Birth Anniversary Tribute to Dadasaheb Phalke - Father of Indian Cinema ( 30April 1870-16 Feb 1944) 

On this day in April, one hundred fifty two years ago - 30th April 1870- was born the father of Indian Cinema, Dhundiraj Govind Phalke (popularly called Dadasaheb Phalke), a man whose creativity, vision and passion for making moving images gave birth to the film industry in India, which has grown to become a multi billion dollar industry today. Dadasaheb Phalke, with the release of his first feature film in India ‘Raja Harishchandra’, which he painstakingly produced in 1913, not only became the Father of Indian Cinema, but also sowed the seeds for a deep-rooted connection between cinema and people of India and so also a cinema culture. This connection, including with the Indian expatriates  all across the globe, has only grown stronger with the passage of time. India  now holds  a unique distinction of producing the maximum number of films in the world in a year.

Cinema is one common connect, alongside cricket, which unites every one in India cutting across age, gender, states, region, religion, language and what have you.  Therefore, it is no wonder that the often used phrase, ‘Unity in Diversity’, which is used for portraying the vibrancy of the Indian Democracy, is exemplified in the common connect of Cinema and Cricket with all Indians. As a country, we are obsessed with cinema and treat cine stars and cricket players as demigods and consume most products that are endorsed by these stars. It is therefore apt that we pay our reverence to the father of Indian cinema, Dadasaheb Phalke, whose 152nd birth anniversary we are celebrating today and to the man who made cinema possible. 

It was on 3rd May 1913 that Dadasaheb Phalke released  his and  India’s first feature film, ‘Raja Harishchandra’, a silent movie in Bombay (now Mumbai). This film, based on the story of the righteous king - Harishchandra- who sacrifices everything to honour his promise, was screened at the Coronation cinema in Girgaum, Bombay. It was reported that a huge crowd had gathered to watch a ‘miracle’ become a reality and come alive in front of their eyes. The film was shot with a moving camera and was made with hand-driven machines, without any studio facilities and by inexperienced technicians and others in every department of filmmaking. Raja Harishchandra was a one-man contribution. The complexity in making this film by Dadasaheb Phalke is evidenced from one of the interview that Phalke gave, where he said ‘I had to teach acting, write the scenarios, do the photography and actual projection too. Nobody knew anything in India about the industry in 1912”, the year when he produced this film with lots of trials and tribulations. Phalke therefore is befittingly entitled to the epithet - Father of Indian Cinema. Interestingly he chose some interesting bylines to invite people to see his film. He wrote “Watch people move in the magic photographs! A picture two miles long! Only three annas!” This is how a magician named Dadasaheb Phalke invited people in the street to come and watch his first film. 

Phalke’s tryst with cinema began with his chance viewing of a silent classic French Film ‘The Life and Passion of Christ’, in 1911. This movie, produced by Ferdinand Zecca in 1903 under the French title ‘Vie et Passion du Christ, succinctly depicted the Biblical story of the birth, death and resurrection of lord Jesus. This film made a lasting impression on Phalke who from his childhood days was influenced by Indian epics and mythological stories of gods and goddesses and other mythological characters, which he had read from his childhood days. The story of Christ that the film portrayed motivated him to imagine portraying such stories of Indian epic gods and goddesses and other characters. He writes about this influence in one of his memoirs : “While The Life of Christ was rolling fast before my physical eyes, I was mentally visualizing the gods, Shri Krishna, Shri Ramachandra, their Gokul and Ayodhya…”. It is therefore no wonder that Phalkey was profoundly influenced by Indian epics, Puranas and mythological stories, which can be seen in his films that he produced later. From Raja Harishchandra to Phalke’s last and only talkie, Gangavataran (1937), most of his 95 plus films drew inspirations from the ancient Indian epic stories, the Puranas and from other Sanskrit literature. 

Although it is now well established and widely believed that Raja Harishchandra, produced by Phalke, was the first Indian feature film there is however some debate on this issue. Some people say that Shree Pundalik, was the first full feature film in India, which was produced by Dadasaheb Torne and was released  in 1912. However, it must be noted that Raja Harishchandra was truly the first indigenous film, which was acted, directed and produced’ by an all-Indian team. Where as Shree Pundalik, was a recorded stage play, which was filmed by a British cameraman and processed in London. Dadasaheb Phalke, in sync with the mood of the nation had proudly asserted, “My films are swadeshi in the sense that the capital, ownership, employees and the stories are all swadeshi.” Therefore, Raja Harishchandra must befittingly be considered as the first Indian cinema and Dadasaheb Phalke the founding father of Indian Cinema.

In the global historical context, the genesis for film making, however, traces its beginning to the development of a technology that resulted in the portrayal of the moving images, an idea which occurred to the genius inventor, Thomas Alva Edison. Edison describes the reason what made him to invent this new technology ‘peep show’ in his quote “The idea occurred to me that it would be possible to devise an instrument which should do for the eye what the phonograph does for the ear”. Ever since there have been constant technological developments in the world of cinema the premiership of which goes to the famous Lumiere Brothers, who were among the first film makers in history. Lumiere brothers patented an improved cinematograph, which in contrast to Thomas Edison's "peepshow" kinetoscope, allowed simultaneous viewing by multiple people. This was the beginning of the cinema, which started in 1895 in France. The Lumiere Brothers came to present their historic cinema in Bombay. On 7th of July 1896 they presented six of their films at the then famous Watson Hotel in Bombay.  This incident of the first film show in India has been immortalised through projection mapping exhibit in the National Museum of Indian Cinema, which I had the honour to be involved in its development alongside the team from NCSM. 

