22 June 1897
Encyclopedia
22 June 1897 is a 1979 Marathi
film, co-written by Shankar Nag and Nachiket Patwardhan and directed by the husband and wife team of Jayoo Patwardhan and Nachiket Patwardhan. The duo are also practising architects. It is based on the true life story of the assassination of British Government officers Rand ICS and Lt. Ayerst.
The film has been included in the book One Hundred Indian Feature Films: An Annotated Filmography, a representative selection from the first Indian talkies to the then-present date (1988). The title of the film is the date of the assassination, 22 June 1897. It won the 1980 India
n Silver Lotus at the National Film Awards
in two categories: Best film on National Integration and Art Direction. It also won the 1980 Maharashtra State awards
for best film of the year and best director. The film has been included in the selected collection of Indian films and videos in the US Library of Congress
. Most of the performers in the film then belonged to Theatre Academy, Pune.
Ayerst was Rand's military escort on 22 June 1897 by the Chapekar brothers
– Damodar Hari, Vasudev Hari and Balkrishna Hari and Mahadeo Vinayak Ranade, Khando Vishnu Sathe a school boy was charged as a co-conspirator and sentenced to 10 years rigorous imprisonment.
The film was the directorial debut of Jayoo and Nachiket Patwardhan, commissioned by the National Film Development Corporation of India (NFDC) on a shoestring Rupee
s 3.5 lakh
budget. Jayoo Patwardhan scouted for locations in Wai
and Pune
for the period look, poring over scores of photographs obtained by her grandfather, and spending months researching the details. The film was shot entirely on locations in Pune, Wai and Mumbai
in March and April 1979. The co-director considers the film "a solid piece of history with huge archival value". Vijay Tendulkar
its dialogue writer considered that "the film is significant because it shows the way history needs to be treated in cinema – in a deglam manner where martyrs are also shown as human beings", and judged the effort to be stupendous given the tight budget and other limitations of the time. "The dialogues I wrote were brief and simple, just like the script demanded," felt Tendulkar.
was visited by the pestilence of bubonic plague
which took a heavy toll of life. But the plague had another, indirect and far reaching consequence on the politics of the country. The behaviour of the military which was called out to deal with the situation arising from the pestilence caused great indignation. On 22 June in 1897, British officer Charles Walter Rand Assistant Collector of Pune and Chairman of the Special Plague Committee, Pune, and British Army officer Lieutenant Charles Egerton Ayerst, were assassinated on the Ganeshkhind road, Pune, on their way back from a Government house party celebrating the Diamond Jubilee anniversary of the coronation of Queen Victoria.
C. W. Rand of the ICS was appointed to take charge of the plague control measures and had successfully contained the epidemic; but his methods of evacuating the people, of fumigating their dwellings, and burning the contaminated articles, evoked tremendous hatred amongst certain sections of the society, which led to his assassination. The climax scene is the shooting, after the midnight party finished, the carriages started moving out of the Government House, one of the boys in that group watched from outside the gate. As Rand came out, he gave the signal. Another boy began running with the carriage. As he reached the spot where Damodar, Balkrishna and others were waiting, he shouted to them ‘Gondya ala re! (Gondya has come)’. Balkrishna jumped on the carriage and shot the occupant. But there was a mistake. It was Ayerst whom he had killed. They realized their mistake. When Rand’s carriage came to the spot, Damodar climbed on it and shot Rand. Ayerst was killed on the spot, and Rand died in hospital on 3 July 1897.
Damodar Chapekar: Prabhakar Patankar.
Vasudev Chapekar : Udayan Dixit.
Hari Vinayak Chapekar : Vasudev Palande.
Dwarka Hari Chapekar: Shanta Jog.
Daughters-in-law : Arundhatti Rao
, Sujal Watve, Dipali Kulkarni.
Govindmama : Satish Khare.
Ranade : Sadanand Borse.
Apte : Shrikant Gadre.
