FilmIndia (1939)

Hhmad flbbas Writes R Letter to mahatma Gandhi ;spectful congratulations on happy occasion of your 71st iday. crave your forgiveness for ining upon your time at a mct when greater issues of war peace claim your undivided ntion. at, war or no war, the unceasflow of life must go on in all its erous channels. Even under 1-fire men must love and be d, make friends and seek cornship, laugh and make others h, entertain and be entered. ad, as before, children must 1 to their fathers with their plems and their troubles. To im shall we, the sons of India, for consolation and guidance to you — you whom we have ie to love and honour like a per? Today I bring for your itiny — and approval! — a new toy generation has learnt to play 1— the CINEMA! Ji two of your recent statements |ave been surprised and pained 1 find Cinema mentioned in lat appears to me) slightly con .ptuous terms. i reply to a request from the / editor of a Bombay journal a message on the occasion of Indian Motion Picture Con3S, you briefly stated that you er saw pictures. In a more mt statement you include 5ma among evils like gambling, ;a, horse-racing, etc., which you Ud like to banish but which you /e alone 'for fear of losing te.' fow if these ctatements had ie from any other person, it 5 not necessary to be worried >ut them. After all individual tes must be conceded. My own her never sees films and regards m as an imported vice from the st. I respect his opinion even though I may not be able to share it. But your case is different. In view of the great position ,you hold in this country— and, I may say. in the World — even the slightest expression of your opinion carries much weight with millions of people. I have no doubt that a large number of conservative and orthodox persons in the country will be confirmed in their hostile attitude towards the Cinema after reading your statement. "There must be some great evil in cinema if the Mahatma does not approve of it," they would say. And one of the world's most useful inventions would be allowed to be discarded or (what is worse) left alone to b3 abused by unscrupulous people! I have no knowledge of how you cams to have such a poor opinion of the cinema. I don't know even if you have ever cared to see a motion picture. I can only imagine that, rushing from one political meeting to another, you chanced to catch a glimpse of some lewd cinema posters that disfigure the city walls and concluded that all the films are evil and that the cinema is a playhouse of the devil. I frankly confess that there are many films that are morally as well as artistically bad. Their producers exploit the baser passions ol man to make money. I also confess that you and most of those of ycur generation will not like the playful romanticism that my generation gloats over m most films. I do not wish to discuss this here. No two generations have ever agreed in their social outlook and never shall. The concept or morality changes from age to age. A hundred years ago it was sinful to cross the seas. Fifty years ago it was immoral for a woman to be seen talking to a man. Today all that is changed. The attraction of the opposite sexes is one of the fundamental facts of life. Men and women have loved each other ever since the time of Adam and Eve. And, believe me, it is not in the power of average human beings to grasp the subtle differentiation between physical attraction and spiritual love. In any case, here I am not pleading for romantic films. I do not expect you to see them or even approve of them. All that I wish to say is that cinema is an art, a medium of expression, and therefore it is unfair to condemn it because of the questionable character of some (or most) of the films. After all, books are not to be condemned because they include treatises on pornography. The marvellous invention of wireless (which kept the recent historic meeting of the Congress Working Committee informed of world happenings up to the last moment) is not to be condemned because the All India Radio often broadcasts love songs and romantic duets. On the same radio one may hear recitations from Bhagvad Gita and the Holy Quran. The aeroplane which has revolutionized world transport and is often used to rush medical supplies does not deserve to be abolished because Hitler uses it to bomb innocent human beings. None of these inventions are bad in themselves though unscrpulous persons may exploit them for undesirable purposes. But then unscrupulous 21