Went On’, p.33. Filmotsav’84 conducted a seminar on “Video, Cinema and Society”, with Shyam Benegal presiding in its first session. See, ‘Seminars and Get-Togethers’, Screen, 20 January 1984, p.8.

National Film Development Corporation  221 256 See Annual Report 1986–87, p.24. For a positive view on TV in India, see Harish Khanna, ‘Role And Impact Of TV In India’, Screen, 29 November 1985, p.16. Khanna was the then Director-General of Doordarshan and read this paper at the Indo-French seminar on Cinema and TV held in Paris in October 1985. 257 Rajadhyaksha, 1987, p.56. Also see, Monteiro, 1998, to understand the concept of subjectivity (viewers’ interpretations) in the development projects of the state. 258 ‘Doordarshan gets Rs. 35,000 per ‘Hum Log’ episode’, Screen, 10 May 1985, p.19. 259 For an interesting audience survey, see Jivraj Burman, ‘What people say about TV programmes’, Screen, 27 September 1985, p.16. 260 Annual Report 1984–85, p.33. 261 Pritish Nandy adjudged Janvani, as one of the ten best TV shows of 1985. See, ‘Editor’s Choice: The Ten Best TV Shows of 1985’, The Illustrated Weekly of India, 12 January 1986, p.68. 262 For a wider, “heuristic” discussion on the role of mass media, particularly Doordarshan and print media, see, Farmer, 1996. For a detailed social context to the TV Ramayan and its popularity, read Chidananda Das Gupta, ‘The Social Cost of TV Ramayan’, in Indian Cinema 1988, pp.93–7. For the responses of India’s known personalities to the TV Ramayan, see ‘Lost Horizon’, The Illustrated Weekly of India, 8 November 1987, pp.20–3. L.K. Advani was reported to have said, “I, for one, regard this serial as Doordarshan’s best gift to the nation to date. There is little doubt that of all the serials shown on television, the Ramayan has been, by far, the biggest draw.” (p.20). 263 Arun Khanna, ‘New TV corporation to encourage, finance making of TV films, Joshi Committee recommendation’, Screen, 6 September 1985, pp.1–2. 264 Annual Report 1988–89, p.24. Satyajit Ray had already directed Sadgati (Hindi) for Doordarshan in 1981. 265 Uma Da Cunha, ‘India’, International Film Guide, 1989, p.205. 266 Ibid. 267 When Hrishikesh Mukherjee was asked about it, he reasoned, “The audience has disappeared – not because it has lost interest in our type of film but because they see such films on TV. With the video, a couple of serials on the tube every day and the late night films and feature films over the weekend, people no longer have the time to go to the theatre. Why, they don’t even have the time to read books. A publisher tells me that there is a cultural crisis.” See ‘Straight From The Chair’, The Times of India, 17 December 1988, p.A2. 268 Chaddha, 1990, p.410. 269 Kundan Shah informed about a meeting the New Cinema filmmakers had with the Secretary of the MIB in Bombay in 1985–86, “We asked that one of our films be shown on television every Saturday night, in the 9.50 slot…50 to 80% of the costs would be made viable by sponsors.” He also proposed emulating the German scenario where, “Films are pre-sold to their television, which underwrites a proportion of film’s costs. Two or three years before the TV screening, the filmmaker is free to seek theatrical release.” The suggestion was finally executed. See, Kiran Nagarkar, ‘TV Tidal: Fears for the New Wave Cinema’, in Indian Cinema 1986, p.17. 270 For a press ad of the premiere, see, ‘Classified Ad 13 – No Title’, The Times of India, 6 October 1985, p.4. 271 Annual Report 1990–91, 1991, p.36. In this decade, the NFDC co-produced, with Doordarshan, two critically acclaimed Hindi feature films, Main Zinda Hoon (1988, Sudhir Mishra), and Nazar (1990, Mani Kaul). This alliance continued to flourish in the 1990s, discussed in the next Chapter.

222  National Film Development Corporation 272 Ibid. pp.25–6. By the late 1980s, many Bengali off-beat filmmakers also turned to Doordarshan for releasing and producing their films. See, Anit Mukherjee, ‘Offbeat filmmakers turn to T.V.’, Cinema India-International, Vol. VI, No. 2, Issue No. 22, Summer Issue, 1989/2, p.56. Filmmakers like Buddhadeb Dasgupta were pleased to sell their films first to Doordarshan to recover the invested cost (p.57). Utpalendu Chakraborty, who made Debshishu, was busy completing three telefilms to vindicate the “Position of Women in our country” for Doordarshan Channel 2. See, Swapan Mullick, ‘East India Picture: Every Silver Lining Has A Cloud’, in Indian Cinema 1986, p.52. Ishanau, restored by the Film Heritage Foundation, was screened under the Classic Section of the Cannes Film Festival held in May 2023. 273 See, ‘Current Topics: Telefilm Scenario’, The Times of India, 2 July 1990, p.10. 274 Some analysts saw Doordarshan, and TV in general not as a competitor to cinema but as a friend, an associate to the big screen. See, Bachchan Shrivastav, ‘Doordarshan – Cinema Ka Sahyogi Athwa Pratidwandwi’, in Indian Cinema 1988, pp.84–5. 275 ‘In Brief…’, in ed. P.K. Nair, Indian Cinema 1985, p. not given. 276 For a detailed opinion on the whole controversy and related rise of intolerance in the country affecting art and cinema, see, Tripathi, 1988. 277 Ketan Mehta, and Bishakha Datta, ‘Ketan Mehta’, Cinema in India, Annual 1991, p.60. 278 Ali, ‘They Live In Every Home’, Screen, 27 September 1985, p.6. 279 Gahlot and Chatterjee, ‘The middle-class mandarin’, p.7. 280 ‘How “Kakkaji” was cut’, The Times of India, 23 April 1989, p.A2. 281 For an analysis of film stars switching over to TV, see Deepa Gahlot, ‘Switching Over To The Side Lane’, Filmfare, 1–15 August 1985, pp.28–31. Many film stars switched to TV, and many became stars after switching to TV. 282 Hasan Suroor, ‘Encounters with the Idiot Box’, in Indian Cinema 1985, p. not given. 283 Ghose, 2005, p.125. 284 Personal Interview with Saeed Akhtar Mirza, Mumbai, 27 June 2018. 285 Asghar Wazahat, ‘Chhota Parda, Bada Parda’, Indian Cinema 1989, p.52. 286 Mullick, ‘A Year of Change’. 287 Ibid. 288 Nagarkar, ‘TV Tidal: Fears for the New Wave Cinema’, p.18. 289 Ibid. p.13. 290 Ibid. p.14. 291 Ibid. 292 Ibid. p.12. 293 Ibid. p.13. 294 ‘The other side of showbusiness’, The Times of India, 26 July 1987, p.A2. 295 ‘“I’m not above making junk”’, The Times of India, 19 June 1988, p.A4. 296 Ibid. 297 ‘Darkness At Noon’, The Times of India, 16 November 1986, p.A3. 298 Phoni K. De, ‘Adolescents’ attitude to cinema’, Screen, 29 July 1983, p.21. 299 Ibid. 300 ‘IAMPAS seminar: World War II brought about qualitative changes in Indian cinema’, Screen, 11 December 1981, p.9. 301 Ibid. 302 ‘Cinema as an art’, Screen, 25 February 1983, p.11. 303 V. Verma, ‘Need for purposeful cinema expressed at seminar’, Screen, 1 July 1983, p.4. 304 Ibid. Also see Kumar Shahani and Mani Kaul’s views on audience below. 305 Ibid. 306 ‘Seminar on Good Cinema’, Screen, 14 October 1983, p.14.

National Film Development Corporation  223 307 Bandyopadhyay, 1984, p.7. 308 Girish Karnad, Govind Nihalani, and Anil Dharker, ‘Beyond The New Cinema’, in Indian Cinema 1980-1985, p.15. 309 Personal Interview with Saeed Akhtar Mirza, Mumbai, 27 June 2018. 310 Personal Interview with M.S. Sathyu, Mumbai, 24 December 2015. 311 Shyam Benegal, and Anil Dharker, ‘The New New Cinema’, in Indian Cinema 1980–1985, p.16. 312 Unlike Shyam Benegal, film critic Iqbal Masud found the filmmaking practice of these young entrants problematic. Masud elaborated, “There is very little interest in individual psychology, idiosyncrasy, or inter-personal love/conflict. There is not much knowledge of details of power relations in society. This leads to simplistic visions – “them vs. us” “rotten, corrupt establishment vs. vulnerable, frail impulsive youth” – as in Mehta’s Holi and Mirza’s TV serial Nukkad, Shah’s Jaane Bhi degenerated into the “mindlessness” of the TV serial Yeh Jo Hai Zindagi.” See, Iqbal Masud, ‘New Cinema: Time For Stock-Taking’, in Indian Cinema 1985, p. not given. 313 Ratnottama Sengupta, ‘Art is for all, says Shyam Benegal’, Screen, 14 November 1980, p.18. 314 ‘In Brief…’ Indian Cinema 1985, p. not given. 315 Personal Interview with Kumar Shahani, New Delhi, 24 May 2016. 316 Ibid. 317 ‘The Outsider’, The Illustrated Weekly of India, 9 April 1989, p.47. 318 Ibid. 319 Ibid. 320 Rajesh Rathore, ‘Crossroads’, The Times of India, 3 October 1987, p.17. 321 Ibid. 322 Ibid. 323 Ketan Mehta, Vinod Chopra, Kundan Shah, and Anil Dharker, ‘New Cinema, New Directions’, Cinema In India, January-April 1988, Vol. II, No. 1, p.6. 324 Ibid. p.7. 325 Bharat Rungachary, ‘Mani Kaul Is More Expensive Than Manmohan Desai’, Filmfare, 16–30 November 1980, p.35. 326 Ibid. 327 Ibid. 328 Ibid. 329 Ibid. Also see, Tarun Majumdar, ‘What exactly is meant by ‘good cinema’?’ Screen, 3 October 1980, p.20. 330 Siddhartha Basu, ‘Cinema of Commitment’, 28th National Film Festival April 1981, p. not given. 331 Shoma A. Chatterji, ‘How Better is Better Cinema?’ Screen, 11 June 1982, p.8. 332 M. Bhaktavatsala, ‘The Ethnic Cinema’, Screen, 23 September 1983, p.22. 333 Mahesh Bhatt, ‘To Hell With The Mrinal Sens’, Filmfare, 16–28 February 1985, p.59. 334 Ibid. 335 Ibid. 336 B.R. Chopra, ‘NFDC – The Dividing Line’, Screen, 3 May 1985, p.12. 337 Ibid. 338 Ibid. 339 Masud, ‘New Cinema: Time For Stock-Taking’. 340 Ibid. Shama Zaidi had clarified to these charges of New Cinema being aloof from “popular” cinema, way back in 1981. She said, “We are for the most part not interested in remaining aloof from the “commercial” film industry and many of us genuinely are attempting to reach out to larger audiences. It is not

224  National Film Development Corporation the format or the popular nature of the “mass appeal” film to which we object but to the perpetuation of reactionary values, the degradation of women, the portrayal of regional and communal stereotypes and the perpetuation of bad taste and voyeurism.” See, Shama Zaidi, ‘Art Vs. Commerce’, Screen, 3 April 1981, p.4. 341 Kishore Valicha, ‘The Lost Wave’, The Times of India, 18 October 1987, p.A2. 342 Ibid. 343 Kutty, 1988, p.48. 344 Ibid. p.49. 345 Hrishikesh Mukherjee, and Iqbal Masud, ‘“In films what should have happened is also the truth”’, Cinema In India, January-April 1988, Vol. II, No. 1, p.30. 346 ‘“I’m not above making junk”’. 347 Vasudev, The New Indian Cinema, p.124. 348 Also see, Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Malati Tambay-Vaidya, B.K. Karanjia, and Sanjit Narwekar, ‘Government Funding – Problems and Possibilities’, Cinema In India, April 1987, Vol. 1, No. 2, p.16. 349 Ajoy K. Dey, ‘Bengali Films: More of Quantity: Less of Quality’, in Indian Cinema 1988, p.58. 350 Ibid. pp.58–9. 351 The strongest dissent to the NFDC going commercial came from a mainstream Hindi film actor, Shatrughan Sinha. Sinha himself had worked with Goutam Ghose in Mahayatra, and with Kumar Shahani in Kasba, both produced by the NFDC. When asked on the NFDC going commercial, he was reported to have said, ‘NFDC should continue to make the kind of films it is identified with because it has put Indian cinema on the international map to a certain extent.’ See, Khalid Mohamed, ‘Cong. nominees on film bodies to go’, The Times of India, 1 February 1990, p.3. 352 Khalid Mohamed, ‘Art versus commerce again’, The Times of India, 9 February 1990, p.1. Also see, ‘Alarm bells’, The Times of India, 5 January 1990, p.10. It was already speculated that the forthcoming board of directors of the NFDC was to be altered to give commercial interests increased representation. 353 ‘UK, US films inspired Naseeruddin Shah’, Screen, 23 May 1980, p.18. 354 Ibid. 355 ‘Smita Patil: ‘I Have Made My Peace With Hindi Commercial Cinema’’, Screen, 28 October 1983, p.8. 356 M.V., ‘Naseeruddin Shah: The Second Coming’, Filmfare, 1–15 July 1986, p. not given. 357 Ibid. 358 Ibid. See, p.34 of Indian Cinema 1986 issue, and cover page of Filmfare, 1–15 September 1986 issue. 359 ‘Now I have to work for my bread and butter’, The Times of India, 5 October 1986, p.A3. Also see, Mahadevan, 1987, p.55. Mahadevan rightly observed, the “Purveyors of the better cinema movement” like Benegal, Nihalani, Mirza, Sai Paranjpye, Kumar Shahani, and Ketan Mehta, among others, were themselves struggling to make their kind of works popular and commercially viable while trying to retain the form they showed with outstanding debut works. Mandi (1983) and Trikal (1985) tainted Benegal’s image while Nihalani came in for much criticism in Party. Only Susman (1987) and Aaghat (1985) could restore their credibility. 360 ‘Now I have to work for my bread and butter’. 361 Shah did two films with Mrinal Sen. The other one was Khandhar (1984). 362 ‘Naseeruddin Shah: “I do commercial films because you bloody people see them.”’, Filmfare, February 1990, p.55 & 57.

National Film Development Corporation  225 363 Ibid. 364 Ranjita Biswas, ‘Shah The Hypocrite?’ Filmfare, April 1990, p. not given. 365 ‘“I’m not a political animal”’, The Times of India, 23 October 1988, p.A2. 366 ‘“I’m not above making junk”’. 367 ‘I am fed up of these arty arty films’, The Times of India, 19 October 1986, p.A3. 368 Ibid. 369 Ibid. 370 T.M. Ramachandran, ‘The Hindi Film in 1988: Sad and Intriguing’, in Indian Cinema 1988, p.18. 371 Ibid. 372 Ibid. 373 See Ibid. for details. 374 Ibid. p.21. Interestingly words like “bane” were used for video in journalistic writings. Read Amit Khanna, ‘Video: Bane of Indian Cinema’, in Indian Cinema 1988, pp.101–2. 375 Ramachandran, ‘The Hindi Film in 1988: Sad and Intriguing’, p.22. Uma da Cunha called the late 1980s in Indian cinema “a contrary time”. See, Da Cunha, ‘India’, 1989, p.201. 376 Karanjia, 1990, p.141. 377 Usha Rai, ‘Culture dept. to be transferred’, The Times of India, 24 February 1990, p.16. 378 Ibid. 379 Ibid. 380 See, 12th International Film Festival of India, January 10–24, 1989, New Delhi, p. not given.

6

Economic Reforms, the NFDC, and New Cinema Battle for Existence (1991–97)

Economic Reforms are Announced (1991) One of the major initiatives, as part of the economic reforms, was to review public sector portfolios. The government’s attitude towards the public sector was that it should be made to follow rules that reward profitability and punish inefficiency. The budget, rather than public enterprises, has to take care of the welfare aspects. There is no social justification for the continuation of public sector enterprises that show losses year after year, nor is there any justification for public sector activity in areas where private entrepreneurs can do the job better. Unless the public sector is subjected to the test of competition and efficiency, there will be no accountability, nor any improvement in managerial performance. Reform and restructuring of the public sector entreprises [sic] is a task of national importance.1 According to Gurcharan Das, by 1993, industrial licensing was virtually abolished. Large industrial houses were freed from the control of the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices (MRTP) Act (1969), which hindered expansion and investment. As “the realm of public-sector monopoly” was drastically cut, businesses like banking, airlines, electric power, petroleum, cellular telephones, soft drinks, and television were opened to the private sector.2 The Indian economy was indeed leaping right into the information age and was powered by knowledge sectors of the economy. Indian newspapers used the shorthand ICE to refer to these sectors – I for information, C for communication, and E for entertainment and media. In America, the employment-intensive sectors of ICE had been at the forefront at that time in creating exports, jobs, and wealth in India.3 Das recorded how the reforms are creating a revolution in ideas and changing the attitudes of the people…I encounter it frequently – in the hopes of the young, in the way people talk, in the way mothers think about their daughters. It is a new way of looking at the world.4 DOI: 10.4324/9781003335436-7

Economic Reforms, the NFDC, and New Cinema  227 The key points that emerged included, public sectors asked to reward profitability and punish inefficiency, reform and restructuring of the public sector was pushed, the public sector monopoly being drastically cut, the opening of many crucial public sector units like banking and communication to the private sector, an attitudinal change at the level of people and ideas, and a forthcoming leap into the information age. These changes had a direct bearing on the film industry. Economic Reforms, Culture, and the Indian Film Industry

Congress government had included privatisation of television in its election manifesto.5 It had promised to allow broadcasting and telecasting rights to the private sector. Ajit Kumar Panja, the new Minister for Information and Broadcasting, had definite plans for opening up the electronic media.6 Underlining the government’s commitment to opening public corporations, he said in an interview, I have been emphasising, quite categorically, that broadcasting and telecasting rights cannot remain the monopoly of the government. There are two reasons for this. One is that technological advances are taking place so swiftly that if we try and keep up a monopoly we will end up like the proverbial ostrich with its head buried in the sand, confident that no one can see it. Our history shows that Indian culture blossomed whenever there was openness.7 India’s cultural policy, henceforth, was set up within this desire for (a global) openness. A draft culture policy was formed in 1992. Some of its recommendations were the state should only exercise “arm’s length intervention” (Arjun Singh, then MHRD minister’s words); a National Cultural Council (Bhartiya Sanskriti Parishad), constituted of eminent persons in the field should be nominated; corporate houses should be involved in funding culture; aspects of culture should be woven into the textbooks being produced by the NCERT; and filmmaking should come under the purview of the Department of Culture.8 The then-current budget for culture for the year 1992 stood at Rs. 125 crores of which Rs. 60 crores was for planned expenditure, a “terrific comedown” from nearly Rs. 700 crores that culture was getting during the Rajiv Gandhi “heyday” of the seventh plan.9 According to Gayatri Sinha, the first round on the impending national cultural policy admits to a stark, uncomfortable truth. There’s no money for culture. In terms of government spending priorities, culture is way down at the bottom of an empty barrel. Unless a quick life-saving exercise is conducted, rigor mortis may set in. And then we may as well shrug away our ancient heritage, brick by crumbling brick.10

228  Economic Reforms, the NFDC, and New Cinema This was prophetic. The draft paper on a national cultural policy, Sinha wrote, contained suggestions that were oddly at variance. On the one hand, the government wanted “to come clean of its managerial role and withdraw from funds and organisation.”11 On the other hand, the paper suggested that the Department of Culture should take over films from the MIB and play a more active role in a library movement creating a new breed of culture managers, art restorers, epigraphists, museum maintenance personnel, etc.12 In short, according to Sinha, “bossy and blundering big brother now retreats to a kindly but non-interfering avuncular role.”13 What was envisaged was that the state should wither away as an arbiter for direction, and at best it could provide incentives and funds. With serious considerations of inviting funds from the private sector and running the proposed Cultural Council, the idea was not to have direct funding by the government. To encourage corporate funding, the government was to offer tax rebates as an incentive. These proposals invited mixed responses. While some welcomed the going away of government patronage, others viewed with suspicion the entry of corporate houses to the cause of promoting culture. Ram Gopal Bajaj, the acting chief of the NSD Repertory Company, found the government wanting to absolve itself of the responsibility of culture to be “a very dangerous state.”14 Meanwhile, Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao found good cinema emerging as “a contributory factor in facilitating social transformation or drawing people, geographically afar, closer together in mutual appreciation of each other, their achievements and ways of life.”15 Ajit Kumar Panja, Minister of Information and Broadcasting, looked at films as “a highly forceful international communication medium”, having “immense potentiality to promote mutual understanding, peaceful co-existence and friendly ties among the peoples of the world.”16 With the opening up of the public sector and more support to the private sector, technological advances, and a global attitude to culture and filmmaking, a sense of professionalism and business outlook entered the Hindi film industry. Such a change made people aspire for more and ready to take trade risks. By the mid-1990s, entertainment became “a rich source” for revenue.17 According to Meera Joshi, With the boom in satellite television channels…and the concurrent demand for software, most of which is film-based, the demand for production facilities has zoomed. Only a few years ago, studios were shutting shop. Today new ones are being set up and backyards now house recording and editing studios.18 NFDC-like structures, privately initiated, were gradually floating in the market. Three prominent film personalities were reported to be gearing up to start companies which would set up studios and finance films and television software besides nurturing fresh talent. They were Amitabh Bachchan, Mukul Anand, and Subhash Ghai. Amitabh Bachchan Corporation Limited (ABCL) made instant news. Apart from producing and distributing films, the

