political documentaries in india

A BRIEF ACCOUNT OF THE SOCIALLY COMMITTED DOCUMENTARY IN INDIA
IN RELATION TO PATWARDHAN’S FILMS


There are many traditions of filmmaking in India, not least of which is a tradition of political documentaries. Documentaries are carefully structured visuals which explore real-life subjects in detail. The documentary evolved with many forms of creativity. It was not invented. Experience in mass communication soon proved that news bulletins could not adequately explore facts, issues, and context. People were interested in subjects outside the news. Programs of depth became part of the urge to be comprehensive.

Broadcasting became a social force after Second World War. At first, cumbersome technology and political concerns over the power of the new media prevented the imaginative treatment of the real world. However, enthusiastic program-makers foresaw the possibilities of exploring the visual media to mobilize opinions to bring social consensus. Documentary films have comprised a very broad and diverse category of films.


Examples of documentary forms include the following:
• 'Biographical' films
• Spoof documentaries, termed 'mockumentaries' designed to mock some body or some thing.
• An examination of a specific subject area (e.g., nature- or science-related themes, or historical surveys)
• A sports documentary

• An expose including interviews (social concerns films)

• A sociological or ethnographic examination following the lives of individuals over a period of time

• Live performances ( of musicians, theatre performers etc)

• Recording of a well-known event



Let us have a look some of the opinions of worlds reputed film aestheticians about the structure and content of the documentary. It is important to note that documentaries are the beginning films in evolution of film as a medium of communication and entertainment.
Walter Benjamin says "That is (a film), to build up the large constructions out of the smallest, precisely fashioned structural elements. Indeed, to detect the crystal of the total event in the analysis of the small, individual moment." What he calls “the montage principle" over into history :( Art in the Age of mechanical reproduction)

Raymond Spottiswoode (“A Grammar of Film”) defines the term documentary as “the documentary film is in subject and approach a dramatised presentation of man’s relation to his institutional life, whether industrial, social, or political; and in techniques a subordination of form to content.”

According to Paul Rotha a British documentary filmmaker and historian, documentary is “the use of the film medium to interpret creatively and in social terms the life of the people as it exists in reality.”

Jack C. Ellis (“The Documentary Idea”) defines “a documentary in relation to other kinds of films, especially fiction. He defines in these terms “(1) subjects (2) purposes, points of view, or approaches (3) forms (4) production (5) the sorts of experiences they offer audiences”

The focus of documentary is beyond mere human actions, activities, relations in comparison with other types of film. The treatment of the subject is different from that given to fiction. The purpose refers to what the filmmakers are trying to say about their films.

The material they choose to include or exclude from the films is an indication of what they are trying to say. Thus, what is said as well as what is left unsaid, or what is not said become important. The form is usually the formative process for the sights and sounds selected for use. The form is usually determined by the content. The production method and technique refer to the ways in which the images are shot and the technical aspects of the film. Documentary filmmakers do try, when possible, to make the images and the film as a whole aesthetic, they try to provide the viewer with an aesthetic experience, in addition to bringing about an impression in the attitudes of the viewers. Ultimately, technique is always subordinate to content.

The Indian documentary may be traced back to the 'Factual films' or Topicals, which started in pre independence era. Development of socially committed documentaries is not very recent one. Initially factual films documented functions and weddings of Maharajas, Dusserah Festivals, day-to-day life of people in various parts of India, bits and pieces from Parsi Theatre etc. In the mid 1930s some companies like “The Imperial Film Company of Bombay” made a film synchronized to running commentary - an appeal for funds for those suffering as a result of the Quetta Earthquake.

Between these gradual developments the Indian documentary has produced many factual films which provided a base for socially committed documentaries. In 1899 a wrestling match between two well-known wrestlers Pundalik Dada and Krishna Navi at Bombay's Hanging Gardens was shot by Harishchandra Sakharam Bhatwadekar.

Dadasaheb Phalke though known as the father of the Indian fiction film did try his hand at this genre of 'Factual filmmaking.' He even made a documentary Chitrapat Kase Taya Kartat (How Films are made) in 1917 wherein he showed himself directing the cast, shooting and editing a film. In 1920, a newsreel was made of the funeral procession and cremation of Lokmanya Tilak. Soon general sessions of the Indian National Congress were covered.

The real breakthrough in the documentary movement was with the breaking out of the Second World War in 1939. The British with their distinctive tradition in the Documentary movement decided to provide suitable infrastructure for the Documentary in India to boost the War effort. The British introduced a Film Advisory Board (FAB) in 1940, which had JBH Wadia as its Chairman and Alexander Shaw as Chief Producer.

In spite of making films mainly for the war effort, Shaw did produce films like Women of India and Industrial India, which were not directly connected with War Effort. The Tree of Wealth, made by A. Bhaskar Rao was one of the earliest documentaries to win awards abroad. It was then a new tradition of socially committed documentary making began in India.





