5 fascinating insights from Neera Chandhoke's Languages of Freedom

The Cinèmatographe. PICS COURTESY/WIKIMEDIA

1. Arrival of cinema: Cinema arrived in Bombay (now Mumbai) on July 7, 1896, when an advertisement invited an audience to Watson's Hotel for a screening of a few film clips. These included the earliest shorts like Arrival of a Train and Leaving the Factory. On a rainy day, several people living in colonial Bombay gathered to watch cinema for the first time in the country, screened by employees of the Lumière Brothers on the Cinèmatographe. The machine was advertised as the "Wonder of the World".

Faiz Ahmed Faiz

2. Reforms in Urdu literature: After the Uprising of 1857, when the Muslim community faced economic and political dispossession, poet Khwaja Altaf Hussain ‘Hali' challenged the conceptualisation of Urdu poetry. He introduced the idea of Musaddas, a new poetic form that rejected classical Urdu tradition. ‘Hali' believed that poetry was a medium that could reflect the changes in Muslim society, especially as one saw its downfall after the Mughal rule. Through this reform, he urged his community to draw inspiration from its past and celebrate its cultural achievements.

Johnny Walker in the song, Yeh Hai Bombay Meri Jaan

3. Swaraj in ideas: Eminent philosopher Krishna Chandra Bhattacharya discussed ideas of Swaraj in thought. In a 1929 lecture at the Calcutta University, he emphasised intellectual freedom from another culture. He urged his listeners to constantly reflect on how subtly a dominant culture can introduce ideas that affect the colonised culture's freedom to think and evaluate.

Neera Chandhoke

4. Social responsibility of writers: In the 1930s, a similar consideration became the primary goal of the Left-leaning Progressive Writers' Association. They recognised class differences in an India fighting for its freedom, and addressed them through literature. Social context was crucial for their creation, and became an important addition to the public discourse on nationalism. Writers under this umbrella, including Mulk Raj Anand, Sajjad Zaheer and Faiz Ahmed Faiz, depicted ‘unfreedom' within the structures in India through allusion and metaphor. They saw writing as a moral responsibility.

5. Bombay film as critique: Filmmakers of the 1950s and '60s probed into the faultlines in postcolonial India, giving us some of the most memorable classics like Pyaasa, Baazi, Awaara, Do Bigha Zameen. From offering a critique on gender inequalities and distribution of wealth, to throwing light on urban alienation and government's failure to execute fair land reform policies, these films emerged from the radical ideology of filmmakers at the time. Recall the sharp commentary in the popular song from CID, Yeh Hai Bombay Meri Jaan, about the loss of humanity.

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