150th birth anniversary of Mohandas K. Gandhi
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, known as Mahatma Gandhi, was born October 2, 1869. He was the primary leader of India's independence movement.
For 30 years he preached non-violence and worked for a free, united India. In 1948 Gandhi was shot at a prayer meeting by a Hindu extremist after he tried to stop the Hindu Muslim conflicts in Bengal.
The following excerpts are from a Bell & Howell Filmo Topics magazine article, dated January 1932. This article was written by James A. Mills, the Associated Press foreign correspondent, who was said by his colleagues to be closer to Mahatma Gandhi than any other foreign correspondent. He accompanied Gandhi to London from Bombay and made many thousands of feet of film of India's Apostle of Peace which was shown throughout the world.
FILMING MAHATMA GANDHI
BY JAMES A. MILLS
Of the thousands of public men I have filmed or interviewed, none has been more difficult to handle than Mahatma Gandhi, that curious combination of politician, mystic, philosopher, saint, and seer, who is fighting for the freedom of 360,000,000 Indians.
Although there is nothing in the Hindu religion (as there is in the Mohammedan creed) which forbids a person to have his image reproduced, Mr Gandhi took a solemn vow, some thirty years ago, that he would never pose for a photograph, a painting, sculpture, or any other artificial reproduction of himself. This is part of the amazing doctrine of self-effacement, simplicity, and modesty which he practices.
It was no easy task for a photographer to break down this formidable barrier of prejudice on Mr Gandhi’s part toward being filmed. But I accomplished it by simply “taking the bull (or shall I say the lamb) by the horns,” and filming the Mahatma without his permission. When at first I levelled my turret-head FILMO and EYEMO at him, he seemed somewhat pained and displeased, but he soon became accustomed to my frequent visits. When I came within a few feet of him for a close-up, however, he would exclaim, “You are torturing me.”
Mahatma Gandhi in a photo from a period album collected by AP reporter James A. Mills, ca. 1931. (AP Photo/James A. Mills)
Until he faced my battery of still and motion-picture cameras, I had never known Mr Gandhi to “look at the lens”. To be sure, he had appeared in photographs before, but those pictures were taken “on the fly”, so to speak, and without Mr Gandhi’s consent, and never once did he look at the lens. Invariably he kept his eyes looking down or to the side. On the steamer, between Bombay and Marseilles, however, he actually looked squarely into the Cooke lenses of my cameras. One of the most original shots I made of him showed him holding a laughing baby, while the Mahatma himself wreathed in smiles. Another showed him on the Captain’s bridge of the “Rajputana”, piloting the big liner through the Indian Ocean. A third fine shot showed the little 93-pound Hindu agitator grinning from ear to ear as I collared him at his spinning wheel.
However much one may disagree with Mr Gandhi’s political principles, one cannot be in contact with him long without becoming impressed with his tremendous sincerity, earnestness, and idealism. He has suffered bitterly in the past in support of these principles, and is prepared to suffer more, he says, in the future. He has given up all his money and property to the poor, and has reduced himself to the level of India’s lowliest pariah. The unlettered and pious peasantry of India regard him literally as a Saint, but Mr Gandhi himself discourages any such appellation. He insists he is not divinely inspired, has received no revelation from God, no message to impart to the world, but is only the “voice of India’s millions of voiceless toilers”, appealing to Britain and to the world for India’s liberty.
