‘Demolish Differences’: Speech at the Kolkata Film Festival

Amitabh Bachchan

[Amitabh Bachchan’s recent speech at the inauguration ceremony of the 28th Kolkata International Film Festival received attention across the board. Defenders of free speech lavished praise on the veteran actor for holding up a mirror to the current times when civil liberties have come under increasing attack in India. However, the speech received little attention from mainstream media.

Surveying the history of Indian cinema from the point of censorship, Bachchan in his speech said “questions are being raised on civil liberties and freedom”. Particularly, his comments that “current historicals are couched in fictionalised jingoism” have been quoted often.

Reproduced below is the full text of Bachchan’s speech. The italicised parts are originally in Bengali and have been translated by ‘The Wire’.]

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His Excellency, the governor of West Bengal. Mukhyamantri ji. Colleagues and friends on the dais, distinguished guests, ladies, and gentlemen.

(Bengali) For three years, KIFF could be held, I could not meet you…this hurt a lot. Mamata di, many many thanks to you for inviting me again, and for giving me a chance to come here again. Thank you to Kolkata, for calling me back with love. Kolkata is like my home. Your son-in-law will remain your son-in-law all his life.

A great joy for me to be here, after three long years, at the inauguration of yet another edition of Kolkata’s prestigious International Film Festival. The festival, ladies and gentlemen, has always celebrated the inclusive spirit of cinema, beyond the confines of what Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore called ‘narrow domestic walls’. I salute you Kolkata for giving me my first job. I salute you Kolkata for giving Jaya (Bachchan, wife) her first film, in Mahanagar, directed by Satyajit Ray. But most of all, I salute you for your artistic temperament that embraces the essence of plurality and equality. This is what makes Bengal so special.

(Bengali) All of you stay well, stay healthy, this is my deep wish.

The pandemic, ladies and gentlemen, has indeed been ruthless. A gruesome situation we were unprepared to face. There was a sudden change in the status quo that altered the very dynamics of global economics, be it in the functioning of business or our film industry. So, today, we wonder what is in store for us in the future.

Given all possible precautions we can take heart from a checkered past, in which despite pestilence was changing social dogmas and political turmoil, film industries all over the world have always propagated courage, and faced every challenge head-on.

Man, ladies and gentlemen, has always been a social animal, and the need to belong to a community, and participate in a group of activities, is a primal human need. Long before the advent of cinema, people turned to various forms of collective activity for entertainment, mainly centred around religious ceremonies and folk expressions. Be it the temple dances, from South India and Manipur, it gave birth to some of our major classical dance forms or the North Indian tradition, of the Ramleela and the Rasleela, that married mythology and theatre in their most accessible formats. The tradition of kirtans and qawwalis was born at a place of worship, like temples and dargahs, to give communities a sense of companionship and solidarity.

Compared to these age-old practices, cinema is a relatively newer phenomenon. Our first silent film, Raja Harishchandra, opened in the Olympia Theatre, Bombay on the 21st of April, 1913, merely a few years before the duel setbacks of the first World War and the advent of the dreaded Spanish flu. Earlier, the Russian flu – often described as the first modern influenza pandemic – erupted between 1889 and 1892 and is believed to have killed more than a million people. However, three years later once the danger had subsided, the world’s first-ever public screening of 10 of the Lumiere Brothers’ short films took place in Paris, on the 28th of December, 1895.

As with the current pandemic, the 1918 Spanish flu also spread through international travel, on steamships and trains packed with soldiers returning from the first World War. In India, the disease arrived in Bombay on a trooper ship from Mesopotamia in May, peaking in October.

Mahatma Gandhi, ladies and gentlemen, the chief architect of India’s Independence, was one of the millions who contracted the Spanish Flu. Had he not survived, India’s struggles to shed the British colonial yoke, would have taken a drastically different turn.

The virus, described by the media as the ‘dog that did not bark but remained ferocious with every bite’, is believed to have affected close to one-third of our planet’s population. In India itself, an estimated 18 million people died during that time but ironically, it was also instrumental in uniting the people against the British, who had neglected all healthcare norms.

