The Bollywood Epidemic

London, UK – The recent Indian International Film awards were held in Toronto , and was taken as proof that Indian cinema had gone global. But what is it exactly that is being celebrated? Bollywood is taken by many to be the standard reference point and unofficial cultural ambassador for India and its culture. However one look at just a specimen of these products would reveal a lot more than the pole dance style outfits favoured by the females of such films which is the problem. Modern Indian cinema, once laughed at for its over the top dialogue, three hours runtime and almost mechanical fight scenes with stunts so amazing that it would require a rewriting of the Newtonian laws of physics, has now become so near pornographic as to be off limits to family viewing. While nudity and even sex can be portrayed artistically and within context, one does not find this in Bollywood where glitz and glamour hide a hideous world that is faceless, mercenary, harsh and lacks any real personality.

Of course it was not always like this. Early Indian cinema was very much in tune with the cultural traditions of India . Even with the emergence of the “curry western” Indian cinema had its own distinctive style which won it adherents beyond India , in large parts of Africa . In the USSR and Eastern Europe while western films and even jeans were proscribed, it was Indian cinema which provided the few instances of colour and enjoyment among the bleak Stalinist housing projects, uninhibited industrial pollution and the boiled potatoes and rotting cabbage which was the nearest thing the deprived masses could hope for in terms of gourmet cuisine. But then India itself was under the iron grip of an elite that were hardly dissimilar to the communist dictatorships they so admired and tried to emulate.

Excessive state bureaucracy with its crushing of the entrepreneurial spirit by use of the License Raj were not conducive to those who thought independently and creatively. Cinema offered one of the few avenues for such people. But here again dynastic rule soon predominated and the corrosive effects of Indian politics made their oxidation powers felt. This really was no place for “free radicals”. The pioneering and ground breaking Indian cinema was found with directors such as Satyajit Rai, and even he was limited by his Marxist mindset which left his productions as cold as Romanians suffering yet another winter under Ceausescu and unemotional as one of his propaganda films about another fake bumper grain harvest. But in Bollywood the casting couch and being related to already established actors, powerful politicians and above all the nefarious criminal underworld decided who gained the lucrative roles.

For a state that did its best to emulate ancient Rome in keeping important sections of its subjects quiescent through use of caste quotas, subsidised food and housing, guaranteed jobs and the use of VIP treatment, this provided the bread while it was Bollywood which definitely became the circus. Mind numbing cellular vomit full of faceless acts in faceless story lines where emphasis on bleached ‘fair and lovely’ light skin and European style features used a racial profiling technique not dissimilar to Himmler’s SS or the domination of Brazil ’s entertainment industry by white people making any idea of that country being a racial democracy little more than an unhealthy joke. The parallels with fascism continue. As Bollywood actors and actresses strut around with the arrogance and smugness of a racial and ruling party elite demanding worship and obeisance from their Übermensch fans, anyone speaking or behaving beyond the unwritten mindless parameters soon finds themselves treated with the same brusque coldness that Jesse Owens experienced from Hitler at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin.

For forty years after independence India was a protected and captive market not just in terms of economics and iron rule by the state, but also in terms of many ideas. In academia Marxism continues to dominate by an unbending clique who like their holy men in North Korea ignore inconvenient facts such as the fall of the Berlin Wall and the demise of the USSR . Then suddenly India opened up. This once very traditional society is like so many others in a state of flux. Social boundaries and ties are sundered and renewed in as yet intangible forms.

This is a time of excitement and dynamism. But it is also a time of dangerous flux. Bollywood represents the ugly face of uninhibited consumer piracy. Used to having a captive market it now preys on the unsuspected brainwashed millions, secure in the knowledge that there is no competition in this shackled market. Western economies had time to incorporate checks and balances. The huge power of rail barons, steel magnates and captains of industry in America led to anti-trust legislation to help stimulate healthy competition. Unlike Europe where there has been more state support for welfare programmes and communities, brutal and unbridled American capitalism has been tempered with an environment which while not questioning the megarich, expects them in turn to give generously and be active philanthropists.

This is not the case with India . Bollywood represents the most hideous face of a hitherto unchallenged Kulturkampf where high wisdom is not found with people who think with their head or heart, so much as with their crotch. Time honoured and ancient traditions are torn up, mocked and cast aside in a disturbing display of narcissism which envelopes all before it. The family, the best weapon yet as a cohesive structure against the totalitarian state, is derided by a self-obsessed bohemianism with strange parallels to the avant-garde artistic and literary movements of Germany which dispensed with traditional morality and contributed intellectually to National Socialism. Ashamed of India’s own backdrop the Bollywood fuhrers prefer to film in the antiseptic environment of western countries thus creating products which bare as much similarity to India as the imaginary volkisch world conjured up in the operas of Richard Wagner had in relation to actual, rather than invented, ancient Germanic folklore. It was the music of Wagner which gave Hitler the cultural impetus to bring destruction to Germany and his native Austria . Yet he did this with a sense of “pride” in his country and people. This same sense of “pride” infests the commissars of Bollywood. Having no real sense of pride in their own culture and civilisation, at best they unwittingly help to destroy it with their links to terrorist-cum-mafia outlets operating from Pakistan and Dubai . As was seen with the terrorist attacks on Mumbai which specifically targeted Hindus, Jews and westerners the impact on Indian society can only be negative.

It would be tempting at this juncture to say that Hindus should turn back to traditional values. But turn back to what exactly? Is it right to fight one form of totalitarianism with another? Can narcissism be replaced by yet another narcissism? What is needed is in fact better access, funding and opportunity for entrepreneurial film makers and other artists to market their wares. If India is to become a more educated society in keeping with its image of a fast growing economy it would need an outlet for the aspirations of those wishing to create and those wishing to be entertained and enlightened. What it needs is a greater free market of ideas which would make it an incredible mix of different, even conflicting ideas. Just as it was in the past.

When we look at the ruins that were once the university of Nalanda or the breathtaking images in the cave paintings of Ajanta, we realise that the real India , vibrant and dynamic, is once again just waiting to be discovered and play its role in the modern world. It is a sad and poignant irony that while Bollywood tries to emulate the most trashiest aspects of the west, and in doing so actually makes what was already bad even worse, western films such as Matrix, Inception and Avatar imbibe the thousands years of tradition that has been Hindu culture, civilisation and above all spirituality. Such films leave their audiences enthralled with their deep meanings as much as their special effects, hi-tech production and pure entertainment value. Western film directors as much as other artists have taken the best from Hindu culture and added into an explosive mix which shows the relevance of the world’s oldest surviving civilisation to the motion picture industry. Yet any attempts to praise this would be castigated as religiously obscurantist and stuffy by the seemingly modern Bollywood crowd. But then how is a culture so shot through with narcissism and populism ever going to be able to reason sensibly? It isn’t, and that is why it should be left to the fate of so many anachronistic and destructive ideas which thankfully have been unable to adapt. It should be allowed to simply die out.


The Bollywood Epidemic