The fracas over the alleged references to a late politician and a late bureaucrat in the film Celluloid is inopportune, if one were to go by the book on J C Daniel published over a year ago.
The references are in the book ‘J C Danielinte Jeevitha Katha’ (The Life Story of J C Daniel), written by Chelangad Gopalakrishnan and published in July 2011, a year after his death.
Gopalakrishnan’s conflict with the celebrated writer Malayattoor Ramakrishan alias K V Ramakrishna Iyer started at a meeting of the committee formed to study the problems ailing the film sector. The committee was set up by the Achutha Menon government (1970-1977), states the book which chronicles the sidelining of J C Daniel.
Gopalakrishnan describes that he had raised objections, when Malayattoor, the chairman of the committee, said that the epoch of the Malayalam film industry began with ‘Balan’ directed by T R Sundaram in 1938. When Gopalakrishnan reminded him of J C Daniel who had made a film a decade earlier, Malayattoor refuted it by asking, ‘how can a silent film be called a Malayalam film?’ If that be the case, how can one call D B Phalke, who made the silent film ‘Raja Harischandra’, the father of Indian cinema, Gopalakrishnan retorted.
Gopalakrishnan then continued his fight to Christian Daniel as the father of Malayalam cinema at a meeting of the committee set to study the feasibility of a film studio in the public sector. The committee set by the same government was chaired by K Karunakaran, the then Home Minister, who was also in charge of cultural affairs.
Though the book does not mention the date, the meeting was held after September 25, 1971, when Karunakaran had joined the Ministry. According to the book, Karunakaran said, “I have watched early Malayalam films. But there is no such film called Vigathakumaran or a man called J C Daniel.” However, P Subramaniam, another member, came to Gopalakrishnan’s support saying that he had seen the movie. “Where does this Daniel belong to?,” Karunakaran had asked then. ‘Agastheewaram’, replied Gopalakrishnan and Subramaniam. The Home Minister stated that the Tamil Nadu government would look into the case, says page 69 of the book.
Meanwhile, Kamal said that Karunakaran’s name found no mention anywhere in the film. “I wanted to bring home the historical fact that the bureaucracy was against Daniel. There is no personal agenda behind that,” he said.