Inspector Fernandes of the Bombay Police Criminal Investigation Department would have been bemused by the unusual object appended to the letter addressed to him. It was a ticket from a coin-operated weighing machine, presumably from the iconic Regal Cinema in Colaba.
The bearer of the ticket would have had little use for the pithy advice that appeared below his weight of 11 stone, 12 lbs, recorded on August 30 – he clearly followed his own judgment. Despite this, and sadly for him, his fate was sealed over the three monsoon months of 1946.
Perhaps he went to the movies that day, to momentarily take his mind off what was imminent; what he had dodged and defied for years. His letter, dated August 31, opened with an apology for failing to report to the inspector as required. He had, it appeared, decided to end his life. He would go on a hunger strike unto death at St Peter’s Armenian Church where he was put up, protesting his forced repatriation by the government of India to Iran, the country of his nationality.
The repatriation was illegal, he claimed; it was against the principles of the United Nations Organisation and he was a “friendly allied subject”; he faced a threat to his life in Iran and he would be permanently separated from his daughter, who was at the time studying to be a teacher in Karachi.
Having lived in India for several years, he now begged for protection and citizenship. “True and loyal to the British Commonwealth”, he was now unfairly considered an enemy, he noted. Even Nazis were being released from internment camps.
The extreme step, he added, was due to the lack of alternatives to secure safety for him and his daughter. This decision had been telegraphed to the Viceroy, Vallabhbhai Patel, Morarji Desai and the Chief Secretary of the Government of Bombay. Further, he intended to proceed to St George Hospital once he was “in a very bad stage”.
The anguished writer of the letter was the 46-year-old Armenian, Ovanes Gregory Ohanian. Considered the father of Iranian cinema, he made the country’s first feature length fiction film Abi O Rabi in 1929-’30, which he is said to have written, acted in, directed and edited.
Some years later, he made Haji Aqa, Aktor-e Sinema (1933), described by the film scholar Hamid Naficy as “the earliest modernist fiction film”. It depicts the personal journey of the traditional and religious bearded Mr Haji, who overcomes his dislike for cinema only to embrace its modernising ethic. Ohanian also appears in the film as a clean-shaven, suit and tie clad proponent of western modernity, which, as Naficy points out, furthered the statist and elitist outlook as “the marker of the new man and the new nation”.
Ohanian also established Iran’s first film company Perse Film Studio, an acting school Parvareshgah-e Artisti-ye Sinema, and made newsreels for the establishment.
Though Ohanian was a pioneering figure of Iranian cinema, scholarly accounts offer varying information on his antecedents and activities. Indian intelligence documentation, however, reveals substantial details.
In his own account submitted to the Bombay CID, Ohanian says he left Iran secretly through “Mahamara Port” with his 11-year-old daughter and arrived in Karachi on June 18, 1936. He made his way to Bombay thereafter, in order “to produce a film in the Imperial Film Company” by appointment of the company’s representative in Iran, but “was disappointed on arrival.”
He then moved to Calcutta, where he started a cinema acting school. He was the “Principal and Instructor of the Institute of Motion Picture” in Dalhousie Square in partnership with the financier, Mr Hanna from October 1936 till March 1938. In mid-1938, he relocated to Bombay, taking up residence at Shirin Manzil, Walton Road, in Colaba, which also doubled up as his office.
Ohanian had styled himself as a Professor and Doctor of Cine-Science, alternatively using both honorifics. He claimed to be the Vice-President and Honorary Representative in India of the “Federation Internationale de Corps Savants de Recherches” and “Academy of Asia”, said to have been established in Tehran in 1925 by a Russian émigré named Paul V Scerebriakov-Elboursky.
The institute purportedly worked towards “the greater good of humanity” and encouraged “talent without distinction of caste and creed”. Ohanian described the Federation as “purely a Scientific Institution and founded on an absolute cosmopolitan spirit…” It was relocated to India in 1940 for a period of 15 years, as per his claims.