Despite these turbulent times, India saw the birth of its film industry that continues to fly the flag high in our 75th year of Independence and has managed to keep the egalitarian spirit of cinema alive for over a hundred years. Dadasaheb Phalke not only oversaw the production of Raja Harishchandra but also of 23 other films between 1913 and 1918.

The following year in 1919, saw the release of the first Bengali language silent film Bilwamangal, produced by Modern Theater Company of Calcutta on the 8th of November. Yet, unlike Hollywood, the initial growth of Indian cinema was slow. Silent films in the West did occasionally touch on the subject of great contagious, including the Bubonic plague but mostly from the safe distance of a few hundred years. However, Indian cinema, unlike the West, had just begun taking its baby steps, and of course, our country’s freedom movement was picking up pace at a rate much faster than what the ruling dispensation had foreseen.

In 2020, Britain’s World War-I epic 1917, directed and produced by Sam Mendes, turned out to be one of the front runners of the Oscars, and for many viewers of South Asian descent, the historical drama also offered a glimpse into the role of the Indian military who fought in the Great War. Sikh soldiers had arrived on the Western Front in 1914 and received worldwide news coverage of their valiant involvement in the first battle of Ukraine.

Yet, ladies and gentlemen, once the skirmishes were over, their contribution went wildly unrewarded. Britain, alarmed by domestic disturbances, imposed martial law on Punjab, ultimately leading to the Amritsar Massacre of 1919 in Jallianwala Bagh. Many Sikh soldiers were left angry and led down by the British government.

Christopher Nolan’s film Dunkirk, a favourite at the 90th Academy Awards held in 2018, however, led to direct questions about the erasure of India from the second World War effort. Any portrayal of Indian soldiers or references to their contribution was conspicuously absent.

In India too, the country’s role in the global conflict tended to be overshadowed by the major events of the Indian Independence movement that coincided with the War years. Nevertheless, within this larger conversation about cultural retellings of two World Wars, it is important to look at how India’s film industry responded, and how it filtered stories of valour and sacrifice through the prism of cinema and the country’s own struggle for freedom. The message of India’s solidarity with the allies, against the Japanese invasion, was underscored in the 1946 film Dr. Kotnis Ki Amar Kahani, which was directed by V. Shantaram. The film depicted the real-life experiences of five Indian doctors, who volunteered to go to China as part of a medical mission during the Japanese invasion.

Shantaram starred in the film as the titular doctor Dwarkanath Kotnis regarded as a war hero. The poster for the film designed by renowned Indian artist S.M. Pandit, depicts the Buddha, serene and still, standing above the burning remains of war, as a lasting image of hope and a reminder of historical cultural bonds between the two countries. The story among several others shows that even in the midst of its own struggle against the British, India shouldered its part in this momentous collective responsibility in the global fight against fascism. As native voices started being raised against British oppression and social injustices, often reflected in films of that era, it was inevitable that film censorship was born out of a raging fire and into the consequent clamping down on human rights.

Ladies and gentlemen, early film stock, and many amongst my film colleagues would have noticed, had a compound called nitrocellulose, which was used in explosives as gun cotton. Mixed with camphor it became Nitrate film, not explosive, but still violently flammable. In 1897, a year and a half after the first-ever film screening in the world, a nitrate fire at the Bazar de la Charite in Paris killed 126 people. A spate of similar incidents over the next decade resulted in the first World’s Cinematograph Legislation being passed in Britain in the year 1909, to improve safety standards by controlling the issue of cinema licenses. One kind of control led to another. Since the 1909 Act made licenses necessary for public screenings, local authorities used this to regulate not just the conditions in which the film would be screened, but also the content of the film itself.

