This paper is about video. It seeks to provide a primarily ethnographic account of the introduction of video in the 1980's, amidst the fanfare of modernity, and its quiet demise with the emergence of VCD's. It seeks to provide the cultural history of a media form, in an era of the disengagement of the State, an era when "technology" and "communication" are the new mantras of modernity and development; it seeks to provide a narrative of the various practices and networks that emerged around video.

modernity and video

"Deccan Herald, 1981: Union Information Minister Vasant Sathe told newsmen here today that his Ministry had put up the proposal to the Cabinet. For external channels the Asian Games will be telecast in colour. But Internal colour transmission was still a big question mark. Mr. Sathe, said colour TV must be introduced. "Black and white is dead technology. Dead like a dodo," he said. Colour technology was the latest and India must have it. should take a quantum jump in technology where it is today instead of going back 50 years." He, however, admitted his inability to ensure that decision making on this question would be quick by saying "the inability for decision making is because of the constraints in the system of our country". Mr. Sathe said: 'If I had my way I will go in for VCR (Video Cassettes) right away. Cassettes can be produced in thousands and they are cheap. Every village and school can screen its own video cassettes."

From the news clipping above it is clear that the then 'latest' technology of colour television and video, is cast in terms of a new march forward, a leap into modernity. Prior to the introduction of video technology in India, with the New Delhi Asian Games in 1984, television and video technology are seen as luxury items, a commodity not meant for the general public; and with prohibitive import duties, and a cost of around 50,000 rupees for a vcr, video technology remained a commodity of elite consumption. However, by the early 1980's the proliferation of video technology was seen as the path to the new modernity.This aspiration of 'new modernity' was different from the older, more material Nehruvian modernity. For example, Nehru's statement that 'dams are the temples of modern India', is characteristic of the "era of hardware, or heavy modernity - the bulk-obsessed modernity 'the larger is better' kind of modernity. (This was) the epoch of weighty and ever more cumbersome machines, of the ever longer factory walls wider factory flows and ingesting ever more factory crews…To conquer space was the supreme goal - to grasp as much of it which one could hold, and to hold to it, marking it all over with tangible tokens of possession and "No Trespassing" boards."

While the Nehruvian nationalist project looked at modernity as the creation of 'order' and 'development', which necessitated robust state action, the pursuit of modernity through technology emancipated "the state-managers from the everyday, the interaction with place. In other words the annihilation of space through time would obtain without the messy political problems that spatiality and its associated politics, produced. What was needed was a solution that would shift from old style nationalist policies, seen by the elite as restricting initiative and growth." This 'national' space was gradually given away under the name of globalisation, a process that accelerated by the late 1980's and the early 1990's. Under pressure from institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank, the old import substitution regime was gradually taken apart and controls on domestic industry and multinational companies were abandoned.

As observed by Ravi Sundaram "'Development' remained an issue but was reconstituted as a problem of communication. The way forward was computerization, networking and a new visual regime based on a national television network…As opposed to the Nehruvian focus on 19th century physical instruments of accumulation (steel, energy, coal), state discourse after 1984 posed a virtual space where issues of development would be resolved. Through public lectures, television programmes and press campaigns, state managers simulated this new space, which though unseen was seen as transcending the lack inherent in Nehruvian controls." Bauman terms this as fluid modernity, which is the "epoch of disengagement, elusiveness, facile escape and hopeless chase. In 'liquid' modernity, it is the most elusive, those free to move without notice, who rule." However, while this new fluid modernity was seen to be embraced by the state, the old modernity's desire to maintain the paramouncy of order remained.

