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
his fifties, spent the early years of Modi’s rule supporting the prime minister's various initiatives, including a getting fit campaign, and was on hand for selfies whenever requested.
But that was Modi’s first term. His second term saw the tide turn bleaker and more sinister as the government moved to disenfranchise Muslims with the Citizen’s Amendment Act and the proposed National Register of Citizens. As Modi’s power entrenched itself and its grip on the film industry tightened, Bollywood produced a barrage of films that looked as though the BJP had written them themselves.
There was ‘Uri,’ about a dashing “surgical strike” on Pakistan that, in reality, saw India engage in little more than standard cross-border firing and lose a pilot in enemy territory when his plane was shot down by the Pakistani air force during a dogfight. ‘Kesari’ (or saffron, the color of the Hindu Right) told the story of a Sikh regiment in the British colonial army that fought Pashtun warriors battling for independence. In the film’s telling, it is the Pashtun anti-colonialists who are “invaders,” not the British empire. Considering that Modi himself has referred to Muslims as “those with more children” in his speeches – “infiltrators” is another favorite – it is not difficult to guess who this line of thought is designed to please. Add to this, a roster of anti-Muslim tawdry titles such as ‘The Kashmir Files,’ ‘The Kerala Story,’ and ‘Razakar’ among many others.
As Modi heads into a third term, Bollywood stars don’t seem simply compliant but rather sycophantic and zealous proponents of Modi’s politics.
This year, the BJP inaugurated the Ram Temple in Ayodha, a right-wing prize accomplishment decades in the making, marking the culmination of a hate-filled campaign that saw ordinary Indians tear down a 16th-century mosque, the Babri Masjid, after the party claimed it had been built by the Mughals over the birthplace of the Hindu god Ram. The opening ceremony of the new temple saw the rare mingling of both film industry A-listers and D-graders as they flocked to be photographed, with many wearing saffron sashes over their designer outfits.
Silence on Gaza
There’s no debate over the fact that many Hollywood stars have been gutless cowards when it comes to protesting Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza, choosing instead to expend their efforts on writing open thank-you letters to President Biden for his leadership and organizing glitzy fundraisers for a president with a 39% approval rating. Bollywood has been nearly as pathetic as evincing even a modicum of compassion for the besieged and starved population of Gaza. Minus actors like Sonam Kapoor and Swara Bhaskar who have been very vocal, young actresses like Kani Kusruti who wore a watermelon handbag on the Cannes red carpet, and a handful of others who shared the AI image of All Eyes of Rafah and posted news stories on their social media, Bollywood’s elite has been studiously silent.
Shah Rukh Khan, beloved by Muslims all over the world, has posted nothing about Gaza. His X account is devoted totally to himself: an assault of film promo tweets, selfies with celebrities like David Beckham, and faux genuine replies to fans (“I love you too” and so on).
Salman Khan fares no better, tweeting goo like “It is so cool to see our Hon PM Narendrabhai Modi at the beautiful, clear n stunning beaches of Lashshwadeep, and the best part is yeh hamara India mein hai” (and the best part is this is in our India). Aamir Khan, the intellectual, doesn’t sully himself with social media in general. Of course, one is free to post and tweet about whatever one likes, but it is telling that India’s three largest Muslim stars are either unconcerned by the horrors of Gaza or too afraid to say anything that goes against the Indian government’s pro-Israeli stand.
While Modi’s government has paid lip service here and there to the relentless slaughter of Gaza, their position has been pretty clear. Not long after the start of the war on Gaza, India abstained from a UN General Assembly resolution calling for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza. They later voted in favor of a resolution calling for the unconditional release of all hostages and abstained from voting for an Israeli arms embargo. It is a drastic fall for a country once considered a loyal ally of the Palestinian cause. M.K Gandhi, in his time, believed that “Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French,” but he is no longer the spiritual father to those who lead the nation. Today, Gandhi has been replaced with V.D Savarkar, the ideological father of Hindutva who was an ardent admirer of both the Nazis and early Zionists. Savarkar simultaneously believed that “Nazism is undeniably the savior of Germany” and also proclaimed that “if the Zionists’ dreams are ever realized, if Palestine becomes a Jewish State, it will gladden us almost as much as our Jewish friends.”
Under Modi’s stewardship, India has become the world’s largest buyer of Israeli weapons, importing $2.9 billion in military equipment in the last decade. At least 37% of all Israeli military exports go to India. Modi was also an avid buyer of Israeli spy surveillance which he reportedly used to spy on his opponents, journalists, and human rights activists. He was the first Indian prime minister to visit Israel in 2017 and oversaw deals such as the one between one of Israel’s largest weapons manufacturers, Elbit Systems, and the Adani Group to make Hermes 900 drones in India which would then be shipped back to Israel for home use. The Hyderabad-based joint venture, Adani Elbit, sent 20 of the first India-made Hermes drones to Israel in February to bolster the military’s operations. Recently, India was caught red-handed when Spain stopped a ship carrying 27 tonnes of explosive material from calling at its port as it made its way from Chennai to Haifa. Sending 27 tonnes of explosives to Israel in the middle of its genocide is more than just a friendly gesture, though Modi’s India has made plenty of those too.
Though Pakistan, my country, is in no great shape itself – facing an economic breakdown, a dirty political crisis that has jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan, and a crackdown on information that has resulted in a Twitter ban across the country – India has widely been given the inglorious honor of being named the global capital of disinformation and misinformation. According to the World Economic Forum's 2024 Global Risk Report, India is at the highest risk globally for misinformation and disinformation. Pakistan ranks in the top 10.
Many tweeting or posting about Gaza these past eight months will have noticed the volume of Indian trolls in the responses – but the truth is more disturbing than just troll farms lending an ally a hand. The false rumor about the 40 beheaded babies was widely disseminated by Indian news media including NDTV, Republic TV, and The Times of India. I googled “NDTV” and the debunked “40 beheaded babies” story and, counting its YouTube, found four hits all with lurid headlines promoting the fake news story. I couldn’t find anything on NDTV about the real story of the Palestinian baby beheaded by Israel’s tent massacre in Rafah. One story was constructed out of Israeli talking points about the bloody attack with zero mention of Ahmed Al Najjar, the baby whose mutilated body was held before the cameras by its father.
After Election, Will Bollywood See a Shift?
As 600 million Indian voters headed to the polls, a series of deepfake videos went viral. The AI-generated videos were of Aamir Khan and another star, Ranveer Singh, criticizing Modi and urging voters to cast their support for the opposition. In his video, referring to unemployment and inflation, Singh bemoans “our India heading towards a time of injustice at such a pace.” Ironically, Singh’s doctored lines came from a real video of him gushing about Modi. Visiting the Kashi Vishwanath Shiva temple in Uttar Pradesh, Singh praised Modi’s “vision” of celebrating Indian culture, going on to say “India is progressing towards modernity at a remarkable pace.” Though the videos got some million views, audiences should have known immediately that they were fake – no Bollywood star would dare criticize the sitting prime minister and no big shot would have the temerity to voice a public opinion about injustice.
One dreads to think what kind of unwatchable films Bollywood will churn out with five more years of Modi. Hopefully, India’s turn away from a full Modi majority will mean a similar shift in Bollywood but one thing is for sure: having a spine in Bollywood is a major obstacle to stardom.
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How disappointing that it’s the Muslim actors who treat him with deference.
Thanks for shining a light on the degree of nepotism within Bollywood. Hoping that the result of the latest election doesn't push Modi & BJP further right. Another democracy reset in the cards...?