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Lala Lajpat Rai in The Indian Cinematograph Committee Evidence and Report, 1927-1928

Lala was a punk! This is one of the most illuminating things I have read in recent times. And yet, still doesn't explain why a book like Vikram Chandra's Sacred Games can be read in India but a film based on it cannot be made and screened in India without a lot of 'toning down' for Indian sensitivities.


Forgot to add: Came across it at Digital Library here:

Indian Cinematograph Committee (1927-28) vol. 1,
Indian Cinematograph Committee (1927-28) vol. 2

Aren't available in an easy to read pdf form there. So I took some parts of it and converted them to pdf.

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While on the topic of cinema, information and crowd behavior:
ironic, Lala Lajpat Rai vs Babbu Maan
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Comments

  1. seetharamanJun 11, 2012, 9:36:00 PM

    hi vinayak, this is seetharaman from business today magazine. i'm writing an article on indian advertising about which i wish to speak with you. if you're okay with that, could you mail me your contact details at seetharaman.g@intoday.com? thanks.

    ReplyDelete
  2. SwagatoktiJun 12, 2012, 12:06:00 PM

    The links for the digital library are not working. Does one need any special software/reader to see it?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Vinayak RazdanJun 12, 2012, 12:58:00 PM

    @Swagatokti

    those guys are doing an awesome job uploading and scanning all kind of rare book but in a typical sarkari way they have botched it all by having a stupid implementation in the end. Yes, you do need some kind of idiotic reader for reading them online ( 'Option 3'and that too only for some of them) and for the rest 'option 1' and 'option 2' lets you download individual pages from books in .TIFF format. What I did was download each page individually and then using a script ( being on linux..it is quite easy) I created a pdf that I uploaded to Google Doc (the 'Gdrive') for easy reading. I have already uploaded a couple of books on Kashmir from their library using my technique.

    ReplyDelete
  4. SoumyadipJun 12, 2012, 6:39:00 PM

    "I don't want the youth of this country to be brought up in a nursery," well said Lalaji. Only that our present day politicians don't share the same ideals.

    I have been reading a bit on Indian cinema lately and the Cinematograph Committee hearings have found frequent mentions. Glad that you have discovered this for us.

    I think we should try and put up Lala Lajpat Rai's statement before the committee also in plain text (for readability and discovery). It does make for a great read.

    ReplyDelete

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