FilmIndia (1939)

"Gunga Din" Rnother Sea American Indians Portrayed i Ingenuity Provides Indians N o Better than Dogs? By KHWAJA AHMAD ABBAS (Specially written for "filmindia") (This famous film critic of "The Bombay Chronicle" writes this article after obtaining first hand knowledge of the subject during his recent visit to Hollywood. Having had the chance of perusing carefully the actual shooting script of "Gunga Din", no one would be better qualified to write on the subject than Mr. Abbas). — (The Editor). It began with "India Speaks." Then came, in quick succession, "Lives of a Bengal Lancer", "Clive of India", "Wee Willie Winkie", "Tiger of Eschnapur" and only too recently, "The Drum", the Alexander Korda film which was banned in several Indian provinces and raised a storm of protest all over India due to the excellent lead given by "filmindia." But in none of these films has our country been libelled so grotesquely as in "Gunga Din", the R.K.O. Radio picture which is shortly to be released. It is an Imperialist propaganda of the crudest, the most vulgar sort and depicts Indians as nothing better than sadistic barbarians. It will make the stomach of every Indian — and every fair-minded foreigner — turn with disgust. Some of the scenes in it are revolting, nauseating. I am in a position to say this because I have read the script of this infamous photoplay, visited the studio where it is being made, saw work in progress on the "sets" for this film. The memory of my brief stay in Hollywood where I made many friends and received 26 courteous treatment at many studios including the R.K.O. Radio studios will for ever be embittered by the thought that in that beautiful sunny city they are producing such an atrocious libel on my country and my people. INDIANS— NO BETTER THAN DOGS ! Who and what was "Gunga Din" that he should be "immortalized" by this picture? Those who are familiar with the works of that greatest of all Imperialist propagandist poets. Rudyard Kipling, will recall a poem by this name. It is not a long poem and tells the simple story of "Gunga Din", a regimental water-carrier on the North Western Frontier, who dies in an attempt to save the lives of British soldiers who are being attacked by marauding Pathans. The purpose is obvious: to impress the world with the devotion of Indians and to teach the "natives" that the highest ambition in their lives must be such an opportunity to serve their White masters. When Gunga Din dies. Kipling makes one of the Tommies say, "Gunga Din. he was a better man than I am." That one sentence. I am sure, will be exploited to prove that the motive of the story is not antiIndian. But the sacrifice of Gunga Din, as sublimated by Kipling, was not the sacrifice of a friend, an equal, but that ot a faithful servant. He served his masters with dog-like devotion and if a dog dies in such circumstances the noble master Mr. K. A. Abbas. may be moved to utter these words of patronizing gratitude, "Oh. Jack, you may have been a dog but you were a better being than us"! Those who have read Kipling and his works know the exact status which the Indian characters enjoy in his stories and poems and "Gungadin" is certainly no exception. When Kipling wrote that poem he had not heard of Hollywood. Therefore, while he turned out an excellent piece of imperialist propaganda, he forgot to include in the poem sufficient elements ofj romance, sex-appeal, etc., without which one cannot produce a boxoffice hit. But Hollywood scenarists are the most resourceful literary carpenters in the world. If it came to it they could produce a screen adaptation of Karl Marx's "Das Kapital" complete with Irving Berlin's "scintilating songs" and a couple of Ginger Rogers-cum-Fred