Indian films in Soviet cinemas : the culture of movie-going after Stalin 9780253353429, 0253353424

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SOVIET CINEMAS

THE CULTURE OF M O VIE-GO IN G AFTER STALIN

S U D H A

R A J A G O P A L A N

Tw in Cities Campus

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Indian Films in Soviet Cinemas

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Twin Cities Campus

Indian Films in Soviet Cinemas

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Indian Films in Soviet Cinemas The Culture of Movie-going after Stalin

SUDHA RAJAGOPALAN

I n d ia n a U n iversity P ress B l o o m in g to n & I n d ia n a po lis

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This book is a publication of Indiana University Press 601 North Morton Street Bloomington, Indiana 47404-3797 USA http://iupress.indiana.edu T elep hon e orders Fax orders Orders by e-m ail

8 0 0 -8 4 2 -6 7 9 6 8 12-855-7931 [email protected]

Copyright © 2 0 0 8 Sud ha R a jag o p alan

This edition is published solely for distribution in North America by arrangement with YODA PRESS, New Delhi, India. www.yodapress.com. All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The Association of American University Presses' Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition. (55 The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.

Manufactured in the United States of America Cataloging information is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN (cl) 978-0-253-35342-9 ISBN (pbk) 978-0-253-22099-8

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Contents

List o f Illu stration s

ix

A ckn ow led g em en ts

xiii

P refa ce

XV

Introduction Indian Films and Movie-going after Stalin I.

II.

III.

1

In d ia n Film s in th e Soviet Past Memories Articulated

29

Im p ort/ Facilitation Ambivalent Accommodation

66

Criticism M ed iation a n d D isengagem ent

IV.

98

Public Voices Negotiation

135

Conclusion

171

A p p en d ices

181

R eferen ces a n d S elect B ib liog ra p h y

212

In d ex

233

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Illustrations

(following p age 96) 1.

Indian actress Durga Khote dances with Leningrad school students at the Palace of Pioneers (Leningrad, 1951) (RGAKFD 0 -2 0 1 3 3 1 ).

2.

Soviet opera legend Valeriia Barsova, Indian actress Durga Khote, Soviet tenor Ivan Kozlovskii, Indian actress T.A. M athuram and film director K. Subramaniam a t the Central House o f Artists (Moscow, 1951) (RGAKFD 0-201343).

3.

Actress Durga Khote and other Indian film delegates with (left to right) actor Boris Chirkov, film -m aker Vsevolod Pudovkin, actresses Liubov' Orlova and Vera M aretskaia at the Central House o f Cinem a (Moscow, 1954) (RGAKFD 0 3 5 9 8 8 4 ).

4.

Raj Kapoor and Nargis in conversation with Soviet docu­ m entary film-maker Rom an Karmen and his wife at the second Indian Film Festival in 1956 (Moscow, 28 October 1956) (RGAKFD 1 - 5 3 5 5 8 ).

5.

Soviet pilot and cosm onau t Iurii G agarin with Indian film director K.A. Abbas (Moscow, 1962) (RGAKFD 0 2 8 6 2 7 2 ).

6.

Raj Kapoor with graduates o f the School for Circus and Performing Arts, during the V MIFF (17 July 1967) (Itar-Tass).

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7.

Shashi Kapoor at the XV MIFF in 1987 (7 July 1987) (ItarTass).

8.

Mithun Chakraborty, very popular am ong Soviet fans, a t the XV MIFF (14 July 1987) (Itar-Tass).

9.

Am itabh Bachchan am ong his fans at the entrance to the Rossiia hotel during the XVII MIFF (10 July 1991) (Itar-Tass).

10. A souvenir postcard with the Russian lyrics of the title song in A w ara. 11. The Indian film delegation during the film festival in Moscow in 1954. (Left to right) Raj Kapoor, Balraj Sahni, Nargis, Nirupa Roy and Dev Anand (souvenir postcard). 12. Raj Kapoor greets readers, M oskov skii K om som olets, 17 August 1968. (following page 136) 13. A w ara (The Vagabond/ B rodiaga) souvenir postcard. 14. Shree 4 2 0 (Mr 42D /G ospodin 420) publicity poster for theatres, 1956. 15. Nargis on the cover of S ovetskii Ekran, in 1957; it was the first time a foreign actor's photograph was used for the cover illustration (Sovetskii Ekran, 16,1957). 16. B eta a b (R estless/S ila liu bvi) publicity poster for theatres, 1988. 17. P yar K arke D ekh o (Try love/Liu hi i verO publicity poster for theatres, 1990. 18. P yar k e N aam Q urban (Sacrifice for Love/Z h ertv a v o im ia Liubvi) publicity poster for theatres, 1991. 19. C h an d n i (-/C h an d n i), publicity poster for theatres, 1991. 20. Indian films continue to be popular. This is the cover o f a current Russian film m agazine, P rem (Hindi for love), dedicated to Indian popular cinem a.

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(following p age 168) 21. A nnouncem ent of the release of M irza G h a lib (S ovetskii Ekran, 8, 1957). 22. A news item tellin g readers th a t India had surpassed America in film production th at year, titled 'The Routing of Bond & C o / (S o v etsk a ia Kul'tura, 2 November 1971). 23. Article about Indian stars Dharm endra and Hema Malini at readers' requests (S ovetskii Ekran, 1 8 ,1 9 8 1 :1 5 -1 7 ). 24. Write-up on Nargis upon her death, at fans' requests (Sovetskii Ekran, 1 0 ,1 9 8 2 :1 8 ). 25. Article on Ind ian film star Zeenat A m an published at readers' requests (S ovetskii Ekran, 1 6 ,1 9 8 5 :2 2 ). 26. M ithun Chakraborty greets readers of S ov etskii Ekran who voted him best foreign star of the year in the m agazine's country-wide survey, 1986. 27. Article on In d ian film star Sanjeev Kum ar a t readers' requests (S ovetskii Ekran, 7 ,1 9 8 6 :2 0 -2 1 ). 28. Am itabh Bachchan on the cover of S ovetskii Ekran in 1989. The text says 'D ark Prince' in a reference to the Indo-Soviet film (A jooba) he acted in that year (S ovetskii Ekran, 4 ,1 9 8 9 ). 29. A w ara, souvenir postcard. 30. Nargis during a televised interview in Moscow (S ovetskii E kran , 1 6 ,1 9 5 7 ). 31. Nargis signing autographs in Moscow (S ovetskii Ekran, 16, 1957). 32. Nargis, during the making of the first Indo-Soviet film, Pardesi (The ForeignerIK h o z h d en iez a tri m oria). On the left, Nargis poses with a group of other performers in the film. To the right, Oleg Strezhanov, the celebrated Russian actor who played Afanasy Nikitin, talks to the film crew (S ovetskii Ekran, 18,1 9 5 7 ). 33. Write-ups on Nargis and Raj Kapoor (S ovetskii Ekran, 12, 1 9 6 7 :1 2 -1 3 ).

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34. Indian film star Rishi Kapoor at the Tashkent festival in 1978 (S ovetskii Ekran, 1 7 ,1 9 7 8 :1 6 -1 7 ). 35. Announcing the release of S h o la y (Embers/M est' i z a k o n ) (Sovetskii Ekran, 9 , 1979:19). 36. Indian film star Amitabh Bachchan posing with an issue o f S ovetskii Ekran at a film festival in the Soviet Union (he is seen pointing to an article about himself) (S ovetskii E kran, 2 1 ,1 9 8 5 :2 0 ).

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Acknowledgements

I a m deeply indebted to everyone I m et and interviewed in Moscow for being m agnanim ous with their time and for sharing their personal stories about Indian films. Everywhere, I was made to feel welcome regardless of the time of day; conversations went on for hours, over tea and delicacies, at kitchen-tables pain­ stakingly laid for the occasion. These participants' continued interest in the outcome of my research and their standing invitation to return to their homes cannot go unmentioned. My dear friends Elena and Volodia provided me a hom e in Moscow on each of m y field trips, and expended m uch effort in making sure I had everything 1 needed for my research and in putting me in touch with potential interviewees and other contacts. My friend Dasha was kind enough to transcribe the interviews I recorded on tape during fieldwork. My friends and colleagues Iurii Korchagov, Vera Fedorchenko and V alentin Zagrebel'ny generously helped identify useful resource people and gave much of their time for the effort. I am grateful to all of them for their hospitality and unstinting help. In Russia, m any librarians and staff members went the extra mile to make access to m aterials easier. In particular, I would like to m ention Kristina and N atal'ia a t the Museum of Cinema in Moscow who spent hours locating people I sought and placing strategic phone calls to help me circumvent unforeseen obstacles during fieldwork. Elena and Leonid of Praxis International made the logistical planning involved in doing fieldwork in Russia eminently easy. I would also like to acknowledge here that

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fieldwork would not have been possible without the generous funding from the College of Arts and Sciences and the Department of History at Indiana University. At Indiana University, Alexander and Janet Rabinowitch have been exceptional mentors over the years, and m uch of th e emotional and intellectual energy this project has needed h as been sustained by their invaluable support. The conceptualisation and writing processes have benefited greatly from the lively interest and comments of Alex Rabinowitch, M aria Bucur an d Ben Eklof in the Department of History, and Dodona Kiziria in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at Indiana University. They read num erous drafts p atien tly , offered constructive criticism on each occasion and were consistently encouraging about my research decisions. I am grateful to Susan E. Reid, Kristin Roth-Ey and R am achand ra Guha for th eir comments upon reading chapter drafts. Many thanks also to Arpita Das and Parul Nayyar a t Yoda Press for their expert editorial support and astute recommendations for the manuscript. I am immensely grateful to my parents for their implicit faith in my ideas and to my sister Swama for her sage words about the act of writing and getting a book done (spoken from experience). And Joost, this book owes much to your patient ear, your skill at playing devil's advocate and your willingness to talk for hours about 'metanarratives and microhistories'.

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Preface

X h e idea for the doctoral research on which this book is based stemmed prim arily from personal experiences and 'popular knowledge' in India about the Soviet Union. Fifteen years ago in a Moscow metro, a group of musicians approached me and asked if I would sing for them. Their request was a song from a classic Indian p op u lar film of the fifties. I was happy to oblige, and the result was a n impromptu song session on the Moscow underground. The incid ent was unexpected but the request for a n Indian film song cam e as no surprise to me. Growing up in India, one of the first things I had ever learned about the Soviet Union was that movie-goers there admired Indian popular films. In India, we have always found the Soviet interest in Indian films m ost curious. The success o f these films with their seeming 'flights o f fantasy' seemed to be a paradox in a society where arts were m eant to be edifying, and where entertainm ent from abroad was tightly controlled. My parents' generation remembers Soviet movie fans turning up in thousands on the streets of Moscow and St. Petersburg to greet Indian stars in the fifties and sixties, and I recall the great delight with which I heard th at Raisa Gorbacheva's favourite actor was an Indian film star. I remember an old In d ia T oday issue which reported that Soviet fans camped outside the hotel where Indian actor Mithun Chakraborty stayed while he was in the Soviet Union. Sightseeing tours planned for visiting Soviet delegations in India even included stops outside film stars' hom es and film studios in Bombay. My interest in this dimension o f Soviet popular culture has been consistently stimulated by personal experiences in that

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country. These experiences were a product of the friendly ties and bilateral cultural relationship India and the Soviet Union shared, which spawned events, festivals, and language centres in India. During my stint a t the Russian language centre in Bombay and on my first visit to Moscow 15 years ago, m any people from the region demonstrated a deep interest in India, which they attributed to their fam iliarity with Indian popular films. The identification of m any with films from India and their own view that our cultures were 'related' was a source of endless fascination and the subject of much discussion with people in the region for the next several years. The outpouring of admiration for Indian films and their stars seemed undiminished even in the late nineties, as demonstrated by new magazines for Indian film fans in Russia. Indian films were now available on video in Russia and other CIS states soon after their theatre release in India. I met with the secretary o f a new film club 'Novaia India' (New India) in Moscow, and browsed with delight through the hundreds of application forms the club had received between 1993 and 1998. During early field trips, I also received two enthusiastic letters from Indian film fans in Russia— one from D agestan and the other from Volgograd province. N a ta l’ia Chernikova in V erkhniaia D obrinka in V o lg o g rad p ro v in ce h a s alw a y s w atch ed In d ia n film s appreciatively and has a large collection of videos at home, which she offered to put a t my disposal for my research. Zuhra Ramasanova in M akhachkala likes to dress up like her favourite Indian film star and dreams of going to India one day; how can I help with your research, she asked. I was encouraged by the spontaneity with which people I met talked to me about the subject. Often, the conversation needed no preamble; in fact, people assumed because I am Indian I would want to talk to them about films from Bombay. I grew up on a diet of Indian popular films, loved and knew them well, and was happy to discuss film gossip with the people I met. Ultimately, research into audience reception of Indian popular cinem a in the Soviet Union seemed, quite simply, to be the 'natural' thing to do.

