SCENE 37 / LAKSHMI PRINTING PRESS / DADAR / BOMBAY / 1908
SCENE 37 / LAKSHMI PRINTING PRESS / DADAR / BOMBAY / 1908
Phalke is composing type.
A montage begins of the history of the Indian printing press, from Bengal partition to trial
of Tilak in 1908.
Cartoons, print, and headlines some times turn like internet pages, accompanied by
gramophone recordings...speeches, music...a collage of animated nation building images
Cut to a close up of a gold medal. Phalke is being felicitated on a stage.
A prominent personage explains the genesis of the award.
PROMINENT PERSONAGE
For a remarkable flair in blending literary and illustrative journalism, we have to turn to
brilliant young Phalke. His career coincides with the Bengal and Maharashtra
renaissance, and the rise of the Congress. Today, the sanest Indians are for the
nationhood of India, undivided by caste, religion and racial differences. Phalke seeks
through the medium of the press to rouse India to a sense of its fallen condition.
The audience begins to clap.
Phalke begins to speak.
PHALKE
The two new words that have recently entered our political lexicon, liberals and
extremists, will change in meaning with time. Today’s extremist will become the liberal
of tomorrow. Those who are followed and spied upon by the government’s intelligence
agents take comfort from the thought that the omniscient father who sees all is the secret
agent of the people. That divine agency will force the British government to deal justly
with us.
We see Phalke aging, his eyesight going dim.
With that, printing technology is also changed.
We see newspapers are rolling out from a rotating machine with headlines from the trial
of Tilak, Kudhiram Bose being hanged, Tilak standing at his trial – all in a 3-color
illustrated magazine called Swarnmala, a Marathi monthly, published by Phalke
SCENE 38 / IN/EX / COURT ROOM / BOMBAY / NIGHT 1908
Inside and out, the court is crowded with people.
Phalke, wearing thick glasses, makes his way through the crowd.
We see the trial from his point of view.
He keeps taking the notes of the proceedings in short hand.
We intercut the scene with newspapers being printed at the press.
TILAK
Have I to raise an army or dig trenches to repel the enemy's attack? The Government has
turned the whole country into a vast prison. What it will do is only to remove me from
this large prison to a small one.
PROSECUTOR
And what would you say to these two post cards. Why would you need to read books on
bomb making? Are you not encouraging the bomb cult?
TILAK
I wanted to read those books for criticizing what was known as "the Bomb Cult",
hoping that the people would be allowed a more effective voice in the management of
their own affairs and to point out the futility of repressive measures in preventing the use
of bombs.
It is not sedition to find fault with the Government or to advocate the reform of
administration. It is one's inherent right to fight for the liberty of one’s people for a
change in the Government. Bureaucracy is not Government. To criticize the bureaucracy
is not bringing into contempt or hatred the Government established by law in this
country. It is legally recognized that to contend for the right of self-government is not
seditious.
I refute the prosecution's suggestion that I supported the cult of the bomb. On the
contrary, I had frequently stressed that bomb-throwing was not the method of winning
Swaraj and that it was not sanctioned by morality. By writing the two editorials in
'Kesari' I discharged a duty I owed as a journalist to the public.
My real object in writing these editorials was to expose the calumnies of the Anglo-
Indian Press and to refute the rabid suggestions they made for intensifying repression and
even shooting natives out of hand. My intention was certainly not to excite disaffection,
for I was only replying to the vicious statements in the Anglo-Indian papers against
which the Government took no action whatsoever. As a matter of fact, we are entitled to
greater latitude than the Anglo-Indian papers; as the Penal Code says that what is done in
self-defense is not an offence. Now, Gentlemen of the Jury, if you were the
representatives of your community what would you have done under these
circumstances? Evidently, you would have done what I did.
This kind of translation will make anything seditious. I can certainly ask at your hands
the same privilege in this country as is enjoyed by the English Press. English people now
enjoy the liberty of the Press which they demanded and got it in the eighteenth century.
This is a similar case. I appeal to you, not for myself, but in the interest of the cause
which I have the honor to represent. It is the cause that is sacred.
THE ADVOCATE GENERAL, MR. BRANSON (Sarcastically)
I express sympathy for the Jury for the torture suffered by it in having to listen for five
days to Tilak. I relied heavily on Justice Davar’s Judgment of 1897 in the first trial of
Tilak for sedition. This judgment interpreted disaffection as absence of affection; which
included hatred, enmity, dislike, hostility, contempt and every form of ill-will towards the
Government. Look here. Here is a man who warns the Government, ‘If you don't give
Swaraj or if you don't make a beginning to give it, we won't stop the bombs'. This clearly
amounts to exciting disaffection towards the Government.
A queer silence prevails in the courtroom. The atmosphere is gloomy and appears to be
tense because of the cloudy monsoon season. Tense anxiety is writ large on everybody's
face. The conviction is in any case a foregone conclusion. But Tilak himself is calm and
undisturbed
He speaks to his friend Khaparde, who is sitting next to him.
TILAK
Dadasaheb, today the complexion of the game appears to be different. Most probably, it
is to be transportation for life. This might be our last meeting
On hearing these words, Phalke sees Khaparde burst into tears.