After a few confusing years, with everyone making up their own rules, the British Board of Film Censors was formed in the year 1912. By this time, Indians were not only watching films but also making their own films. With one eye on the freedom movement, the Indian Cinematograph Committee of 1927-28, chaired by a former Madras high court judge T. Rangaracharya, was the first inquiry into movie viewing, censoring, and exhibiting habits in the country. In 1921, they were an estimated just 148 movie halls. By 1927 this number had doubled. Despite Hollywood films accounting for roughly 80% of the shows in those early years, it was the Indian titles that really got the public going. The Indian cinema wasn’t exactly prurient in the 1920s and 30s except for some passionate kisses like the most famous one in Karma, made in 1933, involving a snake and a tearful Devika Rani trying to bring a comatose Himanshu Rai back to life. The British, however, had bigger problems to tackle than a few on-screen smackers.

What they really dreaded was the threat of communal discord and the expression of nationalistic sentiment. Any mention of British excesses was forbidden and enough reason to earn an outright ban, and of course, there was the ultimate better one: Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi.

Listed in the Journal of the Modern Picture Society of India in 1937 are several titles of banned news reads featuring The Mahatma. In fact, Gandhi was the hidden subject of the first film to be proscribed in India. Released in 1921, the protagonist of Bhakta Vidur with his Gandhi cap, Khadi clothes, spinning wheel, was deemed to be a stand-in for the Mahatma.

In 1939, Thyagabhoomi, met the same fate as it portrayed what was perceived as the Gandhi of Tamil Nadu sitting on a dial spinning with a charkha. In 1931, on seeing the word ‘swaraj’ in the title of Shantaram’s film Swarajya Toran (Thunder of Hills), and the poster of the film depicting Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj hoisting a flag, the head of the British Indian Censor flew into a rage. ‘This picture is banned,’ conveyed the censor board, but Shantaram’s friend and film distributor Baburao responded with the officials who demanded that the film be retitled, a few scenes be modified and that the flag hoisting in the climax be entirely deleted. Therefore Swarajya Toran was renamed Uday Kaal and finally released.

Armed with the proverbial pen, our filmmakers were fighting their battle against the hegemony of a haughty Empire. Close to two dozen films were released between 21 and 1947 that either, obviously or obliquely, depicted the British as oppressors. The British Indian census made every possible attempt to throttle such messages. To fight them, India needed to be socially united and progressive.

That was precisely the message in the 1937 classic, Duniya Na Maane, which also raised a voice against unfair marriages and advocated widow remarriage. The British censors interfered once again, ordering the removal of documentary footage of Vallabh Bhai Patel making a speech about abstinence. Brandy Ki Botal, 1939, criticised liquor consumption and exhorted Gandhian morality while Ghar ki Rani, in 1940, showed the dire consequences of aping Western traditions

Though these messages started receiving the support of the country’s nationalistic leaders, the films had a very hard time at the Censor board. Indian film directors were forced to find ways to talk about the ongoing freedom struggle without mentioning it directly. You must remember the famous song Door Hato Ae Duniya Waalon, the hit musical number from the 1943 feature film called Kismat. It was ostensibly made as a warning to the Germans and the Japanese, but the actual target was clearly the British.

Historical films like Umaji Naik in 1926, that replaced the British with other invading forces, and social films like Apna Ghar in 1942, which spoke in a kind of code to Indian viewers, started several agitations all over the country. It wasn’t just a case of official paranoia over feature films and news sheets.

As the freedom movement picked up the pace, the ruling members of the Raj became more and more inflexible, and the empire did not wait to strike back. As a counter strategy to patriotic Hindi films, the British released English language films deemed objectionable to Indian sensibilities.

The Drum, made in 1938, showed all Indians as untrustworthy and scheming against their British Masters. Bombay City rose and revolted against screening with the Frontier Gandhi, Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan, demanding its immediate ban. The 1938 edition of film India magazine called it a shameful affront to the frontier Pathans.

The Lives of a Bengal Lancer, made in 1935, also met with stiff opposition in Lahore for its disrespectful portrayal of Muslims. Unafraid to retaliate, our cinema posters got bolder. ‘Bringing light to a vexed nation’ was the tagline of Chal Chal Re Naujawan in 1944, while ‘Turn East and hear India speak’ was the tagline of Prabhat’s Hum Ek Hai in 1946. Ek Kadam in 1947 went to the extent of showing Netaji Subhash Bose in one of its posters.