This disengagement coupled with the emergence of such new media is significant in that, as Peter Manuel states, "they (the new media) constitute a challenge to the one-way monopolistic, homogenising tendencies of the old media (especially cinema, television and radio). The new media tend to be decentralised in ownership and control, and consumption patterns; they offer greater potential for consumer input and interaction, and heighten the user's control over the form of consumption and over the relation to the media sender." These processes of disengagement and the proliferation of new media allowed for the emergence of spaces that were quickly occupied by a number of networked actors; the producers and assemblers of video, the recorders and the pirates, the distributors, exhibitors and the viewers.

networks and practices

Therefore, the physical components of video, the shell, the magnetic tape and the VCR, were loci for a multitude of networks, of cultural practices of production and consumption. At the beginning of the 1980's everything was imported. The owner of Geeth, a store on SP road states "Everything was smuggled. In 1979, 1980, 1981, some two years after that everything was smuggled. From Taiwan, and Bangkok. Then people in Bombay started making the shells. It is a very simple process. Just put plastic in a mould and khatam. This mould cost some Rs. 70,000 if it was imported. Later they started to make it in India, so the mould cost some Rs 40,000. They started making shells in Peenya also. Each shell cost about 17-18 rupees."

The production of the magnetic tape appears to have been far less decentralized. Originally, like the shell, the magnetic tape was imported. Says the owner of GR marketing, once a supplier of blank video cassettes on SP road, "The Magnetic tape was manufactured by only 6 companies in India. In Bombay and Delhi. So we used to get from there. It cost about 30 to 50 rupees for 180 minutes of tape. It came as one pancake. We then put the pancake in one machine, a loader. We used to put the pancake in and it used to cut for however long we wanted it. It put the film around the reel and put the leader, and it then we put it in the shell. Our machine cost about 50,000. It was semi-automatic. But there used to be loaders from 5,000 to one lakh also. At first people used to get it from Bombay, but then it was available here in Bangalore also. We used to supply to all these new video libraries, but once they became rich they had their own loaders, then after that we sold to public only."

The blank tapes from distributors like GR marketing flowed down the network to everyday consumers, to persons who merely pirated videos and sold these, to video library and parlour owners who also copied videos.Videotronics on SP road is one of the people to whom GR Marketing initially supplied blank video cassettes to. He says "I used to get original videos from some friends on SP road, and then sometimes from friends in Madras. First, I recorded the cassettes in this shop itself. Sometimes one is to 3 sometime one is to 14. I made money from selling video cassettes, and I bought VCR's with that money. The brands were National and Panasonic. Cost about 10,000 rupees. We used to buy from Bombay. First I got cassettes from this GR Marketing fellow. . Blank cassette used to cost about Rs 40 to make and Rs 50 to sell. They were for 3 hours. All these recorded cassettes were sold for Rs. 80. Then after that I made my own cassettes. I bought one loader. I used to make my own cassettes. So the magnetic film used to come in one pancake, I used to put it in a loader and then it used to cut and reel the film to a certain length. And then I used to record and put it in the shell and then sell it."

There also appears to have a great deal of networking between video library owners. Prabhu, a video library owner in Austin town says "We were always talking about movies. Me and my friend. So we bought one VCR player and that time it was in demand and we started hiring it out. So he bought one and we became partners so we said "why not we open a library with that?". We invested a little money and bought some cassettes. One other guy next to Galaxy theatre, Sagar King it's called. He helped us out. We stocked initially 300 cassettes. That guy, Sagar King near Galaxy theatre, since we knew him, whatever extra cassettes that he had we took it from his shop. The 5000 rupees we invested, we bought a VCP. I bought a VCP and my partner bought a VCP. And we said okay we are partners. Which ever goes out we share the profit, and if both go out we share the profit. So we spoke to that guy. We said that there's a shop. It was an egg shop. We told him 'give us some place.' We will pay you whatever rent you want. We'll have a video cassette shop. He was very happy. He said egg shop being converted to a cassette shop. He was very happy. So this Sagar King guy said 'okay I'll give you 300 tapes, and you have to give me 1 rupee per tape everyday.' So it was 300 rupees everyday. No matter 10 goes out or 20 goes out. It was very good. We took all the 300 kept it in the shop, and we started distributing pamphlets everywhere. The response was excellent. Whenever there were new movies, everyone wanted them. We used to run, get the movies give them. Business was traveled like anything. We had a fantastic business immediately. 'Cause we were the first people to start. From far away places people used to come for English Hindi, Tamil and all that. So later we said that this money was not enough, so we took another partner. And then we took the whole egg shop, because we said we didn't want eggs. So he also joined us as a partner. So then we started off the full fledged cassettes shop. So business was very good. We went on like 4 -5 years like that."