Dutta Bhuskute : Suresh Bhasale.
Ganesh Dravid : Jairam Hardikar.
Ramchandra Dravid : Sanjiv Ambike.
Nilu Dravid : Vikas Deshpande.
Havaldar Rama Pandu : Mukund Chitale.
Walter Rand : John Irving.
Bal Gangadhar Tilak : Sadashiv Amrapurkar.
Inspector Brewin : Rod Gilbert.
Supported by:
Ulrich Merkel, Mervin Popplstone, Mihir Thatte, Shri Pendse, Pramod Kale, Harry Falk, Father Lederle, Mathew Manning, Shirish More, Suhas Kulkarni, Kishore Joshi, Shirish Bodhani, Subhash Awchat
, Zareer Reporter, Robert Manning, Anand Hagir, Peter Saylas, Frank and Dipa Handrich, Shaila Joshi, Dilip Limaye, Bali Awasthee, Priti Limaye, Jim Benson, Guy de la Chevalerie and others.
The character of Balkrishna Chapekar was portrayed by Ravindra Mankani
. It was his first film. Then a student of College of Engineering, Pune
, he was spotted by directors on stage there. Mankani has said that "It was a learning experience for all of us, and the film launched my acting career". "It was a straight shot of nine minutes and 57 seconds without any retakes simply because we could not afford to waste footage," Mankani has been quoted recalling his debut shot.
stage, powerful in their authenticity, chiseled of grim determination, with firelight dancing on them, rugged stone walls, skirting narrow paths, the pillared inner courtyards of traditional dwellings, all into place in an intensely moving dramatic experience.
Gokulsing et al. write in their book Popular Indian Cinema, that the film cinematises a violent incident in Indian history, the determination of a group of Brahmin youths to challenge two of the elements of British imperialism – the English language and Christianity, the killing of Rand and events before and its aftermath.
Mukta Rajadhyaksha, Mumbai
based theatre and media critic, writing in The Times of India
, considers this film an honourable exception amid the degeneration that Marathi cinema went through after its golden age, the decades of 50s and 60s. She feels that the film should have won the Golden Lotus for best film, but did not as Marathi cinema
, unlike cinema from Bengal and the South lacked a powerful lobby at the national level. Namrata Joshi writing for Outlook opines that commercial Marathi cinema did not benefit from arthouse films made by filmmakers like Jabbar Patel
(Sinhasan, Umbartha
), Jayoo and Nachiket Patwardhan (22 June 1897), Vijaya Mehta
(Smriti Chitre), Amol Palekar
(Bangarwadi), Sumitra Bhave and others.
http://www.film.at writes that while the Indian independence movement is known in the West only in connection with Mahatma Gandhi
, the film tells one of the most important chapters of the early armed independence attempts in India.
http://www.spicevienna.org/ considers the film a modern classic of Indian cinema
The film has been a winner of a couple of State and National Awards
Marathi language
Marathi is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Marathi people of western and central India. It is the official language of the state of Maharashtra. There are over 68 million fluent speakers worldwide. Marathi has the fourth largest number of native speakers in India and is the fifteenth most...
film, co-written by Shankar Nag and Nachiket Patwardhan and directed by the husband and wife team of Jayoo Patwardhan and Nachiket Patwardhan. The duo are also practising architects. It is based on the true life story of the assassination of British Government officers Rand ICS and Lt. Ayerst.