After the independence the socially committed documentary in India supported by the state finance started making propagandist films on Nehruvian developmental projects like dam, big industries and green revolution. Similarly in world scenario during the cold war strong nation states like USA and USSRR started making documentary films on growth of science and technology, space projects to inform their subjects about the call for building a strong nation state empowered with science technology and strong military strength. These were chiefly state financed and chiefly targeted towards television spectators.

With the growth of television literacy they had realized the strength of documentary films in generating the conscience to support the state policies. With the disenchantment during the Vietnam War in USA, documentary filmmakers realized the need for an alternative tradition of filmmaking, which operates against the dominant ideologies voicing radical movements against the state policies (anti-Vietnam War movement from 1970–1972). Some of them made anti war documentaries independent of state funding.

India, largely being unfamiliar of television medium didn’t have the same historical pressures for alternative film making at that instant. Anand Patwardhan is significant among socially committed documentary makers of India. He was involved in anti Vietnam War movement in USA. As a student of M.A. in Communications at McGill University he had already realized the want for an alternative documentary film making in India.


Though we can not directly correlate his US experience with his career in India as an alternative documentary maker he certainly has some influences of that period. He persuaded his career as socially committed documentary maker started making films in this alternative tradition. Patwardhan was involved with many programs of social awareness in rural India before going to USA.

He made his first film in 1971: 'Waves of Revolution' (Kraanti Ki Tarangein), on government repression of student movement in Bihar. Patwardhan had earned a considerable reputation for himself with films such as "Prisoners of Conscience" (1978, 45 mins.). Here Patwardhan offered a withering critique of the internal emergency imposed by Indira Gandhi from 1975-77, which led to the confinement without trial of 100,000 people.

This M.Phil exposition chooses Patwardhan as a case study to look at the structure, content, form of The Socially Committed Documentary in an Indian context, how it developed differently from its contemporary film making else where and its social implications on Indian society as a whole. As an important documentary maker of India Anand Patwardhan is an intelligent opinion maker of the world intelligencia. His documentaries have drawn attention on some of crucial issues of modern state policies and ideologies. His documentaries have faced serious censorship and threats of ban.

I have chosen five documentaries of Patawardhan. Selection is based on the thematic variety and their bearing to the study of his socio-political vision. It should be specified that other documentaries do come in purview of study marginally.


List of the documentaries which come under detailed analysis of this Mphil dissertation is given bellow.

 WAR AND PEACE, (2002)
 NARMADA DIARY,(1995)
 FATHER SON AND HOLY WAR, (1995)
 BOMBAY OUR CITY,(1985)
 FISHING IN THE SEA OF GREED (1998)


The film War and Peace talks about the most debated nuclear arms race in south Asia the fancy of nuclear war armaments. Film goes on accumulating evidences for elusiveness of nuclear paranoia as an upshot of growing nationalism in Asia, which has already become a part of vulgar vocabulary in Europe. He goes on filming the events after atomic tests in India and Pakistan to show how things go erroneous when fingers are tightened between two emerging giant nation states of Asia.
With rural populations around the test sites and the uranium mines, the military perspective begins to look exceedingly foolish. Patwardhan understands that the nuclear ambitions of both states have widespread support among some strata of society: achievement in this domain is viewed as an index of technological prowess, and many people have come to accept the view that nothing earns a nation-state respect in the world as much as its nuclear status. He switches over and over between Pakistan and India to show how common people respond differently to the growing tension.




He ventures to visit USA and Japan, which have the horrendous memory of nuclear warfare. Yet, as he points out, the United States, which has done more than any other country to make nuclearism a part of the morally degraded vocabulary of humanity in the twentieth century, is unlikely to ever, face the consequences of a nuclear war.

It reaches the culmination with the epilogue where it speculates the Kargil war, which is the direct consequence of nuclear arms race. This film is often accused of being a sort of desi version of Fahrenheit 9/11* but it is much important to note that Patawardhan was on track in making of the film much before the events of 9/11.

Narmada Diary focuses on another famous Meta-narrative of development in modern India which has embraced Nehruvian model of mega projects and large scale Industries resulting in the construction of Sardar Sarovar project launched by three big state governments financed by world bank evacuating tribal people of Madya Pradesh. Film follows the long struggle of tribal people under the leadership of Medha Patkar. Though he never tries to offer a solution he becomes successful in proving the immoral grounds on which whole argument of pro-dam strategy lays.


What runs common in these documentaries is Ghandian idea of modern India, which left over by the veteran leader of our post independence India miserably.





