When Modi Called. Bollywood Showed Up
India's election confirms the country's movie stars as the BJP's best propagandists.
When one thinks of Bollywood, plenty springs to mind: hours of colorful drama, a propensity for musical numbers in the rain, and heroines twirling in the tightest clothing possible. You watch a Bollywood film for its exuberance and whimsy, not for its narrative clarity. Though there might have been a time, most notably in the 1970s, when the films captured the struggles of poor, working-class, and rural Indians those times are long gone. There are no moral lessons to be learned from Bollywood blockbusters today, no protagonists fighting the good fight against hierarchy or injustice. Contemporary heroes are the servants of unbridled capitalism, rich yuppies, or else the foot soldiers of a Hindu supremacist ideology, Hindutva, doing battle against Muslims.
It’s not that every director in Bollywood has mysteriously vanished only to be replaced with right-wing filmmakers; it’s that Bollywood has always reflected the mood of India, and the mood of India over the past decade has been dark. No one expects courage or defiance from Bollywood, on or off screen because, as a fraternity, India’s film industry has long been famous for its spinelessness.
Under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s long reign, the majority of Bollywood and its actors have served as unofficial cheerleaders for the state, its increasingly incoherent economic policies, and right-wing politics. One star, actress Kangana Ranaut, who has long supported Modi, was even elected to Parliament this week.
But that win came against the backdrop of a surprise result. While Modi will stay in power for a third term, he has lost his majority and faces the uneasy prospect of heading a coalition government.
As Tuesday’s election returns rolled in, Indian journalist and author Rana Ayyub tweeted, “Will Bollywood now stop churning those mediocre, Islamophobic films?” It is a question many were wondering about. Hopefully, Modi’s diminished win and a surge of votes for the opposition will translate to a lifting of Bollywood’s cultural shift towards the right, but until it does, it’s important to look at just how complicit India’s film fraternity was in Modi’s political project.
The Three Khans
When India was rocked by Modi’s snap decision in 2016 to demonetize, a decision that withdrew 86% of India’s currency from the market overnight, Aamir Khan – one of the three Khans, the largest Muslim stars of Bollywood – was on hand to buff the government’s unfathomable move. It was required for the nation’s growth, Khan – who, as far as anyone can tell, doesn’t have a degree in economics – pontificated. “I know common people are facing problems and I feel sad about it. Our prime minister has taken a good initiative and we must support him,” he continued. During his 2019 re-election campaign, Modi tweeted at Indian public figures and Bollywood stars every two minutes for an hour, urging them to use their influence to call voters to the polls. It was an unusual ask from a sitting head of state that no one dared leave unanswered. Many of the stars who received the ominous public request responded enthusiastically and quickly.
One star, however, took his time. Shah Rukh Khan, long considered Bollywood’s, if not India’s, most famous star, had a good excuse for his delay in responding. “The PM asked for creativity, I’m a bit late because I was making a video,” he tweeted in Hindi. Shah Rukh had gone the extra mile for Modi, instead of just throwing together 120 character tweet, he made and starred in a minute-long flashy video, in which he rapped and bopped with a wind blower wafting through his thick hair, urging Indians to vote.
The third Khan, Salman, whose film reputation was crafted over decades to present him as the toughie of the three and who remains a hard-bodied, macho, action star in