Economic Reforms, the NFDC, and New Cinema  229 company was to also deal in the production and marketing of software for television. The other fields the company had plans to diversify into were audio production and distribution, event and celebrity management, and commercials sales and publicity. ABCL distributed Mani Ratnam’s Bombay (1995). Mukul Anand aspired to alter the working pattern in the film industry, e.g. contracts with film actors being fully documented, and payments being made in full by cheque with income tax cut at source.19 He stressed, “By budgeting films in an orderly manner perhaps we can also help allied fields like cinema theatres.”20 He stated that his plans had been met with positive feedback from corporate companies like ITC, Levers, Reliance, Proctor and Gamble. Subhash Ghai was negotiating with corporate houses to invest in his Drishti India Limited. Apart from meeting the demand for software created by various TV and satellite channels, Subhash Ghai aimed to set up studios for the production of films and serials, and establish institutes in Bombay and Delhi to encourage talent in the performing arts and technical aspects of filmmaking, tasks handled by the state so far.21 His company was also looking into the marketing of Indian programmes abroad and negotiating with foreign companies to set up film libraries and international co-productions. Filmfare also reported that Sridevi had set up a business company which was to soon seek capital from the investing public. Her company was to set up a studio for film and TV serial production and provide facilities for dubbing, editing, and special effects. Ketan Mehta also started a studio and equipment facility, a task which was accomplished by the NFDC. In November 1996, he launched a state-of-the-art special effects and post-production studio called “Maya The Magic Shop.” Amitabh Bachchan inaugurated the studio.22 Slowly and gradually, the private film industry was shouldering responsibilities held by the NFDC and the New Cinema, both technically and aesthetically (see below). According to Ketan Parikh, a stockbroker, “Finance for a film project, which has strong names, would definitely be more viable…The concept of film-makers entering the money market is novel but it does make sense. Moreover, here’s one way of stabilising a risky project which might otherwise face problems of finance.”23 According to Joshi, “With the advent of organised finance for film production, it would seem that financiers who charge alarmingly high rates of interest would be in for a rough time.”24 Apart from taking up activities exclusively performed by the NFDC until then, the Hindi film industry also imbibed good cinema aesthetics. According to Sangeeta Datta, Shekhar Kapoor’s Bandit Queen (1994), Mani Ratnam’s Bombay (1995), Ram Gopal Varma’s Satya (1998), Mahesh Manjrekar’s Astitva (2000), Raj Kumar Santoshi’s Lajja (2001), and Madhur Bhandarkar’s Chandni Bar (2001), all used the style of parallel filmmakers, reworking themes of New Cinema e.g. oppression of women, continuing the tradition of low-budget feature films.25 She also made an interesting observation about the globalisation process, i.e. the initiative by South Asian diaspora directors to make English-language films that reach an international audience. According to Datta, the success of films like Deepa Mehta’s Fire

230  Economic Reforms, the NFDC, and New Cinema (1996) and Earth (1998), Nagesh Kukunoor’s Hyderabad Blues (1999), Dev Benegal’s Split Wide Open (1999), Kaizad Gustad’s Bombay Boys (1998), Sunhil Sippy’s Snip! (2001), and Mira Nair’s Monsoon Wedding (2001), appeared to be “a second coming of new cinema”. Economic Reforms, the NFDC, and New Cinema Filmmakers and scholars started speaking to the media about the impact of liberal economic reforms. Amrit Gangar sensed, “The serious film maker who chose not to treat his metier as a commodity, has become more vulnerable to the economic reality”, particularly between 1989 and 1991.26 Gangar cited the 31-year-old FTII alumnus, Paresh Kamdar, who was sanctioned finance by the NFDC and Doordarshan for his first feature film, Tunnu Ki Tina. Kamdar was severely affected by the cost escalations brought about by the rupee’s devaluation and a 56 per cent excise hike on positive raw stock. He was asked by the NFDC to shoot his film in 16mm as it would be cheaper than 35mm raw stock. These (enforced) changes also affected his total budget to make the film. This kind of cost escalation made the viability argument stronger. While the newcomers were facing such reform-induced obstacles, veterans like Ketan Mehta continued to be optimistic about the scope for better films. He spoke about private enterprises keeping money aside for encouraging “experimentation and innovation”, and television financing films all over the world.27 He referred to Bertolucci making 1900 (1976) through television money and Werner Herzog surviving as a filmmaker on television financing.28 What was it like at the NFDC post-economic reforms in 1992? Khalid Mohamed reported from the NFDC office in Bombay, The elevator clangs shut. It is jampacked with white collar workers who are about to lose their jobs; they head for a mini-auditorium where their chief is scheduled to give them a pep talk on the lines of “We have appreciated your years of service but…” The distraught employees are soon to join the ranks of the unemployed. That scene isn’t from a slice-of-life movie. It happened at the office of the National Film Development Corporation.29 The NFDC was looking at becoming “a sick unit” unless it went intensely commercial. Over 90 of the 275 all-India staff strength had already quit under the voluntary retirement scheme. Nearly 100 NFDC employees from all over India threatened to withdraw their resignation letters, submitted in the wake of the “golden handshake” offered to them under a special voluntary retirement scheme.30 The employees feared that the MIB may not sanction the payment of two-and-a-half-months’ pay for each year of service, besides the normal benefits on retirement. The NFDC had offered a “golden handshake” as the central government had withdrawn the Corporation’s powers to charge canalisation fees on film raw stock, imports, and exports. Following an annual loss in revenue,

Economic Reforms, the NFDC, and New Cinema  231 amounting to Rs. 1.5 crores and rendering a section of the staff redundant, the NFDC was evidently compelled to take steps to reduce its number of employees.31 Prominent filmmakers had already expressed “well-founded fears” that the government “in its zeal to privatise everything from industry to films, may just kill NFDC.”32 The government was insistent, since 1982, that the Corporation should become commercially viable. According to Mohamed, while the withdrawal was in keeping with the newly liberalised economic policy, fresh sources of income were not provided. Ravi Gupta said that the government had to support the NFDC, “Commercial gains should not be the objective, though, because we don’t need public money for that. Like the rest of the film industry, we would have to join the private sector.”33 Kumar Shahani felt sorry that the ‘NFDC is being phased out…With the privatisation wave, many irresponsible steps are being taken. NFDC is identified with new Indian cinema. To kill it would be sacriligeous [sic].’34 Jaya Bachchan suggested shutting down the NFDC and starting something totally new, with a new name, a new ethos, and with people who knew films, what a film laboratory or an editing table looked like.35 She expected the government to place cinema on its list of priorities, and evolve an effective film policy; but, “Although the government admits that our society is deeply affected and influenced by cinema, not a finger is lifted to contribute positively towards its evolution.”36 Raakhee, who acted in 27 Down, wanted the NFDC to be set right with some understanding of the market conditions, and more focus on reaching out to the masses. Hrishikesh Mukherjee blamed the government who no longer thought that it had to support film culture and never saw beyond their own self-interests.37 In September 1992, Panja himself was reported to have asked off-beat filmmakers, ‘Should we wind up the NFDC?’38 When many of the filmmakers, shocked and outraged, reacted with a strong “no”, Panja supposedly argued that the government found itself confined and often at a loss in dealing with film-related problems.39 When the “liberalized” India nominated Raj Kapoor’s Henna (1991) against Satyajit Ray’s Agantuk (1991) for Oscars, it indicated the future of things for the NFDC/New Cinema. Speculation was made as to whether the New Cinema boom was over, with another round of battle for survival hovering around. The films the NFDC was producing post-1991 raised questions over its sense of film promotion and social consciousness. With the NFDC “drying up”, and Doordarshan “genuflecting before serial and sitcom hacks”, Khalid Mohamed pointed out, The film-maker’s struggle, now, has nothing to do with their creativity; rather it is to find access to the finance and technical equipment on terms which give them freedom to follow their instinct for film. From the off-mainstream auteur’s point of view, film is still a blocked currency.40 Forced by financial constraints, the NFDC decided to stop publication of its monthly magazine Cinema in India from July 1993 as it was incurring losses.41 Ravi Gupta described this as a ‘hard decision.’ The magazine had

232  Economic Reforms, the NFDC, and New Cinema to be wound up as there was no adequate advertisement support to make it self-sufficient. Essentially, all public institutions, related with film, were questioned for their efficacy, and were either suggested to be closed down or revive themselves as something better. The FTII curriculum was changed to make it more ‘market-savvy’. In the name of pragmatism, more sweeping changes were brought in the course structures, etc.42 Mani Kaul, while talking about the increasing struggle to make off-beat cinema, suggested that the FD should be disbanded in its present form and structure, especially keeping in mind the growth of television. He saw great potential in the FD to create an infrastructure for cinematography in the changed, highly commercial environment which could “cater to and nurture a new kind of cinema.”43 Kaul asserted that the FD could become a meeting place for filmmakers, artists, and technicians, and had a “tremendous potential” to become “a novel institution”, perhaps a replacement for the NFDC. This conversation on the future of the FD was revived in 1997 when the MIB appointed a committee under Shyam Benegal to study its functioning and suggest ways and means to reorganise it.44 R. Krishna Mohan, formerly the chief producer-in-charge of FD, wondered if the committee’s recommendations would give a definite direction to this “floundering institution in the face of a fast changing era of communication?” One of the approaches suggested by Mohan was to merge the FD with the NFDC.45 According to Mohan, “the NFDC has proved its worth, it is fulfilling the main aims and objectives of promoting quality cinema. The question is, why should not the NFDC [sic] promote quality short film production as well.”46 The merger, according to Mohan, could also have provided a broad-based financing source.47 However, by 2000, the full-fledged consequences of liberal economic reforms came to the fore, when proposals came suggesting shutting down the FD and NFDC.48 A paper presented to the government by former finance secretary K.P. Geethakrishnan, also head of the Expenditure Reforms Commission, had reportedly made radical recommendations for downsizing. It proposed, among other things, to close down several units in the MIB and related bodies deemed as unviable. These included the FD, FTII, Children’s Film Society of India (CFSI), DFF, NFAI, DAVP, Directorate of Field Publicity, and the divisions relating to song and drama, photographs, and publications.49 Shyam Benegal, who was on the panel, said, ‘FD is the sole custodian of the archival history of this country on film. How can you shut it down or sell it?’50 To improve the FD’s viability, his panel had recommended that it have its own TV channel, or at least become a content provider for existing TV channels. As for the NFDC, it had recommended either disinvestment or winding up. The commission believed that with liberalisation and satellite-based media technologies, many of these media houses had outlived their utility. It also proposed to rationalise the staff of Doordarshan and AIR and at least halve the staff in the Ministry. S. Narayanan, the deputy general manager marketing the NFDC was reported to have opposed, saying,

Economic Reforms, the NFDC, and New Cinema  233 This corporation has been without a chairman and governing board for seven years. There is a lack of leadership and vision. Those who point an accusing finger at us must first examine what was done to address the underlying problems. The logic is, why waste money curing the organisation when you can behead it? I firmly believe that NFDC’s objectives can be achieved.51 Narayanan also reported that NFDC did make profits until 1999. In 1998–9, it ran a loss of Rs. ten crore, but quickly made it up with a Rs. two crore profit in 1999–2000. He clarified, contrary to the public impression, that the NFDC did not receive annual grants from the government but subsisted on self-generated revenue. On the NFDC, Shyam Benegal said, “if the joint secretary of the MIB has been its officiating managing director, its autonomy is a contradiction in terms.’52 He further said, ‘Both FD and NFDC have great potential, but a way must be found to reorganise them without being strangulated by the unions.’53 Filmmakers like Subhash Ghai suggested privatisation for the FTII, NFDC, and DFF as they were not free enough to take a single decision without having to refer to bureaucrats and parliament, and “getting entangled in a web of politics.”54 He pointed out, quite rightly, how the NFDC saw itself as a business body, whereas its British counterpart helped filmmakers with finance, subsidies, information, a superb library, and overseas assistance.55 Of the Demolition, Riots, and Blasts: The Cinema-Underworld Nexus and the Bombay Film Industry The Babri mosque demolition in December 1992, the riots and blasts in Bombay following it (December 1992–March 1993) shook the city and its film industry, both emotionally and economically.56 Central Plaza, a prominent cinema hall, was one of the various targets of the bomb blasts that rocked the city in March 1993. Three big films were badly affected by these events, Dil Aashna Hai (1992), Kshatriya (1993), and Roop Ki Rani Choron Ka Raja (1993). Hardly recovering from these box office losses, the blasts brought “yet another emotional, moral and economic earthquake in its wake” and shook the industry.57 Divya Bharati’s sudden death in April 1993 also led to the loss of crores of investments made in eight of her films which she was busy shooting when she died. The falling number of cinema theatres in metro cities was another major issue affecting the Hindi film industry in the 1990s.58 And when Sanjay Dutt was arrested under TADA for owning an AK-56, all “hell broke loose and the film industry began breathing fire and brimstone”.59 Surprisingly, despite the uncertain prospects at the box office, movie production was still on the incline. Although the returns were low, film financing was on the rise.60 Was it because of the black money pouring in from the underworld? According to Joshi and Bharadwaj, “slowly but surely”, the links between film personalities and the

234  Economic Reforms, the NFDC, and New Cinema underworld had become apparent since Haji Mastan in the 1970s. The scene altered dramatically in the days following the bomb blasts in Bombay. The police came down heavily on all film people suspected of links with Dawood Ibrahim. Connections were seen between new film producers, music directors, actors, and the underworld. Music composers were paid unheard-of prices. Nadeem-Shravan was reported to have said, “Why should we bother about where a producer gets his money? All that interests us are the terms and conditions. We want our price, whether it’s B. R. Chopra paying us or a Tom, Dick or Shetty.”61 In 1992, the flow of money into the film business was estimated to be 50 per cent from the underworld and the other half from the open market. The black money came to the industry through video companies and audio-cassette companies. There was considerable curiosity about the case of Hanif Kadawala and Samir Hingora of Magnum who were arrested as suspects under TADA after the bomb blasts. After cross-questioning them, the police arrested Sanjay Dutt under TADA.62 The two Magnum productions Singer (with Ajay Devgan, Nagma, and Shilpa Shirodkar) and Sanam (Manisha Koirala, Vivek Mushran, and Sanjay Dutt) were both stuck and likely to become obsolete. According to Joshi and Bharadwaj, “The money situation in the industry is at a low ebb at present, say some. Today the underworld is only in a position to finance one of every five producers who approach it. Regular financiers have become extra-cautious. Films have got stuck midway.”63 Dinesh Gandhi was reported to have said that money always poured into the industry from outside. Earlier, they financed five films in a year, and today the number was 25. The video and music industries were to a great extent financed by the underworld. They invested money to make profits, so did diamond merchants, matka kings, owners of gambling dens, and race addicts. According to Girdhar Hinduja, a top financier, the position for the film industry was not very encouraging, There’s no discipline left, films are indefinitely delayed. Very few established producers are making films today. Seventy per cent of today’s films are made by total newcomers or those who have just released their first film. The main problem a producer faces today is getting his full payment on delivery.64 Regarding underworld money, he felt that an investor was attracted to any trade that will yield good returns. Though politicisation and criminalisation seeded good films like Parinda (1989), Shiva (1989), Angaar (1992), and Gardish (1993). According to S. Balakrishnan, When the underworld-film industry links came out in the open after the blasts, a wave of moral indignation swept Mumbai show world. But after a few months, it was back to business as usual. The industry’s need for cash is insatiable and gangs can supply big-time moolah.65

Economic Reforms, the NFDC, and New Cinema  235 Hindi film producers were increasingly forced to turn to the underworld for finances. Mukesh Duggal and Gulshan Kumar’s killing was an indicator to this ugly aspect of the Hindi film industry. As a result of these super-charged times of 1992–3, several stars and the film world came under direct attack in the name of nationalism and culture, too.66 According to a Filmfare cover story, “Fiats were issued banning stars suspected to be anti-national. The release of several extravaganzas was delayed. Stars who had kowtowed to underworld dons sought to be forgiven for their trespasses. Heartthrobs of the nation insisted that they were innocent.”67 In April 1993, a “controversial” agreement was devised between the Film Makers’ Combine (FMC) and the BJP – “the dos and don’ts were stipulated much in the manner of a treaty between countries arriving at a peace settlement.”68 FMC insisted that it hadn’t sold out to politicians. And the BJP said that it had drawn up a list of recommendations to prevent the deterioration of cinema culture. The party would not tolerate any insults to the Hindu faith, body exposure and the presence of anti-national elements.69 Some stars led a candlelit procession and met then Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao in January 1993 to intervene in the riots that had led to the mass destruction of life in Bombay. Several film stars, directors, and producers had launched a relay hunger strike and were involved in a peace procession. Shiv Sena threatened to boycott Dilip Kumar, A.K. Hangal, and Shabana Azmi. Screenings of Shabana’s film Dharavi (1992) were sought to be stopped by the Shiv Sena and affiliated organisations in the city and elsewhere in the state.70 Ravi Malik, the general manager of the NFDC, which had produced Dharavi, told the TOI that he did not expect any problems in the screening of the film, ‘The show will go on. There seems to be a communication gap and we will sort out the matter. We do not want any confrontation.’71 Various stars had to meet Bal Thackeray to clear their names.72 The film industry was under tremendous pressure to prove its support for national causes.73 In the Maharashtra Assembly elections held in 1995, Shiv Sena captured power from Congress, and Bombay became Mumbai. With this, the politics of arm-twisting and hurt sentiments became mainstream and were to have long-term cultural consequences in India. The NFDC’s Achievements During 1991–7 In the 1990s, the NFDC got more involved with Doordarshan and television in general, both for production and exhibition reasons. The NFDC’s main activities included co-production, production, and working with various Ministries. It had to also devise ways to survive the effects of globalisation as state patronage was gradually taken away, and it had to face an open market. Ravi Gupta served the NFDC during this time.74

236  Economic Reforms, the NFDC, and New Cinema The Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India, approached the NFDC to make documentaries and feature films to promote public awareness of health and pressing social concerns. As the ministries could not directly finance the filmmakers, they did it through the NFDC. Durga, directed by Basu Chatterji, and produced by the NFDC at a cost of Rs. 10.5 lakhs was one such film. The film dealt with the problem of child marriage and large unplanned families in a poverty-stricken rural milieu.75 The NFDC played executive producer to a feature film on Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, directed by Jabbar Patel, for Ministry of Welfare, Govt. of India and Govt. of Maharashtra. In 2000, the NFDC presented Hari Bhari, directed by Shyam Benegal, for the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. The film’s main theme is women’s fertility rights. The NFDC’s other projects “in the service of Indian Film Industry” included film-to-video transfers (Madras), subtitling on 16mm/35mm prints and on U-Matic, a 35mm film shooting facility (Bombay), and 16mm shooting, editing, post-production facilities (Calcutta).76 In 1992–3, the NFDC completed two foreign co-productions, Miss Beaty’s Children by Pamela Rooks, an Indo-Italian venture, and Ketan Mehta’s Maya Memsahab.77 Although the latter was an Indo-British-French co-production, it had only been financed by the NFDC and not co-produced. The Corporation also co-produced a seven-episode TV serial with M/s Technisonar, France. Under the NFDC-Doordarshan agreement to produce good feature films and telefilms jointly, up to December 1992, 21 films had been completed or were under production under this scheme.78 Keeping in mind the charter of the Corporation in the promotion of cine literacy and the spread of good cinema in India, the Corporation continued to market video cassettes of Indian and foreign film classics and award-winning films.79 The Corporation set up the Cine Artistes Welfare Fund of India (CAWFI), the biggest ever trust in the Indian film industry. It extended financial assistance to needy film artistes of yesteryears. By 2001, the trust had helped more than 760 cine artistes with pensionary and other benefits from the Trust by disbursing an amount of Rs. 52.65 lakhs.80 While talking about the fourth phase of the FFC/NFDC, the 1990s, Ravi Gupta wrote that the reason for positive state intervention in India was not just to counter the onslaught of Hollywood but “to allow growth of original ideas, different from cliched [sic] rehashes of Hollywood cinema.”81 Unfortunately, this phase of the FFC/NFDC coincided with the government’s policy of economic liberalisation and one of the major decisions was that Public Sector Enterprises should not receive government support in any form.82 According to Gupta, the NFDC could carry out its social obligations only with some governmental support. If it was made to act as a private sector company, under compulsions of the free market forces, then the most important reason for the Corporation’s existence ceases to be present. Gupta argued, “The market share of NFDC hardly being three to four per cent with the rest of the industry being in the private sector, it made hardly any sense for such a Corporation to compete with the private sector.”83 The

Economic Reforms, the NFDC, and New Cinema  237 NFDC needed to pursue its own objectives and establish its own niche in the market. The government, however, insisted that the Corporation work along commercial standards and insisted that the NFDC sign a Memorandum of Understanding, committing to an acceptable level of profit. The pressures that this decision imposed on the NFDC required it to take some major steps if it was to continue with its basic objectives without diluting the same and yet fulfil the government’s expectations. Among the major steps taken were: (a) a reduction in personnel through the Voluntary Retirement Scheme (referred above), (b) a financial and administrative restructuring, to reduce expenditure without closing down any of its offices, even though several of these were loss-making centres, (c) the closing down of Cinema in India (mentioned above), a magazine which, though high in quality, required an increased amount of subsidy, and (d) a diversification into television to ensure a source of funding (discussed in a separate section below).84 Gupta wrote, The Corporation, however, was quick to learn the lessons and worked with a single-minded determination that it would not allow its basic activities to suffer and use the new opportunities to further its basic objectives. It not only continued to finance and produce good quality films, but actually increased its funding of these films.85 When the NFDC was highly criticised for its involvement with Doordarshan Metro channel Gupta defended the venture, What NFDC in effect established during its involvement with TV was that it had the competence and capability of acting in a free market environment…The NFDC did use the TV opportunity to promote its own productions/co-productions extensively and mixing these with commercial films was an unavoidable option in an entertainment channel. NFDC has already started rolling back from its involvement with TV and I am confident that the exposure to the free market during this period will strengthen NFDC’s own marketing skills.86 He also underlined, NFDC is committed to put in the profits made from its foray into TV to finance good quality feature film production. If, however, it is to operate along non-commercial lines, the Government would have to fund it the way the Films Division or the National Centre of Films for Children and Young People (N’CYP) or the Doordarshan is funded. If it is to raise its own resources, then some amount of compromise with the commercial world is unavoidable.87 The NFDC started telecasting on the Metro Channel of Doordarshan. Superhit Muqabla, Zabaan Sambhal Ke, Dekh Bhai Dekh, Dum Duma Dum

