New York Times (May 18, 2012)
The Cartoon That Taught Indians The Meaning of “Many”
By PAMPOSH RAINA
For the generation that grew up in India in the 1980s, television was
synonymous with Doordarshan, the national broadcaster. In the absence
of cable television, which came to India a decade later, children grew
up with limited television programs. This meant that their appetite for
cartoons had to be satiated with the weekend staple of “Spider-Man,”
“He-Man and the Masters of the Universe” and “The Mickey and Donald
Show.”
The Doordarshan experience was incomplete without snippets of
government-sponsored short films that carried social messages. One such
film was titled “Ek Anek Aur Ekta,” which translates directly as “one
many and unity.” The animated film was produced to spread the message
of unity in diversity among children. It opens with a little boy
playing under a mango tree, and after several failed attempts at
plucking mangoes from the tree, he goes up to a girl sitting nearby and
asks her: “Yeh anek kya hai didi” (“What does ‘many’ mean, sister?”).
For anyone raised in India in that era, the mere mention of this film
would rev up childhood memories.
The seven-minute film was scripted and directed by the documentary
filmmaker Vijaya Mulay and produced by Bhim Sain, an animator.
The recent controversy over the reprinting of a 1949 cartoon in school
textbooks — which depicts Bhimrao Ambedkar, who led the committee that
drafted the 1950 Indian constitution, being whipped by former Prime
Minister Jawaharlal Nehru — has stirred up a debate over political
correctness. After much uproar in the Indian Parliament, Kapil Sibal,
the minister for human resources development, announced the removal of
the cartoon from textbooks.
While that squabble may be over for now, India Ink interviewed Vijaya
Mulay, who turned 91 this week, via e-mail to ask her how cartoons were
once used as a powerful tool in educating children in India.
Press Information Bureau
Vijaya Mulay.
Q.
What do you think about the controversy around the political cartoon
depicting Bhimrao Ambedkar and Jawaharlal Nehru?
A.
The cartoon has been there since 1949, when both Panditji [Jawaharlal
Nehru] and Babasaheb [Bhimrao Ambedkar] were alive, and as Babasaheb’s
son Prakash Ambedkar put it in a statement on television, if his father
had no objection to it, why should these self-proclaimed leaders of the
Republican Party object to it? For the sake of dirty self-promotional
politics, these people make an issue of it and the government is so
weak that it gives in. It is ridiculous. Babasaheb himself promoted the
ideal of democracy and the right of others to speak their mind. These
puny people have forgotten his message.
Q.
Why did you decide to script and direct the “Ek Anek Aur Ekta”
animation film?
A.
“Ek Anek Aur Ekta” is a short film I made in 1974, as part of the
experiment for SITE (Satellite Instructional Television Experiment),
and I am delighted that a film I made in 1974 still continues to be of
interest to many. This is how it came about:
In the ’60s and ’70s, Dr. Vikram Sarabhai, who was looking after
India’s space program and was anxious to develop distance communication
satellite technology, managed to get NASA to agree to let India use
their ATS satellite for one year. India was passing through very rough
times at that time, as the United States for strategic reasons, with
its Soviet phobia, was more allied with Pakistan than with India.
Why did NASA then agree to collaborate with us? I and many other
Indians presumed that NASA probably agreed because it wanted to do many
experiments that needed a large footprint for its satellite elsewhere
since their own sky space was taken over by commercial interests.
Communist countries, like Soviet Union and China, that had such space
were out of the question as the United States considered communists as
insufferable. Countries like Brazil and Indonesia that also had the
requisite space then had very unstable governments at that time.
I was then working in the Education Ministry and was looking after the
portfolio of educational technology. I also had one documentary film
under my belt made with my own money and some monetary help from
friends and my daughters Suhasini [Mulay] and Shree [Mulay]. I also had
a lot of help from friends like Satyajit Ray, Kabita Sarkar and maestro
Gangubai Hangal. Satyajit spoke the commentary written by Kabita
Sarkar, and Gangubai gave music for my 17-minute documentary “Tidal
Bore.” That was later purchased by Films Division [of India] and I was
able to pay back my donors.
I was representing my ministry on the coordinating committee for SITE.
It was decided that in the SITE experiment of one year, apart from
experiments with hardware, software programming would be undertaken to
promote developmental programs in health, agriculture and education.
The programming for health and agriculture was undertaken by
Doordarshan; however the Education Ministry decided to make programs
for education for part of the time allocated to it. Since Doordarshan
programming has always been more for children of 9-plus age group, we
felt that though the target group was fixed as the 6-to-12 age group,
there was hardly anything that would engage the attention of younger
children of the 6-to-9 age group. Also, the usual didactic programming
would not be of much use.
The model we had before us was the Play School program of Britain and
similar programming in the United States. I was asked to develop trial
programs and was given permission to work with Unicef, which had a very
good film expert, Ken Nelson. Ken and I decided that we would like to
try and make something that would both be fun and educative. The areas
we chose to make our trial programs were to be in three fields of
literacy, numeracy and affective sentiments.
As the Education Ministry had no provision for letting its officers
make films, I took up a two-month assignment with Unicef and made a
film each, with Ken’s assistance, in the areas of numeracy and
literacy. The first program was titled “Ek, do” and the second one was
called “Na” (about the letter N in Hindi). Script and direction were
mine. These films proved to be very popular, and they succeeded
extremely well with children in all areas of SITE.
By then NCERT [National Council of Educational Research and Training]
had set up its institution of Center for Educational Technology, and I
was appointed as its head. I then took up the project of making the
remaining film relating to affective side of child development.
This is how the film “Ek Anek Aur Ekta” got done. I also experimented
with the way the three films were made. “Ek, do” was made in black and
white and was based on a song written by me and was all live action.
“Na” was shot part live and part animation. The dialogue portion was in
black and white, and the animation portion was in color. The third
film, “Ek Anek Aur Ekta,” was in color and was an animation film.
Q.
What was the message that you were trying to convey through that short
film?
A.
To me it appeared that the most strong point of India has been to live
with diversity and profit from it. I wanted to communicate this to
children and relate it to their own experience. So I wrote a script
that children would understand and enjoy.
Q.
You made “Ek Anek Aur Ekta” in 1974. Do you think the message it
conveyed is relevant even today?
A.
I think it is. Our country is now facing difficult times, with people
being led to hate and see others different from them as outsiders. We
have to keep on reminding ourselves that diversity is our greatest
strength, and unity in diversity is something that we have managed to
follow, which is very important. And it has to be cherished.
Q.
Nowadays, we don’t see such films on television. Has animation as a
tool of education lost its relevance?
A.
Animation will never lose its relevance.
Q.
Are there any projects that you are currently working on?
A.
Yes, I am working on a book project. It is about the introduction and
development of educational technology in India. I was the first person
to take educational technology to practical fields. Using it, we
trained 90,000 primary school teachers for science teaching in one
year, in batches of 45,000 each at different locations. That story
needs to be told.
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