Cultural citizenship in Indian popular cinema

[Part 3]

This phenomena led to the recognition of the importance of female agency as a vital aspect of cultural citizenship projected by films. What is interesting about the narrative and performative discourses contained in these films is the deep ambivalence. On the one hand the female victims emerge as triumphant protagonists, who take control of their lives dispelling the earlier image of women perpetuated in Indian films as being docile, traditional, home-bound, and cinematically as objects of male desire. On the other hand, the narrative and visual registers of these films conspire to reconstitute women as objects of sexual desire and male fetishism, even as they portray women taking control of their lives. It is interesting that sometimes when the rape scenes are shown on screen some in the audience clap and throw coins at the screen. This deep ideological ambivalence underlines the fact that there is no easy assimilation of these films into a clear feminist ethic.

In the 1990’s Indian commercial cinema took another turn in keeping with the increasing cultural globalisation and commoditization in society. It is somewhat perilous to talk of the evolution of a national cinema in terms of neatly demarcated decades, because they do not map neatly on to thematic and stylistic developments in films; overlaps are inevitable.

This is only convenient shorthand to delineate the various important historical moments associated with commercial cinema in India.

The 1990’s saw the intensification of the interplay between the global and the local in Indian cinema.

During the past two decades, as a consequence of the increasing exposure of Indian audiences to MTV disseminated through national and international channels, Indian film directors have found in it a rich resource for stylistic innovation. The pace of the films, the quick cutting, super impositions, newer forms of presenting dance sequences are a direct outcome of the influence of MTV. Mani Ratnam’s films or box office hits like Satya, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai bear ample testimony to this new trend.

Therefore, it is hardly surprising that contemporary filmmakers associated with Indian popular cinema should seek to establish novel links between technology and entertainment and to activate newer circuits of audience desire and pleasure. A study of new modalities of film production, distribution, and exhibition as well as spectatorship emphasises this aspect. Apart from the state run Doordarshan, satellite channels like Rupert Murdoch’s Star network, and Subash Chandra’a Zee television appear to have a profound influence on the sensibilities and preferences of Indian audiences18. These transnational influences serve to inflect styles, representational strategies, and regimes of signification and visual registers of Indian cinema. In a rapidly globalizing world characterised by the circulation and consumption of images this is hardly surprising.

When discussing this newest phase of Indian commercial cinema, we need to examine the role of disaporic audiences, which are becoming increasingly important and influential. Diasporic audiences have been there for Indian films from the 1950’ onwards ; but now they constitute a decisive force inflecting the narrative discourses, styles and techniques, as well as the construction of cultural citizenship through cinema as Vijay Mishra points out, the Indian diaspora is one of the most fast growing social collectivities in the world. It is estimated that about 11 million people belong to this category-Europe 1.5 million, Africa 2 million, Asia 2 million, Middle East 1.4 million, Caribbean 1 million, North America 2 million.

This constitutes a very substantial block of potential viewers for Indian popular cinema. We have seen how in the past few years the responses of diasporic audiences have shaped the thinking of filmmakers such as Yash Chopra. During the past decade, films like Hum Aap Ke Hain Kaun (Who Am I to You, 1994), Dilwale Dul Hania Le Jayenga (Lovers Win Brides 1995), Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (Some Times Things Do Happen, 1998) exerted a profound influence on the imagination of diasporic audiences while these audiences in turn by their strongly articulated responses had an impact on the filmmakers. Let us consider, Yash Chopra’s Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenga, which is a film about diasporic existence. Choudry Baldev Singh is a newsagent who lives in London while longing for his homeland in Punjab. It is his wish to go back to his cultural past by compelling his daughter to marry the son of an old friend. Prior to the trip to India, his daughter Simran undertakes a tour of Europe; there she chances to meet Raj and falls in love with him.

This has the effect of making her autocratic father to return immediately to Punjab with his family.

Meanwhile Raj arrives in Punjab and vows to save her from the enforced marriage. In order to attain his goal he makes his way to the household under false pretenses and makes the planned marriage unworkable.

In the end, Raj marries Simran. Yash Chopra has made this into a highly popular film with Shah Rukh Khan, who has come to emblematize in many ways the spirit of Bollywood, in the male lead. Films like these, cultural globalization, consumerism, romantic love combined to create a cultural subject who is dealing from such issues as the crisis of the nation state that characterize earlier films.

Recent trends

In the films made in the past decade, one observes a trend towards the revalorization of the Hindu past. Films such as Ram Lakhan (Ram and Lakshman, 1989) Kahalnayak (The Anti-Hero, 1993), Insaniyat (Humanity, 1994), 1942 A Love Story (1994) illustrate this trend. This is a result of recent trends of Indian politics as well as the encouragement of the diasporic audiences with their nostalgic desire for the homeland and idealized past.

Another important aspect of the corpus of films made after 1990 is the re-emergence of the family as a stabilizing institute. Hum Aap Ke Hain Kaun, which became one of the most popular films ever made in India reaffirms the value and significance of the family and arranged marriages. Romance, song and dance which were de -valorized in the films of the 1970s and 1980s in favour of the brutal depiction of social violence, once again resurface with a vengeance.

While marketing this film, as a family entertainment demonstrating family values, the text of the film cleverly incorporated religious associations linked to the Ramayana with great effect, thereby deepening the appeal to tradition. It cleared a religious space adjacent to the zone of love and romance.