238  Economic Reforms, the NFDC, and New Cinema Dum, Jungle Book, Phulwari Bachchon Ki, Malgudi Days, etc. were some of the successful serials telecast on the Channel. The NFDC earned a gross revenue of over Rs. 400 lakhs from the Metro Channel in 1993–4.88 During this period, an important tie-in was worked out with Sachinam, Sundaram, and Satyam theatres in Bombay allowing for some playing time for NFDC films. Up to October 1993, the NFDC released six Indian films on various circuits in 75 cinema theatres all over the country.89 At the 25th IFFI (Calcutta), 1994, the scenario at the Film Market was encouraging. Business deals of nearly Rs. 70 lakhs were concluded with various countries. Sri Lanka reportedly bought ten Hindi and 15 Tamil films for telecasts over its television network. Both Agantuk and Uttoran had found foreign buyers.90 Moving out of its legacy, the NFDC financed Govind Nihalani’s Drohkaal (1994). Two Hindi films titled Devi Ahilyabai by Nachiketa Patwardhan, and Rui Ka Bojh by Subhash Chand Agarwal were sanctioned under co-production agreements between the NFDC and Doordarshan in 1995–6.91 The Corporation took only one film under its own production, Yugant by Aparna Sen which was completed. The Corporation helped Doordarshan in launching the Movie Club, the first free-to-air Movie Channel in India, in languages including Tamil, Kannada, Bengali, and Malayalam. The NFDC was expected to extend loan assistance for the production of seven films and to produce 12 films under own/coproduction category.92 In 1996–7, Sanshodhan, an NFDC-UNICEF co-production was completed, and six films were sanctioned under co-production agreement between the NFDC and Doordarshan.93 It appeared that the NFDC was pulling through the post-1991 economic reforms. According to the Indian Cinema 1997 report, not many media experts had expected the NFDC to survive in the postdecanalisation period. NFDC not only survived the change, but saw for itself an opportunity in the rapidly changing economic and technological scenario in the media business as the corporate leader of the entertainment and culture industry.94 The Corporation grew at a rate of 39 nine per cent and increased its profits by 117 per cent which was considered as “outstanding”.95 The Corporation maximised its profits and growth rate by strengthening its TV Marketing Division, outbidding the competition to bag major slots on Doordarshan, including Rangoli, slots of Tamil Feature films, a Marathi film channel and continuing its Friday and some Saturday films on DD1 and Saturday and Sunday on DD2. The distribution of films through TV became a major profit centre for the Corporation which helped it to cross-subsidise its activity of promoting good quality cinema. The growth of the NFDC was ensured entirely through the internal generation of resources with no budgetary support whatsoever. Continuing to promote small-budget films based on fresh and original ideas, the NFDC stressed its own productions. Bengali film Sanghat was completed, and Sundari (Hindi) and Sakhi

Economic Reforms, the NFDC, and New Cinema  239 Mazi (Marathi) were approved during 1996–7. Under its co-production scheme with the DD, seven new projects were approved and three films earlier approved were completed. Films in the international co-production included Dance With the Wind (Rajan Khosla, with Germany), Ekti Nadir Naam (Anup Singh, with the British Film Institute), And the Show Goes On (Mrinal Sen, with the British Film Institute, documentary), and Train to Pakistan (Pamela Rooks, with Pan Pictures and Rook A.V.). In the theatre finance scheme, two new loans were sanctioned, money was disbursed in respect of seven cases, and 110 theatres had started functioning under this scheme up to 31 March 1997.96 Among its other activities, it developed a software called NFDC-NET which became operational and a large number of advertising agencies were connected by the internet for information on DD programmes. The actual booking of advertisements was also possible via the internet.97 The NFDC web page continued to be popular all around the world and gave useful online information on their activities. The site included information on import procedures, copyright laws, Cinematograph Act, shooting in India, IFFI, etc. The strength of the NFDC film catalogue and its marketing was seen from the fact that on 15 August 1997 when India was celebrating 50 years of Independence, virtually every important TV channel in the country was screening NFDC films. These included 1942: A Love Story on DD-1, Garam Hawa on DD Movie Club, Gandhi on Sony, Train to Pakistan on Star Plus, Making of the Mahatma on Astro [Malaysia] and SBS Australia.98 The NFDC undertook various socially relevant campaigns, e.g. Pulse Polio Immunisation, National Literacy Mission, and campaigns for Birth and Death Registration for the Home Ministry, and it also produced three films for the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.99 From 1997 up to March 1998, 13 more films were sanctioned under co-production agreements between the NFDC and Doordarshan. It provided loans to films like Shaheed-e-Mohabbat and Mohan Kavia’s Hindi feature film Abhisar. Three feature films were in progress under the NFDC-DD co-production scheme. Out of films approved earlier under this category, 12 films were completed. The Corporation also exported 107 films to different countries and earned Rs. 164.32 lakhs in foreign exchange.100 The year 1997–8 was recorded as “very successful” for the NFDC “in realising its vision and mission”.101 Meanwhile, Prasar Bharati – an autonomous corporation – had come into existence in September 1997, and it took control of the Doordarshan and Akashvani in November 1997. The Doordarshan and Akashvani were to operate under the autonomous Prasar Bharati (Broadcasting Corporation of India). The NFDC was also looking at another set of communication revolution which was going to change the film and screen culture in the coming decades. These changes included the entry of multinationals, the emergence of DTH, the appearance of new satellites, the emergence of multiplexes, the convergence of TV and computers, the growth of the internet, the emergence of virtual reality, and the growth of 3D TV, etc.

240  Economic Reforms, the NFDC, and New Cinema However, in spite of all the challenges, the NFDC did support many fascinating feature films in the 1990s. It got support from Doordarshan and some international production houses. Films like Mammo, Naseem, and Char Adhyay are philosophical engagements with their times. They engage with questions of citizenship, community, and nationalism at a deeper, more humane, and conceptual level. They dare to question the state. Films like Diksha, Aranyak, and Tarpan dealt with caste exploitation and questioned rituals and religiosity which leads to human oppression. Women-centric films like Dharavi, Woh Chhokri, Rudaali, and Devi Ahilyabai proved that the NFDC had not taken away its focus from the lot of Indian women. While Sanshodhan and Tunnu Ki Tina provide us with immediate responses to constitutional and economic changes implemented in the early 1990s, Sooraj Ka Satvan Ghoda revived New Cinema’s adventurist spirit to experiment with film language and narration.102 Stepping out of its oeuvre, the NFDC also financed some mainstream ventures like Maya Memsahab, Prahar, and Drohkaal. It also supported a few first-time filmmakers like Paresh Kamdar and Subhash Agrawal. Before flickering, the NFDC and New Cinema did leave a rich legacy of Hindi films made in the 1990s. Notwithstanding, the NFDC-financed and -produced films continued to lose their hegemony to the mainstream films in the Indian Panorama. In 1998, of the 13 feature films included in the Indian Panorama, only one was produced by the NFDC, T.V. Chandran’s Malayalam film Mangamma.103 Indian Panorama which was once dominated by New Cinema, gave place to popular cinema in the 1990s. The NFDC’s Failures and Controversies During the 1990s It was not easy for the NFDC to keep the momentum alive in the de-canalisation times. The infrastructural inadequacies were growing. The inadequacies occurred not only during the filmmaking process but also involved the distribution and exhibition part.104 Pankaj Butalia rightly pointed out how the non-mainstream filmmakers’ attitude to film circulation and distribution as “something beneath the artistic endeavour” cost them dearly. He criticised both the state and the filmmakers for heavily relying on each other and wrote, “Suffice it to say that, more than two decades after the setting up of bodies intended to help create an infrastructure to promote cinema, there are not many significant improvements in sight.”105 Two of the main objectives of the NFDC was to help improve the quality of infrastructure for 16mm filmmaking, and to try and establish film-viewing venues in metropolitan areas where all cinema houses were privately owned by commercial distributors. The NFDC could not succeed in achieving any of these. Butalia found it worthwhile if the NFDC had intervened to convert the closing cinema houses into community cinemas.106 It was important to help meaningful cinema reach theatres and create a stir among the audience, ‘the less committed and the more committed audience both’, to watch these films. According to Vinod Bhardwaj, it was an art to make a market of films, and

Economic Reforms, the NFDC, and New Cinema  241 it was a lie when a good film expected to create a stir without a market.107 He gave an example of Suraj Ka Satavan Ghoda. The feature film, critically much acclaimed, was released in a well-known theatre in New Delhi. Though an afternoon show, the good thing was that the film was given a theatrical release. But it was released quietly without any promotions. If the film critics and reviewers of national dailies were contacted during the film release, the media would have discussed the film much better, and the film would have received more of an audience. But the NFDC and Doordarshan did not show any interest in promoting and marketing such an important and wellmade film.108 N.V.K. Murthy pointed out how the NFDC, in spite of having “excellent aims and objects”, fell short of expectations. He wrote, “While nobody questions the wisdom of NFDC being self-sufficient in its own manner, there is grave danger in looking upon film-making as a purely commercial proposition.”109 The Times of India did a detailed story on the NFDC in August 1993. Ravi Gupta, the then MD of the NFDC, described himself as a bureaucrat with an “aesthetic sense”.110 He denied the allegations that a lot of film directors were making as to how the NFDC was increasingly applying the criterion of “will it sell?”. Gupta clarified that the NFDC only looked for “an inspiring script”, which was “not cliched”, offered “a new perspective”, and was “well brought-out.”111 He claimed that the NFDC never went into the question of commercial viability. On marketing and distribution, he defended the NFDC, NFDC films have a far greater commercial viability than the so-called commercial films. More than 80 per cent of them bomb at the boxoffice, and less than half their investment is recouped. As against that, we rarely have to write off more than 25 per cent of our investment, and in some films even make twice what we invest. By commercial film standards, they would be super-hits.112 According to him, NFDC films did not need media hype, and niche marketing was enough. Explaining why the ‘NFDC kind of cinema’ did not need ‘special advertising’, he said they did not cater to ‘the common denominator, but to those who understand cinema grammar, who look for some intellectual stimulation. What is valid for one type of cinema is not valid for another… This may be interpreted as a sign of weakness, but I see it as strategy.’113 Gupta came across as an arrogant administrator. While the New Cinema filmmakers and its sympathisers were demanding special and strategic advertising for the same, Gupta was relying more on “niche” marketing. When asked if the NFDC’s involvement in the Metro Channel took it away from its original role, he said, ‘I’d be quite happy to get out and go back to our basic function. If we had an option of funding our activities without the Metro channel, we’d welcome it. Unfortunately, at the moment there is none.’114 He also clarified, ‘We got into the Metro channel only because Doordarshan found itself in an awkward spot with no private producers willing to take

242  Economic Reforms, the NFDC, and New Cinema the slots. This is an interim arrangement and we’ll move out as soon as the private sector takes over.’115 Ravi Gupta was happy with the profits in that year (Rs. 74 lakhs) which could largely be attributed to the earnings from the Metro channel. Justifying the shift, from film to TV, he said in an interview, We’ve got to be pragmatic. Is it sensible to cross-subsidise and fund 15 good films a year or to wind up and not produce anything at all? NFDC is no longer a state-aided body. With the coming of the new economic policy, we are on our own and have to raise monies to do development work which is promoting cinema.116 Gupta informed that the NFDC’s annual turnover, since the shift, was Rs. 70 crore whereas earlier it was barely Rs. seven crore. Before the shift, the NFDC was funding only five to ten films per year, after the shift, it produced ten to 20. Of the annual turnover amount, Rs. three to five crore per year was spent on producing good films, offering a loan of up to Rs. 20 lakh per venture.117 Gupta’s views were firmly challenged. Jahnu Barua, a noted filmmaker, objected to his statement that quality cinema was subjective. According to Barua, such a statement was only “a cloak for a policy change”. He strongly opposed abandoning culture on the ground that it perhaps could not make money or compete with the private sector. He urged, “Surely culture is an investment for which one cannot expect returns in a market place.”118 Barua added, if this was NFDC policy, it should “give the government the opportunity to set up a fresh corporation under a new name. The managing director and the board of directors of this new organisation should be able to convince the government that the purpose for which it is set up is profit and not cultural development.”119 Shyam Benegal, Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Goutam Ghose, Kalpana Lajmi, Saeed Akhtar Mirza, Anand Patwardhan, and Aparna Sen expressed their displeasure at the way the NFDC was going with regard to the development of New Cinema.120 Benegal criticised the NFDC’s flawed planning with regard to facilitating the distribution and exhibition of cinema by building theatres, and that mainstream entertainment had become the mantra for the NFDC. Adoor was disturbed by the kind of B- and C-grade foreign films the NFDC was importing and distributing. He also wondered how the NFDC had been running without a normal board for the last several months. Ghose pointed out the NFDC losing its perspective due to being busy with multi-channels. He also said that secretaries and joint secretaries of the MIB should not “poke their noses” into the Corporation’s affairs. Lajmi alleged that the NFDC had failed to encourage new filmmakers and “seem to have an allergy to unknown names.”121 She criticised Corporation’s emphasis on making mega-bucks and administrative hierarchy. She said, “For devoting two years of my life to Rudaali, I was paid Rs 40,000 as the director’s fee. This works out to about Rs 1,500 a month, a sum which is paid to office peons nowadays.”122 Saeed Akhtar Mirza pointed

Economic Reforms, the NFDC, and New Cinema  243 out the problem of marketing. He found the NFDC very bureaucratic, lacking “a motivated visionary as its leader.”123 Anand Patwardhan, giving the example of Percy, a Gujrati film made by his friend, criticised the NFDC for its apathy towards its own films and filmmakers.124 Kumar Shahani also agreed that “governments always fail to market” and publicise, and to some extent, it could have been intentional because the “government boards were full of sympathizers of the market” and “intention comes as a subterfuge.” In his case, he named trade and import and export organisations who would actively interfere in the buying and selling of his films.125 In a nostalgic opinion piece, Kumar Shahani recollected the times when filmmakers had fought for the kind of intervention which would give Indian cinema the status it deserved. He wrote, “In the 1970s and ‘80s, a young culturally independent generation was built up. Today, the National Film Development Corporation should devote itself mainly to sustaining that generation instead of allowing the corporation to be steamrolled into a clone of satellite television.”126 He wrote how filmmakers like him would “inevitably slide into a cultural vacuum” if the NFDC and Doordarshan let them down. He was afraid “if our cinema culture is not preserved, we will be at one another’s throats on the pretext of religious, regional and linguistic differences.”127 He wished that the NFDC would “be able to tell the government that with the policy of liberalisation, a certain amount of money should be reserved by the information and broadcasting ministry for cultural development.”128 He concluded, “With the NFDC concentrating on the Metro channel, it is in danger of losing sight of its ideology and raison d’etre [sic] completely. If it keeps harping on profits it will become just like any other profit-driven distributor from Naaz building.”129 When Shahani was asked where the NFDC stood in the 1990s scheme of filmmaking, he said, I don’t know, on quicksand perhaps. But more than ever before it should represent all that is exploratory and pure in cinema. NFDC as well as Doordarshan can meet the challenge of the satellite channels and the freer import of films only by opting for a purer form, for a cinema that doesn’t merely try to imitate The Bold and The Beautiful... The answer is to assimilate alien influences and create something that is totally new and relevant to our context.130 The NFDC’s romance with the Metro Channel had received extensive criticism. Khalid Mohamed wrote, “NFDC has become the presiding deity of the idiot box, commissioning such puerile pap as Dum Duma Dum Dum – the title of one of its song-and-dance-based tele-shows and also the symbol of its degeneration into crass entertainment.”131 Mohamed wrote, NFDC has made the channel such an overriding priority that nothing else seems to count any more – or if it does, only secondarily. The corporation’s office at Bombay’s Nehru Centre is strewn with mail bags

244  Economic Reforms, the NFDC, and New Cinema answering the Dum Duma quiz. One of its junior officials complains, “Metro, Metro is all that we hear about ever since the channel started in January. Production of feature films, exports and all that is only naam ke vaaste.”132 Talking about the Voluntary Retirement Scheme (VRS) offered to the NFDC staff, Mohamed said, “The uncertainty faced by the staff has been periodically aggravated by the Central government’s quixotic attitude towards the NFDC.”133 This was the circumstance when Metro Channel “fell into NFDC’s lap.” Amidst charges of dishing populist entertainment, one NFDC official was quoted to have defended, I don’t agree with the populist accusation. We are showing quite a few sensible programmes as well – like the animated Jungle Book, Charlie Chaplin shorts, documentaries on wild life and portraits of star personalities like Smita Patil, Kamal Haasan and Madhubala on Filmon ki Duniya.134 The NFDC’s brief association with Doordarshan’s Metro channel got over in October 1993. The association had brought a lot of exposure to the Corporation, though not for films, but for television work.135 According to Ravi Gupta, he was not under any pressure from the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, nor was he doing anyone a favour by providing Doordarshan with software as well as technical infrastructure in its battle with Star and Zee. As the TOI wrote, Hence the sponsor-driven initiative to produce a number of obviously commercial programmes, many of them linked closely to the popular cinema industry, an industry to whose star-studded and formulaic output NFDC was originally formed as an alternative. In other words, Gupta was sleeping with the enemy for reasons of commerce.136 The NFDC lent its name to commercial industry-based programmes like Superhit Muqabla, Mere Saath Chal, and Mirch Masala. The TOI believed, “the issue that needs to be dealt with urgently is the massive loss of credibility that the corporation has suffered, especially as supporters of quality cinema.”137 Ravi Gupta was reported to have accepted this “adverse image” “quite candidly” yet continued to emphasise the plus points of the TV experience. Khalid Mohamed asked elsewhere, “Sure, it may be argued by the NFDC brass that they still fund films. Where? Which? When? Mediocrity has become the hallmark of an institution that once strived for excellence.”138 That people were concerned about the degeneration of the NFDC is clear by the letters written to the editor, TOI. Jeetu Prasad from Bombay wrote, “If a national organisation concerned with film development changes tack

Economic Reforms, the NFDC, and New Cinema  245 so quickly and does publicity for the mainstream industry on the Metro network, then development has been put on the back burner.”139 He also emphasised and reminded us how “the NFDC was originally set up for reasons of cultural communication and not profit.”140 Bibekananda Ray from Delhi wrote about the NFDC’s dwindling support to off-beat filmmaking. He wrote, The NFDC’s retreat from off-beat film production seems to be a symptom; the disease is far deeper. Satellite TV’s spread in urban homes, low quality fare on Doordarshan and a creeping cynicism about human values are eroding enthusiasm about off-beat films…In a bleak scenario like this, the NFDC has a role to play. What it lacks is imaginative stewardship.141 Shyam Benegal expected the NFDC to do some ‘serious thinking’ ‘as to what they are about and perhaps even redefine their objectives.’142 To top the crisis, since February 1993 the NFDC had been without a formal board which usually gave sufficient representation to eminent filmmakers. Reportedly, a Delhi bureaucrat was lobbying for the key post of the board’s chairman. The TOI suggested that the NFDC should cut down on production of films, invest the saved money in exhibition, “giving the tax-paying public an opportunity to see the films and judge for themselves whether the NFDC is fulfilling its objectives. That would be true marketing strategy in the changing economic scenario.”143 The NFDC was also found neglecting the well-being of its own filmmakers. Paresh Kamdar, whose first feature film Tunnu Ki Tina was produced by the NFDC, was not happy with the Corporation’s decision to premiere the film on television via the much-hyped DD-III in September 1995, instead of a theatre release. He was reported to have said that a TV premiere would be like “murdering” the feature film. The Corporation had also failed to subtitle it on time, which made it impossible for Kamdar to send the film to any foreign film festivals though officials of Nantes (France) and Turin (Italy) had shown interest in the film.144 Ravi Malik’s explanation was that the premiere of the film on Doordarshan automatically gave it good publicity before its theatre release. Similarly, Kumar Shahani’s Char Adhyay had run into some unnecessary trouble with Vishwa Bharati University and the Censor Board of India.145 Due to the Board’s clearance delay, the movie could not be screened at the 29th IFFI (January 1998). Eminent personalities of cinema expressed their disappointment and wrote to President K.R. Narayanan and Prime Minister I.K. Gujral, seeking their intervention. The whole controversy, according to them, had reduced Shahani to ‘a silent witness of the slow death of a film to which he has given so unstintingly.’ They were reported to have said, ‘It is most unfortunate that due to the intractable stand taken by three government bodies – Vishwa Bharati, the Censor Board and the NFDC – Char Adhyay is being withheld indefinitely from screening in its

