The glamorous, enchanting world of Bollywood holds innumerable anecdotes with multitudinous failures among the handful of notable successes, which too are marred by a dark past with scandals, suicides under the artificial façade of ‘blockbusters’.
The coruscating world of Bollywood is in fact, a major asset/product for India on a global scale and is a source of ‘national pride’; however, the reality is somewhat different and is essentially a fabricated masquerade to hide the country’s abysmal socio-economic conditions, worsening poverty, increasing political polarization, atrocities in Kashmir and religious intolerance with minorities in the crosshairs.
Bollywood’s glamorous illusion is aimed at portraying India’s desirable, acceptable image and strengthening its ‘acceptable’ reputation to the world; however, the reality is far from what it seems.
From Dilip Kumar to Amitabh Bachchan aka Big B and eventually the Khans, Bollywood utilized romance, action and everything in between in its attempt to portray India’s positive image.
Despite all this, Bollywood’s only ‘silver lining’ was its secular image. India’s cinema without a doubt held secular beliefs and principles. Directors such as V. Shantaram, Mehboob Khan Raj Kapoor, Bimal Roy, Guru Dutt were the flag-bearers of secularism in Bollywood. Bollywood sustained its secular image even during the rule of Indira Gandhi, however, her aggressive policies led to the establishment of the concept of ‘angry young man’ – which eventually resulted in the rise of nationalism during Lal Bahadur Shastri’s era.
Critics argue that Bollywood’s secular image was intentionally boosted during the 1970s as part of an elaborate plan aimed at ‘image building’ and to counter and hide the Hindu extremism prevailing in India; Bollywood achieved substantial success in fulfilling its objective of ‘preserving’ India’s artificial image by wrapping this harsh truth with the cover of fraternity and harmony so that its acceptable to the world.
Even before Narendra Modi rose to power, Bollywood used to churn out right-wing nationalistic movies. The influence of Hindu extremism on Bollywood witnessed a notable increase during Narasimha Rao’s tenure. Films produced by Subhash Ghai, Sooraj Barjatya and Mani Ratnam reflected a drastically changing India during the 1990s.
However, Modi’s advent to Delhi marked a new low for Bollywood. From Deepa Mehta’s parallel cinema to Karan Johar’s popular one, secular individuals dominated Bollywood; with commercial movies such as Bajrangi Bhaijaan and Veer-Zara being produced which although weren’t neutral/unbiased in any way or form, but at least portrayed Pakistan in a relatively positive or let’s say in a ‘non-negative’ way.
The ‘Butcher of Gujrat’ aka Narendra Modi’s succession to the throne resulted in unprecedented changes in Bollywood. The inclusion of Pakistani artists in Bollywood – which was intended at improving standards via exploiting Pakistan’s talent, also witnessed a significant blow.
Extinction of Bollywood’s secularism can briefly be categorized into five stages, of which several occurred simultaneously;
Advent Of ‘Intolerance’
Not much time has passed since Narendra Modi had taken oath as PM, that India witnessed a notable wave of Hindu nationalism. The nationalistic rhetoric significantly intensified before the release of the movie ‘Dilwale’, that Shah Rukh Khan’s take on ‘intolerance’ in India had an overwhelming adverse effect on the movie’s business which faced mass protests on its release; moreover ‘Anti-Khan’ wave further compounded the situation as large number of viewers boycotting the movie.
Aamir Khan – another Muslim Bollywood superstar, came in the crosshairs of Hindu nationalists due to his overt criticism of increasing religious intolerance in India. Aamir Khan’s statement regarding leaving India added fuel to the fire. Although his movie ‘Dangal’ managed to survive this Hindu nationalist wave, his next venture titled ‘Thugs of Hindostan’ faced the brunt of religious intolerance and failed to leave any substantial impact on the box office.
The Facade of Artistic Excellence/Standard
Bollywood echoes with the rhetoric of artistic excellence and how Indian cinema possesses pristine and quality content and blaming Khans’ consecutive failures on ‘sub-standard’ script. However, the truth is that a subtle but overwhelming opposition had gained a strong foothold against the Khans’, a situation which was further exacerbated by the rise of Hindu nationalism. Actors such as Akshay Kumar and Ajay Devgan, who were never even considered as notable ‘competitors’ and adversary for Khans, emerged as new superstars of Bollywood.
Film critics-cum- keyboard warriors active on social media platforms such as Twitter played a key role in the transformation of Bollywood and practically surrendered to Hindu nationalism; whereas the final nail in the coffin of Bollywood’s secularism came in the form of so-called analysts, of which some were ‘sponsored’ whereas some were simply propaganda victims.
A new phenomenon emerged with twitter ‘trends’ deciding a movie’s success or failure soon after its release as these Twitter trends practically controlled a movie’s business on the box office. Soon movies starring Akshay Kumar and Ajay Devgan were being termed as ‘blockbusters’ after generating INR 1 billion (100 crores).