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Introduction Indian Films1and Movie-going after Stalin

I g o r ' B e lo tse rk o v sk ii,12 a U krain ian resident o f Moscow, rem em bers: T h e houses in our village were at quite a distance from e a ch other so the postm an cycled from door to door an n o u n cin g "Today! Indian film show!" The people on the k o lk h o z ...tried finishing their work early in the fields and at home, and th en rushed to get a seat in the film club, the only one in our village. There were, if I remember correctly, about 500 seats. These were sim ply not enough, so the villagers brought ladders... lined them up again st the walls and then occupied the rungs. Others brought their own chairs...you see, the club just did not have enough place for all these people. There was no place to stand. Then windows were opened so that people could watch the film while perched on their car-roofs.... Speakers were placed outside the club so that those on the street could follow the film's dialogues and m usic. And those songs, that music, resounded throughout 1 References in this book to 'Indian films' indicate mainstream or popular cinema, mostly produced in the Bombay film industry. Otherwise the book uses the phrase 'art' films to refer to parallel cinema ('progressive' and 'serious' films in the vocabulary of the Soviet film intelligentsia). On occasion, depending on the context, the reader will come across the Soviet usage 'Indiiskie m elo d ra m y ('Indian melodramas') to refer to Indian popular cinema. 1 Belotserkovskii is one of 52 movie-goers interviewed for this book. See Appendix V for interviewee profile.

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the village. Every home was empty; everyone was in the club for the show / This dramatic recollection of Indian films in a rural Soviet community typifies the way in which m any former Soviet movie-goers now remember audience penchant, even hunger, for Indian popular cinem a in the Soviet era and is an eloquent entry-point for this book's narrative. Belotserkovskii and his fellow Soviet movie-goers began to enjoy access to popular films from India in 1954 when Soviet audiences had their first glimpse of these films in domestic theatres. The occasion was an Indian film festival in Moscow and other cities, and the success of the films it screened, especially A w ara (The V a g a b o n d / B r o d ia g a ) ,3 provided im petus for the re g u la r importation of films from India until 1991. D hool k a P hool (Flower in the Dust /T sv etok v Pyli), and L ov e in S im la (L iu bov' v S im le) were a rage in the 1960s. Films such as B obby, M u q a d d a r k a S ika n d a r (Master of his Fate/ V lad y ka Sud'by), D isco D a n cer (T an tsor D isko) and their stars becam e iconic in late Soviet popular culture. Indian popular films drew large audiences in Soviet theatres, often surpassing both domestic and other foreign cinema in viewer turnout/ Over the years, admirers wrote lively letters to S ovetskii Ekran (Soviet Screen), the popular Soviet film journal, explaining their preference for these films: 'It is simply offensive. My brother returned from his work shift at the factory. Weary and wishing to relax, he turned on the television, only to see his second work shift begin—a film about a factory. It m akes me want to sm ash the television set to smithereens. Seriously, one is able to see beauty only in Indian films. Life is gloomy, dull, tedious, but in Indian films one sees so much beauty, love, music! Indian films are incom parable am ong the cinem as! (unsigned)/3 5 Describing the experience o f an Indian film show 4 3 Awara was the most popular film among domestic and foreign movies in Soviet theatres; its 63.7 million viewers were the largest audience of the decade for a single film. The English title/translation is placed in parentheses followed by the Russian title. See Appendix II for a description of popular films dted in the text of this book 4 See Appendix I, Tables 1.1 and 1.2 for audience statistics. 5 Aleksandr Lipkov, In diiskoe Kino: sekret u sp ekh a: razm yshleniia, interv'iu,

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in a letter to the sam e journal, some enthusiasts had this to say: 'W hile watching a n Indian film, the heart fills with joy. Everything is beautiful and so colourful, that you have no desire to leave the theatre, especially when reminded of w hat awaits you outside it/ 6 The Indian films imported and distributed in the Soviet Union were m ainly Hindi-language productions from Bombay that com b in ed characteristics from several genres, em phasised em otion and spectacle and portrayed issues of societal signi­ ficance through the dynamics of interpersonal relationships. They were generically and ideologically a t variance with prevalent Soviet canonical assumptions about cinem a and its purpose. Yet, o f the approxim ately 2 1 0 Indian films screened between 1954 and 1991 in Soviet theatres, about 190 were 'm ainstream ' films mostly from Bombay. The following chapters concern themselves with Soviet audience reception of Indian films a n d the discursive and institutional context within which that reception occurred from 1954 until the end o f the Soviet era. W hen Stalin died in March 1953, the new regime under Nikita Khrushchev began the gradual retrenchment of some of the most oppressive policies of the Stalinist era. Changes were underway an d th e m ood already hopeful when in 1956 Khrushchev delivered the famous de-Stalinisation speech, officially distancing the party from the excesses o f the Stalinist past. In this political clim ate called the Thaw (following the Stalinist freeze), the new state initiated the relative liberalisation o f leisure and culture, and displayed renewed interest in addressing popular tastes. The Soviet regim e under Khrushchev and later Brezhnev7 rejected Stalinist-style purges and arbitrary arrests as a form of control. Instead, they formulated policies to satisfy popular needs as a vstrechi (Kiev: Mystetstvo, 1990): 7, quoting from admirers' letters. These letters were sent to the film journal S ovetskii Ekran (Soviet Screen), where film scholar Lipkov worked between the sixties and the eighties. 6 Ibid. 1 The regimes of Khrushchev (1954-1963) and Brezhnev (1964-1982) were defining for the post-Stalinist state and society because of their long tenures and their correspondingly greater impact on society.

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way to regain public confidence and to counter anti-Soviet cold war rhetoric that questioned the endurance of the socialist state. Commenting on the complexities o f the post-Stalinist system in countries of the East bloc, Czech dissident and (later) president Vaclav Havel observed: T h e post-totalitarian system has been built on foundations laid by the historical encounter between dictatorship and the consumer society/8 The attention for public demand and the needs of consumers became important with the realisation that the state needed to devise new ways of asserting its legitimacy at the height of the cold war. Significantly, the new accomm odation of consumption in official discourse was not unequivocally supported within the establishment. Many in the party and in official circles expressed concern th at such a policy would encourage individual material pursuits, create fragmented publics and negate the Soviet idea of the collective. Given the state's ambivalence, official rhetoric prescribed that consumerism must be rational and 'austere' for it to correspond to the spirit of the Soviet collective.9 The post-Stalinist regime's willingness to accommodate the needs of the public as consumers was matched by greater interventions by the state to regulate private life and guide consumers' choices. The new Soviet state, 'rather than rely on coercion, ... sought to m aintain public compliance by different means, to mobilize and control through a dispersal of authority to a range o f discourses, institutions, and regimes of daily life and personal conduct.'10 Along with the promise of better services and more m aterial comforts, the state simultaneously generated an entire body of literature on how consumption or reception must be practised with measure. 8 Vaclav Havel, The Pow er o f the Pow erless (1978) (London: Faber and Faber, 1987): 37-40, quoted in Susan E. Reid, 'Cold War in the Kitchen: Gender and the De-Stalinization of Consumer Taste in the Soviet Union under Khrushchev,' Slavic Review, 61, 2 (2002): 216. 9 Susan E. Reid and David Crowley, 'Style and Socialism: Modernity and Material Culture in post-war Eastern Europe,' in David Crowley and Susan E. Reid (eds), Style an d Socialism : M odernity an d M aterial Culture in post-w ar Eastern Europe (Oxford and New York: Berg Publishers, 2000): 12. 10 Reid, 'Cold War in the Kitchen': 216.

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Newspapers and m agazines advised consumers th at the new perfum es, fashions, m ake-up and footwear, now produced domestically, were to be consumed with restraint and in a modest fashion. For instance, m agazines redefined perfumes, once a luxury item , as the appropriate gift and reward for women for their im portant function as workers and mothers. Such advice literature was a n ideological effort on the part of the state and its party workers to ensure th a t access to consumer goods did not engender acquisitiveness and efface the spirit of the collective.11 Consumption becam e a part of official discourse, referring not to the unrestrained and philistine consumerism of the West, but a more ratio n al consumption becoming of Soviet citizens. For the reception o f the arts, this policy had sim ilar implications. New visual experiences (cinem a, theatre, art) th at deviated from socialist realist criteria were allowed from foreign countries but an accom panying advice literature informed the consuming public th a t they must not em brace or co-opt these forms as their own because their aesthetics reflected the hedonistic bourgeois proclivities o f the societies they represented. In this momentous period o f new cultural freedoms accom panied by regulatory dis­ courses, the Soviet state began to import Indian films for screening in Soviet theatres. The promotion and reception of these films in the context of 'relative liberalisation' and 'austere consumerism' form the central focus of this book. INDIAN CINEMA For readers unfam iliar with Indian cinem a, a brief description of the two m ain streams of film-making to which Soviet audiences had access—'popular' and 'art' cinema—is useful. Indian popular films are the dom inant cinem a in India (these films are primarily referred to as Indian m elodram as or commercial films in the former Soviet Union). These films are characterised by dram a, spectacle, fantasy (within culturally defined bounds), songs and dances, pronounced good and evil characters, and the invariable " Reid, 'Cold War in the Kitchen': 233, 242-43.

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happy end. Film authorities have retained the older colonial censorship that forbade kissing and nudity on screen, as essential to 'preserving' Indian culture. However, the song picturisations border on the erotic to compensate for the lack of explicitly sexual scenes, and recently, kissing has been permitted on occasion. In essence, it is a 'cinem a o f interruptions', owing to the strategic placing of song and dance sequences in the narrative, the inter­ mission during the show, and the frequent flashbacks in these films' narratives.12 Indian popular films com bine elements of the melodrama, the western, the thriller, dram a and comedy with characteristics o f Indian folk theatre and local epic story­ telling traditions. Some attribute this eclectic quality in popular films to the evolution o f Indian cinem a during the anti-colonial movement; film-makers used cinem a to create an independent cultural form that would incorporate local artistic traditions and indigenise Western film-making techniques.13 Studying Indian popular films is studying 'Indian modernity at its rawest'.14 The films grapple with issues of modernisation and the changes this process has wrought in Indian society. This is particularly true o f the popular films made in Bom bay in the immediate aftermath of independence in 1947, a period otherwise known as the Golden Age of Indian popular cinem a. The early post-independence popular films, often described as 'social films', reflected the social and political consciousness of their makers. The characters in their films were young, socially engaged m en and women, troubled by the colonial legacies with which India had to grapple. A decade later, a shift occurred in the social and political ethos of popular films. The new hero was a swash­ buckling, urbane and wealthy young man, free of the social guilt th at had plagued the heroes of the popular films o f the fifties. Subsequently, the seventies also saw the emergence of a new 12 Lalitha Gopalan, C inem a o f Interruptions. Action Genres in C ontem porary Indian C inem a (London: British Film Institute, 2002): 16-24. 13 Ibid.: 17. 14 Ashis Nandy, 'Indian Cinema as a Slum's Eye View of Politics', in Ashish Nandy (ed.), The Secret Politics o f Our D esires: In n ocen ce, C u lpability an d Indian P opular C inem a (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998): 7-10.

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popular film hero, 'the angry young m an '. This hero-prototype flourished in a period when the underclass in India was becoming m arginalised , and the establishm ent seemed in cap ab le of addressing fundam ental social problems. This film hero of the seventies and eighties functioned as vigilante, righting social injustices an d w inning his love-interest in the denouement of the film. As these films are produced in a democratic society, it is com mon to see pronouncem ents abou t the im portance of governm ent accountability. Protagonists are often journalists, lawyers, activists or social outcastes charged with holding the political authorities responsible for their acts. Popular films contain social commentaries that are interwoven into m elodram atic narratives. These films valorise 'respect for kinship a n d friendship obligations, destiny, patriotism and religion (and religious tolerance) as well as controlled sexuality/ 15 In general, a t the centre of the film there is a romance, often a love triangle where class, religious, or ethnic distinctions are played out. In these films, social problems manifest themselves and find their resolution in the realm of hum an relationships and personal trials. These form al traits and narrative tendencies accentuate the incongruity of these films' presence in Soviet society and the paradox o f their promotion by the Soviet state. The second distinctive stream of film-making in India has been that o f art cinem a, which differs from the m ainstream popular cinem atic tradition. A pioneering figure in this non-mainstream cinem a was Satyajit Ray, whose films achieved international renown in the fifties. In the sixties, the Indian state actively began to finance and provide facilities for 'progressive' film-makers whose films diverged from popular cinem atic fare; these films came to be called 'art', 'new', and 'parallel' cinem a. In the former Soviet Union, these films are also known as India's 'progressive cinem a'. Although their projects are often funded by the state, art film-makers pride themselves in being critical observers of the political and social milieu in India. Indian art cinema proposes to draw attention to India's social ills with 15 Rosie Thomas, 'Indian Cinema: Pleasures and Popularity', Screen, 26, 34(1985): 116-17, 127-28.