246  Economic Reforms, the NFDC, and New Cinema entirety in national and international forums.’146 Kumar Shahani told me that Gujral, as the then PM, had defended his case two or three times, he had even sent a letter to the Ministry not to cut Char Adhyay, “but when they released it they have cut it…I don’t know how to deal with it.”147 Char Adhyay was also invited to Cannes, but NFDC could not prepare the print on time.148 It was not surprising then that the NFDC had several of its entries rejected in the Panorama section of IFFI. The two NFDC-produced Hindi films selected for the 1998 Panorama were Char Adhyay and Rui Ka Bojh. A filmmaker, Suma Josson, said, “If even NFDC-funded cinema can’t find a place in the Panorama, it might just as well wipe out any pretence of art and finance outand-out commercial cinema.”149 The 1994 IFFI edition had been reflective for the NFDC and New Cinema filmmaker. According to Nikhat Kazmi, “Over and again, the festival has been punctuated with debates on the current viability of the art film movement in the country.”150 Shyam Benegal pointed out the non-communicability of the New Cinema films made in the last few years.151 In an interview, when asked what he thinks of the successes and failures of the New Cinema movement, he said, New Cinema had failed to bring “new energies”. He elaborated, you see…creative industries are not meant to be replicating stuff…they are supposed to come up with experience in new ideas, different kind of…to offer you new insights, experiences, one or another kind…art is a living thing…it is not simply a monument…it is a living, breathing thing…152 New Cinema, according to Benegal, could not keep itself “new” anymore. Shaji Karun wanted the NFDC to revert to its earlier role of the FFC, i.e. financing films. He accused the NFDC of being more interested in running Doordarshan’s Movie Club than promoting quality cinema.153 The NFDC’s (Over)Involvement with Television, and Its Impact on New Cinema in the 1990s Filmmakers’ romance with television, which had started in the 1980s, continued in the 1990s, too, perhaps more vigorously. Television was looked at as a viable alternative to feature films due to the escalating price of film raw stock, undependable actors, production difficulties and the indomitable hold of the box-office formula.154 New/Good/Middle Cinema filmmakers continued to make serials and telefilms for Doordarshan, sometimes with its active financial help. Basu Chatterji was working on Byomkesh Bakshi. Hrishikesh Mukherjee had made three serials – Hum Hindustani, Rishte, and Talaash. Gulzar was working on a 13-part serial, Kirdaar, based on short stories by eminent Bengali, Urdu, and Hindi writers. Om Puri featured in many of these episodes. Gulzar also directed two telefilms for Doordarshan, Nirmala and Godan, based on Munshi Premchand’s novels. The poor marketing of

Economic Reforms, the NFDC, and New Cinema  247 films also forced many filmmakers to turn to TV serials. Gulzar was reported to have said, ‘Making feature films is like playing a test match while serials are like one-day internationals with their exciting moments. It’s better to have even that one viewing on TV than a showing in the film festival’s Panorama section.’155 Govind Nihalani made three films for Doordarshan – Jazeere (1989), Pita (1991), and Rukmavati Ki Haveli (1991).156 Shubhankar Ghosh, who made Woh Chhokri (1994) with NFDC-DD, directed a Marathi serial Nishkriti, based on the seven-page poem written by Tagore, in the early 1970s, for Bombay Doordarshan. His father Nabendu Ghosh wrote the screenplay. Nabendu Ghosh himself had become famous for his serial Yugantar (1991), based on a Bengali novel by Sunil Ganguly.157 Similarly, Sudhir Mishra directed a successful television serial Kab Tak Pukaroon, broadcast during 1990–1. Ketan Mehta produced Captain Vyom (1998–9) in collaboration with the NFDC.158 In spite of various political and bureaucratic flaws, Doordarshan’s power was obvious, and the massive viewership and assured income from serials were “a big bait.”159 While the mood in the late 1980s predicted doomsday for the film industry and saw television as a big competitor to the big screen, in the early 1990s the tone was changing. Analysts were being more optimistic about a close collaboration between the two. Shiv Sharma, the then Director-General (DG) of Doordarshan, wrote, To my mind, the destinies of cinema and television are interlinked. In the present stage of development in our country, cinema and television should have roles that are complementary to each other. The differences between the two media are not fundamental, while their similarities are – both are powerful means of mass diffusion.160 By the 1990s, Doordarshan had emerged as a major producer of good cinema. Some of the best filmmakers in India made films which won not only national but international acclaim. In 1991 itself, Doordarshan got involved in the making of films like Marupakkam (K.S. Sethumadhavan, an NFDCDoordarshan co-production), Ishanou (Aribam Syam Sharma), Thoda Sa Roomani Ho Jaye (Amol Palekar), and Sarothi (Dr. Bhabendra Nath Saikia). Doordarshan collaborated with the NFDC in more than a dozen films, e.g. Salaam Bombay, Kasba, Nazar, Disha, Marhi Da Diva, Diksha, Suraj Ka Satvaan Ghoda, Woh Chhokri, Rudaali, Aranyak, Mammo, Triyacharitra, Tarpan, Naseem, Char Adhyay, and Tunnu Ki Tina. Sharma stressed, The focus at Doordarshan is not on the box-office, but on commissioning some of the best directors of Indian cinema to create works which will have a lasting impact on films for television. With the large screen concentrating on multi-star, multi-crore extravaganzas, Doordarshan is providing a place in the sun for the serious filmmaker. It is said that television caters to the common denominator, it is supposed to be the great leveller. However, in its attempt to draw upon good filmmakers,

248  Economic Reforms, the NFDC, and New Cinema Doordarshan has displayed its respect for the creative, the intelligent and the unique.161 Shyam Benegal, who had himself made important TV serials for Doordarshan in the 1980s, also said that the better cinema movement had to include TV as well. He gave the example of Europe, where a lot of new films were made for TV first and then released. He also cited the case of Adoor Gopalakrishnan’s Mathilukal (1990). It was made for TV, released in Kerala, and was to be telecast later on.162 In 1993 the NFDC planned to show off-beat as well as popular films on Doordarshan’s entertainment channel.163 Doordarshan drew more and more upon cinema, about five or six feature films were screened in various languages every week. Doordarshan-1 also provided a platform for 58 FTII diploma films during 1994–5.164 Sharma wrote, “It is only by abandoning the atmosphere of distrust that exists between the two media and by actively collaborating in each other’s activities that television and film can give their best to the viewers in the country.”165 However, with the arrival of a dozen channels on one’s remote control, the opening up of the communication industry in the post-liberalisation era, and two new satellite channels, Zee TV, and Asian Television Network (ATN) started in 1992. Zee was progressing faster in its reach and content. Doordarshan and cinema both faced challenges from these new sky channels.166 Along with it, telecom licensing began in 1995, leading to a revolution like the situation in the communication industry. With Prasar Bharati Act (1997), Doordarshan got further restrained. Doordarshan-NFDC launched its own Movie Channel in the face of competition from the Zee and Star movie channels.167 While it was praised for its funding and exhibition space for good cinema, Doordarshan’s ad hoc policies and quixotic treatment of cinema were criticised.168 Sudhir Mishra, the director of Main Zinda Hoon, the first telefilm co-sponsored by Doordarshan and the NFDC, in 1988, complained that though Doordarshan sponsored serious filmmakers they chose commercial stuff for prime time. Saeed Mirza was reported to have said, ‘It would take an anthropologist to decode Doordarshan’s programmes and policies.’169 These filmmakers cited various flaws in the working of the Doordarshan, namely, overdependence on sponsors, no scope of getting a repeat telecast of an episode/serial, officials lacking knowledge of making television a credible medium, whimsical censorship, sometimes imposed without the knowledge of the producer/director of the TV serial, rejecting important proposals without citing substantial reasons, impulsive handling by the higher officials at Mandi House, and no respect given to the established filmmakers.170 Vijaya Mulay also wrote that though a possibility existed with Doordarshan to sustain small filmmakers and the national cinema, The political and bureaucratic pressures under which it operates as well as the serious charges of corruption have brought it to a sorry state… Given the realities of politics of the last decade of this century, the chances of political will to take a far-seeing overall view, decide on a

Economic Reforms, the NFDC, and New Cinema  249 coherent, tenable policy towards promotion of cinema and transform it into an effective programme are negligible.171 It was against this apathy that a group of filmmakers, led by Basu Chatterji, revived the Forum for Better Cinema. Saeed Mirza told me that it was started in his house in Bombay Central, with 400 names, which included not just filmmakers, but writers, painters, poets, etc. from across India. The petition signed by these 400 people were sent to the government of India. “What do we want for better cinema?” The idea was very simple. “We needed 100 theatres, across India, 200 seaters, that’s all.”172 The Forum was to be used as a platform to demand separate cinema theatres for art films and to discuss the problems of the small filmmakers and lobby for them, presenting their problems in perspective just as the FFI presented the problems of the mainstream filmmakers.173 The first demand of the Forum was a ‘proper time slot’ for quality films from Doordarshan. M.S. Sathyu demanded national exposure and not national awards. Sudhir Mishra wanted his films to reach the people. Filmmakers also demanded a proper build-up or pre-publicity before the telecast of an off-beat film, a solution to slipshod transmission, etc. Mishra also asked for an increase in the budget sanctioned by Doordarshan for telefilms.174 The unity and aggression perhaps came a little too late. It was an all-accepted fact that, due to the television boom in the 1990s and the arrival of cable television, the ‘talented’ filmmaker found “the dice loaded against” them as they had no financial resource of their own.175 Gaston Roberge’s was perhaps the most intense reaction on television ruining cinema. He proclaimed, while writing on the centennial occasion of cinema, “The birth of Television has ruined all the Cinemas of Europe. And it is about to ruin all the Cinemas of India. A sobering thought as we celebrate Cinema’s Centenary. Long Live Cinema! Cinema is dead!”176 Narwekar also wrote that the electronic media, in the form of cable/satellite TV channels and their multiplicity, challenging the monopoly of Doordarshan, had a negative consumerist and psychological impact in the long term, affecting the whole concept of cinema for the future.177 Till Doordarshan enjoyed its monopoly of the television industry, it was able to ally with and help the NFDC survive. Doordarshan, undoubtedly, enabled the production and exhibition of some of the best feature films, telefilms, and TV serials. However, the arrival of satellite television threatened this monopoly. Doordarshan had to wage a struggle for its own survival, thereby shifting its attention from the NFDC and better cinema to launching more channels to survive the onslaught of satellite TV. The NFDC also got trapped in this fight for Doordarshan’s survival, affecting the larger cause of the New Cinema movement. Discourse on New Cinema and the NFDC in the Liberalised Times The doubt and concern about the survival of New Cinema got reflected in the titles of various articles that film critics and analysts were writing, e.g.

250  Economic Reforms, the NFDC, and New Cinema “Strategies for Rebirth”.178 There was a sense of loss when Aruna Vasudev wrote, Much water has flowed under the bridge since the birth of a new cinema in India twenty years ago. Then there was pride in the genesis of a new language of film, now there is anxiety about the appropriation of that language and the absence of a sense of direction. Then there was an excitement about cinema as a form, now there is uncertainty about the survival of the cinema itself.179 The support system for alternate cinema had started declining since the 1980s. The reason for existence of institutions like the IFFI, NFDC, FD, the national film awards, the NFAI, and FTII, etc. came to be questioned. According to Chidananda Das Gupta, if these were not altogether abolished, “it has partly been due to inertia and partly the fear of alienating powerful sections of the intelligentsia. They have therefore been allowed to continue listlessly, without positive faith in their necessity.”180 Vasudev also pointed out that only a national pride in their work, ‘can help this cinema reassert itself once again’. The government also needed to play an active and constructive role instead of giving up its commitment. Das Gupta criticised the government to have politicised and bureaucratised the infrastructure once built as a support system for a more creative cinema and used its growth centres to exploit the political advantages of alliance with the commercial cinema…Already, budget constraints are imposing a minimalism on most of the filmmakers, forcing them into one-set, one-location films with very few characters.181 New Cinema which was known for its promotion to on-location shooting found itself stranded in the 1990s, when Shyam Benegal was unable to go location shooting for Suraj Ka Satvaan Ghoda because of budgetary constraints; “The set meant to represent a town in U.P. had to be constructed in a Bombay studio.”182 Benegal confessed, “at no time in my career could I say financing my films was easy…You use up a lot of energy trying to convince people the film you want is worth making.”183 Benegal echoed Kumar Shahani. When Shahani was asked how he had been coping with the fact of being “‘marginal’, even to the so-called ‘other’ cinema”, he replied, “It’s been very difficult, and one has had to have other roles apart from that of the filmmaker. I’ve had to be a kind of proselytizer for cinema itself…life is very difficult and insecure.”184 Benegal lamented the fact that since the mid1970s, the development of New Cinema “got caught in the backwaters and tended to lose its motivation and thrust…It became dependent on governmental financing”185 Elaborating upon his worry and bringing in the problem of distribution, Benegal explained,

Economic Reforms, the NFDC, and New Cinema  251 Unlike in the West, we haven’t been able to create independent distributors who go about attracting an audience. You have to search for this audience, unlike the audience flocking like bees to the honey of the big blockbusters with their star casts. Because of this, a large number of promising film makers have abandoned their natural directions and shifted off.186 The issue of the audience had always been at the centre of the New Cinema movement. The Manifesto written by Sen and Kaul had pointed out that the New Cinema would demand a New Audience. When asked what kind of audience “non-formula directors” look for, Benegal said, “There are different kinds of audiences…one can’t presume that everyone will want to see your film…The audiences are out there, we have to find them, take our films to them.”187 When Satyajit Ray was asked if he felt that the better cinema movement had lost its momentum, he brought back the focus on the audience, I strongly believe in films which find an audience. Everyone should be making films for the audience and not for prizes at festivals abroad… An Indian film should be made primarily for the Indian public…I feel that there is a great amount of potential for the offbeat film. The corollary is that the costs have to be kept down, a film has to be made economically and released in the cinema halls. No one can afford to make films for a small coterie.188 Jahnu Barua was not optimistic about the future which appeared bleak to him as ‘The National Film Development Corporation…failed to project its commitment to good cinema which cannot necessarily be associated with profit.’189 Kumar Shahani admitted, ‘I cannot imagine a world without some people making good cinema. And no, it’s not easier for me to make films today despite the fact that I have been critically appreciated.’190 The lack of quality film writing in India was also discussed as part of the New Cinema crisis. Film critic Sudhir Bose highlighted the poor standards of film writing, heavily relying on interviews of directors and stars, rather than the feature film itself. This tendency led to Indian cinema’s insufficient presence in international film awards and lack of coverage in global film magazines. He suggested “self-sustaining” writing on cinema and film studies being introduced in the Indian universities to enable cinema in India graduate “to an art form worthy of academic study.”191 While, some criticism was constructive and introspective, another set of film critics looked at New Cinema with total disregard and disdain. New Cinema tendencies were branded as colonial and fascist. Film critic George Kutty maintained that art cinema represented a particular class. He said, It is a representation of an image for the other…an export of an image of elitist consciousness… which happens because of the colonial

252  Economic Reforms, the NFDC, and New Cinema experience…trying to make a meaning for itself, for the other and within that a notion of art is born, a notion of image is born192 He felt, “this creation of an image is a denial of the popular – the growing middle class consciousness trying to take over, and in that sense the creation of art in new cinema is the introduction or, in the political sense, the beginning of fascism.”193 He defended his leap and elaborated on how the New Cinema created “a schizoid consciousness”, “an uprooted consciousness” which was based within the West value system, and not Indian cultural milieu.194 Pranjali Bandhu found Shyam Benegal’s cinema “pro-imperialist in their orientation”. She believed, “The fostering of an alternate cinema through institutional mechanisms has to be subjected to clear scrutiny… Government involvement in the production of films has the aim to subvert as far as possible the coming up of any genuinely anti-establishment people’s cinema.”195 Many NFDC films, according to Bandhu, portrayed the state as “benefactor of the people”.196 She found Saeed Mirza’s films to be unable to take up the “national question as it is coming up and presenting itself in India. He falls into the liberal trap of equating unity and equality with that between only the various religious communities of India, a city centred point of view.”197 Bandhu was also not very appreciative of the way New Cinema, particularly in Karnataka, handled the theme of rural poverty and Brahminical obscurantism, hypocrisy, and exploitation. She criticised the manner in which these filmmakers handled the issue of women’s emancipation, which was, “symptomatic of their lack of a real break with the traditions of mainstream cinema”.198 George Kutty was countered by Wimal Dissanayake, whom I quote in full, In any discourse, there are certain counter discourses, certain other forces, [sic] So it is true that the new cinema, by and large, was influenced by the West and represents a kind of western consciousness…but it is not a very monolithic, simplistic surrender to the colonial consciousness. There are points of resistance in any discourse and in new cinema too. And so you have to take all these into consideration and see whether the new cinema itself does not have the capacity for selfcritique. I think it has. So to say that it is just an imitation, a reflection of western consciousness is not doing justice to those points of resistance…then the new cinema provides the ground on which we can talk about tradition in terms of modernity, women’s issues, political issues and so on. So there is a little more complexity than what you assume exists in the New Cinema.199 He was correct about New Cinema’s capacity for self-critique. As we have seen in the previous Chapter, New Cinema movement had multiple trends. Satyajit Ray, Kumar Shahani, and Mani Kaul, Shyam Benegal, Ketan Mehta, and Saeed Akhtar Mirza all defined and customised the New Cinema as

Economic Reforms, the NFDC, and New Cinema  253 per their sensibilities, revolting against each other,200 refusing to follow a homogenous understanding of the “New” Cinema. Each one of them defined the New for themselves. Also, if one checks the filmography of a director regarded as the most “abstract” of all the New Cinema filmmakers – Kumar Shahani – his work is very much rooted in Indian tradition and ethos. Along with the filmmakers’ “inability” or alleged reluctance to make films “communicable”, the lack of art theatres and a clearly defined film policy, and a fading official support shook the New Cinema movement by the mid1990s. The NFDC tried to shed off its responsibility in the whole crisis. Ravi Malik blamed the filmmakers who had themselves deserted the movement. He was reported to have clarified that the NFDC was spending ‘the same quantum of money’ on film production; however, ‘the standard of the film depends on the film-maker and his calibre rather than the Corporation.’201 Saeed Mirza was reported to have stated, ‘This deterioration has nothing to do with films. It is due to a worldwide pragmatism which is not allowing a certain kind of space to exist for serious cinema, literature and art.’ The press attached “a note of caution”, for non-formula cinema, “unless more oxygen is pumped immediately into the movement…unless the momentum rises… parallel cinema could one day truly ebb with the tide.”202 Shabana Azmi was quoted, ‘I’m afraid film-makers all over the world have to do some serious re-thinking. What’s the point of surviving through screenings on television and at festivals and universities? Films are meant for the cinema halls and should remain that way.’203 Kundan Shah stated that he could not approach the NFDC anymore as he was afraid it had become ‘autocratic’, and one had to be viable for them as well. Khalid Mohamed had earlier pointed out that with private backers getting scarcer, the role of the NFDC had become all the more important in the last two years.204 He suggested the NFDC do more professional marketing and promotion to promote the better cinema movement. But, by the late 1990s, it was clear that unless the government has a dialogue with the better – film-makers and initiates a concerted strategy to streamline distribution along with finance, there may well be a new definition of Indian cinema that is music-driven and in which the best films end up as cellotape between the songs.205 The patron-producers and star-actors of New Cinema were forsaking the movement. Amit Khanna, managing director of Plus Channel, believed that the New Cinema boom was over. He had produced a series of art films like Gudia, Saaz, and Sardari Begum (Shyam Benegal), but was reassessing his support to art cinema.206 Khanna succinctly stated, This was an experiment that failed. Art films is a dead term not only in India but all over the world. It was valid for the ‘70s because people

254  Economic Reforms, the NFDC, and New Cinema were still experimenting with the medium. Gradually, it petered down to an intellectual exercise of a handful of people with a limited purpose.207 The biggest blow to the New Cinema discourse came from its patron-star, Naseeruddin Shah. Shah continued his attack in the 1990s. While he went on signing some of the most commercially popular Hindi films, where he played either a villain or a second lead, film writings reduced him to a subject of gossip. Filmfare was talking not about his acting skills but what he was wearing on his wrist to increase ‘male strength’.208 He continued to call the New Cinema “a sham”.209 He confessed in an interview that he found it amusing that people took “this whole parallel cinema business so seriously”.210 He disagreed that he let it down. He claimed to have never refused to work with “these so-called serious filmmakers. I always gave them first priority…But their films didn’t grow. These filmmakers didn’t grow.”211 He said that there was no scope for criticising these filmmakers and their craft. He made an explosive assertion, There never was a movement in the first place. The whole thing was a clever move by the government to stop a handful of people from making films on social problems. And the press played it up. The so-called parallel film movement was headed by Marxists who sent their children to the US to study. That was the level of commitment.212 According to Madhulika Varma, Naseeruddin Shah was parallel cinema’s Atlas. For nearly a decade he bore his responsibility gamely in film after film. Then, abruptly, he left. He says he never really left, but for close to half a decade he’s been savaged by friends and critics alike, for deserting art cinema when it needed him the most. Today, stinging from the moral apartheid his critics have consistently subjected him to, he’s embraced commercial cinema with a vengeance.213 When Om Puri, another star actor of New Cinema, was asked if he agreed with Shah’s hot-headed criticism of the art cinema movement, he said, “I wouldn’t be as harsh as he is…After all, people like Smita Patil, Shabana Azmi, Naseer and I came to be recognised because of the parallel cinema movement.”214 But he warned the art filmmakers to not think themselves to be superior, as “It’s not enough to make films for international film festivals or be thrilled if your film has made it to the Panorama section. You must make an effort to make the film work in India.”215 He expressed hope for parallel cinema, provided the art filmmakers were ready to re-invent themselves, and make their film accessible to the audience. According to Puri, “The aim should be to attract and absorb the audience, make them reach an emotional catharsis. Unfortunately, today’s offbeat cinema lacks these qualities.”216 He