With these never-ending confrontations in the 1940s, the policing of Indian cinema grew exasperatingly stringent. To put it mildly, over the rigmarole of five different censor boards setting up their own rules, things were chaotic. Finally, the 1952 Cinematograph Act, set out the structure of censorship as it stands today upheld by the film certification board. But even now, ladies and gentlemen – and I’m sure my colleagues on stage will agree – questions are being raised on civil liberties and freedom of expression.

Since those early times, there have been many changes in cinema content. Production, star system, the way films are viewed by audiences. Subjects have also been vastly varied from mythological films, socialist cinema, like the films of Bimal Roy, Chetan Anand and Raj Kapoor, with his Chaplin-inspired Tramp as the protagonist. Art House Cinema, the Advent of the Angry Young Man of the 70s and 80s, viewed against the frustration of countless unemployed youth to the current brand of historicals couched in fictionalised jingoism, along with moral policing, the range has kept audiences reflecting on the politics and social concerns of our times through single screens, videos, multiplexes, and now the burgeoning OTT.

Keeping in mind the new world order brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, ladies and gentlemen we will have to take into account how films are going to be made and watched in the near future.

Perhaps the clue lies in the works of our timeless cinema maestros. Nearer home, there may be pointers in Satyajit Ray’s cinema, which reveal a politically and socially conscious, and often the prescient vision of Bengal, India, and humanity. Manik da’s films, while remaining culturally rooted in Bengal speak on universal themes like the immortal Apu trilogy. His cinema, ladies and gentlemen, is a reflection of the dreams aspirations, struggles, angst, challenges, and corrosiveness of India’s plurality.

The Spanish Flu ended in April 1920. A year later on the 2nd of May 1921, Satyajit Ray was born.

We celebrated his birth centenary as another pandemic ravaged the world. One of his later films, Ganashatru in 1990, can be taken as an indication of how Ray may have reacted to current times. In this chamber drama about a jaundice epidemic caused by water contamination that is suppressed by both the state and the local temple, Dr. Ashok Gupta becomes an enemy of the people, fighting for justice.

Most of Mrinal Da’s early films were overtly political, always championing the cause of the Rebels, the downtrodden, and the oppressed. His later films however touched upon the personal challenges of loneliness, as essayed by the protagonist Jamani in Khandhar in the year 1984.

Akaler Sandhane, 1980s, views the horrors of the 1943 famine through the lens of a facetious, an impersonal film crew shooting a story in 1980 about the catastrophe and suddenly becoming face to face with hunger and deprivation in real life. The amalgamation of political turmoil and personal tragedy was a constant leitmotif in Mrinal Da’s moviemaking that makes his work so unique and relevant.

Ritwik Ghatak, another of Bengal’s celebrated filmmakers, whose centenary is also approaching in the year 2025, unapologetically celebrated feminism and depicted ruthless social realities born out of the partition in his cinema. Within his relatively short filmography what stands out for its poignancy in lyricism is the partition trilogy led by Meghe Dhaka Tara in 1960, followed by Komal Gandhar in 1961 and Subarnarekha in 1965. Filmmaking was purely an art form for Ritwik Ghatak, through which he expressed his anger and despair at the sufferings of the people.

We, the film fraternity, would do well to remember these stalwarts and their artistic convictions as the entertainment industry all over the world goes through a radical change. The earlier environment of the movie business concentrated in the hands of a few studios is falling apart. It is impossible to know whether the opportunity to garner new home-viewing audiences during the current crisis will be short-lived or whether it will keep growing in time. But I suspect it will be more demanding, that the hunger for entertainment will drive viewers to new releases online whenever they show up and that studios will begin calculating their online streaming drop dates with the same care that they devote to their theatrical release calendars.

The big question, of course, is whether studios will be able to sustain the big-ticket theatrical first model. It is not impossible to imagine theatrical releases being transformed into special events. The strictly limited runs of a week or a month that will coexist with or briefly precede streaming releases. Certainly, in doing so the studios would have to restructure their revenue models.