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missionary zeal, and its film-makers consider this medium to be a m eans to raise awareness and provoke thought am ong the audiences about what ails India. Generally, its middle-class directors have been preoccupied with rural India, which they consider the 'authentic' or 'real' India. Together, art film-makers have practised different formal approaches to film-making, from Italian neo-realism to militant art aesthetics. Their films also draw upon traditions of Indian folk theatre. Ultimately, these directors' claim to being distinctive lies in their 'integrity' and 'vision', juxtaposed against 'imitative' mainstream film-makers.16 The two cinemas, art/parallel and m ainstream / popular/ com m ercial/m elodram a, initially took opposing positions and claimed differing agendas. However, since the late eighties, art cinem a as a distinctive school with a specific agenda for its films has receded to the margins suffering from ineffective distribution channels and a diminished interest am ong urban audiences for cinem atic treatments of social problems. These films have m ade way for a host of new diasporic productions about migration, cultural dislocation and identity. In its turn, commercial cinem a now accommodates a range of crossover films with transnational casts and storylines. Until the late eighties, most of the 190 popular films that were imported and screened in theatres across the Soviet Union were Hindi-language films produced in Bombay. The Indian art films, on the other hand, to which smaller Soviet circles were privy mainly during film weeks, festivals and retrospectives, cam e from all the film-producing centres o f India. INDIAN FILMS, SOVIET AUDIENCES Indian popular films have been widely successful among foreign audiences, with significant fan bases in countries of the socialist bloc, in West Asia and in parts of Africa.17 Many non-W estem audiences see Hollywood as embodying alien cultural values and 16 Sumita S. Chakravarty offers an interesting discussion of the self­ definitions of those making parallel films in her N ation al Ideology in Indian Popular C inem a, 1947-87 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1993): 235-48. 17 Dimitris Eleftheriotis and Dina Iordanova, ‘Indian Cinema Abroad:

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they view its presence as a reminder of the discomfiting ideological baggage o f its country o f origin; this perception enhances the allure o f Indian cinem a, the other large film industry, in m any regions. Indian films' implicit treatm ent of problems of modern­ isation and the industry's vast distribution network have helped this cinem a hold its own at hom e and abroad.18 Among sup­ porters of Indian popular films abroad, the Soviet and post-Soviet audience is one o f the earliest and most enduring. Here, in viewership numbers, Indian films drew far larger audiences than any other foreign cinem a over the decades. Yet, the sustained popularity o f Indian popular cinem a in the Soviet Union has hitherto been the subject o f only fleeting references in Indian film studies. In this body of work, the diasporic audiences of North America and the United Kingdom have overshadowed the m any admirers o f Indian films in countries without significant Indian populations and where the audience has been m ainly local. On their part, Anglophone studies of Soviet society have been characterised by a lack of attention to cultural influences from places other th an America. It is im portant to study the presence of A m erican and other Western media in Soviet society in order to understand the limits of official Soviet cultural policy. However, these analyses perpetuate the cold war view of Soviet official culture as inflexible, isolated and hostile to 'bourgeois' cultural forms. Furthermore, they assume the centrality of the West to the Soviet engagement with the outside world. In his renowned study of Soviet popular culture, Richard Stites acknowledged that the cultural scene under Khrushchev and Brezhnev was increasingly heterogeneous. But he contended that it was only the collapse of the Soviet system that caused Soviet society to be 'deluged by the world cultural system, called in some quarters "Americanization"'.19 However, ideas and media stem from multiple points of origin. America is but 'one node of a complex transnational construction Historiography of Transnational Cinematic Exchanges' (Special issue), South Asian P opu lar Culture, 4, 2 (October 2006). 18 Thomas, 'Indian Cinema: Pleasures and Popularity': 116. 19 Richard Stites, Russian P opular Culture: Entertainm ent a n d Society Since 1900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992): 206.

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of im aginary landscapes'.20 It is crucial to shift emphasis to the very wide-ranging interactions that characterised Soviet relations with 'developing countries' on other continents. If we study Soviet cultural exchanges with regions other than the conceptual 'West", Soviet society appears to have been part of the global cultural system in a significant way during the post-Stalinist period. India was the largest non-communist state with which the Soviet Union had close cultural and trade relations, and it was a m eaningful player in Soviet cultural reality. Moreover, Indian cinema's global significance was already growing at the time that Soviet audiences were exposed to it; by the sixties, it had begun to rival Hollywood in its worldwide sphere of influence. Studying post-Stalinist Soviet society in relation to non-Westem global media and 'non-aligned' foreign cultural actors who were encouraged to play a role in it provides fresh insights into the cultural space in Soviet society. W here W estern artistic expressions and m edia invariably provided sites of resistance to the state's ideology, cultural imports from friendly bourgeois countries such as India occupied a paradoxical position and met with am bivalent reactions w ithin the parameters of officially permissible culture. 1954, UDARNIK THEATRE, MOSCOW: LANDMARK BEGINNINGS At the heart of the m ain post-Stalinist changes—the gradual relaxation of the political stranglehold, the new accommodation of foreign political orders other than the strictly socialist and the slow liberalisation, albeit within bounds, of cultural practices and leisure—was the new friendship with India and the first festival of Indian films in 1954, held in Moscow and several Soviet cities. At first, the Stalinist years of institutionalised xenophobia saw the Soviet state's unwillingness to engage with the newly inde­ pendent Indian state. There was a general distrust of w hat the Soviets saw as the bourgeois regime of the Congress party, and 20 Arjun Appadurai, M od ern ity a t L a rg e: C u ltu ral D im en sio n s o f G lobalization . Public W orlds, Volume 1 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000): 31.

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n ational newspapers in the Soviet Union bestowed little serious attention on Indian politics. This began to change by 1951 and the Indian am bassador V.K. Krishna Menon was received twice by Stalin in the last years of his regime. The Indian state had repeatedly expressed adm iration for the Soviet Union and the latter began to reciprocate th at interest by the end of the Stalin years. Furthermore, Soviet cultural organisations were in active touch with leftist organisations and societies in colonial and early post-colonial India. In the years in which the Soviet Union began to acquire friends in the Indian intelligentsia and establishment, the Soviet Society for Cultural Relations (V se-sovetskoe obshchestvo ku l'tu m y kh sv ia z ei) or VOKS also demonstrated curiosity about Indian cinem atography.21 Countries with 'progressive' cinemas displaying appropriate political sympathies were recipients of the Soviet state's largesse in providing technical equipment and other useful m aterials such as books on film-making. In the mid­ forties, legendary Soviet film-maker Vsevolod Pudovkin as head of the VOKS expressed a keen interest in the films, studios, directors and actors of India.22 He requested copies of Indian films, survey articles on Indian cinema, photographs of film actors and directors, stills from Indian films and press cuttings on this cinem a.23 This new curiosity about Indian cinem a inspired the visit o f Pudovkin and Soviet actor Nikolai Cherkasov to India in 21 The VOKS was established in 1925 for facilitating scientific and cultural ties between Soviet and foreign cultural institutions, social organisations and practitioners in the fields of science and culture. Its functions included the hosting of lectures and get-togethers for visiting film delegations, screening films from foreign countries on its premises, undertaking cultural propagandist work in foreign countries, and providing assistance to developing countries struggling for independence from colonial rule. This organisation actively pursued activities in pre-independence India. In their interactions with Indian sympathisers, VOKS members were always forthcoming with information about Soviet achievements in cinematic and other cultural spheres. Their cultural measures involved sending books, films and other information that would ostensibly serve in shaping Indian people's political consciousness and the eventual overthrow of the British regime. 22 GARF, f. R-5283, o. 19, d. 141,1. 29 (1944). 23 GARF, f. R-5283, o. 19, d. 155,1. 1 (1946).

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early 1951. Everywhere, Indian cinematographers addressed th e guests, expressing the hope that Indian dnem a would attain th e artistic level of Soviet d nem a and the wish to learn from Soviet 'masters of dnem a'.24 With this visit, Indo-Soviet film exchanges acquired new mom entum . In 1951, cultural delegations from India began to pay regular visits to Soviet Union. That year, a group of Indian film professionals visited Kiev, met with Ukrainian film personalities and visited studios, cultural establishments and educational centres. The Indian representatives lam ented the lack of state help for cinem a in India, and praised the Soviet state's commitment to film-making. The delegation later visited film studios in Moscow and Leningrad, and returned to India with glowing accounts of Soviet dnem atic accomplishment.25 Meanwhile, in order to conduct business, Soveksportfil'm, the film import and export department under the aegis of Goskino (the State Committee for Cinematography), began to set up regional offices abroad in the 1940s. In India, the regional office was set up in Bombay in 1946 and in Madras and Calcutta in 1978. Soveksportfil'm 's im m ediate concern was the public distribution of Soviet films in India but like VOKS, it also recognised the geo-political importance of becoming acquainted with film-makers and studios in India in the immediate pre- and post-independence years. In 1949, Soveksportfil'm imported D harti Ke L ai (Children of the EarthID eti zem li),26 the first Indian film purchased for Soviet theatres. In 1951, the second Indian film, C hin n am u l (The Uprooted /O bezd olen n y e) was screened in Soviet theatres at Pudovkin's behest. Both were exem plary o f the early 'progressive' films that presaged the art cinema movement of the sixties, and were subjected to critical reviews in the Soviet press.27 Soveksportfil'm's early records also included write-ups 24 RGALI, f. 2918, o. 2, d. 100 (1951). 25 RGALI, f. 2918, o. 2, d. 100,1. 102 (1951). 26 See Appendix III for brief descriptions of Indian 'progressive' and art films cited in this book. 27 However, movie-goers do not remember these as the first Indian films in the Soviet Union, instead giving that distinction to the first Indian popular films they watched in 1954.

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on India's independence and the state of Indian cinematography at the tim e. In the early fifties, representatives of Soveksportfirm sent synopses of Hindi films running in Bombay theatres.28 Reports also demonstrated a keen interest in the Indian film press, whose journals were classified as either anti- or pro-Soviet.29 Soveksportfil'm took notes on leading film personalities of India, particularly if it seemed as if the media and the audiences in the West were paying attention to them .30 By the time Stalin died in March 1953, m uch energy had been expended on cultivating support in India. Indeed, when the Soviet political order began to chart new territory, the groundwork had already been laid for a political and cultural relationship with India. The hitherto expressed m utual adm iration between the two countries was given full expression in the first Indian film festival in the Soviet Union in September 1954 (possibly the first foreign film festival after the death of Stalin). The event was truly em blem atic of both the m utual interest in cultivating the other as a p olitical ally and the new openness in post-Stalinist society for genre cinem as from non-communist societies.31 The festival films, A w ard, Do B igha Z am in (Two Acres of Land /D v a b ig h a zem li), A a n d h iy a n (Storm s/U ragan) and R ah i (Two Leaves and a Bud/ G an g a) were concerned with issues of social justice in the context o f urbanisation, rural impoverishment and other problems inherited by independent India. The directors of these films, many of them members of the Indian People's Theatre Association (IPTA) in the fifties, brought to the Indian film industry the ideological persuasions of the organisation. Their films represented a range o f narrative tendencies, from the socialist realist D o B igha Z am in, to the social-critical melodrama exemplified by films like A w ara an d A a n d h iy a n . The films were well-received by all sections of the public, including both the 'm ass audience' and the critics. The press reported viewer turnout faithfully and 28 RGALI, f. 2918, o. 2, d. 100,1. 1-39 (1950-51). 29 Ibid., 1. 40. 30 Ibid., 1. 78. 31 Sudha Rajagopalan, 'Emblematic of the Thaw: Early Indian Films in Soviet Cinemas', South A sian P opular Culture, 4, 2 (October 2006): 83-100.

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recorded the popularity of these films.32 It was immediately clear that the films had won a large following and could perform an important diplomatic function. In a questionnaire conducted during fieldwork, respondents recalled the festival as an event th a t generated tremendous interest. Recollections emphasised the ecstatic reception the Indian film delegation received and the novelty of the films themselves, For some respondents, the festival of 1954 had been an important, even sensational, event. The public interest generated was enormous and tickets were hard to come by. These viewers remembered the euphoric reception given to the film delegation when they visited the Soviet Union for the festival.33They recalled the 'extraordinary interest of Muscovites' and their own curiosity about the films (rs. 8), 'the love of the viewers for the actors' (rs. 9), an d the royal reception granted the visiting stars from India (rs. 31). Large crowds waited to watch every film, and heated discussions followed every screening (rs. 8); the radio played music from the films constantly (rs. 24). Respondents remembered th at it was a much-talked about and frequented event. The films attracted a large viewer turnout, and recollections of the time often refer to the long queues, the difficulty of getting tickets and the overcrowded halls (rs. 6 ,8 and 25). Viewers in cities other than Moscow remembered reading about the event in the papers34 or watching it on the national news ('N ovosti dn ia' or Daily News).35 Respondent 10 was not in Moscow at the time of the festival but remembered hearing that it was spectacular, that 'people loved the films, and that Raj and Nargis cam e on a visit' (rs. 10). Six respondents described the festival in terms of the novelty of the films themselves.36 32 ‘U spekh festiv alia in d iiskikh fil'm ov’, Izvestiia, 25 September 1954; ‘U spekh festivalia in diiskikh kinofU'mov', Trud, 27 September 1954; 'M illion zritelei, n a festivale in diiskikh fil'm ov', V ech em iaia M oskva, 27 September 1954. 33 Q uestionnaires were anonym ous. I refer to respondents by their corresponding number, as listed in the profile table, Appendix V. 34 Rs. 10, 12, 23, 26, 28, 29. 35 Rs. 23. 36 Rs. 2, 3, 6, 16,19, 33.

