Cinema, Politics and the People

The year 2017 ends with a thumping start to movie “Tiger Zinda Hai” which is expected to smash many Bollywood records, a common trend for Salman Khan's films. On the other hand BJP finished this year by winning Gujrat elections for the sixth time in a row thanks to charisma of our PM Mr. Narendra Modi.

When we look at Indian Cinema ,it is largest Film industry in the world both in terms of number of tickets sold as well as number of movies produced. But what raise eyebrows over the quality of Indian Cinema, that despite of having so many films to boast of, Oscar prizes have eluded Bollywood for long. There is no denying that quality of Indian Cinema is inferior to that of Hollywood. Many accuses Indian cinema of being stereo type and producing vulgar comedies and love stories with almost no logics and creativity. After all, Movies are not only a way of entertainment rather they are also instrumental in shaping the minds of younger ones. I can still recall people going gaga over Salman Khan hair style in “Tere-Naam”, and college students driving bikes with new found skills after “Dhoom”, and the change of perception towards sports after “ChakDe! India”. So movie-makers can’t get away from their responsibility of creating a meaning-full cinema.

Talking of Indian politics which boast of being epicenter of Indian Democracy is often accused of being corrupt, non-performing and wicked. Increasing population, illiteracy, Crime rates, inflation etc are some of the key indicators of Indian politics, where the basic agendas food, cloth and shelter are successfully replaced by caste, religion and region. and I must say every party is good in these gimmicks. So, these politicians and their evil tactics is what stopping India from becoming a developed country. right?

If you will see closely Both, Cinema & politics run on the same framework i.e. exploit the feeling of peoples, they serve whatever pleases public for instances, there was a dozen of movies produced after the Kargil war in 1999 as the people were emotionally attached with the army. Similarly every party loves to talk about “Ram Mandir” issue as most of us are either emotionally attached or interested in it more than issues such as growing population and increasing poverty. Actually these people are not that vicious as much we accused them of, they are just delivering what we are ordering, If Box-office collections of Judwaa-2 is far more than of Newton, they don't have an option but to drift towards the former one. Similarly when people with criminal records wins it certainly discourages the people and political parties with cleaner image to contest the next election with changed value system.

Issue is We, the people of India show dual nature, we prefer voting to person of our caste creed and religion or the one who promises us the freebies and watches movies that shows either the nudity or their favorite stars with action scenes defying gravity, on the other hand we criticize these people after the elections of non performing and the movies of not being at par with the Hollywood.

We need to understand, We are the one that creates the monster within the society, We are the ones who loves to watch movies on basis of the songs and the stars rather than the script. We don’t evaluate our politicians and our film stars instead we start worshipping them and that’s the point where we go wrong, the very reason nepotism is prominent in Indian Politics and the Indian Cinema where Kapoors and Gandhi have rules since their beginning.

We need to understand our powers, and we also need to control ourselves in expressing our opinion. If any movie or a party is threat to any culture or community it will not be able to survive for long if the people of this country use their rights with unbiased minds. Sooner or later they schema of luring people will fail and they will be thrown out of the system. Sincerely hope that soon we will see that era and we will be able to see movies like “Bridge of spies” will not only be made in India, but also released with no protest and bans and elections will be fought on genuine issues like poverty, unemployment and environment. 

Happy New Year!