By the late 1980's there international linkages emerge. Says Prabhu: "none of these distributors were there in Bombay, like they have now. Only Bambino was there, Video Palace was there, that's it. Not as many distributors as there are now. Those days there was a guy called Mansur. He used to supply in the name of Horse. He used to get them from Dubai. Those days all the Hindi movies used to come from Dubai. I mean the good prints. They used to go there, and get us good prints and on Friday, Saturday it used to be in India. Because Friday is a holiday there, and Thursday the print goes from here. They copied and then they used to send. In Fridays it used to be in every library in India. So that's how it was. So we used to make copies and circulate." The practices that surround the viewing of cinema appear to be equally diverse. Apart from video libraries, there were video parlours - mini theatres that showed movies via VCR and a television, touring video parlours - matador vans fitted with televisions and VCR's, that went around and showed movies.

In the early days of video when the VCR was prohibitively expensive, watching video used to be a community whole night affair. Says PK "Sometimes people would say that we have a TV, but no VCR. So we would like to see some movie, in our house, with our friends and family. So, since we were purchasing the cassettes and giving them on rent, we thought it would be profitable to purchase a VCR and give it to rent to somebody. So just to see if the copy is proper we had a VCR in our house. So the idea started that our own VCR, we give on rent to somebody we got some profits. We thought we would have one or two extra VCR's and who ever wanted we could circulate that also. Rent was to my knowledge, 100 rupees a day. And a VCR at that time was costing say 15000 rupees. A lot of brands were there. There was Akai and another was national, pioneer… We used to take addresses, because the amount was 15000, no body could pay that much. But normally only the nearby residences would come. We would like to see their house and would like to have some guarantee. We did not lend it to everyone. If we gave it to some college student, because he would run away with it. We gave it to family people where address is properly known. When ppl took the vcr they would like to use it to the fullest extent. So the rent was for one day, so at the most they could watch 3 movies of 3 hours length.

With reduction of prices of VCR's viewership became relatively more decentralized. Says Vikram "me and my friends used to rent Jackie Chan movies, James bond movies and some time after that we used to borrow adult films and stuff. We used to borrow on the weekends. We borrowed 2-3 movies at one time. We used to have a free day after exams and stuff, so we went to a friends house and watched 2-3 movies. With my family, I used to rent mostly family movies. Mostly Hindi, because that time we couldn't find English movies. But we used to watch old English movies like superman. With my friends we used to get latest world war flicks or Jackie Chan movies."

Says Mariam "I remember we used to stay up late at night and wait for music videos to come on DD. My brothers and I used to record them and sometimes we used to trade them as well. What fun." Aju says that he used to record WWF matches and exchange them with friends.