We cannot take our audiences for granted. Today viewers are not only exposed to a range of international content but also have the option to watch this content in a variety of formats, ranging from the traditional big screen to their personal tabs and mobile phones. Big decisions have to be made that will determine the future of entertainment. I suspect they will have to be artistic rethinking and bold and imaginative ideas will bring new joy and faith to humanity

Ladies and gentlemen, let us discover more of that which is impossible and then do it. Let us find new summits to conquer. Let us bring down the barriers that have blinded our view of the horizons. Let us craft a singularity out of the many truths that come our way. Let us build a landmark for today and let us make a new history for tomorrow. Let us demolish the differences that divide us. Let us build a monolith with our diversity. May no one be in the shadows of our glory. May everyone feel the joy.

Way back in 1912, atop a ship across the Red Sea carrying him to Glasgow, Gurudev Rabindranath had written these immortal lines that should inspire us all in the darkest hours offering us courage to seek a new tomorrow.

(Bengali)

Aro alo aro alo

Ei nayane provu dhalo

Sure sure banshi pure

Tumi aro aro aro dao tan

More aro aro aro dao pran

Pran bhoriye trisha hariye

More aro aro aro dao pran

(Pour more light into these eyes O Lord

or more music into my flute

Fill my heart to the brim

quench my thirst

Give me more reason

to rejoice and live)

Thank you.

(Amitabh Bachchan is an actor and television host. Courtesy: The Wire.)

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In another article also published in The Wire under the title “For Speaking an Unpleasant Truth, Will Amitabh Bachchan Now Be Called an Enemy of the People?”, Prof Apoorvanand makes the following insightful comments on Amitabh Bachchan’s speech:

Is it surprising that the Indian media ignored the first major public statement by Amitabh Bachchan on the current state of the country, after years of silence, and that too on an international platform? (Note: The full text of Bachchan’s speech has been published by us in the Janata Weekly blog.)

Bachchan was speaking at the inaugural session of the Kolkata International Film Festival, where Shah Rukh Khan also spoke. The latter’s statement has drawn attention and has been publicly discussed. At least one leading newspaper has also commented on it editorially. But Bachchan’s statement was not considered worthy of discussion by the media. It was quite a long statement, written carefully and very significant in its content. Especially, in today’s Indian context.

And yet it went undiscussed. Why?

Is it because the glow of the star has faded or did something he said create discomfort in the media and the corridors of power? So his words should be buried deep. He is not Aamir Khan or Shah Rukh Khan, who could have been told to leave the country for making similar remarks. Since he cannot be condemned or attacked, he should be ignored.

In his speech, Bachchan did a historical survey of Indian cinema. But the remarkable thing was that the context of the survey was freedom of expression. Or censorship. Looking at the journey of Indian cinema from the point of censorship, the actor said that even today, “questions are being raised on civil liberties and freedom”.

For a person of Bachchan’s stature to flag the issues of ‘civil liberty’ and ‘freedom’ and go unheard is extraordinary. The media ensured that his voice did not reach the people. He was talking about censorship and he was literally censored by the media. That tells you a lot about what the mainstream media wants people to hear and what it keeps from them.

Bachchan is considered to be a supporter of the government. When the Gujarat government was facing worldwide criticism for the 2002 anti-Muslim violence, many artists in India spoke up but he chose to remain silent. In fact, he also contributed to the image makeover of the Gujarat government. He has not even felt the need to speak on the growing hatred and violence in India in the last eight years.

When a man like this expresses concern about the state of civil liberties and freedom of expression in the country, people should sit up and take notice. He is not a habitual contrarian.

Apart from raising the issues of civil liberty and freedom of expression, he made another significant observation. Tracing the history of Indian cinema, he said:

“Since early times there have been many changes in cinema content … from mythological films and socialist cinema to the advent of the angry young man … to the current brand of historicals, couched in fictionalised jingoism, along with moral policing.”