In addition, it bestowed diplomas or degrees on worthy experts. Indeed, as the Bombay Chronicle reported on August 13, 1939, the Federation announced that it would confer honours on prominent persons of the film industry, including DG Phalke, with “the highest degree of Doctorate Hon. Causa of Cine-Science”. Honorary memberships would be given to Rai Bahadur Chunilal, one of founders of Bombay Talkies; Miss Gohar, the actress, singer and founder of Ranjit Movietone; and the actress Miss Sulochana, aka Ruby Myers.
Ohanian was regarded with deep suspicion by the authorities. The Intelligence Bureau described him as “something of a mystery man and a possible rogue”. Back in October 1939, the Federation had given honorary doctorates to several individuals, including a solicitor of Bombay, Faredun K Dadachanji; Dr Chandra Shanker, the editor of the film magazine Dipali; the Nobel Laureate poet Rabindranath Tagore; and Benoy Kumar Sarkar, the prominent scholar of Calcutta who was known to be an admirer of militant fascism.
AA Keyvani, the Consul for Iran in Bombay, had previously met Ohanian at the consulate and warned him. When Keyvani later issued a statement on the Federation’s questionable credentials, Sarkar wrote to KA Fitter, of the Iran League, defending it and Ohanian. Keyvani, it appeared, had been instructed by his government to put a stop to “the mischievous activities of Ohanian”. To all authorities, there seemed no doubt that the charismatic professor was running a scam.
In July 1941, a few Indian newspapers carried articles about an event at the KR Cama Oriental Institute on the 21st of the month. As per the invitation, the Federation would present the well-known industrialist Sir Homi Mehta, with a “honorary Diploma of Patronship” and a gold medal. Several others were to receive honours as well.
The editor of the Times of India however, refused to publicise the event on receiving information from the Home Department about Ohanian’s dubious bona fides. Ohanian subsequently visited the Times’ offices to protest, following up with an officious letter listing the Federation’s supposed international affiliations and the fact that it was mentioned in the Indian Year Book and Who’s Who of 1941-’42.
He rejected as irresponsible and false the claims of the Consul of Iran in Bombay, who had already informed Indian officials that “no such institution existed in Iran”. The consul said that in 1934, an entity named “Academy of Asia”, which had been set up in Tehran “without the knowledge and consent of the Government”, was banned and wound up by the police.
Lengthy exchanges of claims and counterclaims ensued, but the existence and legitimacy of the two organisations remained disputed. Ohanian repeatedly claimed that he was being discredited on account of Keyvani’s personal enmity towards him.
To Indian officials however, Ohanian was an “undesirable alien”. A report by the Commissioner of Police, Bombay, in August 1940, revealed that he had been unemployed, lived off borrowings, and had been in debt since his arrival in Bombay in July 1938. He was “endeavouring to sell degrees” to various people in the city, without much success.
In addition, two complaints against Ohanian had been filed for criminal breach of trust and for peddling degrees of a “bogus university”. These complaints were linked to two highly dubious individuals. One was allegedly a portrait artist claiming Iranian nationality who had shared a flat with Ohanian for a while over 1939-’40. The authorities suspected this man to be a former OGPU (Russian secret service) agent. The other was a divorced woman of Czech nationality who was spying for the Italians in India.
Intelligence documents characterise all of them as “definitely a bad lot”, whose presence in India was undesirable. The three had had a falling out over money, resulting in bad blood. Ohanian would later claim that the two were Nazis and information provided by him led to their arrest. Secret communications reveal this to be false. Authorities felt Ohanian was trying to ingratiate himself and burnish his credentials, in the hope of opportunities.
Indeed, as documents reveal, Ohanian was “in dire financial straits”. He repeatedly put off payment for his extended stay at the Majestic Hotel, Bombay in mid 1941. He showed the manager letters of support and cheques from prominent individuals. The matter escalated when the hotel manager demanded the outstanding dues, which Ohanian could not pay. The matter was looked into by the CID. The authorities were sure by this time that Ohanian was an impostor engaged in “systematic deception”.