The erosion of order

When video technology was first introduced in India, it almost appeared as if 'order' was inherent in the technology, that the introduction of a new technology would, of its own accord, bring the scientific temperament, development and social organisation, that modernity so craved. In 1980, the National Working Group on Film Policy headed by Dr. Shivaram Karanth recommended that import duties on video technology be reduced, and that video technology should be used by "educational institutions, field publicity units of the government and other specialised agencies involved in community development and rural educational programmes." Thus, video in the early days, with order seemingly implicit in its technology, remained largely uncontrolled.However, as is true of many things controlled or otherwise, order is surely, yet slowly, eroded. Through everyday practices, without larger any larger notions of community, actors within the emerging network of video chipped away at this order, this new modernity.When PK, started his video parlour in the late 80's he was visited by the police a number of times. But he says that the police also had no idea of how or if they were empowered to regulate the video parlour. His story: "What kind of problems? Yes… mainly police. They used to come and say why you are showing this? What permission have you got? So initially, in the beginning there were no rules, no permission, so we said that we do not know what permission we have to bring. That's the way we were watching movies in our house. In fact the way this idea came that I was running a restaurant. In restaurant I was selling tea coffee bondas and snacks. So in the dull hours there were hardly any people. so just there was a radio or a gramophone in the restaurant to entertain the customers. One would play radio. So the bright idea come to our mind that let's have TV and show on TV this video pictures. So when the video was on in the restaurant and there was regular table and chair, and people used to drink coffee and eat snacks and watch the movie freely. Somebody would watch for 10 minutes, half an hour 2 hours. Some crazy people might watch for entire 3 hours, enjoying one coffee. So then we observed that the business started growing steadily. Within one month we realised that business is more, and when we started the movie, it was house full. People used to sit for three hours, but we didn't much business. So slowly, slowly it came to our mind that if you order one thing you cannot sit for more than one hour. So if you wanted to see the whole picture for 3 hours you had to order 3 times. And there were chairs on both sides and half the people were sitting ulta. So slowly, slowly we thought, let us forget the benches and let everyone face the TV side, and we offered them only coffee in the hand. We closed down the puri bhaaji and heavy snacks, for which you require a table, and slowly, slowly we increased the coffee charge also and then slowly, slowly we thought, you give us 10 rupees, forget coffee. So this is how it all started. So then it came to the knowledge of police, and it came to knowledge of tax people. Police came and enquired so the police was also not very sure what section to book us, what rules to be applied. But for some time the police was giving us warning, saying you see we also don't know what is to be done, but something is to be done. Now there is a queue and people are making rush, and there is some nuisance near the place and all this nuisance how to tolerate and all. And in the mean time sales tax people also approached saying all these cinema's are paying tax now you are charging and showing. In the beginning we were telling that like radio, we are showing TV. So what we should do. Our customers are eating and viewing free of charge. Since the TV is lying empty in my house, I bring it in the morning and when I go home I take it home and sleep. I am the owner of the hotel and I am keeping it. So that's how they were also confused. So then we were showing movies only, it was unable for us to also explain more. Then some tax people forced some penalty also. Rightly or wrongly, we paid that little penalty also and then police also said that something should be done. So ultimately we went to some lawyer. So lawyer said if that is the thing let us go to court. So ultimately we went to court. And the court first time gave the direction, since there are no rules, government must make some rules, and till that time the stay is granted, and no government body shall disturb these people. They are doing it for their livelihood, so let it continue. So it was continued for a few months." Thus far the state exercised control over the media - doordarshan, the radio, and cinema. It exercised control over cinema through the actual control of the spaces of cinema, the theatres. This control over the spaces of cinema meant that, apart from the tool of censorship, the state could control the content of cinema as well. With the introduction of video, however, the state was presented with a crisis of its regulatory authority. The regulatory regimes of cinema were ill-suited to control a more slippery media such as video; video had no fixed spaces such as cinema, could be smuggled, undetected across borders, and hence the state not only lost control over the actual space of a media, but also the ability to police the content of the media as well.

The return to order

The entry of video in 1982 caught the state off guard. The introduction of video and other new media was supposed to usher India into the order of modernity, but instead it found this modernity being recycled and reworked by cultural practices. The state found that it lacked the means of controlling the content of video and the spaces in which video was watched.The anxiety over the inability to exercise control over video is well expressed by the Madhya Pradesh High Court: "The dangers to which people would be exposed if the petitioners are allowed to run their restaurants as mini cinemas without any regulation are obvious. There would be risk to the safety and health of persons visiting those restaurants. Overcrowding outside and inside the restaurants when a popular movie is being exhibited would create problems of public order. Further, many of the proprietors would be tempted to indulge in exhibiting pirated and blue films." The state, therefore, appears to have been concerned with several things. First is that of property. The piracy of video cassettes lead to grave concerns of intellectual property. Take, for example, this news clipping: "MPA (Motion Picture Association of America) sees cable TV piracy as a serious problem in India. in a report published almost a year ago, it estimated that there were 50,000 cable-TV systems in India, most, if not all, using pirated and/or unauthorised products, including titles of its member companies. The report notes that most titles are available on Indian cable-systems within weeks of their theatrical release in the USA. It has estimated its member- company losses at about 40 million dollars a year…Most of the video-cassettes seized in Bangalore today were laser prints of the latest blockbuster movies…MPA had tipped off the Bangalore police about the large-scale pirating of video films in unauthorised video-parlours. MPA sources told this correspondent that they had also heard reports that "Casper" (recently released in a Bangalore cinema-theatre) and "Waterworld" (yet to be released in India) had also been pirated.There are also reports that one of the places raided had 80 VCRs (video-cassette recorders) for making copies but that, at the time of the raid, it was found that legal work was being done. The official press-release says that, on the receipt of credible information by the Indian representative of the MPA and its verification, simultaneous raids were launched in four video-parlours and a residential house located in different parts of the city and that the police seized 3,979 cassettes of English films."