Economic Reforms, the NFDC, and New Cinema  255 himself was doing more television projects than films. The films that he did in the 1990s were mostly mainstream and a few international projects, still better choices than Naseeruddin, e.g. City Of Joy (1992), Droh Kaal (1994), Maachis (1996), China Gate (1998), and East Is East (1999). Some of the younger and well-known New Cinema filmmakers and practitioners also turned to commercial and popular filmmaking. Ketan Mehta made Oh Darling Yeh Hai India (1995), and Aar Ya Paar (1997). Vanraj Bhatia, the celebrated music director of New Cinema, gave a background score to Madhuri Dixit-Anil Kapoor-starrer Beta (1992). Prakash Jha, when asked if he was comfortable in the commercial set-up with Bandish (1996) and Mrityudand (1997), said, Producing Bandish has given me tremendous confidence. I am exposed to the world of financiers, distributors and creditors. I know the market. I feel so relieved to be on my own. Though an NFDC loan was sanctioned for Mrityudand, I did not take it. There is no point. I strongly feel that an NFDC loan should be made available to fresh filmmakers rather than to established directors.217 Amidst this prevailing sense of despair and demands, various film critics noticed significant changes in the standards of commercial cinema in the 1990s, and did not hesitate in giving credit to the New Cinema. According to these critics the effect of New Cinema was not lost completely on the film industry in general. Khalid Mohamed, giving credit to the new generation in the audience watching cinema, noted the shift in many well-budgeted films consciously coming to grips with social phenomena and psychological themes.218 He saw “glimpses of sensitivity” in characterisation in Hindi films, as well as “the angry young heroes had an edge of vulnerability”, e.g. in Beta, Deewana, Sadak, Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar, Lamhe, etc. He wrote, “Besides the interesting departures from the formulaic in terms of content, rapid strides were also made in terms of form. Technical excellence has become the rule rather than the exception.”219 Udaya Tara Nayar also found the 1990s’ Hindi cinema viewer to be more cinema-educated and cinema-conscious than it ever was to be able to evaluate the form and content and the technique and production values of movies. He credited exposure to the movies of the West on the Star channel, educative talks and discussions on cinema, and filmmaking telecasts on TV for these changes. He found the Hindi filmmakers to be in “an enviable position” as they had “an eager, receptive and cinema-conscious audience” and the support of corporate bodies like ABCL, Plus Channel, Sony Entertainment, etc. to support them in fulfilling their dreams.220 Khalid Mohamed repeated his faith, “It’s all too easy to sneer at cinema that doesn’t play the rules of the game…But like it or not, the phenomenon of quality cinema does exist despite the ceaseless round of obituaries.”221 He had reasons to be hopeful. Popular actresses were taking up roles that were once endorsed by the likes of Shabana Azmi or Smita Patil. In the wake of Lekin,

256  Economic Reforms, the NFDC, and New Cinema Drishti, and Rudaali, Dimple Kapadia, according to Mohamed, had become as important for quality films as Shabana Azmi and Smita Patil were. The glamour industry had become more alert of the creative awareness with the roles they were doing. Madhuri Dixit was keen to work with Prakash Jha. Shah Rukh Khan, after doing Idiot, said, “I learnt a helluva lot from Mani. I love that man. He rang me up the other day and said, ‘Yaar, people are actually going along with the pace of my film.’”222 Shah Rukh also raved about his performance in Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa directed by Kundan Shah, his first after JBDY. Kundan had already worked with Shah Rukh in the TV serials Umeed, Circus, and an episode of Wagle Ki Duniya. Gunvanthi Balaram also wrote, “Contrary to popular beliefs, the parallel film movement has not vanished…Several off-beat film-makers are now approaching the finishing line despite several odds like inflation devaluation and shoe-string budgets.”223 Citing examples of films like Roja (1992), Bombay (1995), Hey Ram (2000), Lagaan (2001), Satya (1998), and Company (2002), Chidananda Das Gupta also highlighted the influence of New Cinema on the mainstream film industry in the 1990s. He wrote, If the gap between art and commerce is closing today, it is because the art cinema impregnated the commercial in the period since India’s independence, empowering it in terms of concepts and technique and qualifying it for international acceptance at world forums like international film festivals. These festivals had already recognized the artistic prowess of Indian cinema; they only had to see the marriage of art and commerce on a grand scale224 Art cinema was indeed acknowledged for placing Indian cinema on the world map. According to John W. Hood, “What has made India famous internationally amongst serious film lovers is not, of course, the so-called mainstream, Hindi commercial movie that appears in video parlours and Asian supermarkets throughout the South Asian diaspora, but the art cinema of India, the so-called alternative cinema.”225 Ziya Us Salam had a slightly nostalgic view though, Parallel cinema…gradually faded away with the coming of multiplexes from the mid-1990s. It yielded place to a new brand of urban cinema, to films that talked of middle-class aspirations and problems rather than a dispossessed villager or an oft-exploited Dalit in the hinterland. With strong, well-etched out characters and a persuasive style of storytelling, parallel cinema was good as long as it lasted. It offered thinking men and women a completely different cinematic experience. It seldom commanded attention, it often had to appeal for it. But for those who answered the appeal, the result was a fulfilling experience.226

Economic Reforms, the NFDC, and New Cinema  257 A sense of nostalgia marked the New Cinema discourse in this period. While losses were recounted, demands were raised for enabling the New Cinema reach a larger audience. When the NFDC, its star-patrons, and private producers deserted the movement, New Cinema got indirect support from popular actors and filmmakers who adopted some of its trends. When some called it colonial and fascist, others showered praise on it for putting Indian culture and cinema on the world map. One common voice that emerged was the need for the government’s role in supporting the better cinema filmmakers, more so in liberalised times. The Long-Awaited Moment Arrives: Declaration of Filmmaking as an Industry (1998) The demand to declare filmmaking as an industry on a par with other industries, was an age-old demand. It was discussed in the Film Enquiry Committee Report (1951). The demand was raised to ease the process of bank loans for film production; as films were regarded as “speculative” and “risky” ventures, banks refused to grant loans to filmmakers and producers. This led to (over)reliance on private producers and distributors for money, who charged overwhelming rates of interest and also dictated the content and quality of a feature film. The FFC was established to help the filmmakers mainly with finances. Though some banks had started giving loans to the film industry, it still needed the state as a guarantor. The demand would recur often in discussions to solve the many problems Indian film industry was facing.227 It took about five decades for the Indian government to declare film as an industry. It finally happened in 1998. In the 1998 national assembly elections, BJP promised to bestow “corporate status” to the film industry in its election manifesto. The NDA government, led by the BJP, kept its promise when it declared film as an industry on 10 May 1998, indicating a major shift in state policy towards the film industry. The announcement was made at a conference titled “Challenges Before Indian Cinema” by the union information and broadcasting minister Sushma Swaraj.228 Tejaswini Ganti argued that the Indian state’s declaration of industry status to filmmaking marked a ‘taxonomic shift’, “from a Nehruvian developmentalist paradigm, in which film was solely valued for its pedagogical and communicative potential, to the contemporary neoliberal conjuncture where the existence of multiple, prolific filmmaking traditions are regarded as examples of native ingenuity and a source of economic growth.”229 Ganti maintained that economic policies had so far treated cinema as a source of tax revenue rather than as an engine of growth.230 This perception had started to change post-economic reforms in 1991. The popular cinema was the biggest beneficiary of this attitudinal change, as Ganti noted, “from being a heavily criticized and maligned form of media, to one which the state actually celebrated, touting as an example of India’s success in the international arena.”231 She located this transformation in the “altered

258  Economic Reforms, the NFDC, and New Cinema media landscape produced by economic liberalization” and the subsequent cultural nationalism engendered by these processes. The state’s most immediate reason for granting industry status was to rescue the Hindi film industry from the control of the underworld and prevent it from its dependence on black money.232 As an industry, filmmaking became a part of the organised industrial sector, paving the way for financing from banks and other financial institutions. Both the banking and corporate sectors began to invest in filmmaking, either by providing loans or by creating production companies. Some of the largest Indian industrial houses and corporations created media subsidiaries that entered television and film production, as already mentioned above.233 The Indian Entertainment Industry (IEI) was steered by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), which restructured film and other allied entertainment industries separately and in relation to each other.234 According to an India Today report, the Hindi film industry was hazy about its new status as an industry.235 The industry still wondered what the status meant; “Does it mean they will be accorded the legitimacy that has been denied them over the years? Does it mean they don’t have to depend on loan sharks any longer? Will it bring them closer to institutional finance? Does it mean tax benefits?”236 Amit Khanna envisioned a Hindi film industry where films would be insured – banks will not lend without insurance – therefore scripts would be finalised, artistes would sign completion bonds and films would be completed in a stipulated period of time. It was also supposed to help fight black money and the underworld. Subhash Ghai was quoted to have said, Industry status will help in bringing in a practical system of working and growth. You can’t ask for a loan unless you are a genuine producer with a proper project report. Banks will lend only on merit. We will have to live up to this so the whole work culture will have to change.237 With the granting of industrial status to cinema, the nature of film financing changed; the corporate sector stepped into movie-making. Over the years, the exhibition business was also transformed, allowing audiences to experience luxury seating and the latest movie projection and sound systems. According to Lata Jha, “the impact of economic liberalization on Indian cinema is best exemplified by the transition from rickety singlescreen cinema halls to plush multiplex theatres.”238 (Popular) films were made for the NRIs to consume. The work of three filmmakers, Sooraj Barjatya, Aditya Chopra, and Karan Johar, brought in what film critic Anupama Chopra called “a generational change”, exemplifying this period and accompanying changes.239 The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) formulated guidelines for the banks for funding the film industry in 2001. Banks were made eligible to provide

Economic Reforms, the NFDC, and New Cinema  259 finance independently to film producers “with a good track record” and/or in participation with the NFDC.240 According to the IBEF report, In order to get the funding, the industry had to adapt to new corporate governance requirements such as adherence to standard accounting practices, business plans, targets and time schedules and insurance as mandated by banks and financial institutions. Profitability and commercial success became essential, which required professionalism, efficiency in film making and adoption of market driven practices. It resulted in the entry of corporate entities in all sections of the film industry.241 This facilitated the much-needed institutional financing, which was earlier unavailable. Banks like IDBI entered film financing in the 2000s. According to Mukesh Bhatt, after banks, corporates brought investments on a partnership basis with equity partners not charging any interest but taking 50 per cent of the revenue. With the positive effects of the number of screening halls, ticket prices, and digitalisation of film content, corporatisation led to many international studios such as Walt Disney, Warner Bros., and Sony entering into collaborations with local production houses to produce and distribute Indian films. According to the IBEF report, Before corporatisation, there was a monopoly of big producers and stars in the industry. With institutional funding available at relatively lower interest rates, new and talented filmmakers can easily produce their films. Corporatisation of the film industry has also encouraged film producers to float new companies on stock markets.242 As a result, low-budget films began to create a place for themselves in the Indian film industry, outside the patronage of the NFDC.243 Mainly content- and performance-driven, the small-budget films had tight marketing budgets and depended heavily on word-of-mouth publicity for their success. Some films recovered their production costs from the sale of TV rights. This helped good scripts to generate sufficient funding for their future projects. The advent of multiplexes further helped their cause, as niche viewers were always interested in such films.244 Concluding Remarks This chapter dealt with the larger effect of liberal economic reforms, unleashed in 1991, on the NFDC and New Cinema. The rhetoric of “purposive entertainment and social transformation” was back as a definition of good cinema. Cinema was important because it was a “forceful international communication medium”, a “social unifying force”, and “a powerful modernising influence”. Rewarding profitability and punishing inefficiency became the corner stone of development and survival of the public sector. The

260  Economic Reforms, the NFDC, and New Cinema buzz word of this period was accountability, reform, and restructuring (like the post-1975 times). Electronic media was opened up and broadcasting and telecasting rights were allowed to the private sector. These economic changes infiltrated the cultural policy which took a global turn with the state exercising an “arm’s length intervention”. Government withdrew from funding and organisation. Corporate houses were encouraged through tax subsidies/ rebates to fund culture. Entertainment industry was seen as a rich source for revenue. Cost escalation and rupee devaluation had already affected young New Cinema filmmakers who needed more active support from the NFDC. Once power to charge canalisation fee was taken away from the NFDC, without providing fresh sources of income, it was on the verge of becoming a “sick unit”. Proposals were discussed to shut down or wind up or privatise the NFDC by the MIB and many film practitioners. A commission, in 2000, actually recommended the NFDC’s disinvestment or winding up. It was said that the Corporation had “outlived its utility” in the age of liberalisation and satellite-based media technologies. But, with help from Doordarshan, the NFDC managed to survive some of the economic and cultural challenges of the 1990s. DD emerged as a major producer of good cinema. It helped with production and exhibition facilities, and also in generating funds for the NFDC’s various developmental activities. The NFDC earned good revenue from DD’s Metro Channel. Distribution of films through television became major profit centre for the Corporation which helped it to cross-subsidise its activity of promoting good quality cinema. The NFDC did produce some of the most important Hindi films in its history going out of its own formulae, during this period. However, NFDC’s criteria of “will it sell?” had started affecting the New Cinema movement. Filmmakers and sympathisers of New Cinema kept reminding it that it was set up for cultural development and not for profit. The NFDC’s apathy, the escalating price of film raw stock, production difficulties, etc. forced filmmakers to look at TV as a viable alternative to feature films. Issues of reaching the audience and the state of the exhibition facilities continued to bother the NFDC and questioned the validity of New Cinema. Film critics, filmmakers, patron-star actors, and producers started abandoning the New Cinema’s cause. The stage was already set for providing industrial status to Indian cinema with the economic reforms of 1991. The Indian film industry had started experiencing a wider corporatisation and transparent regulation and investment since 1992 itself. What the FFC and NFDC were unable to achieve, the economic reforms of 1991 and an industrial status in 1998 did for the Indian film industry. Some of these achievements were less adventure and more quality work, with more transparency and better production value, a sense of commitment, discipline and timely completion of projects, ascertaining better exhibition facilities, and moreover, easing things for new and talented filmmakers, too, by providing institutional facilities like loans at reasonable rates, etc. Small-budget films began to create a place for themselves outside the patronage of the NFDC. The changes in this period, i.e. 1991 to 1998, led to the very questioning of

Economic Reforms, the NFDC, and New Cinema  261 the need of an agency like the NFDC. A cumulative effect of these advances forced a sabbatical on the NFDC. It revived itself only in the 2000s, with a changed avatar, that of a facilitator agency promoting the Indian independent (aka indie) cinema. The New Cinema had also changed its nomenclature to Indian Indie cinema. Notes 1 ‘Statement issued by P. N. Dhar, I. G. Patel, M. Narasimham and R. N. Malhotra on 1 July 1991, Agenda For Economic Reform, Annexure 5’, in Ramesh, 2015, p.191. 2 Das, 2002, p.220. 3 Ibid. p.349. 4 Ibid. p.243. 5 For details, see, Jyoti Malhotra, ‘Autonomy, At Last?’, The Illustrated Weekly Of India, 13–19 July 1991, pp.18–9. 6 ‘The Harbinger of Change’, The Illustrated Weekly of India, 27 July–2 August 1991, pp.14–5. 7 Ibid. p.14. 8 Gayatri Sinha, ‘The Fine Art of Patronage’, The Illustrated Weekly of India, 11–17 July 1992, p.21. Some of these changes were in continuation with the policies formed by the previous National Front government, as discussed in the previous Chapter of this book. 9 Ibid. Also see, Kakkar, 1993, chapter four, for a detailed analysis of this draft proposal vis-à-vis government’s policy perspective on cultural matters. 10 Sinha, ‘The Fine Art of Patronage’, p.21. 11 Ibid. 12 Ibid. pp.21–2. 13 Ibid. p.22. 14 Ibid. 15 International Film Festival of India ’92, Bangalore,10–20 January 1992, Directorate of Film Festivals, New Delhi, p. not given. 16 Ibid. 17 Meera Joshi, ‘Big Business’, Filmfare, May 1995, p.16. 18 Ibid. 19 Ibid. p.17. 20 Ibid. 21 Ibid. p.18. 22 P. Nilesh, ‘The Way They Were: Flashback ‘96’, Filmfare, January 1997, p.83. 23 Joshi, ‘Big Business’, p.18. 24 Ibid. p.20. 25 Datta, 2003, pp.45–6. Moinak Biswas held a different opinion on this issue, the popular adapting the alternative. He wrote, “It has been a universal tendency of the market forms to assimilate styles, techniques and themes of the minority alternative films in the contemporary phase of capitalism. This has led to a diversification of the modes of filmmaking in India, sometimes with very interesting results, and certainly, to significant technical and stylistic achievements. But…Does the idea of the “popular cinema” itself survive the end of the “great divide”? And can it really assimilate the political charge of the oppositional cinema? I believe the answer is negative in both cases.” Biswas, 2014, p.24. 26 Amrit Gangar, ‘For a few avenues more’, The Times of India, 31 October 1991, p.6. 27 Ibid.

262  Economic Reforms, the NFDC, and New Cinema 28 Ibid. 29 Khalid Mohamed, ‘NFDC doesn’t live here any more… almost’, The Times of India, 12 April 1992, p.15. 30 ‘NFDC employees’ fate in the balance’, The Times of India, 24 April 1992, p.5. 31 Ibid. 32 Mohamed, ‘NFDC doesn’t live here any more [sic]…almost’. 33 Ibid. 34 Ibid. 35 Ibid. The British Film Finance Corporation, a model for the Indian FFC/NFDC, was already shut in 1985. 36 Jaya Bachchan, ‘Stop that back-stabbing’, The Times of India, 19 April 1992, p.15. 37 Mohamed, ‘NFDC doesn’t live here any more [sic]…almost’. 38 ‘Panja pulls up NFDC, film-makers’, The Times of India, 22 September 1992, p.14. 39 Ibid. Also see, ‘Panja promises steps to help serious films’, The Times of India, 15 September 1992, p.6. Panja had accepted in front of the representatives of the Forum for Better Cinema that the biggest problem for serious cinema was finance but since the Ministry itself was under severe financial constraint, serious filmmakers would be helped through other means like concessions in raw material and finance mobilisation. 40 Khalid Mohamed, ‘His films, their films’, The Times of India, 3 May 1992, p.13. 41 Milind Kokje, ‘NFDC to fold up monthly magazine’, The Times of India, 24 June 1993, p.5. 42 See, Arun Gupta, ‘Deschool, unlearn, get real’, The Times of India, 14 January 1996, p.A7. 43 Gangar, ‘For a few avenues more’. 44 ‘Will The Shyam Benegal Committee Give A New Lease Of Life To The Films Division?’, The Times of India, 14 October 1997, p.A4. 45 The FD finally merged with NFDC in January 2023. See, Mohamed, 2022. 46 ‘Will The Shyam Benegal Committee Give A New Lease Of Life To The Films Division?’ 47 Ibid. 48 Meenakshi Shedde, ‘Proposal to shut down FD, NFDC creates a storm’, The Times of India, 18 August 2000, p.6. 49 FD, CFSI, DFF, and NFAI finally merged with the NFDC in January 2023. See, Rawal, 2023. 50 Shedde, ‘Proposal to shut down FD, NFDC creates a storm’. 51 Ibid. 52 Ibid. 53 Ibid. 54 Ibid. 55 Ibid. 56 For a detailed report on the Babri Mosque-Ayodhya Crisis, see, Smita Gupta, ‘Ayodhya: A City Under Siege’, The Illustrated Weekly of India, 18–24 April 1992, pp.2-5. The years 1992–3 are also remembered for two significant achievements for India as a democracy and as the largest film producer. Satyajit Ray was awarded Oscar for Lifetime Achievement in 1992. In 1993, the government passed the 73rd Constitutional Amendment, relating to Panchayati Raj system, providing reservation to women, an important step towards an inclusive democratic structure at the village level. Nihalani made this amendment subject of his film Sanshodhan, mentioned above. 57 Shoma A. Chatterji, ‘Bollywood’s Basic Instinct: Survival’, Indian Cinema 1993, p.35.

Economic Reforms, the NFDC, and New Cinema  263 58 Ibid. p.38. 59 Ibid. p.35. 60 Meera Joshi, and Praveena Bharadwaj, ‘Uncertain Liaisons: An Update On Film Finance And The Underworld’, Filmfare, December 1993, p.24. 61 Ibid. p.25. Nadeem was later implicated in Gulshan Kumar’s murder in 1997. 62 For a detailed story on Sanjay Dutt’s arrest and Hindi film industry’s underworld connection, see ‘Sanjay Dutt: All for a Gun’, Filmfare, June 1993, pp.13– 39. 63 Joshi and Bharadwaj, ‘Uncertain Liaisons’, p.26. 64 Ibid. p.28. 65 S. Balakrishnan, ‘The Big Chill’, Filmfare, May 1997, p.24. It is a detailed report on the underworld-showbiz connection. 66 ‘Clash: That’s Entertainment, that’s Politics’, Filmfare, July 1993, p.13. 67 Ibid. 68 Ibid. 69 Ibid. 70 ‘Sena targets Shabana’s film’, The Times of India, 20 April 1993, p.3. Contrary to Sena’s allegation that Azmi mostly helped the “opposite community”, she went abroad on a fundraising theatre tour with her play Tumhari Amrita to collect money for Kashmiri Hindu refugees. 71 Ibid. 72 ‘Clash: That’s Entertainment, that’s Politics’, p.14. 73 For opinions of the film fraternity to political interference, see, ‘We Don’t Want Dictators’, in Filmfare, July 1993, pp.22–5. After their win in the 1995 state assembly elections, the BJP-Shiv Sena got tougher on Bombay film industry, and intruded more often. For a detailed report, see, Meera Joshi, ‘Now, That’s Politics!’, Filmfare, June 1995, pp.30-3. 74 See, Tridwip K. Das, ‘Days of Joint Ventures’, The Times of India, 3 July 1998, p.A6. 75 ‘Ticket to welfare’, The Times of India, 11 April 1991, p.9. The film won the National Film Award for Best Film on Family Welfare in 1992. 76 See, Cinema in India, January 1992, p. not given, for an elaborate advertisement titled “NFDC’s Projects in the Service of Indian Film Industry”. 77 Annual Report 1991–92, p.50. 78 Ibid. 79 Ibid. p.51. Also see, Cinema in India, January 1992, p. not given, for an advertisement on “NFDC Video”. 80 Indian Panorama 2001, p.182. http://iffi​.nic​.in​/Dff2011​/FrmIP2001Award. aspx?PdfName​=IP2001​.p​df, date accessed 16 April 2015. 81 Ravi Gupta, ‘National Film Development Corporation’, Indian Cinema 1993, p.68. 82 Ibid. 83 Ibid. p.72. 84 Ibid. 85 Ibid. 86 Ibid. 87 Ibid. 88 Annual Report 1993–94, p.63. 89 Ibid. 90 Nikhat Kazmi, ‘Mixed reactions over IFFI venue’, The Times of India, 23 January 1994, p.9. 91 Annual Report 1995–96, p.50. 92 Report for Vote on Account 1996–97, p.16.