Father Son and Holy war has slightly different thematic approach. It batters on growing communal violence and gender issues with a psycho anthropological approach. Indeed, as Patwardhan suggests on more than one occasion, the educated are more attracted by communal thinking, and among Hindus, in particular, the conceit that the Hindu tradition is a spectacular repository of the world’s timeless truths sometimes leads them to embrace absurdities.


It was completed shortly after the destruction of the Babri Masjid and the bomb blasts that tore apart Bombay. Patwardhan attempts in this film (in two parts) to weave together a narrative on political violence that considers the nexus between communalism, the changing culture of the contemporary Hindi film, violence towards women in many domains of Indian society, vernacular forms of masculinity, and other aspects of Indian society and culture.


In his attempts to show the horrors of urban poverty Bombay our city opens up with evacuation of slum dwellers in Bombay and capriciousness shown by the authorities in finding a proper solution and rehabilitation. It just acts as a bureau to cater the opinions of rich aristocratic society ends up using police to assault poor.

Unlike the other four films Fishing in the Sea of greed is a complete triumph story of fisher men combating against giant multinational Fishing companies who have come to fish in Indian sea waters in large scale leaving no room for native fishing communities. With the help of organized protest fishing communities become successful in sending back giant companies by forcing government in bringing changes in its economic policies.

Patwardhan’s participation, in the anti-Vietnam War movement from 1970–1972; as a volunteer in Caesar Chavez’ United Farm Workers Union in 1972; in Kishore Bharati, a rural development and education project in Central India in 1972–1974; and other movements for civil liberties and democratic rights gives him a status of social activist with considerable social solidarity. He is not just a mute and indifferent filmmaker but also a social activist who has geared up to take bold standpoints. Though one can question the reliability of such a filmmaker, post modern studies have clearly given away that it’s difficult for any person not to represent his class ideologies which shape his basic stand points. Patwardhan is honest enough to admit his political clemency before making his documentaries leaving viewer a critical distance to question him. Apart from that he has ample grounds to validate his arguments providing a series of evidences from highly reliable sources. He repeatedly interrogates modern Meta narratives of development, technology, and free trade.

Many people have written on “the socially committed documentary tradition in India. Among them Madushree Datta has written a brief paper on political documentaries (“In Defence of political documentaries”) where in she gives a historical sketch of the development of political documentary in India. Vinay Lal has written an extensive essay on cotemporary political documentary makers of India (“Travails of the Nation: Some Notes on Indian Documentaries” 2005. Third Text. [Online].). Two under graduate researches have been published by Manipal School of Journalism and Mass Communication.




In the Book “Out of the Nuclear Shadow” (co-edited by Smitu Kothari and Zia Mian 2001. Lokayan and Rainbow. Delhi: London: Zed Books,) a chapter has devoted for Patwardhan’s film War and Peace.

Regarding production techniques and choice of the subject matter Jane Chapman in her book “Documentary in Practice: film makers and production choices” has elaborately discussed two Patwardhan films: namely “Narmada Diary” and “In the Name of God”.

This M.Phil exposition is an attempt to make a case study of his films in relation to the development of the socially committed documentary in India. It focuses on Anand Patwardhan’s films in terms of their narration, interviews, visuals, sound and music; and to make a comparison of other documentary makers the in terms different documentary devices and their comitment to different socio political movements.
It also tries to locate him among his peers in India and else where. It deals with the aspects of historical pressures which shaped The Indian Committed documentary. It proceeds to examine the legal battles litigations controversies regarding censorship and Patwardhan’s struggles to overcome the threats of ban on the screening of his films. Ultimately it aims at a better understanding of the socially committed documentary tradition in India with the help of a case study of Patwardhan’s career.
A thematic analysis of the films is made in relation to their historical background and their bearing to cotemporary cultural paradigms. A day’s documentary festival was conducted as a part of this Mphil dissertation. Critics and experts were invited to interact with the audiences. Discussions held in the festival are not directly referred but they influence the study indirectly.
An interview with Anand Patwardhan was taken and questions raised in the festival were posed to him. The interview is given in the appendix. It is important to note that area of study is new and no full length research has been made on this topic before. Articles in the News papers and web sites are extensively surveyed. Articles by contemporary thinkers in cultural studies, Socio-anthropologists, social activists and famous journalists are referred. I have cited the articles of Vinay Lal, Ashish Nandy P. Sainath, Madushree Dutta, Anand Patwardhan and many others.


“Today the term (documentary) has come to refer to a far wider range of films than its originator intended. The purists rebel and remind us of original definition. But language is a live and changing thing, and when a word becomes popularized and used by all and sundry, no power can stop it subtly changing and acquiring, as in this case, a wider meaning…millions have taken over the word and are convinced that they know what a documentary film is. Undoubtedly, the word fulfils a need and describes some thing for which no better one exists.”--------W. Haugh Baddely in “The Technique of Documentary film production”.
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