1920: Key Events

• Non-co-operation movement launched by Gandhi calling for the defiance of ‘every single state-made law’, and Muslim theologians announce that Muslims have only two alternatives before them: to declare a jihad (holy war) against the foreign infidels, or hijrat (emigration).

• M. N. Roy, who had formed the Communist Party in Mexico in 1919, the first outside the Soviet Union, starts the CP of India (CPI) in Tashkent on 17 October with six other members.

• The Bengali film weekly Bijoli starts, edited throughout the 20s by Nalinikanta Sarkar, Barindrakumar Ghosh, Sachindranath Sengupta, Arun Sinha and writer-film-maker Dinesh Ranjan Das.

• Film censor boards set up in Bombay, Calcutta and Madras.

• The American-trained Suchet Singh releases Shakuntala with Dorothy Kingdom and other imported actors.

• ​Ardeshir Irani starts his first studio, Star Film Co. Nala Damayanti is the first international co-production (with Italy).