SCENE 39 / IN/EX / COURT ROOM / BOMBAY / NIGHT 1908
The face of the clock dissolves to night.
The Jury returns at 9.20 p.m.
The Judge enters and seats himself. He is handed a note from the foreman of the jury. He
opens it, scans what it says, and then reads it out aloud.
JUDGE
The defendant, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, has been found guilty of all three charges of
sedition under Section 124-A in respect of the article of 12th May 1908, Section 124-A of
sedition in respect of the editorial of 9th June 1908, and Section 153-A of raising ill-
feelings amongst classes in respect of the editorial of 9th June 1908.)
I accept the verdict of the majority of the Jury and hence now I have no option but to pass
sentence on the Accused.
These words of the Judge strike the courtroom like a thunderbolt.
He addresses Tilak.
JUDGE
Do you wish to say anything more before I pass the sentence?
Tilak, in a solemn and loud voice, roars like a lion.
TILAK
In spite of the verdict of the Jury, I maintain that I am innocent. There are Higher Powers
that rule the destiny of things, and it may be the will of the Providence that the cause
which I represent may prosper more by my suffering than by my remaining free.
JUDGE
It is my painful duty now to pass the sentence upon you. You are a man of undoubted
talents and great power and influence. Ten years ago you were convicted, and the court
dealt most leniently with you then. Your hatred of the ruling class has not disappeared
during these ten years. You wrote about bombs as if they were legitimate instruments in
political agitations. It can only be a diseased and perverted mind that can think that
bombs are legitimate instruments in political agitations. Such journalism is a curse to the
country. You are liable to be transported for life under the first two charges. Having
regard to your age and other circumstances, I think it is most desirable, in the interest of
peace and order, and in the interest of the country which you profess to love, that you
should be out of it for some time. I pass a sentence of three years transportation under
each of the first two charges, both the sentences to run consecutively. On the third charge
I fine you Rs.1, 000."
Thousands of people have gathered that night in pouring rain outside the High Court to
know the result. On hearing the verdict, they disperse with great sorrow, shouting aloud.
CROWDS
Long live Tilak!
Phalke watches Tilak being led out of the courtroom.
Under a heavy police escort Tilak is taken out of the High Court building by a side
entrance and put in a police van which disappears quickly into the dark.
As Phalke turns away, two police man catch him by his arms and whisk him away.
SCENE 40 / IN / A DARK ROOM INSIDE THE POLICE STATION
Under a hanging light, on the table, there is a match box with the image of the Hindu
goddess, Ashtabuja. She is depicted riding a lion and furiously attacking two butchers
who have apparently just decapitated a cow.
Phalke is being interrogated by two interrogators, one English and one Indian, maybe for
the purposes of translation
ENGLISH INTERROGATOR
According to Indian law, this picture contains visible representation likely to incite
people to acts of violence and to bring into hatred and contempt certain classes of his
majesty's subjects in British India...
PHALKE
The image was no more than a mimetic visualization of an episode in the Mahabharata.
Ashtabuja Devi, otherwise known as Mahishasuramardini, rode on a lion to battle with
the demon Mahishasur, whom Vishnu had requested she slay.
In this scene, Mahishasur with the assistance of his general Bidalaksha pushes forward to
fight a duel with great goddess. The lion gives a blow to Bidalaksha with his paw and
lays him flat on the ground. The goddess pierces Mahishasur with her trident. As soon as
the demon is shot in his chest with the trident he assumes the form of a demon buffalo.
The goddess mounts onto his back and separates his head from his body.
The picture shows the lion springing on Bidalaksha and the goddess is shown
simultaneously severing Mahishasur’s head, piercing the demon buffalo with her trident
and treading on the decapitated buffalo.
ENGLISH INTERROGATOR
Do you want us to believe that an innocent cow is a demon buffalo in whose death the
Hindu consumers of the image glorified?
PHALKE
It is erroneous to interpret the two demons shown as apparently decapitating a cow
INDIAN INTERROGATOR
But a closer look complicates the matter greatly, for the buffalo is definitely cow-like in
color and physiology. Similarly there is a subtle displacement of agency marked by the
presence of blood on Bidalaksha’s sword and its absence on the goddess's. The
implication is clearly that it is the fore grounded figure with the sword who has just slain
the buffalo/cow and upon whom the lion wreaks vengeance.
ENGLISH INTERROGATOR
In the absence of clear textual knowledge among the popular consumers of this image a
reading that constructs it as the goddess's retribution among two Muslims or untouchable
butchers who have just slaughtered a cow is highly plausible.
The blood stains on the sword of one of the two men will be removed and the animal will
be colored black. Do you agree?
Phalke’s vision is going hazy. He cannot hear or understand the interrogator.
He is trying to focus on the match box.
The image begins to swell, growing in size, rising and approaching his eyes.
Suddenly, the miniature heads on the goddess’ garland begin to move like parts on an
assembly line, or like beads being told. They are the heads of representatives of the East
India Company and the British Empire over the last two hundred years.
The lion roars like an explosive, and leaps out from the matchbox.
Phalke sits still, head bowed over, a passive observer sitting in a 3-D virtual reality.
Something moves in the corner of his eye.
He lifts his head and sees the majestic lion emerge from the darkness and approach the
British interrogator.
The lion leaps on the man and devours him.
