INDIA AND THE CINEMA [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
Sin,—We may not entirely agree with Lord Irwin's diagnosis, in a recent address in London, about the reason why the white man has lost so much prestige in the East in recent years—the ex-Viceroy attributed this largely to the-cinema- but we are all glad that he has called attention to certain facts which have worried a good many of us for many years.
I must admit that very often I witness pictures in the large Indian cities, the main effect of which is to hold European and American civilization in the greatest con- tempt. What might be all very well for a London audience or a Middle Western theatre is no good for India, and the people who are responsible for the censorship in this country seem to have no idea about the damage that is being done.
. Week by week I see films in Bombay and here in Poona which contain a certificate, passing them for exhibition, by the Commissioner of Police, and I am astounded at the revolting indecency and the appalling vulgarity which is allowed to appear on the screen. If, by any chance, a film contains any remark or any scene which can be remotely construed as being a criticism of the present regime, or of even being historically reminiscent of political discontent, the censor becomes most active.
But if the film shows some attractive young lady in bed, or getting out of bed, or running about in the scantiest of costumes, nothing is said or done. Only the other evening, at a cinema, an Indian gentleman turned to me (he was a perfect stranger to me) and said : " I am an Indian. I suppose you white people would call me a nigger. I am unacquainted with other sides of Western civilization, but what I have seen to-night, and on numerous other occasions in these places, convinces me that the ordinary middle classes in England and America are the most debased and immoral cretins any race or nation have ever produced."
The following words appear in a huge advertisement of a film which is to be shown in Bombay this week : •
" A mysterious, seductive beauty . . . a night. of abandon Blazing romance. . . . Smashing drama . . . rising to the tremendous climax of a thousand revellers trapped in a Zeppelin sweeping to destruction ! What a story! What a scene ! What a panorama of amazing fashions. . . . Half-clad beauties for sale ! . . . flaring passions !—a setting only Da Mile can make the most of ! "
(The words " mysterious," " seductive," " passions " and " beauty " are in bold type.) Is it any wonder that Mahatma Gandhi wants to draw a sanitary cordon round his beloved India ? At the present moment the censorship is discharged in India by some police official, and a wooden-headed com- mittee whose main knowledge of culture is derived from a police manual and sections of the Indian Penal Code. Week after week this sort of stuff is shown around ; . week after week immense damage is done by means of an appeal to the eye, which is far more lasting and permanent than an appeal to the other senses. Never has the prestige of the white man been as low as it is in the East to-day.
Professor. Malinowski is right: India and " many other non-European races would welcome an effective colour bar protecting them from Europeans." L I am, Sir, &c., J. D. J.
Poona, India.
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