Cinema at the End of Empire: A Politics of Transition in Britain and India (review)

Priya Jaikumar’s Cinema at the End of Empire: A Politics of Transition in Britain and India is a welcome addition to the fields of film, postcolonial and global studies. Her work challenges the framework of national cinemas by examining “the multiple conjunctural pressures applied by decolonization on the political entities of an imperial state and its colony” (1). This challenge is visible in her detailed examination of the Cinematograph Films Act of 1927 (or the Quota Act) and the Evidences of the Indian Cinematograph Committee (ICC) which illustrates that the histories of British and Indian cinemas were intertwined, thereby making impossible any claim of insular and insulated national cinemas. Furthermore, Jaikumar shifts our view from a hegemonic Hollywood to the relations amongst a declining imperial state, a struggling British film industry and an emerging Indian industry, thereby decentering the role of Hollywood in narratives of globalization. In doing so, she contributes to a growing body of work by scholars such as Sheldon Lu, Hamid Naficy, Robert Stam, Ella Shohat, to name a few, which seeks to interrogate arguments that assume that globalization is a phenomenon limited exclusively to the expansion of Hollywood. Her account extends this work by historicizing the global function of cinema.

The book addresses three inter-related issues. First, it demonstrates how the film policies instituted by the imperial state not only had an impact on the British and Indian film industries, but also defined the British state. It explores the formation of the imperial state through the Quota Act which though “ostensibly initiated to assist British films against Hollywood’s prevalence in the domestic British market, was in truth equally shaped by imperial aspirations” (5). Through this act, state protection was given not only to the British film industry but also to “British Empire Films” (5). The act imagined empire as a space where all Empire films—British, Australian, Indian, to name a few —would circulate with ease. Jaikumar notes that the anti-colonial picketing of British films like The Drum in India points to the problems with such a fantasy. Later in her analysis on the Evidences of the ICC, she shows that while the astute members of the colonial film industry recognized how the Quota Act would benefit the British film industry, they questioned whether Indian films would be welcomed in Britain.

In the era of decolonization, empire was viewed as a coercive entity and hence, an embarrassment. The British state sought to address this by adopting a strategy of bilateralism. This strategy is visible in the formation of the 1927–28 Indian Cinematograph Committee which was composed of both Indian and British members — and which was asked to consider the status of the film industry, censorship—and the possibility of a quota for “British Empire Films.” It is important to note that at this time, the imperial state could not unilaterally mandate a quota, but was compelled to create a space for discussion about such a bill in the colony as it had at home.

As the imperial state assumed a governing role in India, it needed to distance itself from economic interests in the colony in order to cast itself in the role of an ethical state. Thus, the state’s discussions on cinema in India tended to focus on moral issues. Jaikumar insightfully notes that the discussions on the potential detrimental effects of cinema (in particular, Hollywood films) on the natives were not simply a disguise for the real economic interests of the imperial state. Rather, they paved the way to put economic policies on the table. For instance, in suggesting that Hollywood films were harmful to the moral welfare of the natives and that British films might offer better representations, the state was ostensibly putting forth the possibility of quotas not for economic reasons, i.e. it wanted to help the British film industry, but to protect the natives. The chapters which discuss imperial state policies...