The next thing that concerned the state, appears to be the inability to exercise censorship over what was being watched. The sudden lack of the ability to censor what was being watched was another great anxiety of the state. The one police officer I spoke to repeatedly emphasized that the police conducted raids because people were showing and distributing uncensored films.These two concerns appear to lead to the third: the anxiety of the crowd, both in the physical and virtual sense. Commenting on the concerns of the physical crowd of the colonial administration with regard to the construction of theatres in the early 1900's, Stephen Hughes, observes that "The idea of crowds of Indian working-class men gathering for film shows in close proximity to important government institutions would have made Madras officials uneasy. The daily collecting of crowds in the street outside Crown theatre at regular intervals before a film show and then, after being emotionally galvanized through the collective experience of film-watching, existing together on to the streets again, would have made the police authorities particularly concerned. The colonial government of India had long recognised crowds, especially those of religious processions and at dramatic performances as a potentially uncontrollable threat to the political and social order. The very notion of collective gatherings, even at places of public entertainment, carried the assumed connotation of riotous mobs, revolutionary masses which could be mobilized against the colonial authority." While police in the 1980's probably did not fear the "revolutionary masses" that so concerned the colonial administration, they still approached large crowds with unease. As, PK earlier stated that the initial police concern with regard to his video parlour was the "halla that was created around the video parlour and the crowd of college kids and other kadaka types in residential localities". But the crowd that appears to be feared is not merely the physical crowd, but also the unseen, the virtual crowd. The idea that people could be watching films that remained hidden from the state's gaze, appears to cause great anxiety with the state. Apart from intellectual property concerns the exhibition and distribution of 'adult' pornographic films, was cited as the primary motivation for conducting raids on video parlours and libraries.

These three concerns translated into attempts to control firstly, the physical aspects of the VCR and the video cassettes. In 1983, the Government of India issued a notification under the Sections 4 and 7 of the Indian Telegraph Act, 1885 (13 of 1885) and sections 4 and 10 of the Indian Wireless Telegraphy Act, 1933 (17 of 1933) requiring that every video cassette recorder be registered with the District Magistrate. In 1985 these rules were repealed, but interestingly the notification is still in force in States of Arunachal Pradcsh, Assam, Jammu and Kashmir, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura, and in the Union Territories of Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Lakshadweep and Minicoy Islands; another indication that the state may fear the virtual crowd in areas where the idea of the nation is most contested. Much later in 1994, s. 52A of the Copyright Act, was passed. Clause 2 reads"(2) No person shall publish a video film in respect of any work unless the following particulars are displayed in the video film, when exhibited, and on the video cassette or any other container thereof, namely :- (a) if such work is a cinematograph film required to be certified for exhibition under the provisions of the Cinematograph Act, 1952 (37 of 1952), a copy of the certificate granted by the Board of Film Certification under Section 5-A of that Act in respect of such work; (b) the name and address of the person who has made the video film and a declaration by him that he has obtained the necessary license or consent from the owner of the copyright in such work for making such video film; and (c) the name and address of the owner of the copyright in such work." Controlling the spaces of video, in particular the video parlour, also occupied a great deal of the state's attention. Initial attempts at regulating video parlours, involved bring video parlours under the various States' Cinema (Regulation) Acts. These legislations, and the rules made under them, which originally concerned theatres alone, were sought to be applied to video parlours as well. So in Deepak Snack Bar v. State of Haryana, and in Restaurant Lee v. State of Madhya Pradesh, the relevant High Courts extended the application of the Cinema (regulation) acts to Video parlours as well. They held that that a video would fall within the ambit of the term 'cinematograph' and hence would attract the application and the cinema licensing requirements of the acts. This view was upheld by the Supreme Court in the 1993 case of Laxmi Video Talkies and others v. State of Haryana and others. Therefore, in order to legally exhibit films via video, a license must be obtained, and the provisions of the censorship requirements of both the acts were required to be met, giving the state the leverage to again control what was being viewed in these parlours. By the end of the 1980's many states had passed legislations or rules specifically relating to video parlours and video libraries. Take for example the Uttar Pradesh (Regulation of Exhibition by means of Video) Rules, 1988. These rules provide in excruciating detail, the spatial requirements of video parlours, touring and permanent. Rule 4 (2) , for example, reads: "(2) The building shall be provided with open space of not less than 3 metres in width on any two sides, and open space of not less than 6 metres in width in front for parking of vehicles. If the building is away from thoroughfare, the approach road shall not be less than 3 metres in width (3) The building - shall be well built, structurally safe, and constructed with non-inflammable material; shall be sufficiently ventilated; shall have a 1.6 metres wide verandah on anyone side of the doorways of the building; shall have atleast one doorway per 50 seats and in any case not less than two, fitted with door to open outwards and the size of the doors shall not be less than 1.95 metres in height and1.34 metres in width; the normal height of the roof or its immediate covering from the floor shall not be less than 3.5 metres with electric installations fitted at a height of 2.75 metres; shall have the landings, doors, staircases, lobbies and corridors of not less than 1.34 metres in width (4) In case the auditorium is constructed on the first floor of a building, it shall have 1.6 metres wide verandah on any two sides with atleast two stair cases to ground floor on two different sides, out of which one should abut the main thoroughfare. The width of the stair case shall not be less than 1.34 metres with 16 cms. riser and 25 cms tread and there shall not be less than 3 and not more than 15 stairs at a stretch. The open space required under sub-rule (2) shall be provided on the ground floor…." In a similar fashion, every particular detail, in terms of dimensions and quality is provided for seating arrangements, and the seats themselves, ventilators, sanitation (including the direction that latrines and urinals "shall be cleaned and flushed after every exhibition and disinfectants used daily"), drinking water, and electric installations. And soon enough, these elaborate legislations and rules governing video begin to look like a foucaultian process of disciplining. Through the rules which govern miniscule details, these laws appear as "techniques for assuring the ordering of human multiplicities."

