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.”
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.
Text from Filmo Topics Filming Mahatma Gandhi by James A. Mills.
The AP Corporate Archives contributed to this blog.