This remark by a senior actor like Amitabh Bachchan is also a harsh commentary on the Indian film industry, especially Bollywood. But it was also not considered worthy of discussion! Was this a comment on the recent spurt in the number of ‘historical’ films promoting hysterical Hindutva nationalism? In that context, his observation was remarkable.

So why did the media think it to be insignificant?

Bachchan said that to find our way in the present times we need to look up to our maestros. He mentioned three personalities, whose names nationalists would not even want to hear: Satyajit Ray, Mrinal Sen and Ritwik Ghatak.

He briefly talked about the films of Sen and Ghatak but dwelt at length about Ray. That was the central part of his speech. He chose Ray’s film Ganashatru (Enemy of the People), calling it a cinematic response to today’s climate.

He said, “One of his later films, Ganashatru, can be taken as an indication of how Ray may have reacted to current times. In this chamber drama, about a jaundice epidemic caused by water contamination that is suppressed by both the state and the local temple, Dr Ashoke Gupta (the protagonist) becomes the enemy of the people, fighting for justice.”

Why is Ganashatru the most apt commentary on today’s India? Bachchan narrated its story so that his point was not lost. The film is Ray’s adaptation of the 1882 play, An Enemy of the People, by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen.

When Dr Gupta tries to find out what is the source of the contamination, he learns that the infection is spreading due to the contaminated water of the well of the famous temple of the city. He requests the authorities to stop the use of its water and temporarily close the temple. But his own brother, who is a politician, opposes it. He says that this will tarnish the reputation of the temple and the town.

Dr Gupta writes an article to inform the people but it is not published by any newspaper. Exhausted, Dr Gupta wants to tell the truth to the people of the city by organising a public meeting. His brother reaches there and grabs the mic before him and instigates the public against the doctor. Using his rhetorical skills, he makes people believe that Dr Gupta is actually their enemy.

Consequences follow. Dr Gupta loses his job. His daughter is also fired from her job. Their landlord asks them to vacate the house. Thus, a respected person in the city gets punished for speaking the truth. He is turned into a ‘Ganashatru’.

A person who speaks an unpleasant truth out of concern for the interest of the public is turned into an ‘enemy of the people’ by those in power. And the public also goes after his blood.

It sounds so familiar. That Bachchan chose Ganashatru to comment on today’s era is important. The artist saw that in Gujarat, the people are told that Medha Patkar was the ‘enemy of the people’, that all the intellectuals who alerted the public against the virus of the politics of hatred and violence against Muslims in the country are the ‘enemies of the Indian people’.

Writers, artists and scientists who have been vocal in protesting against the continued violence against Muslims and Christians, after Akhlaq’s lynching in Dadri in 2015, have been derogatorily called the ‘Award Wapsi Gang’.

Bachchan’s junior colleague, Deepika Padukone, was called a member of the ‘tukde tukde Gang’ by leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party for standing with Jawaharlal Nehru University after it was attacked, allegedly by the thugs of the ruling establishment.

Parzania, a film on the anti-Muslim violence of 2002 in Gujarat, could not find a cinema hall in Gujarat. It was voluntarily banned for being ‘anti-Gujarat’. It was only showing the truth. Many journalists have been jailed and face criminal cases in Kashmir and the rest of India for telling people about the real state of affairs.

Be it JNU or Aligarh Muslim University, or Jamia Millia Islamia or Hyderabad Central University, or teachers and students and intellectuals, by declaring all of them as ‘Urban Naxals’, the public itself has been made to stand against them.

Hany Babu, Anand Teltumbde, Gautam Navlakha, Sudha Bharadwaj, Shoma Sen, Jyoti Jagtap, Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam – all of them are ‘Ganashatru’ because they want to tell the public about the source of hatred and violence.

Had Satyajit Ray been alive, he is unlikely to have watched quietly as his people were infected by the virus of ‘Hindutva’. He cared for them, for their soul. That is why he made Ganashatru. Would he have met the same fate as his character, Dr Gupta?

Not surprisingly, Bachchan’s statements were not heard. Perhaps, it is more appropriate to say that the public was not allowed to be ‘contaminated’ by his views. But his words remain.

(Prof Apoorvanand teaches at Delhi University.)