264  Economic Reforms, the NFDC, and New Cinema 93 Annual Report 1996-97, p.41. 94 ‘National Film Development Corporation’, Indian Cinema: The Indian Panorama 1997, DFF, MIB, Government of India, New Delhi, 1998, p.169. 95 Ibid. 96 Ibid. p.170. 97 Ibid. p.171. 98 Ibid. 99 Ibid. pp.171–2. 100 Annual Report 1997–98, p.42. 101 ‘National Film Development Corporation’, Indian Cinema: The Indian Panorama 1998, p.139. 102 I found it fascinating that Das used Nihalani’s NFDC-funded feature film Sanshodhan (1996) to illustrate the point that Indian democracy was changing. He wrote, “Sanshodhan, describes the arrival of the panchayat raj in a Rajasthani village…It is a simple political film, which explains the magic of civic engagement and the rewards of local self-government. The local elite will almost certainly try to subvert the democratic process when it goes against their interest. They will try to pack panchayats with their relatives and friends, as they do in Nihalani’s popular film, but eventually they will have to reconcile themselves to sharing power.” Das, 2002, p.322. 103 ‘National Film Development Corporation’, Indian Cinema: The Indian Panorama 1998, p.139. 104 Pankaj Butalia, ‘Questions of Survival’, Indian Cinema 1992, p.20. 105 Ibid. 106 Ibid. p.21. 107 Vinod Bhardwaj, ‘Achchi Filmon Ke Darshakon Tak Pahunchne Ki Duvidha’, Indian Cinema 1993, p.67. 108 Ibid. 109 Murthy, ‘The State and Cinema in India’, p.20. 110 Bharati Sadasivam, ‘‘We are not ashamed’’, The Times of India, 22 August 1993, p.13. 111 Ibid. 112 Ibid. 113 Ibid. Emphasis added. 114 Ibid. 115 Ibid. 116 ‘Straight Answers: Chairman, National Film Development Corporation’, The Times of India, 28 July 1995, p.A1. 117 Ibid. Also see, Jerry Pinto, ‘Pragmatism is all about making profits’, The Times of India, 14 May 1995, p.29. 118 Jahnu Barua, ‘Quality cinema’, The Times of India, 29 August 1993, p.14. 119 Ibid. 120 ‘Obscure objectives of desire: Noted film-makers express their views’, The Times of India, 22 August 1993, p.13. 121 Ibid. 122 Ibid. 123 Ibid. 124 Ibid. 125 Personal Interview with Kumar Shahani, New Delhi, 24 May 2016. 126 Kumar Shahani, ‘Art attack’, The Times of India, 22 August 1993, p.13. 127 Ibid. 128 Ibid. 129 Ibid.

Economic Reforms, the NFDC, and New Cinema  265 130 Khalid Mohamed, ‘‘Why imitate The Bold and The Beautiful?’’, The Times of India, 6 December 1992, p.13. 131 Khalid Mohamed, ‘Now showing on Metro’, The Times of India, 22 August 1993, p.13. 132 Ibid. 133 Ibid. 134 Ibid. Also see, ‘NFDC’s Lost Objectives’, The Times of India, 23 June 1994, p.12. 135 ‘Sleeping With The Enemy’, The Times of India, 20 March 1994, p.A6. 136 Ibid. 137 Ibid. 138 Khalid Mohamed, ‘Brave Art’, Filmfare, June 1996, p.22. 139 ‘Letter to the Editor 1 – No Title’, The Times of India, 29 August 1993, p.14. 140 Ibid. 141 Ibid. 142 ‘Sleeping With The Enemy’. 143 Ibid. 144 Sriprakash Menon, ‘Hungama over Tunnu ki Tina’, The Times of India, 15 September 1995, p.A2. The film looked at the aspirations of the urban middle class, especially the economics of living and images thrown up by the media instigating desires besides super imposing distorted perceptions. Kamdar explained, ‘The film also looks at the middle class which actually does not make much progress and still continues to hope in the era of liberalisation.’ 145 See, Prabodh Parikh, Tyeb Mehta, and Atul Dodiya, ‘Artist Muzzled’, The Times of India, 9 December 1997, p.12. 146 Ratnottama Sengupta, ‘Censor board’s clearance delays screening of film’, The Times of India, 16 January 1998, p.10. 147 Personal Interview with Kumar Shahani, New Delhi, 3 May 2016. 148 Ibid. The international audience perhaps got to see the uncut feature film. 149 Meenakshi Shedde, ‘‘It’s a hate campaign against Mumbai cinema’’, The Times of India, 1 November 1997, p.6. Also see, Khalid Mohamed, ‘The soap saga’, The Times of India, 10 January 1993, p.15. Mohamed noted that commercial viability was the watchword at the twenty fourth IFFI’93, from its advertising, sponsors, to selection of films. 150 Nikhat Kazmi, ‘Mixed reactions over IFFI venue’, The Times of India, 23 January 1994, p.9. 151 Ibid. 152 Personal Interview with Shyam Benegal, Mumbai, 16 June 2015. 153 ‘The colour of absence’, The Times of India, 28 May 1995, p.A7. 154 Madhavi Irani, ‘Hello, serials!’, The Times of India, 17 May 1992, p.15. 155 Ibid. 156 The film is based on Federico García Lorca’s Spanish play The House of Bernarda Alba (1936). 157 Mangrooram Mishra, ‘On A Noble Path’, Filmfare, August 1992, p. not given. 158 Durdana Mirza, ‘Going where no Indian director has gone before’, The Times of India, 3 November 1997, p.A6. 159 Irani, ‘Hello, serials!’. Famous film archivist, P.K. Nair, however, was not happy with the situation. He believed, “Lack of patronage and distribution/exhibition outlets has driven the filmmaker to disillusionment and despair. Left high and dry at the face of powerful market forces, he is forced to settle for pathetic compromises by switching on to sponsored programmes for TV.’ See, Nair, ‘Film History’, p.25. 160 Shiv Sharma, ‘Sharing the Future: Musings on the Big and Small Screens’, Indian Cinema 1991, p.47.

266  Economic Reforms, the NFDC, and New Cinema 161 Ibid. p.51. 162 Shyam Benegal, and Maithili Rao, ‘Shyam Benegal’, Cinema in India, Annual 1991, p.26. 163 ‘NFDC films to be screened on DD entertainment channel’, The Times of India, 16 August 1993, p.10. 164 ‘FTII’, Indian Cinema 1995, p.61. 165 Sharma, ‘Sharing the Future: Musings on the Big and Small Screens’, p.51. 166 See, Amit Khanna, ‘A To Zee’, Filmfare, December 1992, p.96. Also see, Bindiya Mathur, ‘Dish Harmony’, Filmfare, October 1992, pp.95–8; Bikram Singh, ‘Satellite Invasion: Death-Knell For DD?’ Filmfare, January 1993, pp.115–7. 167 For a press ad on the Movieclub, see, ‘Classified Ad 51 – No Title’, The Times of India, 4 June 1995, p.16. 168 Gunvanti Balaram, ‘Directors vs. Doordarshan’, The Times of India, 10 February 1991, p.9. 169 Ibid. 170 Irani, ‘Hello, serials!’. 171 Vijaya Mulay, ‘Indian Cinema Edging Into the 21st Century’, Indian Cinema 1993, pp.15–6. 172 Personal Interview with Saeed Akhtar Mirza, Mumbai, 27 June 2018. 173 Sanjit Narwekar, and Basu Chatterjee, ‘The Serious and the Funny’, Cinema in India, December 1992, p.37. The other filmmakers included in the Forum were Govind Nihalani, Sai Paranjpye, Gulzar, Shama Zaidi, Basu Bhattacharya, Sadanand Suvarna, Sadhu Meher, Amit Khanna and Sudhir Mishra. 174 Balaram, ‘Directors vs. Doordarshan’. 175 Murthy, ‘The State and Cinema in India’, p.20. 176 Gaston Roberge, ‘Happy Centenary Feast, Indian Cinema! And then, May You Rest In Peace!’, Indian Cinema 1993, p.22. 177 Sanjit Narwekar, ‘Film and the Electronic Media’, Indian Cinema 1993, p.59. 178 Aruna Vasudev, ‘Strategies for a Rebirth’, Indian Cinema 1991, p.25. 179 Ibid. 180 Das Gupta, 2008, p.93. 181 Das Gupta, 1995, pp.114-5. 182 Florinda Denis, and Shyam Benegal, ‘Of Truth and Invention’, Cinema in India, September 1992, p.23. 183 Manjula Sen, ‘The Wonder Years’, Cinema in India, March 1993, p.22. 184 Chandrashekar, 1993, p.15. (Emphasis added). 185 Benegal and Rao, ‘Shyam Benegal’. 186 Ibid. p.26. 187 Denis and Benegal, ‘Of Truth and Invention’, p.24. 188 Khalid Mohamed, ‘‘No one can afford to make films for a small coterie’’, The Times of India, 21 April 1991, p.9. 189 Manjula Sen, ‘Hope ‘92’, The Times of India, 3 May 1992, p.13. 190 Ibid. 191 Sudhir Bose, ‘Indian Cinema: In Search of a Place in the Sun’, Indian Cinema 1990, p.24. 192 ‘Popular Indian Cinema: Overcoming Prejudices, Discussion with Wimal Dissanayake and Malti Sahai’, 1992, p.39. 193 Ibid. p.40. (Emphasis added). 194 Ibid. pp.40–1. 195 Bandhu, 1992, p.68. Naseeruddin Shah was also saying similar things on New Cinema in an interview given in the same year. See below. 196 Ibid. pp.74–5. 197 Ibid. p.75.

Economic Reforms, the NFDC, and New Cinema  267 198 Ibid. p.76. 199 ‘Popular Indian Cinema: Overcoming Prejudices, Discussion with Wimal Dissanayake and Malti Sahai’, p.41. 200 Kumar Shahani remembered, how Satyajit Ray “was completely at sea when he saw my film, he didn’t know what the hell I was doing…he said it is a challenge to the language of cinema…however, I said, doesn’t matter, Manik da… through oppositions also, traditions grow.” He remembered how it was Ray who strongly recommended his name for the Homi Bhabha Fellowship, and how it all was “contradictory”. He laughed about it. Personal Interview with Kumar Shahani, New Delhi, 3 May 2016. 201 ‘The Last Wave’, The Times of India, 12 June 1994, p.A5. Ravi Malik faced “disciplinary proceedings” in 2003. Malik served as the senior manager with the finance division of the Corporation. Press reports suggested that he was asked to go on leave till the inquiry was complete. He was facing “many complaints of financial misappropriation.” The report hinted that Malik was “taking cuts” from the producers whose films the Corporation was sponsoring. The whole issue had the capacity to “expose misappropriation of funds, if any, on commissioning of films and other deals the corporation struck with private parties.” In the same year, the CBI had booked another senior officer of the NFDC for “possessing assets disproportionate to his known sources of Income.” The NFDC also owed crores to Doordarshan and was having a stand-off with it. See, Singh, 2003. The NFDC also moved to the court and served Malik with a charge sheet, complaining of corruption, dated 28 March 2003. For details of the charges against him, see, ‘Ravi Malik… V. National Film Development Corporation & Others…’, 2004. 202 ‘The Last Wave’. 203 Ibid. 204 Khalid Mohamed, ‘Alive And Kicking’, Filmfare, March 1993, p.47. 205 Meenakshi Shedde, ‘Film-makers fret and fume as NFDC watches’, The Times of India, 5 July 1998, p.4. 206 When famous film actress Neena Gupta was asked about her film for Plus Channel, she disclosed, ‘The script was all ready but Plus wanted a commercial film and cast because they were running into losses with too many films. I didn’t want that so I gave it to NFDC, where it was again rejected because it wasn’t a commercially viable subject.’ See, Keith Fernandez, ‘Straight Answers’, The Times of India, 14 November 1997, p.A1. 207 Nikhat Kazmi, ‘Who killed art cinema?’, The Times of India, 12 July 1998, p.15. 208 See, Filmfare, February 1992, p. not given. 209 See, Filmfare, October 1992, p.5. 210 Madhulika Varma, ‘There Never Was A New Wave!’, Filmfare, October 1992, p.33. 211 Ibid. 212 Ibid. 213 Ibid. p.30. 214 Shraddha Jahagirdar-Saxena, ‘Om Puri: And So To Wed’, Filmfare, July 1993, p.66. 215 Ibid. 216 Anuradha Choudhary, ‘‘Now At Least I Have A Decent Bank Balance’: Om Puri on the upbeat side of life’, Filmfare, September 1997, p.130. 217 Mangala Chandran, ‘‘There are no wolves eating me up here’’, The Times of India, 10 December 1995, p.A6. 218 Khalid Mohamed, ‘Signs of Change’, Indian Cinema 1992, p.6. 219 Ibid. p.5.

268  Economic Reforms, the NFDC, and New Cinema 220 Udaya Tara Nayar, ‘Hindi Cinema: The Controlling Phenomenon’, Indian Cinema 1995, pp.5-6. 221 Mohamed, ‘Alive And Kicking’, p.46. 222 Ibid. p.47. 223 Gunvanthi Balaram, ‘They shoot movies, don’t they?’, The Times of India, 15 November 1992, p.13. 224 Das Gupta, 2008, p.97. 225 John W. Hood, ‘India’s Gift to the World’, Indian Cinema 1995, p.11. 226 Salam, 2013, p.27. 227 See, ‘Treating films as industry-Govt. studies plea’, Screen, 16 March 1973, p.14. 228 Ganti, 2012, p.41. The Conference was organised by the FICCI and FFI, both private trade and industry organizations, and attended by representatives of the two organisations as well as state officials and members of the Hindi film industry. The dominant tone of the presentations was of “crisis and appeal”, and nearly every presentation at the conference discussed how the state had been negligent toward cinema for decades. Ibid. p.63. 229 Ibid. p.42. 230 Ibid. p.54. 231 Ibid. p.58. 232 Ibid. p.65. 233 Ibid. pp.66–7. 234 Gabriel, 2013, p.136. 235 Aiyar, and Chopra, 1998. 236 Ibid. 237 Ibid. 238 Jha, 2016. 239 Ibid. 240 Corporatisation of Indian Film Industry, 2013, p.12. 241 Ibid. p.8. 242 Ibid. 243 For an essay on the NFDC’s changed role as a facilitator of New Cinema, aka, New Indian Independent Cinema, since 2000s, see Tiwari, 2018. 244 Corporatisation of Indian Film Industry, pp.10–1.

Conclusion

For a long time, the Indian leadership maintained a contemptuous attitude towards the film industry. The fact that a Chalachitra Akademi, on the model of the other three national Akademis, could never be formed, proved the apathy. Nevertheless, slowly and gradually cinema became a part of newly independent India’s formative practices, with a major aim of profoundly influencing the ‘new citizen’s’ development. Unfortunately, the Indian state never had a well-thought-out plan to do so. Its policies on the film industry stood for its policies on film culture. The sharp difference between an industry and a cultural practice was pointed out only by the young New Cinema filmmakers. A major argument this work propounds is that a desire for New Cinema preceded the FFC, and not otherwise; the FFC was a result of this desire and moral pressure created by young filmmakers on the government. Further, it is established that once founded, the FFC, undoubtedly, emerged as the sole patron of the New Cinema movement in India. While financing and production facilities came largely uninterrupted, both the Corporations failed miserably on the distribution and exhibition front. The book affirms that the Emergency (1975) and the economic reforms of 1991 directly affected the two Corporations, impacting the direction of the New Cinema movement successively. However, the book has argued, the branding of New Cinema as a state enterprise and a political project is one-sided and simplistic. As this research has shown, it was a self-motivated cultural movement, supported and appropriated by the state machinery. Both New Cinema and the FFC/NFDC were shaped by the discourses and debates surrounding their legitimacy and usefulness, since the 1960s, to a large extent. These discourses directly influenced government policies, vis-à-vis the two Corporations, leading mostly to more regulations and a withdrawal of subventions, etc. granted to the Corporations. Drawing upon Lewis and Miller’s work on Critical Cultural Policy (2003), this project successfully looked at the relationship between state formative practices expressing themselves as cultural policy. Using film policies enabled further exploration of the dynamics at play in a nation-in-making and a state’s efforts at development. Government reports and press periodicals both helped investigate the question of how culture became policy and policy became culture in independent India. The study of DOI: 10.4324/9781003335436-8

270 Conclusion various discourses collected through writings in newspapers and film magazines indicates a fascinating and ever-lasting disagreement on what constitutes “good cinema”. While Satyajit Ray imagined a “good” cinema to be “more rooted in Indian ethos” (1948), the government of India found it vital in propagating the ideas of freedom, justice, duty, and sacrifice (1949). The National Film Policy (1980) used descriptive words like progress, enlightenment, and welfare of the country and its people while describing “good” cinema. The critics called the FFC/NFDC and New Cinema a “squanderer of public funds” (1973) while calling its practitioners parasites and “selffulfilling bastards” (1985). Words like “avant-garde”, “surrealistic”, “art film”, and “parallel cinema” became words of humour. For critics, such words as New Wave, experimental, alternative cinema, and personal cinema were “academically impressive sounding terms” created “to conceal New Cinema’s lack of form, content, direction, and technical skill” (1980). New Cinema perhaps faced its worst identity crisis when its own star patron Naseeruddin Shah called it a big hoax, a delusion. Young filmmakers, e.g. Ketan Mehta, Saeed Akhtar Mirza, and Kundan Shah, who joined this movement in the 1980s questioned the singular, homogenous understanding of New Cinema. These shifts in New Cinema discourses resulted in the creation of newer identity categories, e.g. New Cinema in the 1960s, parallel cinema in the 1970s, good/better cinema in the 1980s, and healthy/meaningful cinema in the 1990s. A study of these shifts with the help of discourse analysis has challenged the all-statist understanding of the FFC/NFDC policies and the New Cinema movement. One is not proposing here that the New Indian Cinema was an independent movement. It certainly depended upon the state for its survival. But the spirit and desire to make ‘different’ cinema was independent of the state. India’s New Cinema was desired by young filmmakers, exposed to world cinema through a film society movement. The New Indian Cinema was not simply a result of a “brief period of political crisis” from the late 1960s to the mid-1970s. Rather, the desire existed since independence (Chapter 2 of this book), and continued and flourished even after the mid-1970s. Madhava Prasad’s claim that the “proto-genre” of New Cinema was created during the Emergency does not hold as per this research. It cannot be established that the New Cinema movement was an indirect consequence of the state’s financing of the FFC/NFDC, it was not accidental either. Filmmakers and the urban audience desired a change. The FFC intervened as a financier, and emerged as the chief benefactor of India’s New Cinema. It, along with the NFDC, remained chief patrons of the alternative cinema movement in India till the 1990s. The major achievements of the FFC/NFDC have been the support it provided to the New Cinema movement itself. The New Cinema filmmakers were able to make the kind of cinema they made only because the FFC existed. The FFC/NFDC also succeeded in creating a niche audience and a niche private producers’ group who kept the desire for alternative cinema alive. The major failure of the two Corporations has been a total apathy and

Conclusion  271 aversion to solving the problem of distribution and exhibition of their feature films. The concept of Janata theatres and other art house cinemas could not be pursued effectively and aggressively – the brunt of which was faced by New Cinema filmmakers where they were called various names, and made to feel guilty for making the kind of cinemas they made or wanted to make. The FFC/NFDC needed a more aggressive approach to distribution and exhibition. The lack of both made critics slam New Cinema as a cinema of the elites, for the elites and by the elites, ‘wasting tax-payers’ money for their personal ambitions’. There were instances proving otherwise, e.g. Ninasam Chitrasamaja (Chapter 4). The FFC/NFDC and New Cinema should not have been judged from their outstanding loans alone but from whether they had influenced Indian cinema scene as a whole or not. And in that respect, they did more than anticipated. The arrival of television, video, and liberal economic reforms did give an impression that the New Cinema may have been a state enterprise. But that is being deterministic again. Unlike the FD, the New Indian Cinema was not a political project. Indeed a combination of technological advances in the communication industry and wider economic reforms of 1991 culminated in a sense of despair and disillusionment against New Cinema by the 1990s. It survived the challenges and emerged again in the 2000s with a new name and a new patron. After going through resources as varied as official documents to film trade journals, I can say that the story of the FFC/NFDC and New Cinema is dynamic and with many actors – the state and filmmakers being only two of them. There were multiple players writing the history and policies of the two, influencing the movement and the Corporation, both. There is a strong need to write more institutional histories of contemporary India, especially of those which have played a major role in constituting the self-perception of independent India. A lot has been written on censorship in the Indian film industry, but a history of CBFC itself has not been attempted. In Chapters 5 and 6, I have narrated the interface between cinema and television, though with an exclusive focus on New Cinema. This could be a major research project. A future study on New Cinema and the FFC/ NFDC could include audience surveys, the distribution and exhibition aspect of the Corporation, and a textual analysis of its feature films to understand the ‘state/statist’ argument more sharply. A project could also be initiated to investigate the intersections between Nayi Kahaani and New Cinema to know how India reacted culturally in the post-independence period, and how it perceived its ‘new’ responsibilities as an independent nation-state. Institutional-cum-film history approached through an empirically meticulous policy and discourse analysis could help future scholars bring out more vigorous accounts of India’s post-independent cultural and political history.