Video in the 90's

By the beginning of the 90's, the state and the law appear to have pushed the several of the more illegal practices surrounding video, further from public view. The fear that every potential customer was also a potential company agent, on the look out for pirated video's meant that pirated copies were put on lower shelves, or a back room, and the copying process moved from shop to home. As Prabhu remarks "every guy could be an agent. Who knows even you could have been one.… the first time, one ordinary guy walks into your shop and asks 'how can you keep this movie?" So I asked him, "who are you?" He says that he's from the distributor and he owns that movie and I thought that these guys were playing the fool and I went and complained but looking at it really they were from distributors. Because the movie didn't do well in the theatres they wanted to extract money from me. they'd start off with about 50000 rupees… and later it goes down… we paid 5000 once, and the second time we paid 3000."

The end of video technology came first with the proliferation of cable networks, and the final blow was delivered by VCD's in the latter half of the decade. Prabhu states: "see this digital thing is popular. People working in offices they used to come and ask for CD's when they go for office, because they watch movies there also. It started with computers. They used to ask for movies to play on computers. So that's how it started. Then the players came out. There were guys who used to sell. Initially we got from this guy called Ganesh. He's a guy who I know for a very long time. So they started CD's and we used to get it from there. CD's mainly come from Malaysia. They come from Malaysia to India whether it's Hindi or it's English. Everything comes from there. So it's supplied all over the market. And it's interesting you know, because the same companies which had video cassettes are also now into VCD's." Hence, many of the networks and practices that emerged with video continue today with VCD's and DVD's; manufacturers of video cassettes, are nor makers of cd's, video libraries are now vcd libraries, 'piracy' is even more of a concern.

conclusion The era of video is hence characterised by emergent media networks and everyday practices, that remained on the cusp of order and disorder, legality and illegality. These networks and practices constantly disaggregated, and recycled the modernity that video was supposed to usher in. And while the actors in these networks did not have notions of being radicals or of being part of a larger pirate culture, through everyday practices, negotiation, and confrontation, they invariably provided stubborn resistance to the order that this new technology was thought to bring.