Although Salman Khan portrayed himself as being close with PM Narendra Modi. Clips of Salman Khan and Indian premier ‘enjoying’ kite flying were widely circulated on Indian media; however, he too faced the adverse effects of Hindu nationalism in the form of consecutive failures at the box office. Currently, Bollywood’s Khans face dreadful circumstances with even the solo release of their movies.
‘Impuissant’ Production Houses
Production houses, firms who were once considered above socio-political dynamics have emerged as the second most ‘noteworthy casualty’ of Hindu nationalism in Bollywood.
Karan Johar’s star-studded ‘Ae Dil Hai Mushkil’ faced severe backlash from Hindu nationalists as it starred Fawad Khan – which was significantly reduced to a nominal cameo appearance’ in the final cut in order to ‘please’ right-wing nationalists. Furthermore, Karan Johar announced to refrain from casting Pakistani artists in his movies. Inclusion of Pakistani artists will be subjected to the Indian government’s approval, declared Mr Johar.
Meanwhile Shah Rukh Khan’s ‘Raees’ starring Mahira Khan also faced the brunt of Hindu nationalist upon its release; which was only made possible after Shah Rukh Khan along with the film’s producer had to ‘pay their respects’ in their meeting with right-wing Hindu nationalist party Shiv Sena. However, contrastingly the inclusion of Rahat Fateh Ali Khan’s qawwali in one of Ajay Devgan’s films faced no backlash whatsoever.
From Bollywood To ‘Hindustani’ Cinema
The emergence of ‘Hindustani cinema’ marked the third stage of the demise of secularism in Bollywood. The reality is that South Indian cinema whether it be Tamil or Telugu, had always enjoyed a substantial foothold and churned out remakes of Bollywood productions for a considerable time period. However, S. S. Rajamouli’s ‘Baahubali’ registered massive success and effectively nullified Bollywood’s hegemony as Indian cinema’s sole representative on the global scale.
Baahubaali’s massive success led to Rajamouli and Prabhas emerged as India’s first pan-India director and actor respectively. In addition to it, the success of Rajinikanth’s ‘2.0’ (Robot 2.0) and Yash’s ‘K.G.F’ further contributed to the nullification of Bollywood’s monopoly over Indian cinema. (Baahubali’s business on box office surpassed that of Dangal’s by more than INR 150 crores).
The ‘New Heroes’
The fourth stage in the transformation of Bollywood comprises of the evolution of ‘protagonist’ in Indian movies; with script revolving around ‘nationalist’ roles and characters – an exact opposite to industry’s previous heroes (Khans). This change resulted in an overt portrayal of political, ideological affiliation and tendencies in contrast to the suppression of political and ideological identity which existed in the past.
PK’s secular narrative was effectively countered and neutralized by that of Baahubali’s religious one.
Selfies of artists who were ‘blessed’ with Narendra Modi’s ‘good graces’ went viral as Khans’ movies failed to make any mark on the box office. Patriotism and nationalism were now the new benchmarks, parameters essential for a movie’s success; and so Bollywood’s secularism was effectively buried by this new wave of Hindu nationalism with left-wing filmmakers were limited to OTT. As the situation further worsened, artists faced unannounced censorship and were barred from expressing their views on controversial issues.
Inside Pic! Bollywood stars click a selfie with PM Modi as they meet him to discuss nation building and the future of cinema.#PMModi #Bollywood pic.twitter.com/xjpK8PYoKN
— FilmiBeat (@filmibeat) January 10, 2019
Principles of Impartiality and neutrality have been effectively replaced by the trend of propagating, supporting Modi’s narrative. Akshay Kumar’s initiative to collect donations for the construction of the infamous Ram Mandir is a testament to Bollywood’s transformation from secular to right-wing Hindutva nationalist oriented industry.
By the year 2019 Bollywood had drastically transformed. The narrative to term ‘Mughals’ as foreign invaders had substantially strengthened as Prithviraj Chauhan replaced Akbar on the television screen, meanwhile historical figures such as Alauddin Khalji and Ahmad Khān Abdālī were subjected to critical character assassination due to their religion. Furthermore, attempts were made to ‘alter’ the sub-continent’s history by producing blockbuster movies on Hindu rulers, hiding their losses and portraying them as flamboyant victors with heroic characteristics.
The announcement of the release of ‘Adipurush’ in August 2022 was widely praised and celebrated by Hindu nationalist as the movie is based on the Hindu epic ‘Ramayana’. The movie stars Prabhas as Lord Rama and Saif Ali Khan as demon Ravana with Om Raut as its director.
For now, it remains unclear whether Bollywood will be able to survive this right-wing Hindu nationalist wave or Shah Rukh, Aamir and Salman’s selfies with Narendra Modi will prove to be the final nail in the coffin.
Translated by: Saad Bin Aziz Ahmed