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Such viewers suggest that Indian popular films' capacity to chum out 'naive' and unam biguous moral truths would render them appropriate cinem atic fare today, in a time o f uncertainty and aggression. A l'bert Gudin believed th a t these film s' hopelandscapes made them welcome again in the present period of 'capitalist misfortunes'. According to these interviewees, Indian films' 'hum ane' and relatively non-aggressive quality once again sets them apart from other cinemas. Irina Arkhipova's admiration for Indian films has only increased in the recent years 'when the world has grown weary of violence'. These films' features appealed in the past and their appeal is now an element in a pervasive nostalgia for a time of perceived stability, political wisdom and self-restraint. Viewers of Indian films who admired this cinem a brought a distinctive vocabulary to the viewing experience, one th a t valorised catharsis, entertainment, diversion and values of moral propriety and goodness. These audience criteria and assessments of Indian films also found expression in contemporary letters to the press over the decades, a s the reader shall see in the final chapter. Through its films, India acquired a place in Soviet popular im agination, inspiring confident observations about 'Indian culture'. For Indian film enthusiasts, Indian films w ere Indian culture, and having access to these films inspired the practice of 'knowing' and 'understanding' India. Viewers were inspired to make comparisons with their own realities; they drew parallels, not with their political lives but with their moral, social and cultural worlds. For some, Indian films created im ages of a society that appeared riddled with problems like the Soviet Union, but th at exhibited a seemingly life-affirming approach to their resolution. For others, the film s' (and by extension, India's) intrinsic 'moral code' and the privileging of romantic relationships became cultural standards against which personal situations could be measured. These films seemed to represent a world that was very different, yet bore similarities to the cultural backgrounds and moral assumptions of m any viewers. Indian popular cinema, by offering respite a n d the comfort of familiarity, created room

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for its Soviet admirers to contemplate alternative personal, social and cultural realities. It is striking that viewers' narratives bore no references to the overt and tacit politics of these films. Neither did they read film characterisations of Indian politicians, for instance, as an indica­ tion of a corrupt bourgeois order that compared unfavourably with th eir own system. W hen the question was addressed, interviewees observed unequivocally that Indian popular films had no political or social message; rather, they contended that these films were 'simple' moral parables. Their entirely apolitical reading of Indian films in a society where politics pervaded everything and where arts, particularly, were m eant to be read politically raises questions about the larger context of policy and critical discourse that facilitated the presence of Indian films in Soviet theatres and shaped their reception.

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T h e provision of Indian films that were a t odds with domestic film canons and permitted so many viewers to 'forget about reality' and escape the dreariness o f Soviet life, as articulated in movie­ goers' recollections, was a result of the state's strategy to accom ­ modate a greater range of public needs in order to regain political legitimacy in the eyes of the public. After Stalin's death, one important area in which public demand outstripped supply was that of cinem a. In the early to mid-fifties, film production and movie-going was at an all-tim e low and Khrushchev's regime initiated the purchase of a large volume of films from both socialist and non-socialist countries; domestic cinem a also began to experience a revival during the Thaw. Under Brezhnev, domestic entertainm ent films were still a t a premium and the state relied heavily on the import of foreign genre films, a policy that continued unabated until the end of the Soviet era. From the very outset, it was evident that Indian films would assist tremendously in the state's agenda to revive the cinem a. Screened in the Indian film festival of 1954, A w ard surpassed domestic and foreign films on the charts in the entire decade with 63.7 million viewers. Soon after, its success was m atched by films such as S h ree 4 2 0 and L ove in Sim la. Although seen by their Soviet critics and ideologues as quintessential Hollywood-influenced bourgeois cinem a made

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for the singular purpose of profit, the Soviet state imported close to 190 popular films from India by 1991. Newly declassified documents relating to import disclose the conditions th at made Indian film consumption possible or the functions Indian films fulfilled for the Soviet state and those acting on its behalf. Soveksportfirm correspondence, annual reports and the final list of selected films together divulge the evaluative criteria and assumptions these actors brought to Indian films, and the reasons for their patronage of this cinema. This patronage and political sanction, ultimately, lent legitim acy to public declarations of support for the oft-maligned Indian popular film. IMPORTERS AND FACILITATORS: M ODUS O PERA N D I At this point, it is pertinent to briefly explain the party-line on genre cinem a and cinem a for the masses and describe the organisations charged with import and the process through which these importers brought Indian films into the country. It was these actors who showed themselves to be attuned to typical market considerations such as 'ratings' and 'demand'. The im port of Indian popular cinem a known as 'Indian melodramas' or in diiskie m elod ram y in the Soviet Union is striking given official am bivalence about genre cinema and mass enter­ tainm ent films. Since 1934, official cultural canons had dictated that socialist realism was the fundamental principle of the arts, and although this began to encompass a range of realist approaches by the sixties, it remained in essence the most important aesthetic criterion for all the arts, including cinem a.1 A corresponding dictum was that mass cinem a and its genre conventions such as melodram a were not beneficial for audiences and were instead capable of turning them into unreflective and unthinking masses, with all the pejorative connotations of that term. However, Soviet film policy on production and import showed flexibility and remained em blem atic of the priorities and needs of the state. Cinem a was a propaganda tool, a form of art with mass appeal 1 1 Chapter 3 of the present volume discusses this at some length.

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and a 'powerful and active political, moral, aesthetic... influence on the broadest masses', which helped the spread of socialism .2 Because of cinem a's recognised potential and wide appeal, attention for the mass audience did find regular expression in Soviet film policy both for pragmatic commercial ends and to further the political agenda of the state through this mass medium. The idea of a cinem a for the millions was very Bolshevik. In fact, blockbusters (with their star-studded casts, fam iliar plots in familiar settings) were both popular with film-makers as a stylistic choice and with audiences for their accessibility.3 Although Soviet cinem atic canons upheld realism and social engagement and dismissed the melodramatic genre as bourgeois, the latter was always tolerated when doing the com mendable task of preaching the advantages of living in a socialist society. Melodrama was used effectively in post-revolutionary propaganda street-theatre or agitsudy, which were highly melodramatic staged narratives that ended with the victory of the conscious worker and communist.4The genre was also common am ong Thaw-era films to show effectively the personal turmoil of families during the war.5 This trend continued in the seventies and later, as the private space cam e to be under less supervision. Melodrama continued to be exploited as a genre in order to address a key issue in Soviet society—the conflict between personal and ideological realities.6 This was due to its ability to explore 'the individual within the collective, the private morality underneath

2 RGALI, f. 2918, o. 7, d. 330,1. 2 (1977). 3 Denise Youngblood, M ovies fo r the M asses; Birgit Beumers, 'Soviet and Russian Blockbusters: A Question of Genre?' Slavic Review, 62, 3 (2003): 44154. 4 Julie A. Cassidy, ‘Alcohol is our Enemy! Soviet Temperance Melodramas of the 1920s', in Louise Reynolds and Joan Neuberger (eds), Im itations o f Life: Two Centuries o f M elodram a in Russia, (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2002): 156-60. 5 Aleksandr Prokhorov, 'Soviet Family Melodrama of the 1940s and 1950s', in Im itation s o f Life: 208-31. 6 Joan Neuberger, 'Between Public and Private: Revolution and Melodrama in Nikita Mikhalkov's Slave of Love', in Im itations o f Life. 260.

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the strictures on public performances, the tensions resulting from political m anipulations of both public and private m orality'.7 However, since it was officially discredited, melodrama in Soviet cinem a was usually 'buried under other genre characteristics, until it was unrecognizable'.8 Although genre cinem a's appeal to large audiences was acknowledged and exploited in domestic cinem a, the state was more circumspect with regard to foreign films doing the same. Hollywood productions ran successfully in Soviet theatres in the twenties but by the Stalinist era, the cultural orthodoxy officially ruled bourgeois genre cinem a beyond the pale. 'Bourgeois' m elodram a was believed to be a politically conservative form, because its formulaic narrative and its inevitable resolution in the denouem ent of the film invited audiences in bourgeois societies to reaffirm and not challenge the social order. Therefore, foreign films using genre conventions practically disappeared in the stringent thirties and forties, with the only exceptions being 'trophy films', as testified by interviewees and respondents. However, when post-Stalinist leisure began to be liberalised and it becam e imperative th at the state revive movie-going, Soviet audiences had access to genre cinema from non-socialist countries once again. Too few domestic films were being made that satisfied audience hunger for em otionally appealing mass cinem a and sociologists surveying audiences in the mid- to late Soviet era repeatedly chastised domestic film-makers for not paying heed to the mass audience's needs. The low volume of domestic film production prompted the state to take recourse to foreign genre films from India and other large film producing nations to raise theatre revenues and fill cinem a halls again. But who was this state; who were these actors that made Soviet access to India's blockbuster hits possible over the decades? The State Committee for Cinematography, Goskino, oversaw the import and export of films through Soveksportfil'm, the importexport organisation under Goskino, which had regional offices in 7 Reynolds and Neuberger, 'Introduction', in Im itation s o f Life: 13. 8 Kleiman, interview.

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India and other foreign countries.9 Soveksportfil'm classified countries from which it imported and to which it exported its films into three categories: socialist, capitalist and developing countries. In its files, India was classified as a 'capitalist' and, on occasion, a 'developing' country. In 1965, the Central Committee of the Communist Party ( Tsentralnyi K om itet K om m u n isticheskoi Partii Sovetskogo Soiuza) or TsK KPSS granted authority to Goskino and Soveksportfil'm to select foreign films for import, but specified the guidelines for importing foreign film s.101Goskino was to acquaint Soviet viewers with the best works of 'progressive' film­ makers abroad and not allow 'bourgeois propaganda' on Soviet screens. The ideological department of the TsK KPSS would keep a close watch over the process.11 In the film trade with India, Soveksportfil'm in Moscow formulated an ann ual plan and communicated it to regional offices in India. The plan outlined the m any spheres in which cinem atic ties with India could be strengthened. These potential areas for improved trade ties included the export of Soviet films to India and the import of Indian films, the distribution of Soviet films in India, and the organisation of film events and festivals in India and the Soviet Union. The annual plan required that Soveksportfil'm import an average of 8 -10 Indian films annually. Soveksportfil'm's representatives in India subjected local films to a preview and selection process before they sent the films to Moscow for final approval from the headquarters. In the Soviet capital, 9 The films were purchased exclusively from independent Indian film­ makers and distributors until 1963. In that year, the Government of India instituted a new organisation, the Indian Motion Picture Export Corporation (IMPEC), to deal with all matters of film import and export. IMPEC had the responsibility of promoting exports and conducting negotiations with foreign firms. Henceforth, Soveksportfirm would have to negotiate mainly with IMPEC, but could also purchase films from certain independent film firms in India. In 1980, IMPEC was absorbed into the National Film Development Corporation (NFDC) in India, and Soveksportfil'm negotiated chiefly with this new organisation in the last decade of Indian film import. 10Until 1965, for every film that Soveksportfil’m wished to import, it required permission from the TsK KPSS. 11 RGALI, f. 2918, o. 5, d. 283,1. 40-42 (1965).

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films from capitalist countries were subjected to the scrutiny of the 'Selection com mittee for films from capitalist countries' (K om m issiia p o otboru fil'm ov iz kapstrari). The committee, whose records remain classified, consisted of not only Goskino employees, but also cinematographers, writers, journalists and 'responsible' members of the ideological and international organs of the TsK KPSS. This committee previewed several films a day and made recommendations for the purchase of select films. Yuri Kolosov, the Soveksportfil'm representative on this selection committee for m any years, remembers the selection proceedings as fairly routine and dull and the selection committee as disinclined to deliberate about the films: 'There were approxim ately 100 members in the selection com m ittee... so we certainly did not discuss every film. In fact, we watched several film s in "fast-forw ard" mode; otherwise, it would have been impossible to watch so m any films in a day.' In theory, the artistic worth and ideological leanings of each film were considered, along with questions of domestic distribution, mutual relationships with foreign distribution firms, and the dynamics of the world market. However, films of certain 'friendly' countries such as India were always selected.12Viewers' letters about films from capitalist countries were sometimes forwarded to the committee, so they would know what audiences thought of their selection.13 If the committee approved the films sent from Soveksportfil'm's regional offices, their decision was com m unicated to Soveksportfil'm. The purchase of the films followed. Records show that this selection committee in Moscow was largely responsible for the preferential treatm ent to Indian popular films over Indian art cinema in considerations for import. Once Soveksportfil'm and Goskino selected and purchased foreign films, copies were submitted to the Department of Cinematisation and Film Release ( O tdel k in o fik a tsii i k in o p ro k a ta ) in Moscow. Vera Gribanova, a former long-time employee of this department explained the department's workings, compensating for the inaccessibility o f the d ep artm en t's still classified records. 12 Kolosov, conversation with author, Moscow, September 2001. 13 RGALI, f. 2944, o. 1, d. 534,1. 56 -5 7 (1968) .

