FilmIndia (Feb-Dec 1949)

SUBSCRIPTION RATES The annual subscription, for 12 issues of "filmindia", from any month is : INLAND FOREIGN: Rs. 24|Shillings SOj Subscription is accepted only for a collective period of 12 months and not for a smaller period. Subscription money should be remitted only by Money Order or by Postal Order but not by cheques. V.P.P.s will not be sent. filmindia PROPRIETORS FILMINDIA PUBLICATIONS LTD. 55, SIR PHI ROZESHAH MEHTA ROAD, FORT, BOMBAY. Telephone: 26752 Editor : BABURAO PATEL Vol. XV. AUGUST 1949. No. 8. ADVERTISEMENT RATES : The advertisement rates are as follows : Pel Insertion Full Page Inside Half Page Inside i Page Inside 1 1 3 Page Inside Rs. Rs. Rs. Rs. 2nd & 3rd Cover Rs. Rs. 400 210 120 150 500 600 4th Cover 1st Cover Rs. 1,000 Plus 6J % Tax The cost of the advertisement should be submitted in advance with the order. The advertisement will be subject to the terms and conditions of our usual contract. JQaplnj ~fhe Mllck (?our I The impossible has happened. Over 2200 theatres, all that India can boast of, were osed on the 30th of June as a protest against the crushg taxation imposed on the Indian film industry by the irious provincial governments and the Government of dia. For the first time in the history of the Indian film dustry was such a country-wide unanimity of protest d purpose shown and not a single cinema, counting en those owned and operated by foreign interests, was unci open in the entire country. The unique unaniity in this method of protest was due to the combined rectives of fourteen different trade associations located different parts of the country all of which unreservly felt the need of recording a country-wide protest ainsl the crushing impost of various taxes which have ppled the Indian film industry ;ii present. Like the rest of our countrymen, our film people id also thought that with the dawn of freedom in the untry. their industry would receive all the help and pport from their own governments to make it stable d indigenous. But like the rest of their countrymen, lr film people have also been disillusioned by the rions provincial governments which are manned by ople who seem to take an almost sadistic delight in rusting on our people their own ultra-moralistic inbitions by enacting one prohibitory law after another d thus poisoning the entire fabric of our society. Like the rest of our countrymen, our film people so danced to the unmusical refrain of our different itional songs on the 15th of August 1917 and their inds became rheumatic clapping into power our difient jail pilgrims as ministers of state. Little did they dream that some of those whilepped patriots, who had once walked meekly to the ritish jails like so many sheep, would soon become . many wolves and take a sadistic delight in biting T chunks after chunks of individual liberty from our M)ple under the pretence of building an impossible topia. The Indian National Congress, once our nation's posilory where millions of our countrymen banked eir freedom-loving souls, has today become a frighten ing bedlam of power-crazy politicians scrambling for their wooden thrones to extract profits out of anything from molasses to a mountain. Sadism dressed in a shroud of pseudo-moralistic concepts is let loose all over the country. While millions of stomachs remain empty and millions more go half-naked, these empty stomachs and naked bodies are placed under new enactments imposing on them one abstinence after another and turning the country into one big colony of criminals. Little men of yesterday have become the big Caesars of today, who in their utter intoxication of power, have lost sight of the real weal of the people and are feeding millions with words of laws and lies instead of with grains of wheat and rice. Two years of freedom and we are more hungry today than ever before. Two years of freedom and we are more naked today than ever before. Two years of freedom and we are poorer today than ever before. Two years of freedom and we are less free today than ever before. Thanks to the sadism and the utter inefficiency of some of our little Caesars of the day! \\ ben the entire country is in such a sorry and miserable plight, how can our much-maligned film people expect a better deal from our governments? To lend a vindictive tenure to the several pseudomoralistic abstinences thrust down our throat with the ramrod of law. the different provincial governments have turned the Indian film industry into a handy milch cow for new revenues. Bloodshot with power our rulers have lost the vision to see that there is no more milk left in the udder of their favourite milch cow and that her teats are now too inflamed even to be touched. Now they are raping the milch cow with new taxation and in place of milk they will soon collect the wages of their sin when the theatres begin to play pictures to empty bouse-. Here is a list of taxes which the film industry is paying today : 1. An import duty on raw film at 3 pies per foot in spite of the raw film being an essential material. 2. \u import duty of 10</r on all cinematographic equipments and another ad valorem 30% duty on spare parts 3