Petty disputes aside, there were more serious concerns regarding Ohanian. As the Central Intelligence Officer, Lahore, put it, Ohanian had many “Irons in the Fire”. He described himself as an Inventor, Author, Dramatist, Scientist and Film Director, with over 62 literary works and numerous innovations. In late 1940 he went to Punjab, where he gained the confidence of the princely ruler of Patiala, who was later alerted.
Travelling onwards to Delhi, he secured interviews with high officials at the Army HQ, hoping to peddle his inventions. Intriguingly, these included a “special additional apparatus to the Parachute”, light aeroplanes with speeds of over 500 miles per hour and a gigantic “Flying City”, a special fitting for firearms, and a camera apparatus that could simultaneously film from ten different angles.
Ohanian also claimed to have identified the weaknesses of the German Navy and a method to successfully attack them. While in Delhi, he gave a public speech on Soviet Russia and on numerous occasions, he was at pains to point out his anti-Nazi, anti-Bolshevik, and pro-British sentiments, including his support of British film production in India.
A confidential source told the agencies that the inventions were a ploy and that he was “anxious to collect information” on Indian defence strategies. Ohanian was now considered “an enemy agent” and a “suspicious character in regard to espionage”.
In February 1942, an order of expulsion under the Foreigners Act, 1940, was served on Ohanian, requiring him to remove himself from British India. He was at the time, living at 26, Chowringhee in Calcutta, running the “The International Medical Research Institute”, offering the “Fattida treatment” for various ailments.
Following his evasion, he was arrested and along with his teenage daughter, placed in the Internment Camp and Parole Centre at Satara, under the good-natured Commandant Fern. During his stay of four years there, Ohanian doggedly wrote to authorities, including the Iranians, of his wrongful detention and appealed for his release, to no avail. Finally, after numerous attempts to stall, Ohanian was forced to face his fate over the monsoon months of 1946.
In an affidavit titled “Loyalty and Activities of Dr OG Ohanian for the British Commonwealth”, he says he was born in Tehran to Armenian parents, and migrated to Russia where his father Gregory Oganoff ran cotton factories in Tejen, Turkmenistan. As a young man, he was a member of the Military Secret Service of the White Russian Movement in Orenburg, whose chief sent him on a mission to Tashkent in September 1918.
He was arrested there by the Bolsheviks, but managed to escape, despite having been sentenced to death. Thereafter, Ohanian says, he participated in the “Captain Osepoff Revolution in Tashkand”. He claimed also to have been the Iranian Vice Consul in Siberia in 1920.
With college studies in Tashkent, law studies from Ashkabad, further studies from the “High Oriental Institute” and the “High Cinema Institute” of Moscow, and having divorced his Armenian wife in 1923, Ohanian moved to Iran in June 1929 with his daughter, Zemmalia Ohanian. He also claimed to have been a professor at the Teheran Police School.
Who indeed was Ovanes Ohanian? Was he what he made himself out to be? A man of endless talents and extraordinary achievements? A victim of circumstances? A target of calumny, jealousy, prejudice, and the whimsical machinations of officialdom? Or was he a scoundrel, an imposter and a failed spy? This limited account is but a short summary of a greatly intriguing, murky tale at the intersection of cinema history, espionage history, wartime politics and diplomacy, colonial history and transnationalism.
Ohanian was forced on to the SS Barala, which sailed from Bombay on September 5, 1946, to the port of Khorramshahr, from whence he would travel overland to Tehran. The Indian authorities had finally gotten rid of him.
On September 3, Ohanian wrote to the CID, informing them of his weight, taken that day. It was 11 stone, 4 lbs. Ohanian had lost 8 lbs during the course of his futile protest to remain in India. Perhaps Inspector Fernandes smiled indulgently at the colourful candour of this symbolic final act.
Gautam Pemmaraju is a Mumbai-based writer and filmmaker with a special interest in Indian anti-colonial activists of the early 20th century.