At a weekend retreat with officials of the union finance ministry, film actor Aamir Khan, now celebrating the resounding success of his latest ouvre, 3 Idiots, was asked to speak on the ‘soft power’ of Indian cinema going worldwide. One does not know why finance ministry officials were interested in the topic, unless they are presently pouring over files recommending some fiscal concession or incentive for Bollywood exports! Whatever the provocation for suggesting the topic, Mr Khan disappointed his hosts by confessing that he had never given the subject much thought while planning his films. Making an honest confession, he reportedly said that he, like most Indian film makers, makes his films for an ‘Indian’ audience, not a ‘global’ audience. Indeed, most of the so-called global market for Bollywood, which is now substantial and growing, is almost entirely comprised of people of Indian origin worldwide. That too mostly first or second generation emigrants, the ‘non-resident Indians’ (NRIs), not so much the third and earlier generation ‘people of Indian origin’ (PIOs). This is not to deny the existence and growth of a fairly important ‘non-Indian’ global audience. Indian films have been popular in many parts of Asia and Africa, and continue to be so. But very few Indian films have been made with that audience in mind. In other words, as Mr Khan reportedly said, few Bollywood film makers have made a film to cater to and win over a global audience, in the way in which Hollywood has done for years.
A large number of Hollywood’s ‘war movies’ of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s were made to impress successive generations of Europeans and Asians what good guys American soldiers were and how they sacrificed their lives to protect other peoples’ freedoms. Hollywood had a foreign policy, Bollywood doesn’t. Even Bollywood’s war movies have been made to impress a domestic Indian audience, not really to win over a wider south Asian or global audience. Perhaps a film can be made about the 1971 war, the rape and carnage in the erstwhile East Pakistan, the bravery of the people of Bangladesh and the valour of the Mukti Bahini and the Indian soldier. The creation of Bangladesh yields itself to a heroic epic that can attract a global audience, if it is made adhering to the highest professional values and not just as a propaganda film. India has other stories to tell the world. The heroism of its peace-keeping forces. The heroism of Biju Patnaik as a pilot flying Indonesia’s Sukarno home, across the Bay of Bengal to a new and free nation. Indeed, a film based on the stories of Amitav Ghosh would find a wider global audience than some of the purely diaspora-oriented films that have been made outside India. Bollywood’s global foray requires walking on two legs. On the one hand, increasing the export market for films that have been made for an essentially domestic audience, like Mr Khan’s 3 Idiots and, on the other hand, producing more films for an Indian as well as a global non-Indian audience. With corporate India entering the world of film making and distribution, and with many talented young Indian professionals getting into the cinema business and the acting profession, the film industry has entered a new and exciting phase.