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According to Gribanova, this departm ent planned theatre repertoires, the num ber of showings in the various regions and the publicity aspects of film distribution. Its employees determined how interesting the theme of the film was, to which demographic it would most appeal (urban/ rural/ and district), how m any copies would be printed depending on the artistic worth of the film and an estimate of the number of viewers it would draw.14

The m axim um number of copies that could be distributed in the entire country was 2,000; this rule applied to both domestic and foreign films.15 This is probably the juncture at which films were sent to studios for dubbing in Russian. The dialogues o f the film were first rendered in Russian and if long, were simply summarised for brevity.16 According to observers, all Indian films were edited down to two to two-and-a-half hours of footage (scenes considered of secondary importance to the text were cut); the Russian version of the film S h o la y that Soviet audiences had the opportunity to enjoy was a succinct two-hour feature. Furthermore, m any Indian films were screened in a serialised fashion, and viewers could attend parts I and II, or either. In cinema, a n important way to m anage consumption was to regulate distribution once films had been purchased. W hile distribution records remain classified, there are other sources that indicate th at Soviet distributors expended greater effort in screening Indian popular films in their country than any other foreign films in the Soviet Union.17 W hile the num ber of films imported from India was com parable to imports from countries such as th e United Kingdom, France an d th e United States (am ong

the 'capitalist' countries), Indian films were probably the most actively promoted by distributors and publicity departments. 14 Vera Gribanova, conversation with author, Moscow, October 2002. 15 Val S. Golovskoy, B ehind the Soviet Screen: The M otion-picture Industry in the USSR, 1972-1982, translated by Steven Hill (Ann Arbor, Mich.: Ardis, 1986): 48. 16 lurii Korchagov, taped interview, September 2002. 17 The records of the department of Cinematisation and Film Release are not fully declassified.

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Aside from regular theatre screenings, an exploration of national and local newspapers reveals th a t week-long festivals and retrospectives of Indian popular films were a recurring feature in the cultural life of towns across the country. In 1990, the editor of Iskusstvo K ino or 'Cinema Art', the m ain Soviet scholarly journal on films, suggested th a t Indian films were more intensively distributed than even Soviet films: For forty years now ..., the film repertoire of this country can be divided into 4 categories: 'Soviet', 'foreign', 'films of socialist countries', and 'Indian films.' At this time, it was Indian films especially—7 -1 0 a year—, which brought our film industry the highest revenues. Each copy was intensively used—two and a halftim es that of the average use of a copy of a Soviet film.18

M any observers noted th a t Soviet regional film distributing organisations often favoured Indian popular films, since screening them would improve theatre receipts and help meet annual plan requirements.19 An incident narrated by Aleksandr Lipkov, film scholar and critic, best exem plifies distributors' and theatre owners' preference for commercially promising films.20 Although officials in Moscow determined the number of copies to be printed and the theatres suitable for the screenings, Lipkov remembers that local distributors adapted the system to suit their commercial goals. So copies of the Soviet film L en in in P olan d , for instance, 18 Viktor Filimonov, ‘Z ach em m y k h o d im z a tri m o ria? O fe n o m en e in d iiskog o kin', Iskusstvo Kino, 6 (1990): 126. This was the editorial preface introducing Filimonov's article in this issue. 19 Local distribution officials were notorious for ignoring the centre's instructions for distribution. By the seventies, the centre ceased to pressure regional distribution offices, w hich were left to exercise their judgem ent and

preferences in selecting and screening films sent from Moscow. In 1981, Moscow commanded a nationwide premiere for a Soviet film; regional theatres obliged, but the film practically vanished from Soviet cinema halls the next day. Golovskoy, B ehind th e Soviet Screen: 49; George Faraday, The Revolt o f the Film m akers: The Struggle fo r A rtistic A utonom y a n d th e Fall o f th e Soviet Film Industry (University Park, Penn.: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000): 58. 20 Lipkov, interview.

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were reserved for morning shows that few spectators would attend anyway, and Indian popular films like Sita a u r G ita would be screened during the well-attended time-slots. The local theatre m anagers would then subm it the viewership numbers for Sita a u r G ita as those for Lenin in P olan d , in order to appease the centre. Lipkov described with amusement the exchanges between regional distributors and the centre on the subject: When the managers of local theatres assembled for a conference, they were subjected to a dressing-down: 'why have you been so lax in distributing "Lenin in Poland"? You, comrade from Tashkent, why have you not shown this film?'(He) would repent, 'Yes, I will definitely show this film ... comrade, but give me one more copy of "Sita aur G ita.'" (laughs).21

The perception that the state or its distributing organs did more to promote Indian popular films than other foreign films also found expression in letters sent to Goskino by viewers over the years. One writer demanded to know why publicity posters for m ost foreign films did not inform viewers of the country of production; while this courtesy was always paid to Indian films, other foreign films were sparingly advertised. According to the writer, in the local theatre in Khvalynsk, this is how foreign film posters read: 'New feature film, Title of film, children below 18 not permitted'.22 Viewers were given no indication where a film cam e from or what to expect of it, unless it was a n Indian production. M any viewers writing to Goskino observed in their letters that, in local theatres, it was easier to locate a n Indian film than a domestic production.23 These instances suggest that Indian popular films' popularity prompted some distributors to prefer them to domestic productions or explicitly exploit their potential through better publicity. Film scholars who observed closely the trajectory of Indian films in the Soviet Union iterate in interviews that the state and 21 Lipkov, interview. 22 RGALI, f. 2944, o. 3, d. 2,1. 157 (1963). 23 See Chapter 4 for a consideration of letters critiquing distribution policies of the state.

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its import department purchased popular films from India because they had undisputed commercial value as crowd-pullers. Indian films were followed closely by Hollywood productions on the blockbuster charts for four decades, but Indian cinem a was distinctive by virtue of its political sanction.24Kirill Razlogov states that popular films from India were considered suitable for import because they provided audiences with entertaining fare that was also ideologically 'harmless'. According to Razlogov, because the films were 'apolitical and did not represent a hostile ideology' and had guaranteed commercial success in the Soviet Union, the state continued their import until the very end of the Soviet period.25 Lipkov recalls the H indi-Rusi b h a i- b h a i26 politics and the convergence of political and cultural goals in bilateral ties. 'Indian films were commercially successful; simultaneously, they were from a “friendly" country.'27 Clearly, the import of Indian films cannot be divorced from the political relationship between the two countries, which motivated and sustained the film trade. This is reinforced in letters of Soviet import officials stationed in India and similar correspondence and documents of the Goskino office in Moscow. HOW LOVE IN SIMLA HELPED SOVIET PROPAGANDA... The original purpose of the film trade with India was to realise the reciprocal sale of Soviet films in India for the Soviet Union to m ain tain a high-profile cultural presence in India. Reciprocity was the basis for the Soviet Union's film trade with all countries with which it had relations. Because of a mutual exchange treaty mooted by the Soviet state, the export of Soviet film sales had to 24 An overview of the films from ‘bourgeois' countries indicates that American films screened in Soviet theatres were often fairly innocuous historical dramas or adventure films set in the 'wild west'. 25 Razlogov, interview. 26 'Indians and Russians are brothers.' This phrase in Hindi, coined when Khrushchev first visited India in 1955, became popular usage in both countries. 27 Lipkov, interview.

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be m atched by import of Indian films. Indian officials in charge of export made sure the Soviets fulfilled their end of the bargain; if they did not, Indian importers showed their displeasure by restricting the import of Soviet films into India. The purchase of Indian films, therefore, becam e critical to the strategic goals of the Soviet state in India. On the other hand, the variety of films imported (the preference for popular films over the more politically sympathetic art cinem a of India) demonstrated selectors' desire to fill domestic theatres with cinem a that had impressive boxoffice potential. Both realpolitik and audience considerations guided the entry and presence of Indian popular films in Soviet theatres. F acto rin g in Foreign Policy Interests The support of India, the 'largest non-socialist country in the world', had 'considerable psychological importance' for the Soviet state, and immense propaganda value for Soviet international and domestic politics.28 Given the state's acceptance o f the non­ communist government in India, Soviet propagandists inclina­ tions were tempered by the simple, pragmatic desire to have a noticeable cultural presence in th at country.29 This m eant, particularly, the distribution of Soviet films in India to enlarge the circle of sympathisers there during the cold war years between the fifties and eighties. In official documents over the decades, recommendations for the sale of Soviet films to India had high priority and followed expressions of anxiety about the American cultural presence in India. These reports and letters regularly

28 Peter J.S. Duncan, The S oviet Union a n d In dia (London: Routledge, 1989): 3-5. 29 An information department attached to the Soviet consulate began in India to engage in propagandistic work as early as 1954. The N ovosti agency in New Delhi bore the responsibility of distributing articles on Soviet achievements in the fields of culture, politics and economics to Indian publications. Soviet radio broadcasts to India began in the fifties, but were not overly propagandist; they were mostly news reports, Indian music programmes and Russian language lessons. Arthur Stein, India a n d th e Soviet U nion: The N ehru Era (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969): 227-30.

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suggested measures to expedite this sale, in particular advising an increase in purchase of Indian films and the efficient handling of the import process. The film trade with India was still informal in the early years under Khrushchev (1954-63). Despite the success of the first film festival and the warm and am icable exchanges between the two countries, Soveksportfil'm encountered frequent problems in implementing the sale and distribution of Soviet films in India in the immediate post-Stalinist and Thaw period. The course of nego­ tiations was rarely smooth, even when dealing with ideologically like-minded Indian film-makers. In 1957, a Soveksportfil'm functionary in India, V.L. Bodianskii, despaired: 'Because Indian film firms do not have facilities to screen or distribute their own films and our [Soviet] films, negotiations on the mutual purchase of films lead nowhere'.30In these circumstances, it was often the reciprocal promise of the purchase and distribution of a Soviet film, rather than a consideration of plot, theme or ideological or aesthetic suitability of an Indian film, that guided m any early import decisions of the film trade department.31 Soveksportfil'm representatives recommended buying B iraj B ahu (Bira) Bahu/ B iraj B ah u )32 because the film 's producer was interested in d istribu ting Soviet film s in Ind ia. O n a n o th e r occasion, Soveksportfil'm recommended buying the historical film M irza G h a lib , (Mirza Ghalib/M irza G alib) as its producer Sohrab Modi owned a distributing firm in India.33 Very quickly, apprehension about competing interests in India forced the Soviets to formalise trade. Since the late Stalinist years, Soveksportfil'm had kept close tabs on visits of Western delegations 30 RGALI, f. 2918, o. 3, d. 27,1. 34-62 (1957). 31 In 1964, Raj Kapoor offered his film Jagte /taho'(Under Cover of Night / Pod p okrovom n ochi) for Soviet purchase, but warned that he could not buy Soviet films, since he had no distribution company of his own. However, he promised to screen select Soviet films to a few potential distributors and Soveksportfil'm conceded to act on his terms. RGALI, f. 2918, o. 3, d. 26,1. 2631 (1956). 32 Certain titles, especially when proper nouns, remained unaltered in the Soviet market. 33 RGALI, f. 2918, o. 3, d. 25, L. 13 (1955).

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to the Indian film industry, seeing that as a n indication that India could become susceptible to anti-Soviet propaganda. The efforts of these other contenders to win India's favour were reported with urgency to the centre. W hen A m erican film industry representatives visited India in 1959 to promise the screening of Indian films in the United States and 'support in case of an Indian war with China', SoveksportfU'm representatives reported this visit to Moscow headquarters.34 Indian actors' visits to the West were followed with keen interest. Soveksportfil'm reported Raj Kapoor's joint production with the French, the German initiative in assisting India in tech n ical production, the successful endeavours of the British in promoting their cinem a in India and the making of joint productions between India, Italy and Iran. Soveksportfil'm considered this to be threatening competition and a source of anxiety.35The Soviet state's concerns about its cultural activities in India were exacerbated by the presence and popularity of American cinem a in India. Very soon after the euphoria of the 1954 festival, Soviet trade representatives began to believe that Indian distributors considered American films more desirable than Soviet films due to the greater revenues they raised. In addition, Soveksportfil'm felt unable to compete with the United States in the Indian m arket because of w hat it perceived as the reluctance of the Indian government to allow the dubbing of Soviet films in local languages.36American films required no dubbing in Indian urban centres and, thus, had a decided advantage over Soviet films. By the late fifties, since most Indian film-makers and distri­ butors were reluctant to assume any role in screening Soviet films, and given the rival interests on the Indian cinematic scene, Soviet importers considered formulating a n official m utual exchange treaty as a lasting solution. Soveksportfil'm in India wrote to the director in Moscow in 1958:

34 RGALI, f. 2918, o. 4, d. 145,1. 161-162 (1962). 35 RGALI, f. 2918, o. 4, d. 146,1.50-55 (1963). 36 RGALI, f. 2918, o. 4, d. 28,1.1-2 (1959).

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We sent 14 Indian commercial films to Moscow and the Moscow office has taken so long to decide what to purchase. You have to understand that the sale and spread of Soviet films here is tied to our purchase of Indian films, however substandard these productions may be.