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284 Bibliography Street, Sarah, ‘Film Finances and the British New Wave’, Historical Journal of Film Radio and Television, Vol. 34, No. 1, 2014, pp. 23–42, https://doi​.org/ 10.1080/01439685.2014.879000, date accessed 17 December 2014. Sur, Sayantani, ‘Bodies in Poverty: Family Planning and Poverty Removal in India’, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 52, No. 40, 7 October 2017, pp. 48–56, https://www​.epw​.in​/system​/files​/pdf​/2017​_52​/40​/SA​_LII​_40​_071017​_Sayantani​ _Sur​.pdf, date accessed 1 February 2019. Tiwari, Sudha, ‘From New Cinema to New Indie Cinema: The Story of NFDC and Film Bazaar’, in ed. Ashvin Immanuel Devasundaram, Indian Cinema Beyond Bollywood: The New Independent Cinema Revolution, Routledge, New York and London, 2018, pp. 25–45. Tripathi, Salil, ‘Tamas: Govind Nihalani’s Serial on Partition Rises Religious Protests’, India Today, 15 February 1988, https://www​.indiatoday​.in​/magazine​/indiascope/ story​/1988​0215-​tamas​-govi​nd-ni​halan​is-se​rial-​on-pa​rtiti​on-ri​ses-r​eligi​ous-p​rotes​ ts-79​6914-​1988-​02-15​, date accessed 24 July 2019. Vasudevan, Ravi S., ‘Addressing the Spectator of a “Third World” National Cinema: The Bombay “Social” Film of the 1940s and 1950s’, Screen, Vol. 36, No. 4, Winter 1995, pp. 305–324, https://doi​.org​/10​.1093​/screen​/36​.4​.305, date accessed 10 February 2015. Vasudevan, Ravi S., ‘Film Studies, New Cultural History and Experience of Modernity’, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 30, No. 44, 4 November 1995, pp. 2809–2814, https://www​.jstor​.org​/stable​/4403399, date accessed 2 September 2019. White, Hayden, ‘Historiography and Historiophoty’, The American Historical Review, Vol. 93, No. 5, December, 1988, pp. 1193–1199, http://www​.jstor​.org​ /stable​/1873534, date accessed 4 July 2013.

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Bibliography  285 Journals/Film Magazines/Periodicals/Digests/Festival Booklets Bulletin on Film: A Digest Meant Primarily for the Use of MIB (Various Issues from 1970s) Cineaste Cinema in India: An NFDC Publication Cinema India International Cinema Vision India Economic and Political Weekly Filmfare IFFI Booklets (DFF) India Currents (USA) India International Centre Quarterly India Today Indian Cinema (DFF) Indian Panorama (DFF) International Film Guide National Film Festival Booklets (DFF) Screen (India) The Illustrated Weekly of India

Newspapers The Times of India

Interviews Kumar Shahani, New Delhi, 3 May 2016. Kumar Shahani, New Delhi, 24 May 2016. Kumar Shahani, New Delhi, 21 June 2016. M.S. Sathyu, Mumbai, 24 December 2015. Saeed Akhtar Mirza, Mumbai, 27 June 2018. Shyam Benegal, Mumbai, 15 June 2015. Shyam Benegal, Mumbai, 16 June 2015. Shyam Benegal, Mumbai, 26 June 2015. Shyam Benegal, Mumbai, 27 June 2015.

Filmography 27 Down (1974 A.K. Kaul) Aakrosh (1980 Govind Nihalani) Albert Pinto Ko Gussa Kyoon Aata Hai (1981 Saeed Akhtar Mirza) Aranyak (1994 A.K. Bir) Arvind Desai Ki Ajeeb Dastaan (1978 Saeed Akhtar Mirza) Bhuvan Shome (1969 Mrinal Sen) Char Adhyay (1997 Kumar Shahani) Current (1991 K. Hariharan) Debshishu (1985 Utpalendu Chakrabarty)

286 Bibliography Dharavi (1991 Sudhir Mishra) Diksha (1991 Arun Kaul) Ek Din Achanak (1988 Mrinal Sen) Ek Doctor Ki Maut (1990 Tapan Sinha) Ek Ghar (1989 Girish Kasarvalli) Gaman (1978 Muzaffar Ali) Garm Hava (1974 M.S. Sathyu) Godam (1984 Dilip Chitre) Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro (1983 Kundan Shah) Kamala Ki Maut (1989 Basu Chatterji) Kasba (1990 Kumar Shahani) Mahayatra (1987 Goutam Ghose) Mammo (1994 Shyam Benegal) Massey Sahib (1986 Pradip Krishen) Maya Darpan (1972 Kumar Shahani) Mirch Masala (1986 Ketan Mehta) Naseem (1995 Saeed Akhtar Mirza) Om Dar Ba Dar (1988 Kamal Swaroop) Paar (1984 Goutam Ghose) Party (1984 Govind Nihalani) Pestonjee (1987 Vijaya Mehta) Rui Ka Bojh (1997 Subhash Agrawal) Salim Langde Pe Mat Ro (1989 Saeed Akhtar Mirza) Sanshodhan (1996 Govind Nihalani) Sara Akash (1969 Basu Chatterjee) Suraj Ka Satvan Ghoda (1992 Shyam Benegal) Tarang (1984 Kumar Shahani) Tarpan (1994 K. Bikram Singh) Trishagni (1988 Nabendu Ghosh) Triyacharitra (1994 Basu Chatterji) Tunnu Ki Tina (1997 Paresh Kamdar) Uski Roti (1969 Mani Kaul) Woh Chokri (1993 Subhankar Ghosh)

Index

Aadmi Aur Aurat 182 Aag Aur Pani 78 Aaghat 203 Aaj Ki Awaz 173 Aakrant 88, 98 Aakrosh 27, 132, 175, 195, 201 Aandhi 116 Aarohan 154 Aar Ya Paar 255 Abbas, K.A. 57, 75, 89, 141, 142 Abhisar 239 Abraham, John 119, 160 Ados Pados 198 Advani, L.K. 117 ‘adventurist’ film producers 39 ‘aesthetic of mobilization’ 27, 117, 118 aesthetic realism 29 Agantuk 231 Agarwal, Subhash C. 238 Agha, Jalal 198 Akademis 9, 18–20, 29, 37, 122, 269 Akaler Sandhane 176 Akashvani cinema/auditorium 91, 95, 108, 125, 128, 130, 177, 178, 191, 209, 215 Albert Pinto Ko Ghussa Kyo Aata Hai 132, 134, 175 Ali, Muzaffar 149, 198, 201 All India Film Producers’ Council (AIFPC) 114, 147, 163, 184 All India Radio (AIR) 1, 88, 89, 139, 191, 232 Amar Jyoti 78 Ambedkar, Babasaheb 236 Amitabh Bachchan Corporation Limited (ABCL) 228 Anand, Dev 85, 116, 117 Anand, Gul 184 Anand, Mukul 228, 229 Anand, Mulk Raj 9, 77

Anand, Vijay 96 Anantram 189 Andha Kanoon 173 Andolan 116 And the Show Goes On 239 Angaar 234 Ankur 27, 28, 117, 138 Anokhi Baat 78 Antarjali Yatra 183 Anubhav 78 Apne Huye Paraye 78 Apu Trilogy 182 Aranyak 247 Aravindan, G. 149, 185 Ardha Satya 27, 176, 179, 180, 203 Arman Bhara Dil 78 art cinema 28, 90, 91, 93, 99, 119, 138, 184, 197, 199, 203, 204, 208, 251, 253, 254, 256 Arth 205 Arvind Desai Ki Ajeeb Dastaan 126, 130, 132, 133 Arwal 174 Ashad Ka Ek Din 88, 98 Asman, K.D. 83 Astitva 229 Atomic Energy Commission 9 Atyachar 134 audience 8, 24, 33, 42, 43, 53, 54, 56, 76, 79, 81, 83, 84, 86–90, 96, 97, 110, 117, 122, 126, 127, 131, 133, 136–8, 141–4, 150, 154, 159, 168, 173, 175, 180, 186, 195, 201–3, 208, 219–22, 229, 240, 241, 251, 254, 255, 257, 260, 265, 270, 271 Aufderheide, Patricia 12 Aur Bhi Hai Rahen 196 Awara 138 Ayengar, Vishwanath 94, 95 Azmi, Shabana 235, 255, 256

288 Index Babri Masjid demolition 5, 214, 233, 262 Bachchan, Amitabh 27, 228, 229 Bachchan, Jaya 231 Badnam Basti 88, 98 Bagh Bahadur 197 Baghdadi, Rafique 6 Bahadur, Raj 74 Bahadur Shah Zafar 196 Bajaj, Ram Gopal 228 Bakshi, Ramesh 78 Balakrishnan, S. 234 “balanced” approach to filmmaking 126 Bandhu, Pranjali 252 Bandish 255 Bandit Queen 229 Bangla 130 Barjatya, Kamal 83 Barjatya, Tarachand 92, 108, 145, 166 Barua, Jahnu 242, 251 Basu, Jyoti 154 Basu, Siddhartha 204 Battleship Potemkin 13 Bedi, Rajinder Singh 81, 120 Begana 78 Benegal, Dev 230 Benegal, Shyam 6, 27, 28, 37, 51, 90, 120, 133, 134, 138, 149, 184, 185, 189, 193, 198, 201–3, 233, 236, 242, 245, 248, 250, 252 Bengal Motion Picture Association (BMPA) 67 Bergman, Ingmar 13 Bergman, Ingrid 52 Beta 255 better cinema 79, 128, 162, 185, 187, 207, 224, 248, 249, 251, 253, 257, 270; Forum For 249, 262 The Bhagalpur blinding (1979–80) 174 Bhandarkar, Madhur 229 Bharat Ek Khoj 199 Bharati, Divya 233 Bhardwaj, Vinod 240 Bhaskar, Ira 28–30 Bhat, M.D. 69 Bhate, Ramchandra 184 Bhatia, Vanraj 255 Bhatt, Mahesh 204 Bhatt, Mukesh 259 Bhattacharya, Basu 133, 184, 185, 201 Bhattacharya, Biren 135 Bhavni Bhavai 27 Bhopal Gas Disaster 174

Bhumika 132 Bhutto, Benazir 13 Bhutto, Zulfiqar Ali 13 Bhuvan Shome 14, 78, 81–6, 88, 89, 92, 98, 146; post- 89, 108, 125, 141; pre65, 89, 108, 125, 142 Bicycle Thieves 51 Bilal, Ahmad 13 Bilat Ferat 88 Binford, Mira R. 24–6, 30, 149 Biradari 78 Birri, Fernando 12 Biswas, Moinak 261 Biswas, Ranjita 208 Blaze Enterprise 90, 215 The Blue Lagoon 201 Bombay 5, 9, 17, 24, 31, 38, 40, 43, 48–50, 52, 59, 69, 71, 75, 77, 79, 81–4, 88, 89, 91, 94–6, 106, 110, 119, 125, 130, 132, 134, 136, 143, 144, 147, 150, 159, 160, 162–4, 173, 174, 183, 184, 187, 190, 191, 194, 201, 208, 221, 229, 230, 233–6, 238, 243, 244, 247, 249, 250, 263 Bombay 229, 256 Bombay-based popular Hindi cinema 15 Bombay Boys 230 Bombay cinema 15–17 Bombay Film Industry 233–5 Boot Polish 52, 138 Bose, Devaki 66 Bose, Sudhir 251 Bresson, Robert 13 Britain’s colonial policy in India 10 broadcasting and telecasting rights 227, 260 Bulletin 116 Buniyaad 196 Buñuel, Luis 13, 139 Butalia, Pankaj 240 Byomkesh Bakshi 196, 246 Calcutta Statesman 37 Cannes Film Festival 32, 125, 133, 175, 189 Capra, Frank 52, 53 Central Plaza 233 Centre national de la cinématographie (CNC) 11 Chabrol, Claude 139 Chaddha, Manmohan 77 Chakra 175, 201, 203 Chakravartty, Sagnik 52

Index  289 Chakravarty, Sumita S. 26, 27, 30 Chakravorty, Utpalendu 201 Chandavarkar, Bhaskar 134 Chandni Bar 229 Char Adhyay 240, 245–7 Char Dham 78 Charulata 71, 88 Chatterjee, Basu 14, 81, 84, 120, 138, 191, 198, 236, 246, 249 Chatterji, Shoma A. 204 Chaudhuri, Shohini 13 Cherian, P.V. 74 Chhoti Chhoti Baten 94 Chhoti Si Baat 191 China Gate 255 Chin Mul 53 Chitrahaar 196 Chitre, Dilip 190, 195 Chopra, B.R. 138, 142, 186, 192, 205, 234 Chopra, Vinod 181, 203 Chorus 89, 118 Choudhry, Shanthi 184 Chunouti 196 Cine Artistes Welfare Fund of India (CAWFI) 236 cinema, state, and scholarship: economic and industrial aspects of indian cinema 21–31; the FFC and New Cinema in India 14–15; literature survey 15–18; nation-making and state-building through (cultural) institutions 9–10; state and cinema 10–14; works on state and culture, institutions, and policy studies 18–21 Cinema For Democracy (CFD) 116, 117 Cinema in India 182, 231, 237 Cinema Novo movement 12 Cinematic Act of 1946 11 Cinematograph Council of Great Britain 39 The Cinema-Underworld Nexus 233–5 Cinemaya 183 City Of Joy 255 Close Up 79 Coelho, C.D. 84 Committee of Management Executives (COME) 135 Committee on Public Undertakings (CPU) 5, 6, 119, 121, 122, 126, 169, 170, 173, 213 Company 256 Cooper, Charles 139

Co-operative Union of New Indian Cinema (CUNIC) 140 co-production 126, 128, 157, 176, 177, 182, 183, 192, 197, 216, 229, 235–9, 247 Critical Cultural Policy Studies 1, 3, 7, 269 critical realism 29 cultural citizens 7, 8 cultural institutions 9, 18, 30, 34 cultural policy 1, 3, 7, 8, 18, 19, 25, 29, 33, 210, 227, 228, 260, 269 Da Cunha, Uma 197 Daddy 197 Dak Bangla 98, 124 Damul 190 Dance With the Wind 239 Das, Gurcharan 226 Das Gupta, Budhadeb 149 Das Gupta, Chidananda 15, 80, 137, 138, 250, 256 Dasi 197 Dastak 78 Datta, Sangeeta 186, 229 Debshishu 181, 195 declaration of filmmaking as an industry (1998) 257–9 Deewana 255 Deewar 117 Dena Bank 88 Desai, Morarji 116, 117 Desai, M.S.M. 141 Desai, Raman 77 Deshpande, Shekhar 14 De Sica, Vittorio 51–3, 76 desire, for New Cinema 3, 8, 31, 35, 37–60 Deva’r 78 Devasundaram, Ashvin 29 developmental aesthetic 27, 28, 117 Devi Ahilyabai 238, 240 Dey, Ajoy K. 206 Dhakom 88 Dharap, B.V. 137 Dharavi 235, 240 Dharker, Anil 123 Dharmshetra 181 Dharti Ke Lal 38, 53, 75 Diksha 191, 247 Dil Aashna Hai 233 Directive on the Film Business 10

290 Index Directorate of Audio-Visual Publicity (DAVP) 115 Directorate of Film Festivals (DFF) 23, 211 discourse 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 35, 37; on New Cinema 249–57, 269–71 Discovery of India 198 Disha 247 Dissanayake, Wimal 15, 252 distribution and exhibition 2, 7, 23, 29, 33, 41, 47, 72, 79, 83, 89, 90, 92, 99, 113, 122, 128, 129, 134, 144, 163, 167, 171, 179, 183, 203, 240, 242, 269, 271 Dixit, Madhuri 256 Do Bigha Zamin 52, 58, 117 Do Dooni Char 78 Dogra, Bharat B. 141 Donhi Gharcha Pahuna 130 Donskoi, Mark 51 Dooratwa 149 Doordarshan (DD) 3, 5, 119, 130, 133, 134, 152, 173, 175, 178, 183, 195–7, 203, 205, 206, 208, 210, 216, 220–2, 230–2, 235–41, 243–9, 260, 267 Doordarshan, NFDC, and New Cinema 196–200 Doosri Sita 138 Droh Kaal 238, 240, 255 Duggal, Mukesh 235 Duniya Na Maane 183 Dutt, Bimal 149 Dutt, Gopal 201 Dutt, Guru 14, 16 Dutt, Sanjay 233, 234 Dutt, Sunil 142 Duvidha 97, 124, 125, 128, 130, 132–4, 197 Earth 230 East Is East 255 economic reforms (1991): culture, and the Indian film industry 227–30; of demolition, riots, and blasts 233–5; NFDC’s achievements (1991-1997) 235–40 Eisenstein, Sergei 13, 51, 139 Ek Adhuri Kahani 88, 89, 98, 130 Ek Din Pratidin 181, 201 Ekti Nadir Naam 239 Elipathayam 202 Elsaesser, Thomas 6 Expenditure Reforms Commission 232 Export Promotion Corporation 22

Fazalbhoy, Y.A. 49 FD 9, 10, 19–21, 31, 39, 115, 232, 233, 262, 271 Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) 258 Fellini, Federico 13 Fernandes, George 118 FFC Film Letter 130 58th Report of the Estimates Committee 92, 109 Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) 14, 23, 24, 43, 61, 85, 94, 95, 123, 140, 141, 167, 169, 173, 196, 199, 212, 230, 232, 233, 248, 250 Film Bazaar 29, 129 The Film Enquiry Committee 8, 17, 22, 38, 57, 257; report and its recommendations 48–50; report of the Film Enquiry Committee (1951) 41–8 Filmfare 5, 6, 28, 75, 80, 83–6, 92, 103, 120, 126, 133, 151, 193, 207, 208, 229, 235, 254 Film Finance Corporation (FFC) 1, 2; the 1968 crisis 77–8; Annual Report (1978) 130; authorised capital 59; Committee’s recommendation 58; developmental aspects 127; Emergency and its impact 115–24; euphoria fizzles 90–8; existential crisis 98–9; financial assistance 58; financial discipline 135; growing desire for reality effect 72–7; Karanjia, B.K. and change in FFC policies 80–90; loan sanction procedures 95; motion picture industry 58; the New Cinema Manifesto (1968) 78–80; NFC is suggested 98–9; performance (197580) 124–36; pre-Bhuvan Shome period (1960-8) 65–72; problem of distribution and exhibition 72; squanderer of public funds 92; state’s vision for cinema as social task 72–7; wastage of public money 93 Film Hi Film 172 Film Makers’ Combine (FMC) 235 Film Market 129, 175, 177, 195, 238 Filmotsav 149, 164, 165, 177, 193, 220 film policy 7, 24, 113, 124, 136, 141, 144, 165, 206, 231, 253 Film Seminar, Sangeet Natak Akademi (1955) 55–7 The Financial Express 96 Fire 230

Index  291 First International Film Festival of India (1951) 50–4 Five Year Plan 22, 49, 58, 65 French cinema 11, 31, 32, 212 Gaman 126, 130, 132–4, 149 Ganadevata 149 Ganashatru 181 Gandhi 169, 179, 193, 239 Gandhi, Dinesh 234 Gandhi, Indira 39, 73, 74, 115–18, 152, 173, 174, 178, 212, 214 Gandhi, Rajiv 171, 174, 175, 227 Gangar, Amrit 230 Ganti, Tejaswini 23 Gardish 234 Garm Hava 88, 98, 125, 130, 138, 139, 239 Garm Hawa 27, 130 Geethakrishnan, K.P. 232 Genesis 207 Ghai, Subhash 207, 228, 229 Ghare Baire 180 Gharonda 132 Ghasiram Kotwal 123 Ghatak, Ritwik 138 Ghatashraddha 188 Ghose, Bhaskar 198 Ghose, Goutam 181, 198, 242 Ghosh, Gautam 201 Ghosh, Nabendu 181, 183, 195 Ghosh, Shubhankar 247 Godaan 78 Godam 177 Godard, Jean-Luc 139 Godhuli 27 Goel, N.K. 184 Golden Peacock 148, 149 good cinema 2, 32, 33, 35, 78, 120, 127, 128, 130–2, 134, 142, 161, 168, 170, 171, 176, 177, 182, 186, 189, 191, 195, 196, 199–201, 209, 211, 215, 228, 229, 236, 247, 248, 251, 259, 260, 270 Gopal, Krishna 194 Gopalakrishnan, Adoor 133, 184, 189, 202, 242, 248 Gopalan, S. 40 Gorky, Maxim 51 Grahana 124, 125, 149 Guddi 117, 253 Guha, Ramachandra 1, 3, 8 Gujral, I.K. 39, 75, 78, 87, 112, 113, 124, 137, 245

