1948: Key Events

• Gandhi is assassinated by an RSS member.

• Limited India-Pakistan war over Kashmir, as India complains to the UN Security Council.

• The Indian Army occupies Hyderabad, forcing the Nizam to surrender.

• The CPI, which had fought the Razakars, refuses to call off the Telangana insurrection, raising hopes of spearheading a nationwide revolution. The peasantry fights the army until the insurrection is called off in 1951.

• The Press Trust of India is formed as a news agency under an agreement with Reuter and the Indian & Eastern Newspaper Society.

• The ​Progressive Artists Group, formed in 1947 in Bombay, has its first show.

• Sombhu Mitra starts the theatre group Bohurupee.

• The Atomic Energy Act is passed.

• Uday Shankar makes his nationalist dance spectacular Kalpana;

• ​S. S. Vasan’s Chandralekha is the first Madras production to become an all-India hit; both films are made at the Gemini Studio.

• Bhavnani’s Ajit? is made on 16mm Kodachrome and blown up to 35mm in the USA.

• Nirmala is the first Malayalam film made in Kerala.

• Raj Kapoor starts his R. K. Films, building his studio in 1950.

• Nehru announces a freeze on the construction of movie theatres.

• Gour Chattopadhyay initiates the Bengali film monthly Chitrabani, the most reliable record of 40s-50s Bengali cinema together with Rupamancha.