Hum Aap Ke Hain Kaun deals with the institution of marriage. Rajesh and Puja are the nephew and daughter of two extremely wealthy families. The film deals largely with the festivities associated with the marriage of these two in the temple of Ram as well as, in the mansion of the two families. This film is a remake of a film made some twenty two years earlier- Nadiya Ke Paar (Beyond the River, 1982) by Rajshri. The original film was unsuccessful while the remake became a phenomenal success. One reason for the amazing popularity of this film is the way in which it creates the harmonious space of living for the spectator. It combines capitalist modernity with traditional virtues and viewing pleasure with spiritual uplift in an unobtrusive manner.

Bollywood

In our attempt to map the relationship between Indian popular cinema and the production of cultural citizenship, we need to examine the phenomenon of Bollywood that has begun to command worldwide attention in recent times. Bollywood is a neologism created by collapsing the words Hollywood and Bombay cinema. It refers mainly to the commercial cinema associated with Bombay. Many people seem to think, though not without justification, that Indian cinema and Bollywood are coterminous. Although there is much overlap, one can make an analytically useful distinction between the two. Analytically speaking, Bollywood is both less and more than Indian cinema.

It is less than Indian cinema, because, it is confined to Bombay commercial films, whereas Indian cinema which has evolved over a period of about one hundred years, consists of the art tradition as incarnated in the works of such directors as Satyajit Ray and Adoor Gopalakrishnan, the various regional cinemas like those in Bengal, Kerala and Assam as well as the other large traditions of popular cinema in Tamilnadu and Andhra Pradesh. Bollywood is larger than Indian cinema because it covers a much larger area of cinematic reach- distribution and consumption – promoted by VCR’s, DVD’s, web sites and satellite television.

To put it somewhat simplistically, Indian cinema is largely driven by internal imperatives while Bollywood draws its energy from external sources and resources. However, from the point of view of this essay, what is important to chart is the interconnection between Indian and Bollywood cinemas. There is no doubt that we are currently seeing the Bollywoodization of Indian cinema, and this has deep implications for our thematic, the production of cultural citizenship.

Popular cinema

There is no doubt that Bollywood films like Hum Aapke Hain Kaun? Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, Dil To Pagal Hai (1997), Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, Taal (1998) introduced a new structure of feeling into popular cinema in India. There are many constitutive elements and phenomena that go into the formation of this structure of feeling: light entertainment, song and dance, celebration of life, idea of self-contentment, young love, family values, a touch of exoticism, attractions of consumer society, glorification of the cultural past are prominent among them.

One perceives in these films an easy union among globalization, tradition and capitalist modernity. The newer image of the cultural citizen, that has been projected through these films underlines the interplay of the various elements and phenomena mentioned above. The emergence of Bollywood sheds light on a set of political issues that is vital to contemporary Indian life.

In the progress of Bollywood we see, in the words of Ashish Rajadhyaksha, ‘the Indian state itself negotiating a transition from an earlier era of decolonization and high nationalism into the newer times of globalization and finance capital. The BJP’s own investment into the concept of cultural nationalism – a rather freer form of civilizational belonging explicitly delinked from the political rights of citizenship, indeed delinked from the State itself, replaced by the rampant proliferation of phrases like ‘phir bhi hai hindustani; (After all the heart is Indian) and ‘yeh mera India (I love my India) – has clearly taken the lead in resuscitating the concept of nation from the very real threats that the State faces as an institution of legitimation…’ .

When examining the importance of Bollywood as a significant cultural phenomenon, we need to take into consideration the role of the Non Resident Indians (NRIs). The economic liberalization that took place in many parts of the world resulted in citizens living abroad deciding to invest in their original countries; this is clearly evident with the NRIs who have been conferred special privileges so as to attract their investments.

This is accompanied by another trend, namely, the desire of diasporic Indians to carve out a Hindu identity for themselves in alien lands resulting in the active support of right-wing movements in India and the quest for a glorified past. Their interest in Bollywood manifests the power of both of these trends.

Globalisation

The changes that have taken place during the past two decades such as globalization, transnationalization of economies, movements of people, ideas, images, capital across borders, the phenomenal spread of mass communication have resulted in the formation of a new kind of imagination. Bollywood and its reception both locally and internationally bear testimony to this fact. Commentators such as Arjun Appadurai have remarked that the transformation of everyday subjectivities through mass media and mass entertainment and the concomitant emergence if a new kind of imagination is a vital cultural fact that distinguishes the modern era.

The world on the move influences even small geographical and cultural spaces, and in many ways Indian cinema represents and inflects these small worlds of dispacement. Clearly, Bollywood is the predominant force shaping the contours cultural citizenship produced by Indian popular cinema at the present moment.

This does not, of course, mean that there aren’t other types of films being made that have a popular appeal. The work of Mani Rathnam is a case in point. Mani Rathnam is a Tamil filmmaker who has garnered national celebrity status. His began his career by making a Kannada and Malayalam film;it was his fourth film, Nayakan (Hero) that won for him national acclaim.

Since then, he went on to make films like Roja and Bombay that generated great national and international interest in his work. Mani Rathnam is a filmmaker who draws on several sources; Hollywood, Indian cinema both artistic and commercial, Bollywood.

He combines action, melodrama, technology and technique, slickness in an interesting way showing his indebtedness to Bollywood. At the same time, unlike the generality of Bollywood filmmakers, he deals with politically charged contemporary contentious issues such as relations between Hindus and Muslims and territorial integrity of India, while seeking to buttress the idea of the nation-state in the way that film directors of the 1950s did. However, his efforts betray a majoritarian and elitist bias.

All these diverse aspects make his films both similar and different to other Bollywood films. Therefore, in examining the developments of the 1990s and the early years of the present century, and the ways in which they construct the notion of cultural citizenship, we need to recognize the complex topography of the field that we are dealing with.