The letter went on to recommend a formal reciprocal purchase treaty as 'the chief method for Soviet films to enter the Indian m arket'.37 Records indicate that Soveksportfirm officials in India received the first detailed plan for activities in 1960. According to the plan, Soveksportfil'm was required to hire a theatre in Bom bay for 10 weeks, to release 15 feature films and 60 docu­ m entary films th at year in India, and to buy 6 Indian films for the Soviet Union. This was the first annual plan for Soveksportfil'm that clearly specified the number of Indian films to be purchased and the num ber of Soviet films to be sold to India.38 This condition that all purchases be reciprocal determined the import and presence of Indian films in Soviet theatres until the end of the Soviet period. In fact, only a fair balance of trade would motivate Indian importers to give Soviet films serious thought. Although the Soviet Union insisted on reciprocity in 1960, it failed to honour the terms of trade consistently in the initial y ears o f th is a g reem en t.39 The situ ation was so p aten tly unfavourable to the Indians that even Soveksportfil'm officials in India were forced to urge Moscow headquarters to increase the purchase o f Indian films.40Every year that the Soviet Union imported fewer films from India, the Indian government granted fewer licenses for the Soviet Union to bring its films to India. In 1960- 6 1 , import from India exceeded export to India and the Indian government rewarded the Soviet Union with a license to bring in 400,000 feet of film footage into India the next year. In 1961- 62, however, exports to India outstripped import by a wide m argin. Soveksportfil'm was promptly cut to size by the Indian government, which halved the quota the Soviet side could export J7 RGALI, f. 2918, o. 3, d. 29,1. 87-S9 (1958). * RGALI, f. 2918, o. 4, d. 30 (1960). w RGALI, f. 2918, o. 4, d. 145,1. 64 (1962). 40 RGALI, f. 2918, o. 4, d. 5 1 ,1. 33-34 (1961).

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to India the following year. W hen in 1962-63 export and import were in balance, the Indian government once more granted the Soviet side licenses to bring in 40 0 ,0 0 0 feet of film. However, Soveksportfil'm exported six times as much as it imported from India the following year, and India once again reduced the licensed quota for Soviet export of films to India in the year 196465 .41 By 1964, the Soviet Union was permitted the export of only seven films to India, as opposed to 12 films in 1961.42 It was clear that only one measure could help Soviet film distribution in India—the regular purchase of Indian films for distribution in the Soviet Union. Soveksportfirm head in Bombay A. Dobrovorskii, at his wits' end in 1963, admitted to Goskino: 'Despite numerous reminders from the consul stationed here, trade representatives of Soveksportfirm in India have taken no radical measures to purchase more Indian films in order to increase the volume of licences we acquire for the sale of our films to India.'43 Under Brezhnev (1 9 6 4 -8 2 ), im porters' d ocum ents and correspondence frequently asserted the need to fulfil all film treaty obligations so that the sale of Soviet films in India would remain unaffected. In 1967, a new agreem ent was signed between Soveksportfil'm and IMPEC/Ministry of Trade/the Indian Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, reaffirming reciprocity in film trade. There was to be no limit on the number of films exported and imported. However, the buying party would have to screen the purchased films within nine months of receiving copies and supplementary materials; otherwise, the party adversely affected by the delay could term inate the relevant sale and distribution agreement. Soveksportfil'm would also be able to bring Soviet films to India through distribution firms other than IMPEC and deal directly with theatres.44In 1970, the agreement with IMPEC was renewed for another five years and now, Soveksportfil'm could bring 25 films into India every year (five copies each).45 41 RGALI, 42 RGALI, 43 RGALI, 44 RGALI, 45 RGALI,

f. 2918, f. 2918, f. 2918, f. 2918, f. 2918,

o. 5, o. 5, o. 4, o. 4, o. 4,

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311,1. 28-31 (1965). 13,1. 1-4 (1965). 146,1. 92-97 (1963). 148,1. 30-31 (1965). 152,1. 8 (1970).

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Two additional Soveksportfil'm offices were opened in Madras and Calcutta in the seventies to facilitate the import of Indian films and reciprocally Soviet cinem atic activities in cities other than Bombay. In 1981, a cultural agreement between India and the Soviet Union reaffirmed co-operation in cinematography. This cooperation would include mutual film trade, film weeks in both countries, participation in each other s festivals, join t film productions, and mutual technical and creative assistance during the shooting of films.46 Despite this flurry of initiatives, Goskino reports constantly found th at cinem a was inadequately 'exploited' in Indo-Soviet ties and concluded that Soveksportfil'm activities in India reflected an underestimation of India, 'a m ajor and very distinctive partner in the field of film exchanges...both as a country with a highly developed film industry and a t the sam e time, a country where the presence of western cinem a is far from negligible'.47 Such pronouncements were usually provoked by alarm , once again, about the competition Soviets faced in American films, which were the most popular foreign films in India (second only to India's own productions). Soveksportfil'm reports often expressed regret that even the most 'untruthful' American films were screened in In d ia n th e a tre s (th eir presence en h an ced by th eir large advertising apparatus), and found their own work in countering the A m erican presence in India ineffective.48 Their general disquiet ab o u t Ind ia's seem ingly enthu siastic em brace of Hollywood cinem a is illustrated in their reaction to the screening of Alfred Hitchcock's T opaz in India in 1970. Goskino records reveal a worried letter written to the TsK KPSS explaining that T opaz, the film about a Soviet scientist who defects to the United States, was hostile to the Soviets and its screening in India must be attributed to the em ergence of 'reactionary', anti-Soviet tendencies in the Indian press, and the effect of Am erican

46 F.T. Erm ash, ‘N ov y i e t a p s o v e ts k o -in d iis k o g o s o tr u d n ic h e s tv a i sodruzhestva kinem atografi?, Iskusstvo Kino, 4 (1981): 150-54. 47 RGANI, f. 5, o. 62, d .9 1 ,1. 80-82 (1970). 48 RGALI, f. 2944, o. 13, d. 786,1. 48-49 (1966).

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propaganda in India.49To make matters worse, Indian efforts to promote Soviet films were found wanting in comparison with Soviet measures in distributing and publicising Indian films in the Soviet Union. In a report on the purchase of Indian films like A rzoo (Desire/L iu bov' v K ashm ire) and P h ool a u r P atth a r (The Flower and the Rock/ T svetok i k a m en 0, SoveksportfiTm officials in India rued th a t their efforts to acquaint Soviet audiences with Indian cinema were not matched by reciprocal support for Soviet cinem a in India. While the Soviet side made 800 copies for distribution of every imported Indian film, India apparently expended little effort in promoting Soviet films.50 Soviet films suffered a disadvantage when compared with American films, which were shown in approxim ately 100 theatres in sm all and large towns and cities in India.51 Trade officials in India made it clear in their annual report in 1975 that the only means of winning over the Indian import-export organisation and the state was to handle the import of Indian films effectively and fairly.52 During the interregnum (1982-85) when Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko were a t the helm of affairs and the Gorbachev years (1985-91), SoveksportfiTm records are minimal but reveal that propagandist ends continued to drive film trade with India. Although, the concern about propaganda in India was markedly less in a climate of changing relations between the m ain cold war adversaries, in these years the Soviet cinematic presence in Asia was strongest in India, followed by Japan.53 The film trade in these years boosted Soviet film distribution in India when SoveksportfiTm hired 45 theatres in 35 cities in India, and several Soviet film s were dubbed in regional Indian languages. Television and video had also augmented Soviet film distribution in India.54Soviet film officials undertook to set up an 49 RGANI, f. 5, o. 62, d. 91,1. 111-113 (1970). 50 RGALI, f. 2918, o. 4, d. 150,1. 17 (1967). 51 Manjunath Pendakur, 'India', in John A. Lent, George S. Semsel, Keiko McDonald, Manjunath Pendakur (eds), The Asian Film Industry, (London: Christopher Helm (Publishers) Ltd., 1990): 240-41. 52 RGALI, f. 2918, o. 8, d. 189,1. 69-70 (1975). 53 RGALI, f. 2918, o. 8, d. 881,1. 26-28 (1986). 54 RGALI, f. 2918, o.. 8, d. 777,1. 35 (1985).

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Indo-Soviet society th at would oversee the distribution/screening o f Soviet films in India a n d facilitate the quick signing of contracts and sending of Indian film materials to Moscow; the import of In d ia n film s rem a in ed a n essen tia l prerequ isite for th e distribution of Soviet films in India even a t the very end of the Soviet period.55 Goskino officials; reporting on their visit to India in 1984; indicated lucidly the strategic significance of purchasing films from India when they proposed: 'Considering the importance of the film exchange between the two countries and the direct dependence of the state's relations on Soveksportfil'm's activities on import, the Soviet Union needs to reconsider the question of raising film imports from India to 12-15 (films) annually.'56 The distribution o f Soviet films in India was crucial to the Soviet propaganda m achine, and it could only be realised if the Soviet state handled the import of Indian films efficiently. But it was not strategic objectives alone that shaped film trade; in fact, the variety of Indian films that was selected and purchased for Soviet theatres indicates how adaptive Soviet policy was to the tastes of m any movie-goers in post-Stalinist society. F a cto rin g in S p ectatorsh ip Over the years, the 'Selection committee for films from capitalist countries' (K om m issiia p o otboru fil'm ov iz kapstran ) in Moscow, ch arged with picking su itable foreign film s for dom estic distribution, showed itself to be partial to Indian popular films which clearly had m any spectators' affection. It did this by m arginalising Indian art films, often rejecting them after they had been previewed and sent from Soveksportfil'm offices in India. The in tern al correspondence and records of Goskino and Soveksportfil'm reveal b o th the impulse to favour popular films and the differences of opinion that it provoked am ong those in the film trade. Records disclose the conflicting positions of those keen on purchasing Indian films that seemed congruent with their dogm atic criteria on cinem a (often Soviet trade representatives 55 RGALI, f. 2918, o. 8, d. 902,1. 19-22 (1987). 56 Arkhiv v/o Soveksportfil'm, f. 2918, o. 9, d. -, 1. 3 (1984).

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in India) and others who made decisions based on profitability rather th an ideology (usually the final selection committee in Moscow). Officially, Soviet film canons held that films of the Third World bore the responsibility to address social issues. The Tashkent and Moscow film festivals, held every two years, were a forum for the progressive cinemas o f India and other countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Here art films from India, made by film­ makers such as Satyajit Ray, Shyam Benegal, M rinal Sen and Girish Kamad, were screened for sm all appreciative audiences. Soviet film scholar G. Bogemskii articulated the ideological underpinnings of the Tashkent festival when he reported on its 'success' in 1969. He commended the festival for showcasing Asian and African films th a t revealed their 'progressive' anti-colonial orientation, their 'national consciousness', and their demonstration of technical and financial independence of the West.575 8The Soviet state saw the festival as a stage for the cinem as of Asian and African countries and as a m eans to foster its own political and cultural role in the developing world. This was no delusion of grandeur but an idea mirrored in Indian critical perception of the role of the Soviet Union with regard to world cinemas. Film critics and state officials from India and elsewhere in the developing world regularly graced the festivals in Tashkent. Visiting Indian delegates like Information and Broadcasting Minister Vasant Sathe commended the festival for facilitating relations between film-makers of developing countries and those of socialist countries.5* Upon attending the festival in 1986, Indian art film-maker Shyam Benegal described it as a n event where everyone p a rticip a ted as equ als an d w here In d ia n film professionals could showcase their cinema along with film-makers of other countries which received little exposure in international film fora. Indian actor Shabana Azmi found rem arkable the unanim ity of views am ong film-makers at the event about the 57 G. Bogemskii,4Tashkent-68: Zam etki s kinofestivalia stranyA zii i Afriki. M ezhdunarodnyi kinofestival' v Tashkente4, Iskusstvo Kino, 1 (1969): 138. 58 V asant Sathe, 4P u st4 k r e p n e t n a s h a d r u z h b a . M ez h d u n a ro d n y i kinofestival' v T a sh k en teIsk u sstv o Kino, 10 (1980): 133.

