1921: Key Events

• The Moplah (or Mapilla) rebellion in Malabar, in which Muslim peasants kill or ‘convert’ Hindus, leads to bloody confrontations with the police and is a major setback to the non-co- operation movement’s efforts to make a nationalist alliance between Hindus and Muslims.

• Tagore’s Vishwabharati University is officially recognised.

• The Bengali Theatrical Company stages Khirode Prasad Vidyavinode’s Alamgir, introducing Sisir Bhaduri, and transforms the Bengali public theatre.

• Lalitkaladarsh stages its famous one-off production of Sangeet Manapmaan, featuring the reigning stars of Marathi theatre, Bal Gandharva and Keshavrao Bhosle, to raise funds for Gandhi’s Tilak Swarajya Fund.

• Abanindranath Tagore’s seminal Calcutta lectures, the Bageshwari Shilpa Prabhandavali (loosely translated as Some Notes on the Indian Artistic Anatomy and Sadanga, or The Six Limbs of Indian Painting), defines an aesthetic theory for the ‘New School’ or the ‘Bengal School’ of Indian painting.

• The artist Jamini Roy abandons his Post-Impressionist landscapes in favour of a modernist, urban assimilation of popular and folk influences. His atelier of mass-produced paintings, opposing the dominant primitivist emphasis on tradition, becomes a major influence on contemporary Indian, especially Bengali art.

• Vishnu Narayan Bhatkhande publishes Hindustan Sangeet Paddhati, making classical music compositions available to the public in the form of a textbook.

• Gandhi visits Gorakhpur campaigning for the non-co-operation movement. According to Shahid Amin (1984), the occasion marked the launch of the Messianic ‘Mahatma’ image.

• Novelist Premchand surrenders his government post to contribute pamphlets in support of the movement.

• Kohinoor’s Bhakta Vidur, banned in Madras and Sind, becomes Indian cinema’s first censorship controversy. Dhiren Ganguly’s anti-Western satire, Bilet Pherat, produced by the Indo-British Film Co. (Est: 1918).

• R. S. Prakash starts the Star of the East film company in Madras.