Crowds gather to hear Gandhi speak next to the Sabarmati River, c. 1930. Photo from a period album collected by AP reporter James A. Mills, while Mills was covering Mahatma Gandhi and his followers. (AP Photo/James A. Mills collection)
Mahatma Gandhi after arriving in Folkstone, England en route to the Second Round Table Conference on Dominion Status for India (September - December 1931) in London. (AP Photo/James A. Mills)
Mahatma Gandhi, right, fellow delegate Madan Mohan Malaviya, center, and Captain H. Jack Morton, left, aboard the S.S. Rajputana en route to the Second Round Table Conference on Dominion Status for India (September - December 1931) in London. (AP Photo/James A. Mills)
Mahatma Gandhi in a photo from a period album collected by AP reporter James A. Mills, ca. 1931. (AP Photo/James A. Mills)
Mahatma Gandhi aboard the S.S. Rajputana en route to the Second Round Table Conference on Dominion Status for India (September - December 1931) in London. (AP Photo/James A. Mills)
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi with Sarojini Naidu and other members of the Round Table Conference leaving their headquarters in Knightsbridge to meet King George V and Queen Mary, at Buckingham Palace, London on Nov. 5, 1931. (AP Photo/Len Puttnam)
Mahatma Gandhi visited the dairy show held at the Royal Agricultural Hall in London on Oct. 29, 1931, and he was particularly interested in the goats which were exhibited there. Mahatma and Miss Slade, daughter of an English admiral and disciple of Gandhi, shown in center, inspecting the champion goats at the show. (AP Photo)
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, second right, with film star Charlie Chaplin, second left, in London, England on Sept. 23, 1931. (AP Photo/Len Puttnam)
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi visiting workers in their cottages at Spring Vale, England on Sept. 26, 1931, during his inspection of the Lancashire Cotton industry's labour conditions. (AP Photo/Len Puttnam)
Bespectacled Mahatma Gandhi, who eventually led India to its independence, laughs with the man who was to be the nation's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, at the All-India Congress committee meeting in Bombay, India, on July 6, 1946. Nehru took office as president of the Congress during the session. (AP Photo/Max Desfor)
In response to requests from Indians of all communities, Mr. R.S. Mani, Deputy High Commissioner in London, is allowing the use of a room in India House for prayers for 79-year-old Mahatma Gandhi, during his fast for Hindu-Muslim peace. Indians standing before the portrait of Mahatma Gandhi during prayer time in India House, London, January 16, 1948. Nearest portrait is Sardar as Abrol, a Sikh. (AP Photo)
Mahatma Gandhi trudging along through mud and torrential tropical rain from his village home at Shegaon, on July 22, 1937, to attend the Congress Conference at Wardha. He scorns cars or even a raincoat, and his valuable papers are carried in an old oil tin. (AP Photo)
Mahatma Gandhi joins his hands together in a gesture of prayer after addressing an audience of some 100,000 in Bombay's Shivaji Park, March 14, 1946. Gandhi, 76, planned to confer in the near future with British representatives on practical issues for self-government of India. (AP Photo/Max Desfor)
Extract from The AP World, vol. 3, no. 3, Autumn 1948
The body of Mahandas K. Gandhi covered with petals, lies in state in the Birla House, New Delhi, India, January 31, 1948, scene of his assassin of January 30. (AP Photo/Max Desfor)
An unidentified soldier points at the damaged brick wall outside Birla House in New Delhi, India, on January 20, 1948. (AP Photo)
Hindu women mourn within a bamboo enclosure at the rear grounds of Birla House, New Delhi on February 1, 1948, marking the spot where Mohandas K. Gandhi fell when he was shot a few days earlier, on January 3o. The spot where he fell is a large hole as a result of souvenir hunters taking the earth as a memento. (AP Photo/Max Desfor)
The body of assassinated Indian leader Mohandas Gandhi, covered with rose petals, is carried to the site of his cremation in New Delhi, January 31, 1948. (AP Photo/Max Desfor)
Ava Gandhi, left, and Manu Gandhi, Mohandas K. Gandhi's granddaughters, who were with him when he was assassinated, hold the bloodstained shawl he wore at the time of his murder, February 14, 1948. (AP Photo/Max Desfor)
A member of the 4th Battalion of the Madras regiment, with fellow soldiers standing guard, sifts through the ashes of the funeral pyre of Mohandas K. Gandhi, assassinated Indian patriot and spiritual leader, in New Delhi, in the early morning hours of February 1, 1948.(AP Photo/Max Desfor)
Indians sit on the floor to pray and sing the favorite hymns of Mohandas K. Gandhi in the flower-filled funeral car of the assassinated Indian leader, in New Delhi, February 11, 1948. (AP Photo/Max Desfor)
Waders and boaters head toward the confluence of the Ganges and Jumna Rivers following the immersion of the ashes of Mahatma Gandhi at Allahabad, India, on February 12, 1948. These were among the millions of mourners who saw the ashes of India's assassinated leader, known as the "Father of the Nation," carried from the railroad station to the waters. (AP Photo)
Text from Filmo Topics Filming Mahatma Gandhi by James A. Mills.
The AP Corporate Archives contributed to this blog.