Epidemics and Indian cinema

As the fear of COVID-19 grips the entire world, and most of us have been living under complete or partial shutdown, it is quite natural to wonder if filmmakers in India have ever focused on epidemics or the aftermath of it as the central theme? After all, India has suffered from the epidemic of Bubonic plague, Spanish flu, tuberculosis and small pox. Senior film journalist BHARTI DUBEY talked to the veteran film theorist, curator, historian and author AMIT GANGAR and he had some interesting facts to share:

Mumbai: Watson’s Hotel, July 7, 1896: Bubonic plague epidemic

When the Lumiere Brothers’ representative Marius Sestier was showing the first moving pictures, the wonders of the world, to a select audience, the Bubonic plague epidemic was round the corner in Mumbai. It attacked the city more ferociously by September, 1896, spreading rapidly. The death toll was estimated at 1,900 people per week for the rest of the year. In a sense, the arrival of the first moving pictures to Mumbai and the arrival of the deadly Bubonic plague almost coincided. But we don’t find this happening of history in our early silent cinema or later talkie. Soon it spread to Pune.

By the end of February, 1897, the epidemic touched a mortality rate double its norm. Half the population of the city fled and many fell prey to the epidemic. The draconian Indian Epidemic Act of 1897 was enacted by the British government to tackle the situation which led to the Chapekar Brothers murdering EPIDEMICS AND INDIAN CINEMA Walter Charles Rand and Charles Egerton Ayerst, the two British officials.

This episode was filmed in 1979 about which I will speak shortly but before that let me talk about the earliest silent films dealing with yet another deadly cholera epidemic (in fact pandemic). Along with plague, cholera was one of the deadliest epidemic (touching the levels of being pandemic) in the early days.

THE CATCHIST OF KIL-ARNI, India, Silent, 1923

Directed by T. Gavan Duffy and R. Prakash, this five-reeler episodic film was produced by T.Gavan Duffy for the Puduchurry Mission. The story of the main characters Ram and Sita are woven around the cholera epidemic in the village of Chetpet village in Tamil Nadu. Thomas Gavan Duffy was an Irish Missionary in India. The name chosen by Gavan Duffy, the village of Kil-Arni was a real place having the link with Killarney in Ireland. The village is affected by the cholera epidemic and the disease is spreading rapidly, killing more and more people. The epidemic, as the film shows, was caused by the tainted water and it caused immediate panic among the local inhabitants, many of them had started fleeing the place, many had begun to propitiate the spirits. In that situation, the Christian missionary, priests and nuns started their work in helping the villagers, particularly Ram and Sita and their children. Ram is christened Joseph and becomes the Catechist. Eventually, the film ends with the eradication of the epidemic and with wedding of Joseph’s daughter. Though a Catholic propaganda film, I find The Catechist of Kil-Arni to be the first Indian film dealing with an epidemic, in this case cholera,

22 JUNE 1897

This is a film about the Plague epidemic in Pune and a historic episode around it. Directed by Jayoo and Nachiket Patwardhan, the film, while woven around the Bubonic plague raging in Pune, narrates the story of the Chapekar Brothers (Damodar and Balkrishna) who assassinated the British officer Charles Walter Rand, Assistant Collector of Pune and Chairman of the Special Plague Committee, Pune and British Army Officer Lieutenant Charles Egerton Ayerst. The date of assassination was June 22, 1897. The smallpox epidemic doesn’t seem to be so deadly as plague and cholera, but the 1974 small pox epidemic of India is said to be one of the worst smallpox epidemics of the 20th century. As it happens, popular belief has created a mythical goddess, Sheetala or Sheetla or Sitala to propitiate and get relief from the disease. One Hindi film I remembered to have seen was titled Sheetla Mata (1981), alluding to the box-office hit 1975 film Jai Santoshi Ma.

SATYAJIT RAY’s FILM GANASHATRU (1990) - Jaundice

Satyajit Ray’s Bengali film Ganashatru (1990), adapting Henrik Ibsen’s play An Enemy of the People is in fact the story about jaundice (hepatitis) epidemic and superstition/blind faith of the local people coupled with corruption. Though the original Norwegian play was written in 1882 and was about spa water contaminated with bacteria, in Ganashatru, Satyajit Ray skillfully converts it into the story about an alarming spread of jaundice from the holy water of a famous temple of a town, which was found to be contaminated. Out of this dichotomy between religious faith and scientific rationale, Ganashatru develops its exciting and engaging story .

Dr. Prakasha Baba Amte – The Real Hero (2014) - LEPROSY

This Marathi biopic around Baba Amte deals with, among other aspects of the man, his ashram called Anandwan, 5 km from Warora in Chandrapur district in Maharashtra. It is an ashram and a community rehabilitation centre mainly for leprosy patients and the disabled form downtrodden society. By and large, early epidemics in pre-Independence India have not been narrativised as filmic stories, even adequate documentations are not found. Interestingly, not many films comprehending such epidemics and pandemics are found in the Indian pantheon of films. With easier and facilitating technologies, there are widespread coverages of the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic, but it is to be seen, how will it be documented in films in the future. CORONA2020, a German production in the offing: Right now, as I know (as an informal adviser to the project), a German film production company engaged in inviting filmmakers across the world (including India) to document the Coronavirus2020. I am in contact with Manuel Feen, the Berlin-based head of the project.

Amrit Gangar is a senior Mumbai-based film historian, curator and author