Gulzar 90, 142, 246, 247 Gun Sundari No Ghar Sansar 88 Gupta, Neena 198 Gupta, Ravi 194, 195, 231, 235–7, 241, 242, 244 Gustad, Kaizad 230 Haksar Committee Report 19 Hangal, A.K. 235 Haqeeqat 65 Hari Bhari 236 Heer Ranjha 78 Henna 231 Hero Hiralal 198 Hey Ram 256 Himghar 191 Hinduja, Girdhar 234 Hingora, Samir 234 Hip Hip Hurray 203 Hood, John W. 256 The Householder 94 Hum Hindustani 197, 246 Hum Log 196 Hyderabad Blues 230 Idhar Udhar 197, 198 IFFI 4, 24, 50, 52, 54, 62, 76, 120, 133, 137, 151, 179, 189, 201, 238, 245, 246, 263 Illustrated Weekly of India 6, 174 Image Trap 15 Indian Cinematograph Committee (1927) 39 Indian Council of Cultural Relations (ICCR) 10 Indian Express 6 Indian Motion Picture Export Corporation (IMPEC) 90, 98, 99, 111, 113, 114, 120, 125, 144, 146, 147, 151, 155, 163, 165, 184, 186, 188 Indian Motion Picture Producers Association (IMPPA) 43, 93, 98, 101, 163 Indian Panorama 148–51, 164, 183, 216, 240 Indian People’s Theatre Association (IPTA) 38, 60 India-Pakistan war 65, 70 indie 29, 261 Instituto Cubano del Arte e Industria Cinematográficos (ICAIC) 12 Intezaar 198 Ishanou 198, 247

292 Index Ivan the Terrible 13 Iyengar, M.V. 198 Jaan-e-Alam 198 Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron 176, 195 Jagirdar, Gajanan 77 Jain, Jainendra 78 Jain, Rikhab Dass 21, 65 Jain, Sheena 23 Jalan, S.L. 113 Janata cinema/theatres 127, 129, 130, 157, 271 Janata Party 115–17, 145 Janvani 197 Jazeere 247 Jeet, Amar 76 Jehan, Nur 52 Jha, Lata 258 Jha, Prakash 198, 255 Jog, N.G. 67 Joglekar, Vasant 66 Johar, I.S. 93, 98 Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar 255 Joshi, Meera 228, 229, 233, 234 Jui Baba Felunath 149 Jukti Takko Aar Gappo 124, 125 Jungle Book 238 Junoon 149, 209 Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa 256 Kabir 196 Kadawala, Hanif 234 Kakkaji Kahin 198 Kakkar, Anubha 18, 19, 25 Kala Jal 196 Kalpana 38 Kalyug 27, 209 Kamdar, Paresh 230, 240, 245 Kanku 14, 81, 88, 130, 132, 133 Kapadia, Dimple 256 Kapoor, Prithviraj 55, 66 Kapoor, Raj 14, 52, 231 Kapoor, Shashi 193, 209 Kapoor, Shekhar 229 Kapur, Shekhar 198 Karamchand 196 Karanjia, B.K. 6, 26, 28, 80–90, 93–5, 97, 119, 120, 123, 137, 182, 184–5, 187, 194, 195, 201, 205, 210, 211 Karanjia, B.K. and change in FFC policies: Bhuvan Shome 81–4; Bhuvan Shome-Sara Akash-Uski Roti 81; raised hopes for the FFC and New Cinema 86–90; Sara Akash 84–5; Uski Roti 85–6

Karanth, Dr. K.S. 62, 145, 166, 168 Karnad, Girish 120, 149, 198, 202 Karnataka 26, 118, 129, 154, 252 Karun, Shaji 183, 246 Kasba 247 Kasturi 132, 149 Kaul, Arun 32, 98, 99, 104, 181 Kaul, Awtar K. 86, 120 Kaul, Gautam 15 Kaul, Mani 6, 27, 28, 81, 85, 86, 88, 97, 120, 123, 138, 140, 189, 194, 197, 203, 232, 252 Kavia, Mohan 239 Keny, Narayan J. 132, 138 Kerala 13, 26, 129, 133, 205, 248 Keskar, B.V. 57, 59, 73 Khan, Mehboob 66, 142 Khandaan 198 Khanna, Amit 225, 253, 258, 266 Kher Committee 70 Kissa Kursi Ka 116 Kondura 132, 134 Kora Kagaz 117, 138 Kotak, G.B. 67, 68 Krishen, Pradip 134 Krishna, Manmohan 184 Krishna Mohan, R. 232 Krishnaswami, M.V. 187 Kshatriya 233 Kshirsagar, Sridhar 139 Kukunoor, Nagesh 230 Kumar, Dilip 56, 235 Kumar, Gulshan 235 Kumar, Manoj 145, 161, 166 Kurien, Verghese 153, 154 Kurosawa, Akira 13, 76 Kutty, George 205, 251, 252 Lachman, L.B. 76 Lagaan 256 Lagoo, Shreeram 198 Lajja 229 Lajmi, Kalpana 242 Lakshmi, C.S. 184 Lamhe 255 Laxminarayanan, S. 185 Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich 10 Lewis, Justin 7, 8 liberalisation 3, 115, 232, 236, 243, 248, 260, 265 Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) 59 Lopez, Ana M. 12

Index  293 Lunacharsky, Anatoli 10 Lust for Life 13 Maachis 255 MacKenzie, Scott 78 Madhuri 160 Mahabharat 196, 197 Mahajan, K.K. 85, 88, 193 Main Bhi Ma Hun 78 Main Jaun Kahan 94 Main Zinda Hoon 181, 248 Majhli Didi 78 Majumdar, Tarun 185 Making of the Mahatma 239 Malgudi Days 238 Malik, Ravi 235, 245 Mammo 240, 247 Mandal Commission 214 Mandi 202 Mangamma 240 Manifesto of the New Cinema Movement 78 Manjrekar, Mahesh 229 Manoranjan 198 Manthan 27, 117 Manvell, Roger 87 Maran, Murasoli 93 Marhi Da Diva 247 Marhi Ka Diva 181 Marrattam 197 Marupakkam 247 Marx, Karl 7 Massey Sahib 134, 176, 181 Mastan, Haji 234 Masud, Iqbal 199, 205 Mathilukal 197, 248 Mathur, Vishnu 197 Maya Darpan 14, 86, 88, 98, 123, 130, 133, 134, 204 Maya Memsahab 236, 240 Mayuri 135 Mazumdar, Ranjani 15 Mazumdar, Tarun 149 Mehrotra, N.D. 59, 67, 68, 72 Mehta, Deepa 229 Mehta, Ketan 189, 198, 199, 202, 203, 229, 230, 236, 252, 270 Mehta, Vijaya 181 Merchant, Ismail 94 Mere Saath Chal 244 Meri Awaz Suno 173 Metro Channel 237, 238, 241–4, 260 MGR 15, 16 Middle Cinema 90, 161, 246

Miller, Toby 7, 8 Ministry of Culture 9, 10, 29, 62 Ministry of Finance 23, 65, 69, 170 Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) 19, 210, 227 Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) 1, 20, 29, 50, 70, 81, 88, 152, 156, 161, 173, 176, 185, 228, 230, 232, 260 Miracle of Milan 53 Mirch Masala 27, 181, 189, 195, 198, 244 Mirza, Saeed Akhtar 6, 14, 119, 123, 132, 198–203, 206, 209, 242, 252, 270 Mishra, Sudhir 183, 191, 195, 248, 249 Mishra, Vijay 15 Miss Beaty’s Children 236 Mitra, Raja 183 Mittal, Ashok 23 Mizoguchi, Kenji 13 Mohamed, Khalid 230, 231, 243, 253, 255 Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices (MRTP) Act 226 Monsoon Wedding 230 Mother India 117 Mrigaya 132 Mrityudand 255 Mr. Ya Mrs. 197 Mr. Yogi 198 Mukherjee, Hrishikesh 77, 90, 119, 142, 184, 231, 246 Mukherjee, Shashadhar 77 Mukhopadhyay, Urvi 17 Mulay, Vijaya 248 Mullick, Swapan 199 Mungherilal (1989–90) 198 Murthy, N.V.K. 241 Nagabharana, T.S. 149 Nagendra Rao, R. 68 Nai Deshayen 196 Nair, Mira 181, 183, 195, 230 Nair, P.K. 51 Nai Umar Ki Nai Fasal 78 Nakoder (Punjab) 143 Namak Haram 138 Nandy, Ashis 15 Narayan, Jayaprakash 116 Narayan, Rajan 138 Narayana, B.S. 149 Narayanan, K.R. 245 Nargolwala, S. 80

294 Index Naseem 240, 247 National Awards 89, 125, 133, 148, 151, 249 National Book Trust (NBT) 10 National Centre of Films for Children and Young People (N’CYP) 237 national cinema 12, 24, 28, 126, 140, 192, 248 National Cultural Council (Bhartiya Sanskriti Parishad) 227 National Dairy Development Board 1 National Democratic Alliance (NDA)-I 3, 257 National Film Archive of India (NFAI) 6, 14, 23, 51, 216, 232, 250, 262 National Film Circle 182 National Film Corporation (NFC) 13, 98, 112, 113 National Film Development Corporation (NAFDEC) 13 National Film Development Corporation (NFDC) 1, 2, 112–15; big-budget feature films 172; Cannes festival 175; Committee on Public Undertakings (1982–3) 169–70; Committee on Public Undertakings (1983–4) 170–1; controversies and failures 184–96; directors report 177, 178; Doordarshan 205; failures and controversies (1990) 240–6; The Film Industry Crisis (1980s) 171–5; financing and production criteria 190; government-owned financial institutions 182; involvement with television 246–9; lack of commitment 189; National Film Policy (1980) 165–9; New Cinema (1980s) 175–83; non-NFDC films and documentaries 178; post-economic reforms 230; prelude to the 1990s 210–11; production concern 172; Research and Development Cell 181; theatres construction 182 National Film Finance Corporation (NFFC) 11 National Film Policy (1980) 144, 165, 166, 270 National Film Policy and Merger 144–50 National Front 185, 211, 261 National independence 9 National School of Drama (NSD) 10, 61, 228

Nawab Sirajuddaullah 78 Naya 26, 104, 105, 277, 278 Nayak 71 Nayar, Udaya Tara 255 Naya Zanam 78 Nayi Kahani 78, 104, 271 Nazar 247 Neecha Nagar 53 Nehru, Jawaharlal 9, 39, 40, 52, 55, 73, 198 Nehruvian 14, 17, 20, 21, 30, 40, 115, 257 neorealism 13, 25, 26, 30, 32, 38, 60, 81, 141 new audience 79, 142, 251 New Cinema: art cinema 256; in 1980s 175–83; colonial and fascist 251; committed film-makers 208; constraints 202; dependence on government patronage 204; discourse on 249–57; economic reforms 231–3; Film Finance Corporation (FFC) 269; filmmakers 199; filmmakers and practitioners 255; impact on 1990s 246–9; Liberalised Times 249–57; post-amalgamation 176; speculation 231; TV as fatal seduction 198 New Cinema movement 8 New German Cinema 11, 13 New Latin American Cinema 12 New Mexican Cinema 11 new to parallel cinema 136–44 New Wave 11, 13, 21, 29–32, 36, 79, 81, 87, 90, 91, 93, 95–7, 138, 141, 160, 161, 165, 199, 201, 204, 220, 270 Newsline 197 Nihalani, Govind 13, 132, 186, 188, 189, 198–201, 238, 247 Nimajjanam 149 Ninasam Chitrasamaja 154, 162, 271 1942: A Love Story 239 Nishant 27 Nishkriti 247 Noorjehan 78 Notes of a Film Director 13 nouvelle vague 11 Nukkad 197–200 Oh Darling Yeh Hai India 255 Ojha, S.K. 75 Om Dar Ba Dar 176, 195 Ondanondu Kaladalli 149 Orissa 129, 166, 177

Index  295 Paar 195 Padatik 130 Padgaonkar, Dileep 97, 140, 142 Padi Pisir Barmi Baksha 88 Padosi 183 Pahla Adhyay 197 Palekar, Amol 193, 198 Pandian, M.S.S. 15, 16 Pandit, Rochak 95 Panja, Ajit Kumar 227, 231 Parallel Cinema 2, 4, 32, 126, 136–41, 154, 156, 160, 197, 200, 201, 203, 253, 254, 256, 270 Paranjpye, Sai 133, 198 Parasakthi 15 Parashuram 149 Parichay 132 Parikh, Jagdish 126, 135, 136 Parikh, Ketan 229 Parinay 98, 124, 125 Parinda 181, 234 Party 191, 205 Patel, B. 95 Patel, Jabbar 236 Pathak, Supriya 198 Pathak-Shah, Ratna 198 Pather Panchali 14 The Path of Hope 53 Patil, Pratibha 88 Patil, S.K. 40, 48, 49 Patil, Smita 201, 210, 255 Patwardhan, Anand 242, 243 Patwardhan, Nachiketa 238 P.C. Joshi Committee 197 personal cinema 186, 204, 270 Pestonjee 183 Pestonji 181 Pfleiderer, B. 15 Phir Bhi 98 Phulwari Bachchon Ki 238 Pillai, S.S. 74, 126 Piravi 181 Pita 247 political elites 20, 21 Pradhan, Shalini 189 Pradhan, Sheela 83 Prahar 240 Prasad, Madhava 27, 28, 30, 47, 117, 118 Prasar Bharati 239, 248 Premchand, Munshi 246 Punar Milan 78 Punjab 81, 129, 146, 153, 214

Puri, Om 188, 253 Pyas 78 Quiz Time 197 Radhakrishnan, S. 21, 73 Raha, Kiron Moy 138 Rai, Gulshan 185 Raina, R. 189 Rajadhyaksha, Ashish 118, 189 Rajagopal, Arvind 33, 115, 152 Rajani 197, 198 Raj Kapoor–The Fabulous Showman 183 Rajnigandha 117 Raju, D.V.S. 133, 187 Rakesh, Mohan 78, 85 Ramachandran, T.M. 210 Ramakrishna Cine Studio 194 Rama Rao, N.T. 194 Rama Reddy, Pattabhi 118 Ramayan 196–7 Rangachariar, T. 39 Rang Mahal 78 Rangoli 196 Rangoonwala, Firoze 97 Rani, Devika 55, 66 Ranjanwaar 182 Rao, P.V. Narasimha 228, 235 Rao, Vijay Raghav 88 Rathod, Kantilal 14, 81 Ratnam, Mani 229 Ray, Satyajit 8, 77, 130 Reddy, D.K. Samarsinha 185 Reddy, Gopala 73 Reddy, Ranga 129 Reddy, Snehalata 118 The Red Shoes 13 Report of the Film Enquiry Committee 3, 8, 17, 35, 40–50 Reserve Bank of India (RBI) 22, 258 Reuben, Bunny 183 Roberge, Gaston 137 Rocha, Glauber 12 Roja 256 Rooks, Pamela 236 Roop Ki Rani Choron Ka Raja 233 Rossellini, Roberto 52 Roy, Bimal 14, 52, 57, 142 Roy, D.S. 88 Roy, Deepak 190, 219 Roy, Sandip 191 Rudaali 240, 247 Rudolph, Lloyd I. 18

296 Index Rui Ka Bojh 238, 246 Rukmavati Ki Haveli 247 Rungachary, Bharat 204 Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) 10 Saaransh 180 Saaz 253 Sadak 255 Sadgati 202 Sagar, Ramanand 133, 192 Sahai, A. 95 Sahgal, Mohan 77 Sahu, Kishore 56–7 Sajan 78 Sakhi Mazi 239 Salaam Bombay 181, 247 Salve, N.K.P. 176 Sambandh 78 Samskara 88, 132 Sandhya Ragam 197 Sandstorm 181 Sanghat 238 Sanjinés, Jorge 12 Sankalp 98 Sanket 132 Sanshodhan 238, 240 Santoshi, Raj Kumar 229 Sara Akash 14, 78, 81, 84–5, 88 Sardari Begum 253 Sarothi 247 Sastry, C.V.K. 75 Sathe, Vasant 184 Sathyu, M.S. 6, 119, 184, 190, 198, 199, 202, 249 Satpathy, Nandini 110 Satya 229, 256 Satyam, Shivam, Sundaram 56, 201 Satyanarayana, M. 40 Schnitman, Jorge 24 Screen 6, 67, 68, 71, 74, 75, 83, 84, 89, 91, 94, 95, 100, 116, 122, 126, 144, 146, 147, 187, 188, 192 Second World War 11, 23 Sehgal, Neeta 96 Semenon, M.N. 52 Seminar 93 Sen, Aparna 202, 238, 242 Sen, Mrinal 14, 51, 79, 81, 83, 87, 89, 118, 123, 133, 149, 184, 188, 193, 194, 198, 199, 204, 207, 208 Sena, Shiv 235 Sethumadhavan, K.S. 136

Shah, Kundan 135, 198–200, 203, 253, 256, 270 Shah, Naseeruddin 5, 206–10, 253 Shah, Panna 38, 39 Shah, V.P. 94 Shahani, Kumar 6, 27, 28, 30, 37, 40, 86, 93, 119, 120, 123, 138–40, 194, 197, 202–4, 231, 243, 245, 251, 252 Shah Bano Case 214 Shaheed 65 Shamim, M. 142 Shankar, Uday 38 Shankar, V. 40 Shantaram, V. 40, 56, 77, 142, 183 Shantata Court Chalu Ahe 88, 130, 132 Sharma, Nawal K. 121 Sharma, Shankar Dayal 211 Sharma, Shiv 247 Shasha 98 Shatranj Ke Khiladi 130, 134 Shatranj Ke Khilari 126, 132, 176 Shetty, Manmohan 194, 203 Shiva 234 Shodh 175 Sholay 117, 201 Shukla, V.C. 120 Shyamchi Aai 58 Singer 234 Singh, Arjun 227 Singh, Bikram 77, 87 Singh, Manohar 191 Singh, V.P. 210 Sinh, Himmat 80 Sinha, D.B. 98 Sinha, Dharam Bir 113 Sinha, Gayatri 227, 228 Sinha, Satyanarayan 73 Sinha, Shatrughna 117 Sinha, Tapan 70, 184 Sippy, G.P. 90, 114, 184 Sippy, Sunhil 230 Sircar, B.N. 22, 40, 55, 96 Siroya, Mohan 87, 91 16mm 14, 131–3, 136, 140, 144, 158, 175, 176, 179, 184, 187, 230, 236, 240 Snip! 230 Sooraj Ka Satvan Ghoda 240 South Indian Film Chamber 73, 93, 149 Split Wide Open 230 Srinivasan, A.L. 93 State Film Development Corporation/s 113, 129, 133, 147, 177, 182, 184 The Statesman 50

Index  297 statist realism 27 Stree 78 Stree, Shakti 196 Subah 196, 205 Subrahmaniam, K. 67, 72 Summer of ’42 201 Sundari 238 Superhit Muqabla 244 Suraj Ka Satvaan Ghoda 241, 247, 250 Susman 189 Sutoris, Peter 6, 20, 21 Suvarna, Sadanand 188 Swaminathan, S. 83 Swaroop, Kamal 195 Swaroop Shyamsaika, R. 83 Swayamwaram 88 Tamas 197–9 Tambay-Vaidya, Malati 181, 190, 193 Tamilnadu 15, 16, 174 Tarang 27, 132, 176, 197 Tariq, A.M. 98 Tarkovsky, Andrei 13 Tarpan 247 Tasveer Apni 182 Tendulkar, Vijay 123, 135, 181, 185 Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA) 233, 234 Thackeray, Bal 235 Thamp 149 36 Chowringhee Lane 202 Thoda Sa Roomani Ho Jaye 198, 247 Tidarao 181 The Times of India 6, 49, 84, 241 Train to Pakistan 239 Tripathi, R.P. 40 Trisandhya 98, 124, 125, 132 Trishagni 181–3 Triyacharitra 247 Tunnu Ki Tina 230, 240, 245, 247 27 Down 86, 98, 124, 130, 132, 138, 143, 231 22nd June 1897 132 Tyag Patra 98, 132

Umeed 78, 124 Underground (cinema) 12, 14, 79, 141 underworld 5, 94, 233–5, 258, 263 Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) 10, 30, 52, 53 United Commercial Bank 89 Upkar 65 Uski Roti 14, 78, 81, 85–6, 88, 95, 124, 130, 132, 134, 197, 204 Utsav 209 Valicha, Kishore 205 Vamsha Vriksha 88 Varma, Madhulika 253 Varma, Ram Gopal 229 Vasudev, Aruna 26, 119, 184, 206 Vasudevan, Ravi 16, 196 Verma, Nirmal 78 video 2, 3, 151, 176, 178–80, 183, 187, 192, 196, 198, 200, 205, 210, 213, 220, 221, 225, 234, 236, 256, 271 video cassette/s 182, 217, 220, 236 video piracy 182, 196, 219 Vijayanagarada Veeraputhra 68 Visconti, Luchino 139 Voluntary Retirement Scheme (VRS) 244 Wajahat, Asghar 199 Wajda, Andrzej 139 Welles, Orson 13 West Bengal 13, 102, 112, 129, 146, 154, 177 “What Is Wrong With Indian Films?” (1948) 37–40 Woh Chhokri 240, 247 Working Group 4, 136, 145, 151, 165–9, 184 Yadav, Rajendra 84 Yatra 181, 198 Yeh Jo Hai Zindagi 196 Yugant 238 Zaidi, Shama 6 Zanjeer 117 Zonal Cultural Centres (ZCC) 174, 175