The turn key establishment of the National Museum of Indian Cinema (NMIC), an idea that was mooted some time in late 2009 by the Ministry of I&B in Delhi, when Mr Jawhar Sircar, was the Secretary of both Ministry of Culture and I&B and Ms Ambika Soni was the Cabinet Minister, was tasked to NCSM.  The aim was to develop a dedicated Cinema Museum and launch it in Mumbai in the Films Division premises during the centenary of the Indian Cinema (2013). Unfortunately, that did not happen. However, NCSM was able to develop the first phase of the Cinema museum which was housed in the Gulshan Mahal heritage precinct of Films Division. One of the most attractive feature of this exhibition is a diorama which depicts the scene from Raja Harishchandra and we have a sculpture of Dadasaheb Phalke and part of the Raja Harishchandra film, obtained from the National Archives, is presented in this exhibit. The NMIC in its entirety finally came to light with the magnificent inauguration of the Museum, by the Honourable Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi ji, on the 19th January 2019. The Honourable PM spent considerable amount of time visiting all the four exhibition halls in the new building and also the exhibition hall at the Gulshan Mahal. He spent time at the Dadasaheb Phalke exhibit. Yours truly along with couple of my other colleagues from CRTL Kolkata were privileged to witness the historic opening of the Museum in which NCSM has played a pivotal role in the curation and turn key development of the NMIC.

Dadasaheb Phalke was born on 30 April 1870 in Tryambakeshwar, a small town located at the foot of Brahamagiri hill, near Nashik, to an orthodox Marathi Chitpavan Brahmin family. His father, Daji Shastri Phalke was a well known Sankrit scholar. Trimbakeshwar is considered as one of the most sacred places in India and is home to one of the twelve jyotirling. Dadasaheb Phalke’s father was quite well known in the area as an accomplished scholar and therefore Dadasaheb Phalke developed his interest in literature, art and culture from his father. After his initial schooling, Dadasaheb Phalke (Dhundiraj Govind Phalke) moved to Bombay ( now Mumbai) and took his admission at the Sir J. J. School of Arts in 1895 from where he completed a one year course in drawing. He then moved to Kala Bhavan Baroda where he studied sculpture, painting, engineering, photography and drawing. Dadasaheb also had the distinction of working with the painting genius Raja Ravi Verma as an apprentice for some time when the latter was staying in Mumbai. Many students from JJ worked with Raja Ravi Verma during this period that included Dhundiraj Phalke. So influenced was Phalke by Ravi Verma’s paintings, that much like the painter brought to life the images of gods on his canvas, Phalke was determined to bring them alive on screen. Impressed with Dadasaheb Phalke it is said that Ravi Verma had gifted him a costly camera. 

Dadasaheb also tried his hand with the government service and in 1903, he joined the Archeological Survey of India as a draftsman and photographer. However, not satisfied with the job, Phalke resigned in 1906 and set up a printing press at Lonavala under the name of "Phalke Engraving and Printing Works" in partnership with  RG Bhandarkar. Here too luck eluded him and when his partner was changed, Dadasaheb gave up this profession as well. In the meanwhile he had travelled to Germany in connection with his printing press and it is here that he acquainted himself with films. The moment of his tryst with films came when he watched  the film The Life of Christ and the rest what they say is history, which started with Dadasaheb Phalke making his first film Raja Harishchandra in 1912 and it was shown to public at Coronation Cinema in Mumbai on 3 May 1913 for the first time. All the departments for making Raja Harishchandra were handled by Indians and there were no foreigners included. The success of his first movie gave Phalke the confidence of making many more movies. Dadasaheb Phalke made a total of 95 movies and 26 short films during his career spanning 19 years. Some of the other films produced by Phalke include Mohini Bhasmasur (1913), Savitri Satyavan (1914),

Lanka Dahan (1917), Shri Krishna janma (1918), Kaliya Mardan (1919)

Sairandari (1920), and Shakuntala (1920), Bandhan (1932) and Gangavataran (1937). 

He also was instrumental in establishing Hindustan Films, the first film company in India with support from some noted businessmen of Mumbai. The businessmen were taken into partnership so that the finances of the company did not suffer. Phalke created a model studio and also imparted training to various actors as well as technicians. Unfortunately, Hindustan Films studio did not last long. He was a visionary who foresaw the potential of the film medium and also made people realize its cultural and financial worth. Through his relentless commitment and earnest efforts, cinema has become an inevitable part of Indian culture in today’s world.

Dadasaheb Phalke retired and settled in Nashik, where he breathed his last on 16 February 1944. Unfortunately, the man who laid the foundation for film making in India including sowing the seeds for the gigantic film industry of ours spent his last few years in misery and died almost unnoticed far away from the industry in Nasik with hardly a handful of people attending his funeral…

Twenty five years after his death in 1969, the Government of India, befittingly  established ‘Dadasaheb Phalke Award’ to recognize his lifetime contributions to India cinema. This award continues to be recognised as one of the most prestigious awards in Indian cinema. The first Phalke Award was given to the actress Devika Rani.

Interestingly although biopic films are becoming an order of the day with many biopic films that have hit the screen since many years, it took a long time for some one to attempt making a biopic on the legendary Dadasaheb Phalkey. Fortunately Paresh Mokashi, made amends and in the year 2009, he directed a Marathi biopic film on Dadasaheb Phalke under the title ‘Harishchandrachi Factory’.

Long live the legacy of Dadasaheb Phalke.