1928: Key Events

• Gandhi resumes Satyagraha, suspended after the Chauri Chaura violence, with the Bardoli peasant movement protesting against the 22% rise in land revenue collections. The movement also makes Vallabhbhai Patel a national leader.

• The Simon Commission, consisting of Sir John Simon and seven British MPs, arrives in India. It is boycotted by all major Indian Parties. Its 1930 report recommends abolition of diarchy and provincial autonomy, falling far short of Indian demands for autonomy.

• Lala Lajpat Rai is killed in a police charge on a demonstration in Lahore against the Simon Commission. Bhagat Singh and two other members of the Hindustan Socialist Republican Army retaliate by assassinating a British police officer.

• The first major textile strike in Bombay, led by the Girni Kamgar Union, lasts for six months and establishes the CPI as a political force.

• The Indian Cinematograph Committee (1927-8) publishes its report. Appointed to counteract American imports with censorship regulations, the Report refused to give British films preferential treatment and recommended a series of measures to promote Indian films instead, with measures such as financial incentives to producers, the abolition of raw stock duty and the reduction of entertainment tax. The British administration ignores the report.

• A. R. Kardar starts the United Players Corporation in Lahore, the origin of Playart Phototone.

• R. Padmanabhan founds the Associated Films Studio in Madras, presiding over K. Subramanyam’s entry into the cinema and Raja Sandow’s directorial début.

• First Malayalam feature: J. C. Daniel’s Vigathakumaran.