1929: Key Events

• The defeat of the Public Safety Bill (1928), intended to deport socialist activists, leads to the Meerut Conspiracy when 31 CPI members, including three English CP representatives, are put on trial.

• The Devdasi Bill, combating prostitution in the name of religion and introduced by Muthulakshmi Reddy in the Madras legislature in 1926, is partially passed against conservative male opposition. It is passed in its full form only in 1947.

• The first commercial aviation service is offered by Imperial Airways, extending its weekly London-Cairo flight to Karachi.

• Wall Street crashes, ending negotiations about a major Hollywood expansion into India.

• Several important studios are founded: Prabhat Film Co. in Kolhapur; Ranjit Movietone in Bombay; British Dominion Films Studio and Aurora Film Corp. in Calcutta; General Pictures Corp. in Madras.

• The influential Gujarati film periodical Chitrapat, edited by Naginlal Shah, and the Moving Picture Monthly are launched in Bombay.

• Universal’s Melody of Love is the first sound feature released in India, at the Elphinstone Picture Palace.

• Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay (not the famous novelist) launches the Bengali monthly Deepali containing mainly film-news, reviews, memoirs and serialised fiction; the journal also produced an English weekly under the same title, edited by Manujendra Bhanja and addressing a ‘highbrow’ audience.