The film has been included in the book One Hundred Indian Feature Films: An Annotated Filmography, a representative selection from the first Indian talkies to the then-present date (1988). The title of the film is the date of the assassination, 22 June 1897. It won the 1980 India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
n Silver Lotus at the National Film Awards
National Film Awards
The National Film Awards is the most prominent film award ceremony in India. Established in 1954, it is administered, along with the International Film Festival of India and the Indian Panorama, by the Indian government's Directorate of Film Festivals since 1973.Every year, a national panel...
in two categories: Best film on National Integration and Art Direction. It also won the 1980 Maharashtra State awards
Maharashtra State Film Awards
Maharashtra State Film Awards, one of prestigious awards of Marathi cinema, are awarded by the Government of Maharashtra to Marathi language Films and Artistes. It was first awarded in 1963. Here is the list of awards given each year.-Awards list:...
for best film of the year and best director. The film has been included in the selected collection of Indian films and videos in the US Library of Congress
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
. Most of the performers in the film then belonged to Theatre Academy, Pune.
Making of the film
The film is based on the true life events leading up to, and the consequences of, the assassination of Charles Walter Rand, Assistant Collector of Pune and Chairman of the Special Plague Committee, Pune, and British Army officer Lt Charles Egerton Ayerst.Ayerst was Rand's military escort on 22 June 1897 by the Chapekar brothers
Chapekar brothers
The Chapekar brothers alternatively spelt as Caphekar or Chaphekar , Damodar Hari, Balkrishna Hari and Vasudeo Hari belonged to Chinchwad, then a village, near the former Peshwa capital Pune, in the state of Maharashtra, India.In late 1896, Pune was hit by bubonic plague; by the end of February...
– Damodar Hari, Vasudev Hari and Balkrishna Hari and Mahadeo Vinayak Ranade, Khando Vishnu Sathe a school boy was charged as a co-conspirator and sentenced to 10 years rigorous imprisonment.
The film was the directorial debut of Jayoo and Nachiket Patwardhan, commissioned by the National Film Development Corporation of India (NFDC) on a shoestring Rupee
Rupee
The rupee is the common name for the monetary unit of account in India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Pakistan, Mauritius, Seychelles, Maldives, and formerly in Burma, and Afghanistan. Historically, the first currency called "rupee" was introduced in the 16th century...
s 3.5 lakh
Lakh
A lakh is a unit in the Indian numbering system equal to one hundred thousand . It is widely used both in official and other contexts in Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, Maldives, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and is often used in Indian English.-Usage:...
budget. Jayoo Patwardhan scouted for locations in Wai
Wai, Maharashtra
Wāi is a town in Sātārā District in Mahārāshtra, India.Wai has the epithetic name Dakshin Kāshi...
and Pune
Pune
Pune , is the eighth largest metropolis in India, the second largest in the state of Maharashtra after Mumbai, and the largest city in the Western Ghats. Once the centre of power of the Maratha Empire, it is situated 560 metres above sea level on the Deccan plateau at the confluence of the Mula ...
for the period look, poring over scores of photographs obtained by her grandfather, and spending months researching the details. The film was shot entirely on locations in Pune, Wai and Mumbai
Mumbai
Mumbai , formerly known as Bombay in English, is the capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the most populous city in India, and the fourth most populous city in the world, with a total metropolitan area population of approximately 20.5 million...
in March and April 1979. The co-director considers the film "a solid piece of history with huge archival value". Vijay Tendulkar
Vijay Tendulkar
Vijay Tendulkar was a leading Indian playwright, movie and television writer, literary essayist, political journalist, and social commentator primarily in Marāthi...
its dialogue writer considered that "the film is significant because it shows the way history needs to be treated in cinema – in a deglam manner where martyrs are also shown as human beings", and judged the effort to be stupendous given the tight budget and other limitations of the time. "The dialogues I wrote were brief and simple, just like the script demanded," felt Tendulkar.