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purpose o f cinem a, and considered the Tashkent festival a vital stage for this purpose.59 However, the festival forum was not reflective of the range of positions film officials occupied with regard to Indian cinem a, both art and popular. Despite this patronage of art films in the festival circuit, in theatres the Indian popular film dominated. Fewer than a handful of interviewees and respondents, for instance, could remember ever having seen a n art film. Clearly, notwithstanding the Soviet standpoint on support for progressive cinem as of the Third World, Soviet importers' final selection of films reflected none of this concern with cinema's social responsibility or encouragement for this school of cinem a in India. Aimed a t reviving the cinem a and increasing receipts from theatres after a period of 'few films', the Khrushchev years and Thaw period saw a surge in the purchase of foreign films, and Indian films were m uch sought after in the wake of the festival's success in 1954.60 While two Indian 'progressive realist' films had been purchased from India in 1949 and 1951, the Soviet Union imported 27 films from India between 1954 and 1963 (almost all of them from Bombay). The Import of Indian popular films was not strictly a doctrinal compromise at this stage because the films of this decade were 'socials', close in spirit to the cinem a of the Thaw. The mid-fifties saw the import of social melodramas from India such as Ja g te R a h o (Under Cover of Night / P od p o k ro v o m n och i), which critiqued the double standards of the middle class.61 The success of A w arn at the festival ensured that, thereafter, any 59 A. Solodov, ‘Dukh sotrudnichestvo': 118-119; RGANI, f. 5, o. 61, d. 89,1. 76-79 (1969-1970). 60 In 1954, 46 films were bought abroad, of which 15 were from 'bourgeois countries.' In 1955, 71 films were bought, of which 27 were from 'bourgeois' countries. In the first quarter of 1956 alone, Soveksportfil'm bought 52 films abroad, including 27 from 'bourgeois' countries. RGANI, f. 5, o. 36, d. 30,1.115 (1956). Between 1958 and 1964, for instance, the Soviet Union bought approximately 23 films from Japan, 13 films from Mexico, 26 films from the United States, 48 films from France and 34 films from Italy. RGALI, f. 2918, o. 4, d. 13,1.1-4 (1964). 61 Ashish Rajadhyaksha and Paul Willemen, Encyclopaedia o f Indian C inem a (1913-1983)(ChicaQO: Fitzroy Dearborn, 1999): 346.

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Raj Kapoor film would be imported for its promise o f high boxoffice returns. The purchase of S hree 4 2 0 (Mr 420IG ospodin 420) followed a letter from a Soveksportfil'm representative in Bombay to officials in Moscow in which the former wrote: We are in a delicate situation with Raj Kapoor. He feels he is not being offered enough for Mr 420 despite the fact that 'The Vagabond' raised 29 million roubles for the Soviet state. O f course, we know it was more th an th a t. He is upset an d we have to m ak e a decision a b o u t the price

before he personally writes to the Minister for Culture. It seems the Minister made him some kind of promise in a private conversation.62

In 1956, Kapoor's S h ree 4 2 0 was imported at an unusually high price and was only second on the charts that year.63 In other films imported from India in the fifties, hero-protagonists were 'progressive'. Their ideas and convictions were pitted against the persistence of caste prejudices as in the film S u jata (Sujata/ Sujata), or in service of the new nation as in Jag riti (Awakening /P rohu zhden ie). These films addressed issues such as rural-urban migration, fam ine and other problems of early post-colonial India. This period also saw the first Indo-Soviet film P ardesi (The Foreigner/ K h ozh d en ie zq tri m oria), based on the travels to India of the m erchant from Tver, Afanasy Nikitin, in the fifteenth century. The production was symptomatic of the new goodwill and am icable relations between Khrushchev's Soviet Union and Nehru's India. The making of this film generated much publicity and remains iconic in everyday references to the 'great IndoSoviet friendship' in the former Soviet Union. In d ian p o p u lar cin e m a , im ported u nd er K hrushchev, began

to display a shift from the social engagem ent of early Indian popular films to the 'hedonistic' films of the sixties made for the Westernised urban audience. These were often films with love triangles, whose wealthy, urbane and m acho heroes bore no greater social responsibility and Soviet audiences responded to these changes warmly. For instance, L ov e in S im la, a romantic 62 RGALI, f. 2918, o. 3, d. 26,1. 26-31 (1956). 63 The 'charts' refer to the Rosinformkino compilation of viewership statistics.

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comedy about the fem ale lead's ploys to capture the interest of her friend's fiance, was the m ost successful foreign film in the Soviet Union in 1963 with 35 million viewers (following two domestic films on the charts). The purchase of this film, which generated much fan mail and provoked debate on Indian cinema as the reader will see in the final chapter, came about when the deputy Minister for Culture A. Kuznetsov himself wrote in a letter to the TsK KPSS: '"Love in Sim la" is an entertaining m u sical... its purchase will expedite Soviet film sales in India.'64 If strategic cultural goals could be achieved with the import of L ove in Sim la, then its artistic and ideological 'lim itations' could surely be overlooked. The import of a film like L ov e in Sim la demonstrates th at the Soviet state, as early as the Khrushchev years, was not averse to cinem a that displayed no overt social engagement. This strategy of importing films th at satisfied popular tastes was not without controversy in the Khrushchev period. As early as the fifties, one sees the disquiet expressed by some about film selectors' priorities. In 1956, the TsK KPSS complained that it had to reject several foreign films recommended for purchase by the G oskino selection com m ittee in Moscow because o f their unsuitability. The TsK minced no words in its report: The committee for purchasing foreign films functions poorly. Members attend screenings irregularly; only 3 or 4 out of 11 are usually present. No in-depth discussion of the films follows. And when it comes to selecting a film for purchase, the committee evaluates its commercial profitability rather than its ideological substance.65

Officials within the film department (Goskino and its subsidiary Soveksportfil'm) sent accusatory letters back and forth complain­ ing abou t the preferential treatm ent for Indian popular cinem a in the import process. Records indicate that the 'blam e' for choosing Indian popular films at the expense of Indian art films for purchase usually lay with the Soveksportfil'm selection committee in Moscow. For instance, Indian art film-maker Satyajit 64 RGALI, f. 2918, o. 5, d. 61,1. 144 (1961). w RGANI, f. 5, o. 36, d. 30,1. 118-119 (1956).

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Ray's films, while a standard feature at festivals in the Soviet Union, were not the foremost choice in im port for general distribution. In 1963, the selection committee in Moscow rejected his film A p arajito (The Unvanquished/-), a move that prompted an annoyed letter from SoveksportfU'm officials in Bombay: '[the rejection of A parajito] ... is so strange given this film-maker's reputation and the success of his other films abroad... We must work to strengthen our ties with Ray/66 This grappling between the desire to please m ass audiences and the official need to patronise socially engaged cinem a continued in the Brezhnev years (1964-82), with film officials tom between both positions. Under Brezhnev, policy on cinema was characterised by a new emphasis on the production and distribution of entertainment films. Furthermore, foreign imports soared because the domestic industry was unable to m atch demand, and Goskino was hard-pressed to stem the decline in theatre attendance.67 Of the approxim ately 68 films imported from India under Brezhnev, 60 were m ainstream popular films. The greatest commercial hits in India were unfailingly imported for Soviet audiences in this period. Indian m ainstream cinema between the mid-sixties and early eighties becam e more bigbudget with far-flung locales and fight scenes based on American westerns. The late sixties and early seventies still churned out love stories with no explicit social or political message, such as S an gam , B obby (Bobby/B obby), and Sita a u r G ita (Sita and Gita/ S ita i G ita), all of which were m ajor hits in the Soviet Union and were fondly remembered by most respondents and interviewees. B o b b y was the great com mercial hit of 1973, as Soveksportfil'm noted in its reports to Moscow. The film, where the romance of a Hindu boy and a Christian girl Bobby is 'thwarted by family prejudice and class divide', stressed 'breathless, obsessive juvenile

66 RGALI, o. 4, d. 146,1. 85-86 (1963). 67 In 1970, it was estimated that one-fourth of the 1750 films exhibited were entertainment films mostly of foreign production, while the rest were 'weighty' films of domestic production. Ellen Mickiewicz, M edia a n d th e Soviet Public: 74-76.

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love'.68 Its success in the Soviet Union ultim ately justified Soveksportfil'm's choice. It was second on the Soviet charts with 6 2 .6 m illion viewers in 1975. Another seventies hit in the Soviet Union was Sita a u r G ita, a classic m ainstream film about twin sisters separated a t birth; one street-smart and tough, and the other meek and oppressed. Circumstances lead to Sita an d Gita switching places, where the sisters brings their individual virtues and positive attributes to bear on the events that unfold around th em .69 Soveksportfil'm recommended that a positive decision on the purchase of the film would make it substantially easier for Soveksportfil'm to release Soviet films in India; the producer of this film was the president o f the All-India Association of Film P rod u cers. Besides w h ich , So v ek sp o rtfil'm a rg u ed th a t 'representatives of Soviet film distribution organizations had given the film h ig h ratings fo r its com m ercial p oten tial'70(my emphasis). Their prognosis was accurate because the film ranked fourth on the 'blockbuster' list in the Soviet Union that year; 5 5 .2 million viewers turned up to watch it all over the country. Popular legend even has it that the film was received so euphorically th a t it was com m on for fans in the seventies to nam e their children Sita and /or Gita. The purchase o f Raj Kapoor's M era N a am Jo k e r (I am a Clown/M oe im ia - K loun) in the early seventies stemmed from Kapoor's invariable success am ong Soviet audiences but was also a strategic endeavour on the part of Soveksportfil'm. The film was partly shot in Moscow, and included in its cast a leading Soviet actor and members of the Soviet circus. According to th e reports of the then Soviet consul-general in Bom bay N. Aksenov and the Soveksportfil'm head lu. S Babenkov, in 1971 Kapoor became embroiled in a controversy with the Indian trading organisation IMPEC, which had reportedly been lax in implementing the distribution of the film. Additionally, some antiSoviet groups had demonstrated against the showing o f the film in Bom bay. Pronouncing himself a 'sincere friend' of the Soviets, 68 Ashish Rajadhyaksha and Paul Willemen, The Encyclopaedia o f Indian C inem a: 120. 69 The film continues to be screened on Russian television even today. 70 RGALI, f. 2918, o. 7, d. 193,1. 32 (1974).

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Kapoor requested the Soviet governm ent to purchase and distribute the film in the Soviet Union in order to compensate for losses incurred due to the film's apparently poor distribution and lukewarm reception in India. He received reassurances from highly placed officials in the Soviet Ministry of Culture and Goskino, whereupon the latter promptly dashed off a letter to the Deputy Minister of Foreign Trade requesting more funds to buy the film 'because it will enjoy great com mercial success in the Soviet Union'. The gesture not only underscored the interest o f trade representatives and selectors in films th at could be distributed profitably, but it also revealed that acts of support for Indian film professionals were seen as politically expedient in Soviet film diplomacy.71 The 'angry young m an' or vigilante hero-type in mid-seventies and eighties m ainstream cinem a was popular and led to the commercial success of several Indian films in these decades. Films such as S h o la y (Embers/M est' i Z a k o n ) which interviewees remembered for its m em orable dialogues and action scenes, exemplified this new cinem a of underclass heroes who avenged social wrongs and questioned the state's ability to act in the interests of the people. It was a 'massively popular adventure film' with 'admixtures of romance, comedy, feudal costume drama and musicals'.72Soveksportfil'm imported this and other films with similar plots such as the Rishi Kapoor starrer B arood (Gunpowder/ M stitel'), which topped the Soviet charts in 1978 ahead o f even Soviet productions. A classic in the former Soviet Union, which still has re-runs on television today, is the film R aja Ja n i (Beloved Raja/ Liubimyi Radzha). It tells the story of a young woman, a fugitive, who falls in love with a seemingly prosperous businessman; this 'industrialist' turns out to be a minor crook. In this period, Indian and Soviet film-makers collaborated once more to make a fairy­ tale-based entertainer, Aii B a b a a u r c h a le e s c h o r (Ali B aba and 71 RGALI, f. 2918, o. 8, d. 27, 1. 3-14 (1972). Goskino officials specifically recommended close ties with Indian film professionals because they 'exercised influence' on the state; such friends were worthy of cultivation in a country of 'growing importance' in Asia. RGALI, f. 2918, o. 7, d. 90,1. 39-43 (1972). 72 Rajadhyaksha and Willemen, Encyclopaedia o f Indian Cinem a: 426.

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the forty thieves/P rikliu ch en iia A li B ab a i so ro k a razboin n okov ), which becam e the most popular foreign film in the Soviet Union in 1980 with 52.8 million viewers. Soviet cultural watchdogs found Indian popular cinema undeserving of critical appreciation, yet m any film-makers valued its commercial worth enough to work with the Indian film industry on this and other occasions to make entertaining films for Soviet audiences. This consistent preference for lucrative entertainment cinema as opposed to cinem a more 'appropriate' for Soviet audiences caused concern am ong m any within the establishm ent and the cu ltu ra l in tellig en tsia. T h rou g h ou t th e Brezhnev years, m a n y

officials found worrisome importers' and selectors' methods of operation. Early on in the Brezhnev period, a certain M. Papava of Goskino ruefully observed: 'Soveksportfil'm has become a purely commercial organization and its previous attempts to study foreign countries with which the Soviet Union had ties and to provide information about life and film art of these countries have ceased.'73 Film-makers and film scholars visiting India returned to the Soviet Union to advise their government that more must be done to promote 'progressive' films ahead of popular films from India.74 In his notes on a recently concluded festival of Soviet films in India, a Goskino official acknowledged Indian popular films' successes in the Soviet Union but urged the purchase of art cinem a that dealt with India's problems.75 In 1972, a delegation of Soviet film professionals who visited India declared with regret that those who considered Indian films difficult to select for Soviet viewers exhibited ignorance about contemporary art cinem a in India.76 Soviet trade representatives in India also wrote to the Moscow office recommending the purchase of South Indian and Bengali art films as a refreshing alternative to Bombay productions.77 Yet, despite the official discourse holding up art film-makers as the quintessential progressive intelligentsia of India 73 RGANI, f. 5, o. 36, d. 158,1. 209 (1966). 74 RGALI, f. 2944, o. 13, delo 786,1. 56, (1966). 75 RGALI f. 2944, o. 13, delo 1053,1.11-19 (1967). 76 RGALI, f. 2918, o. 7, d. 90,1. 39-43 (1972). 77 RGALI, f. 2918, o. 8, d. 419,1.3-6 (1978).

