Films and the Shaping of Marathi Regionalism, 1932-1960

Abstract

After Indian independence in 1947, longstanding regional movements centered on language pushed forward the demands for the reorganization of the British state structure along linguistic lines. One of the most vocal regional movements in the 1950s was the Samyukta Maharashtra, or United Maharashtra movement. This dissertation argues that the development of sound films, or talkies as they were popularly described, were critical for the creation of Marathi regional political movements. In 1932 the Prabhat Film Company released the first Marathi talkie, Ayodhyecha Raja. For the next three decades, with a lull during World War II, Marathi filmmakers released films that put forward a vision of the Marathi speakers as a people, connected to the land of Maharashtra. Films, by reaching the sizable illiterate population of the region, were a powerful political medium. This dissertation takes an interdisciplinary approach, drawing upon the methodologies of history, anthropology, and film studies. Historians of twentieth century India have not used film extensively, yet it is a cultural medium that has important social and political ramifications. Given the lack of historical research carried out on films in South Asia, I use various methods to shed light on the formation of a Marathi regional consciousness. Between 1930 and 1960, Marathi regional consciousness shifted from an elite literary sphere to a popular sphere. A Marathi consciousness, which was once largely the terrain of the intellectual elite, became, through the medium of film, the possession of a broad Marathi public. This study uses popular culture to examine the region’s social and political history during one of the most politically tumultuous times of the twentieth century.