Plot
PunePune
Pune , is the eighth largest metropolis in India, the second largest in the state of Maharashtra after Mumbai, and the largest city in the Western Ghats. Once the centre of power of the Maratha Empire, it is situated 560 metres above sea level on the Deccan plateau at the confluence of the Mula ...
was visited by the pestilence of bubonic plague
Bubonic plague
Plague is a deadly infectious disease that is caused by the enterobacteria Yersinia pestis, named after the French-Swiss bacteriologist Alexandre Yersin. Primarily carried by rodents and spread to humans via fleas, the disease is notorious throughout history, due to the unrivaled scale of death...
which took a heavy toll of life. But the plague had another, indirect and far reaching consequence on the politics of the country. The behaviour of the military which was called out to deal with the situation arising from the pestilence caused great indignation. On 22 June in 1897, British officer Charles Walter Rand Assistant Collector of Pune and Chairman of the Special Plague Committee, Pune, and British Army officer Lieutenant Charles Egerton Ayerst, were assassinated on the Ganeshkhind road, Pune, on their way back from a Government house party celebrating the Diamond Jubilee anniversary of the coronation of Queen Victoria.
C. W. Rand of the ICS was appointed to take charge of the plague control measures and had successfully contained the epidemic; but his methods of evacuating the people, of fumigating their dwellings, and burning the contaminated articles, evoked tremendous hatred amongst certain sections of the society, which led to his assassination. The climax scene is the shooting, after the midnight party finished, the carriages started moving out of the Government House, one of the boys in that group watched from outside the gate. As Rand came out, he gave the signal. Another boy began running with the carriage. As he reached the spot where Damodar, Balkrishna and others were waiting, he shouted to them ‘Gondya ala re! (Gondya has come)’. Balkrishna jumped on the carriage and shot the occupant. But there was a mistake. It was Ayerst whom he had killed. They realized their mistake. When Rand’s carriage came to the spot, Damodar climbed on it and shot Rand. Ayerst was killed on the spot, and Rand died in hospital on 3 July 1897.
Damodar Hari Chapekar's autobiography
Damodar Hari's narration of the shooting differs from the events as shown in the film. In his autobiography Damodar Hari writes that he believed the jubilee celebrations would cause Europeans of all ranks to go to the Government House, and this would give them the opportunity to kill Rand. The brothers Damodar Hari and Balkrishna Hari selected a spot of Ganeshkhind road, by the side of a yellow bungalow to shoot at Rand. Each armed with a sword and a pistol. Balkrishna in addition carried a hatchet. They reached Ganeshkhind, they saw what looked like Rand's carriage pass by, but they let it go, not being sure, deciding to attack him on his way back. They reached Government House at 7.00–7.30 in the evening, as darkness was beginning to set in. A large number of people had gathered to witness the spectacle at Government House, and there were bonfires on the hills. The swords and the hatchet they carried made movement without raising suspicion difficult, so they deposited them under a stone culvert near the bungalow, so as to retrieve it in case of need. As planned, Damodar Hari waited at the gate of the Government House, and as Rand's carriage emerged, ran 10–15 paces behind it. As the carriage reached the yellow bungalow, Damodar made up the distance, and called out "Gondya", a predetermined signal for Balkrishna to take action. Damodar Hari undid the flap of the carriage, raised it and fired from a distance of about a span. It was originally planned that both would shoot at Rand, so as to ensure that Rand would not live, however Balkrishna Hari lagged behind and Rand's carriage rolled on, Balkrishna Hari meanwhile on the suspicion that the occupants of the following carriage were whispering to each other, fired at the head of one of them from behind.Credits
The credits for the film are as follows:- Script: Nachiket Patwardhan
- Screenplay: Shankar Nag, Nachiket Patwardhan
- Dialogues: Vijay Tendulkar
- Production Team:
- Sadanand Borse
- Dilip Limaye
- Gangaram
- Makrand More
- Prasad Purandare
- Assistants:
- Rekha Sabnis (Script, Continuity)
- Dinesh Mehta (Camera)
- Kalshikar (Sound)
- Karekar (Make-up, Costumes)
- Islam (Editing)
- Bhalekar (Equipment)
- Sound Recodist: Vinay Shrivastav
- Music Director: Anand Modak
- Editor: Madhu Sinha
- Art Direction, Costumes: Jayoo Patwardhan
- Cameraman: Navroze Contractor
- Direction: Nachiket Patwardhan and Jayoo Patwardhan
Cast
Most of the performers in the film belonged to Theater Academy, Pune. The cast of the film is as follows:Damodar Chapekar: Prabhakar Patankar.