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and the only hope for its cinem a, the final selection o f films for import continued to reveal that the Moscow committee did not share this sympathy. In the 1970s, Bengali film m aker Ritwik Ghatak, one of India's reputed art film-makers, sent his short film A m ar Lenin (Our Lenin/-) to the Soviet Union to be screened in Moscow. On a subsequent trip to the Soviet Union, during a conversation with Naum Kleiman, Ghatak expressed his chagrin that this film was never screened there (not even in the Central Lenin Museum in Moscow) and was treated with indifference by Soviet importers.78 Significantly, Indian film professionals and government officials also lobbied for Soveksportfil'm to purchase and distribute Indian art films. Indian Information and Broad­ casting representatives m et with Goskino head F.T. Ermash and conveyed Minister I.K. Gujral's wish that Goskino support not only India's commercial cinem a but also the cinem a 'th at tells of contem porary India's problems and difficulties'.79 These instances indicate that Soveksportfil'm had a commonly establ­ ished reputation in both countries for marginalising Indian art cinem a in its selection of films for import. They also make abundantly clear that selectors charted their own course despite appeals from the cultural vanguard that Soviet aesthetic and cinem atic standards be upheld in the purchase of foreign films. In the last years of state-run film trade with India, Soveksportfil'm officials in India still found themselves at odds with the more pragmatically inclined Moscow officials. Between 1983 and 1991, 111 Indian films were screened in Soviet theatres. This constituted an unprecedentedly high average of approximately 12 -1 3 films per annum. More than 100 of these fell squarely in the mainstream film category (A few non-Hindi popular films, mainly Tamil and Telugu, also made it to Soviet theatres in these years). In 1988, the Soviet Union was India's second-most lucrative export market for films, even though other foreign markets far outstripped the Soviet Union in the num ber of Indian films imported.80 78 Kleiman, interview. Soveksportfil'm records do not indicate that the film was officially acquired. 79 RGALI, f. 2918, o. 7, d. 193,1. 56 (1975). 80 M anjunath Pendakur and Radha Subramanyam, 'Indian Cinema

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Again, the most successful Hindi popular films in India were screened for Soviet audiences. Soveksportfil'm elected to import films like A bd u lla (A bd u lla/A bd u lla) and Jh o o th a K ahin Ka (Such a L ia i/T a k o i Lzhets) and audiences visibly validated their choice; in 1983, both films drew approximately 25 million viewers and were am ong the most viewed features that year. Simple narratives about a poor young man who makes it big also featured in the Indian film repertoire in Soviet theatres in this period. D isco D an cer (Disco Dancer/ Tan tsor D isko) became a landmark film in the Soviet Union, comparable to A w ara in its wide appeal there. The film with its disco music and tall strapping nimble­ footed hero won adoring audiences in the Soviet Union in the eighties; the reader will recall from viewers' recollections of Indian films in the previous chapter that the long wait to buy a ticket for D isco D an cer reportedly proved fatal for one movie-goer in Tadjikistan.81 The film drew 60.9 million Soviet viewers in 1984, the highest turnout for any film (domestic and foreign) that year. Till today it continues to be screened on television and in some theatres. That year, another film that fared well in the Soviet Union was M u q a d d a rk a S ik a n d a r (Master of his Fate/V la d y k a su d'by); this Am itabh Bachchan starrer narrates the story of a young m an and his troubled relationships with women. In this last phase of film import, V id h a ata (All-Powerful/ V sem ogushii), about a hero-protagonist who single-handedly fights for justice when evil goes unpunished by the law, was a hit in the Soviet Union. Along with K huddar, (Proud/Tri brata), Kaun?Kaise?(Who and How?/Atof kak), S am raat (JLm peror/Sam raat) and A gar Turn N a H ote (If you were not with m e/E sli ty n e so m n o i) it figured am ong the 20 most successful films in the Soviet Union between 1985 and 1987. Soveksportfil'm also favoured various Indian popular films about scattered families that reunite miraculously beyond N ational Borders', in John Sin clair, Elizabeth Jacka, Stuart Cunningham (eds), N ew Patterns in G lobal Television: Peripheral Vision, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996): 240. 81 During my fieldtrips in 2001 and 2 0 0 2 ,1 noticed it was common for a few market vendors in Moscow to have this film's music playing in the background while they went about their day's work.

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at the end, and films where the protagonist strives to climb the social ladder and achieve fame such as Ja n a m (Birth/R ozhden ie) and D ance, D ance (Dance D ance/Tantsui Tantsui). The Soviet audiences were given access to films such as Ja g ir (Land Grant/ K ak tri m u sh ketera), where heroes take on bandits who have eluded the law. Towards the end of the Soviet era, two films were produced jointly by film-makers from both countries. Shikari (Hunter/Po zakon u dzhunglei) was directed by Indian film-maker Umesh Mehra and Soviet director Latif Faiziev and exploited every stereotype in the book; its hero Mithun Chakraborty plays an Indian hunter of wild elephants who falls in love with a female Russian circus artist in the deep jungle. Faiziev pronounced on the making of S h ikari th a t far from mocking Soviet audiences' taste for light entertainment, domestic film-makers were obligated to make films to satisfy those tastes. One comes across fans of Indian cinema in Siberia, Central Asia, the Ukraine and the Baltic region. There is no need to condemn distributors for preferring to screen Indian com m ercial films,—instead, our sociologists and film scholars could study the impact of these films on the viewer and assist Soviet filmmakers in making mass films.82

Soon after, A jo o b a (Wonder/C h em y i Prints A dzhu ba), complete with sultans and viziers in its cast of characters, was directed by Shashi Kapoor and Soviet film-maker G. Vasiliev, had Indian and Soviet actors and was well-publicised in the Soviet Union.83 This partiality towards m ainstream films continued to be interrogated even in this period of far-reaching liberalisation policies. While Soviet officials based in India still expressed a preference for edifying cinem a and found it difficult to pick Indian films that, 'in form and substance', were suitable for the Soviet viewer,84 the selection committee in Moscow frequently turned down the art films they chose. The Soviet Union's friendly and 82 Iu Korchagov, ‘Posle Tantsora Disko’, Ekran, 9 (1991) 83 ‘C hem yi prints’, Sovetskii Ekran, 4 (1989): 8-9 (It was also featured on the cover of this issue.) 84 Arkhiv v/o Soveksportfil'm, f. 2918, o. 9, d.-, 1.- ( 1986).

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supportive ties with India, and its acceptance of the 'm any roads to socialism ' dictum also had repercussions for the selection of films for import. This is best illustrated by the selection com ­ mittee's rejection of the M alayalam film M u kha M u kham ( Face to Face/ L itsom k litsu), made by film-m aker Adoor Gopalakrishnan. A critique o f the communist movement in India, the previewing audience found the film to be both interesting and representing a 'correct point of departure', but selectors in Moscow indicated in a rare revelation of their motivations that its seemingly oppositional stance with regard to the Indian government made it unsuitable for purchase.*5 In 1984, after signing contracts for seven new Indian popular films, the representatives in Bombay wrote of their disapproval of Moscow's final selection:'... it is a fact th at films with obvious commercial potential are given first preference by selectors. The office in India recommends films th a t are social critiques and histories, but these do not figure in 56In one well-known instance, the Moscow selectors' final reports. ' 8 office o f Soveksportfil'm retained celebrated art film-maker Mrinal Sen's film for five months and then returned it to the film-maker, without informing him of its decision regarding the purchase of the film. Goskino officials returning from a visit to India in 1984 wrote: It is d ear that not all films offered to us are commercially viable, but in the case of directors and sodal activists of India like Mrinal Sen, we clearly need to adopt a spedal approach. It is not always necessary to acquire a film only for a mass audience; we can purchase some films an d restrict their distribution to 2 -3 copies, which would be an adequately prestigious gesture in our relations with India.87

Here, a Goskino offiaal was of the opinion that one could promote progressive d nem a from India without having to distribute it on a large scale in the Soviet Union; ideological interests were checked by commercial concerns. Such statements leave no room for doubt about the real motivations for the purchase of Indian 85 Arkhiv v/o Soveksportfil'm, f. 2918, o. 9, d. 86 RGALI, f. 2918, o. 8, d. 791,1. 21 (1984). 87 RGANI, f. 5, o. 90, d. 223,1. 78 (1984).

1. - (1984).

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films. In an interview to S o v etsk a ia K ul'tura, the head of Soveksportfil'm in Bombay, Grigorii Gevorkian, regretted that Soviet audiences knew nothing about India's art cinem a because for decades they had only had an opportunity to view films of the 'entertaining variety', with 'attractive stars, dances, songs and fight scenes'. He implied that selectors had been responsible for Soviet audiences' ignorance of India's art cinema and regretted th at serious films recently sent to the Moscow festival had also been turned down by the festival selection committee, further restricting the Soviet audience's access to Indian art cinem a.88 In the last year of the Soviet era, in 1991, true to their reputation the Moscow office wrote once more, urging representatives in India to send more Indian popular films to the selection committee, considering their 'invariable success' with Soviet audiences.89 Officials restricted themselves to comments about Indian films' box-office potential in their records and revealed little else about their reasoning behind the purchase of these films. However, m any in the former Soviet Union speculate about the deeper motivations for the state's willingness to overlook Indian popular films' commercial and genre 'shortcomings' and to import them in great volumes over the decades. While there is consensus am ong observers of movie culture in the Soviet Union th at the import of Indian films was shaped by demand for Indian cinema, some suggest th at policy makers assumed that these films' distinctive visual gram m ar rendered them so far removed from Soviet reality th a t audiences would not consider m aking comparisons between their lives and those portrayed on screen. Others suggest that Soviet importers imported Indian films so the audiences could bear witness to the 'ills of bourgeois society'. After all, Indian popular films frequently showed the system to be ineffective, corrupt and class-conscious; Soviet importers exp ected th ese film s to inform Soviet au d ien ces o f th e inadequacies of the bourgeois order, even while they enjoyed the revenue these films generated. The other popular view 88 A. Iarikov, ‘N eudavsheesia' interv'iu, Sovetskaia Kul'tura, 8 July 1989. 89 Arkhiv v/o Soveksportfil'm, f. 2918, o. 9, d.-, 1.- (1991).

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Left | Indian actress Durga Khote dances with Leningrad school students at the Palace of Pio­ neers (Leningrad, 1951).

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Below |Soviet opera legend Valeriia Barsova, Indian ac­ tress Durga Khote, Soviet tenor Ivan Kozlovskii, Indian actress T.A. Mathuram and film direc­ tor K. Subramaniam at the Central House of Artists (Moscow, 1951).

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Above |Actress Durga Khote and other Indian film delegates with (left to right) actor Boris Chirkov, film-maker Vsevolod Pudovkin, actresses Liubov’ Orlova and Vera Maretskaia at the Central House of Cinema (Moscow, 1954). Below |Raj Kapoor and Nargis in conversation with Soviet documentary filmmaker Roman Karmen and his wife at the second Indian Film Festival in 1956 (Moscow, 28 October 1956).

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Soviet p ilo t and cosmonaut lurii Gagarin with Indian film director K.A. Abbas (Moscow, 1962).

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Above |Raj Kapoor with graduates of the School for Circus and Performing Arts, during the V MIFF (17 July 1967). Below |Shashi Kapoor at the XV MIFF in 1987 (7 July 1987).

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Mithun Chakraborty, very popular among Soviet fans, at the XV MIFF (14 July 1987).

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Above| Amitabh Bachchan among his fans at the entrance to the Rossiia hotel* ing the XVII MIFF (10 July 1991). Below |A souvenir postcard with the Russian lyrics of the title song in Awaro.

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T he Indian film delegation during the film festival in Moscow in 1954.(Left to right) Raj Kapoor, Balraj Sahni, Nargis, Nirupa Roy and Dev Anand (souvenir postcard).

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Top Left |Amitabh Bachchan on the cover of Sovetskii Ekran in 1989. The text says

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‘Dark Prince’ in a reference

to the Indo-Soviet film (A jocba ) he acted in that year (Sovetskii Ekran, 4, 1989). Top Right Awara, souvenir postcard. Left|Nargis during a televised interview in Moscow (Sovetskii Ekran, 16, 1957).

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Right |Nargis signing autographs in Moscow (S ov etskii Ekran, 16, 1957). Below |Nargis, during the making of the first IndoSoviet film, Pardesi (The Foreigner /Khozhdenie za tri moria). On the left, Nargis poses with a group of other performers in the film. To the right, Oleg Strezhanov, the celebrated Russian actor who played Afanasy Nikitin, talks to the film crew (Sovetskii Ekran, 18, 1957).

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