India, in fact.

Anand Patwardhan.

Dear reader,

This is the story of how one documentary was made.

In 1974, the 25-year-old Anand Patwardhan was following Jayaprakash Narayan’s “total revolution” movement in Bihar, filming all the rallies and meetings. As the police violence and firings increased, Patwardhan soon realised that he was witnessing a turning point in history. He began to shoot everything he saw and to record interviews. In 1975, JP was jailed, the Emergency was declared, and Patwardhan had some enormously important footage in his hands.

The filmmaker quickly went underground. He then cut the print of the film into two or three strips, which were then smuggled out of the country by some friends. When Patwardhan went to Canada on a teaching assignment, he reassembled the film, re-edited it, added prologue, soundtrack, and dialogue, and the documentary Waves of Revolution was born. It records the peasant and student movement in Bihar that led ultimately to the declaration of Emergency.

In India, the documentary as an instrument of dissent and protest has a long and glorious history. It has played a vital role in the shaping of democracy, but it has also invariably played second fiddle to the feature film, which, for obvious reasons, captured the attention of the masses. And the bulk of the financial resources.

With one exception: the Films Division. Set up in 1948 primarily to disseminate government propaganda, the organisation ended up becoming a major patron of the documentary, producing some 8,000 films and news reels. This has made it a repository of the country’s history.

In the past decade, the scene has shifted significantly. Last year’s international success of documentaries such as The Elephant Whisperers by Kartiki Gonsalves and All That Breathes by Shaunak Sen has energised the Indian documentary once again. The boom in streaming channels and new avenues of funding have drawn a new horizon of hope.

Are we on the cusp of a new era for fact-films? Can the genre stay true to its activist genes and produce high-quality entertainment as well?

Our latest edition has a series of essays and interviews that looks at the chequered domain of the Indian documentary. For starters, we recommend film critic M.K. Raghavendra’s opening essay, which provides quite a panoramic view of the subject.

Have a great week, watch a documentary, and write to us.

Team Frontline