Vasudev Chapekar : Udayan Dixit.
Hari Vinayak Chapekar : Vasudev Palande.
Dwarka Hari Chapekar: Shanta Jog.
Daughters-in-law : Arundhatti Rao
Arundathi Nag
Arundhati Nag is a prominent South Indian polyglot film actress and theatre personality. She has been involved with multilingual Theatre in India, for over 25 years, first in Mumbai where she got involved with Indian People's Theatre Association , and did various productions in Gujarati, Marathi,...
, Sujal Watve, Dipali Kulkarni.
Govindmama : Satish Khare.
Ranade : Sadanand Borse.
Apte : Shrikant Gadre.
Dutta Bhuskute : Suresh Bhasale.
Ganesh Dravid : Jairam Hardikar.
Ramchandra Dravid : Sanjiv Ambike.
Nilu Dravid : Vikas Deshpande.
Havaldar Rama Pandu : Mukund Chitale.
Walter Rand : John Irving.
Bal Gangadhar Tilak : Sadashiv Amrapurkar.
Inspector Brewin : Rod Gilbert.
Supported by:
Ulrich Merkel, Mervin Popplstone, Mihir Thatte, Shri Pendse, Pramod Kale, Harry Falk, Father Lederle, Mathew Manning, Shirish More, Suhas Kulkarni, Kishore Joshi, Shirish Bodhani, Subhash Awchat
Subhash Awchat
Subhash Awchat is an Indian artist and author based in Mumbai.-Literary career:Awchat wrote the novel Madam in memory of Smita Patil, a collection of short stories, and a book of essays....
, Zareer Reporter, Robert Manning, Anand Hagir, Peter Saylas, Frank and Dipa Handrich, Shaila Joshi, Dilip Limaye, Bali Awasthee, Priti Limaye, Jim Benson, Guy de la Chevalerie and others.
The character of Balkrishna Chapekar was portrayed by Ravindra Mankani
Ravindra Mankani
Ravindra Laxman Mankani is a veteran actor who is noted for his work in many a daily soaps, plays and films. Though a civil engineer by qualification, Ravindra's love for acting and media pursued him to give his time to the cultural field....
. It was his first film. Then a student of College of Engineering, Pune
College of Engineering, Pune
College of Engineering, Pune is an engineering college in Pune, India. Established in 1854, it is the third oldest engineering college in Asia, after the College of Engineering, Guindy and IIT Roorkee...
, he was spotted by directors on stage there. Mankani has said that "It was a learning experience for all of us, and the film launched my acting career". "It was a straight shot of nine minutes and 57 seconds without any retakes simply because we could not afford to waste footage," Mankani has been quoted recalling his debut shot.
Video
The film was released on its 25th anniversary, by Rudraa Home Video in its ‘Modern Classic’ series on the 22 June 2005, VCDs with English subtitles and each original VCD. It is listed under Best of Marathi cinema.Festival Participation
- Calcutta ’80: Regional Film Festival, April 1980
- Trivandrum, Kerala: Regional Film Festival, October 1980
- International Film Festivals at:
- La Rochelle, France, June 1980
- Montreal, Canada, August 1980
- Mannheim, West Germany,October 1980
Critical appreciation
The book One Hundred Indian Feature Films: An Annotated Filmography, calls the film, made by the Patwardhans, practicing architects, a leaf out of history more as an exercise in cinema than in patriotism, faithful in every detail and structurally controlled, an unusual attempt at bringing a new visual perception into the mechanisms of film making. It finds the faces, mostly from MarathiMarathi language
Marathi is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Marathi people of western and central India. It is the official language of the state of Maharashtra. There are over 68 million fluent speakers worldwide. Marathi has the fourth largest number of native speakers in India and is the fifteenth most...
stage, powerful in their authenticity, chiseled of grim determination, with firelight dancing on them, rugged stone walls, skirting narrow paths, the pillared inner courtyards of traditional dwellings, all into place in an intensely moving dramatic experience.
Gokulsing et al. write in their book Popular Indian Cinema, that the film cinematises a violent incident in Indian history, the determination of a group of Brahmin youths to challenge two of the elements of British imperialism – the English language and Christianity, the killing of Rand and events before and its aftermath.
Mukta Rajadhyaksha, Mumbai
Mumbai
Mumbai , formerly known as Bombay in English, is the capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the most populous city in India, and the fourth most populous city in the world, with a total metropolitan area population of approximately 20.5 million...
based theatre and media critic, writing in The Times of India
The Times of India
The Times of India is an Indian English-language daily newspaper. TOI has the largest circulation among all English-language newspaper in the world, across all formats . It is owned and managed by Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd...
, considers this film an honourable exception amid the degeneration that Marathi cinema went through after its golden age, the decades of 50s and 60s. She feels that the film should have won the Golden Lotus for best film, but did not as Marathi cinema
Marathi cinema
Marathi cinema refers to films produced in the Marathi language in the state of Maharashtra, India. It is the oldest and pioneer film industry in India...
, unlike cinema from Bengal and the South lacked a powerful lobby at the national level. Namrata Joshi writing for Outlook opines that commercial Marathi cinema did not benefit from arthouse films made by filmmakers like Jabbar Patel
Jabbar Patel
Dr. Jabbar Patel is a theatre and film director of India. His production of the play Vijay Tendulkar's play Ghashiram Kotwal, in 1973 is considered a classic in Modern Indian Theatre....
(Sinhasan, Umbartha
Umbartha (film)
Umbartha , is a Marathi film made in 1982. The film is directed and coproduced by Jabbar Patel. Smita Patil for her performance in it won Marathi Rajya Chitrapat Puraskar for Best Actress...
), Jayoo and Nachiket Patwardhan (22 June 1897), Vijaya Mehta
Vijaya Mehta
Vijaya Mehta is an Indian Theatre and film director and also an actor in many films from the Parallel Cinema. She is most known for her acclaimed role in film Party and for her directorial ventures, Rao Saheb and Pestonjee ....
(Smriti Chitre), Amol Palekar
Amol Palekar
Amol Palekar is an Indian actor of the 1970s and a director of Hindi and Marathi cinema.-Theater career:Palekar began in Marathi experimental theatre with Satyadev Dubey, and later started his own group, Aniket, in 1972 [citation needed]...
(Bangarwadi), Sumitra Bhave and others.
http://www.film.at writes that while the Indian independence movement is known in the West only in connection with Mahatma Gandhi
Mahatma Gandhi
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi , pronounced . 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948) was the pre-eminent political and ideological leader of India during the Indian independence movement...
, the film tells one of the most important chapters of the early armed independence attempts in India.
http://www.spicevienna.org/ considers the film a modern classic of Indian cinema
Awards and recognition
- The film has been included in the book One Hundred Indian Feature Films: An Annotated Filmography, a representative selection from the first Indian talkies to the present day (1988).
- The film has been included in the selected list of Indian films and videos in the US Library of Congress. This collection is included in the Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division of the Library of Congress. The Library describes this collection as one of its richest and most interesting. This collection consists of ninety feature films and one hundred short films.
The film has been a winner of a couple of State and National Awards
National Film Awards: March 1980
- Silver Lotus: Best Feature Film on National Integration
- Silver Lotus: Best Art Direction (Jayoo Patwardhan)
Maharashtra State Film Awards: March 1980
- Best Film of the Year : Dadasaheb Phalke award
- Best Director of the Year: Nachiket and Jayoo Patwardhan