interview
Did Bollywood Liberalise India or Did India Liberalise Bollywood?
2020
Summary
In this monologue, Nimish Adhia reflects on the reciprocal relationship between Bollywood cinema and India's economic liberalisation. He argues it is a chicken-and-egg dynamic: liberal ideas in films reflected shifts already occurring in Indian society, while films in turn reinforced and propagated those ideas in a self-feeding loop. Filmmakers were not consciously driving ideology; they were chasing audience tastes that had moved away from themes of self-sacrifice toward new sensibilities.
To illustrate the shift, Adhia contrasts the moral portrayal of businessmen across decades. He cites a Zanjeer-era Amitabh Bachchan line — 'all businesses are shady' — as emblematic of 1970s suspicion of commerce, and contrasts it with the 1990s Yash Chopra–Karan Johar films where wealthy heroes run businesses yet are virtuous, kind to employees and family. The disappearance of the 1950s trope of businessmen 'beating widows and children to extract a few pennies' signals a 360-degree turn in cultural mindset.
Adhia ties this cultural shift to economic policy: a society that sees businessmen as inherently evil will not embrace liberal economic policies, whereas one that sees them as ordinary people — capable of morality like anyone else — is far more receptive to economic liberalisation.
Key points
- Bollywood and Indian society liberalised in a mutually reinforcing loop rather than one causing the other
- Filmmakers responded to audience sensibilities rather than consciously promoting liberal ideology
- Films about self-sacrifice lost commercial appeal, pushing experimentation with new themes
- 1970s cinema (e.g., Zanjeer) reflected the view that 'all businesses are shady'
- 1990s Yash Chopra and Karan Johar films depict wealthy businessmen as virtuous, moral, and kind
- The 1950s trope of businessmen brutalising widows and children for pennies has disappeared from cinema
- Cultural mindset about businessmen shapes a country's openness to liberal economic policies
Transcript
Did Bollywood Liberalise India or Did India Liberalise Bollywood?
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqoEQS_LJPI Duration: 231.6s
Speaker (00:05): Yeah. It’s like the chicken and egg question. Right? Which one came first? And it’s hard to tell, but I suspect it’s both. Right? I think, the liberal ideas being reflected in Indian films, were a reflection of what was going on in the society, but also in turn, it spurred further, liberal ideas. So I think we were in kind of a self reinforcing loop over there. What came first? I don’t know. But once it started, they kept on feeding each other. I don’t think anyone was consciously doing it. I think people were simply making movies that they thought appealed to the audience that they they had. And I guess films about self sacrifice were no longer selling the way they were before, and therefore they decided to experiment with different themes which were much more successful and more in tune with, the sensibilities of the people of the time. There was this movies, I think it was Zanjeer of Amitabh Bachchan. I forget the name. I’ll have to quickly look up the name. But in that film, like Amitabh Bachchan is a young man and he’s looking for a job and you know, he’s working for this like this shady underworld don. And his father advises him. He says, you know, don’t don’t work for this guy. He seems shady. And Amitabh Bachchan just says, well, all businesses are shady, you know. And I thought that that line kind of reflected a very common sentiment of the earlier era, of the seventies particularly, that all businesses are shady. Okay? And if you look at the films in the nineteen nineties, you know, the Yash Chopra-Karan Johar films. Right? The heroes are fabulously wealthy. They run business, but they are also very virtuous and moral. They take such good care of their employees. You know, they’re kind to their servants. They are very solicitous of the women and their family. You know, so there is like a 360 degree turn in how business people are morally portrayed or how their morality is being portrayed. That is really, really stunning. We don’t have films anymore where they show businessmen like beating widows and children to extract a few pennies that, you know, though in nineteen fifties, we did have such films. Okay. So some of these changes are so striking. Okay? And you have to you have to have to admit that, you know, it reflects a very different mindset that has, bearing on what kind of economic policies the country as a whole is likely to pursue in these two different times. If you believe that, you know, businessmen are basically evil and, you know, they would, they would beat widows and children to pinch pennies out of them, then you’re not gonna have very liberal economic policies. Okay? But if you make allowance for the fact that business people are just like other people, they may or may not be moral, then you are much more open to to liberal economic policies.
Notable passages
"I think, the liberal ideas being reflected in Indian films, were a reflection of what was going on in the society, but also in turn, it spurred further, liberal ideas. So I think we were in kind of a self reinforcing loop over there."
"there is like a 360 degree turn in how business people are morally portrayed or how their morality is being portrayed. That is really, really stunning."
"If you believe that, you know, businessmen are basically evil and, you know, they would, they would beat widows and children to pinch pennies out of them, then you're not gonna have very liberal economic policies."
"And I thought that that line kind of reflected a very common sentiment of the earlier era, of the seventies particularly, that all businesses are shady."
"They take such good care of their employees. You know, they're kind to their servants. They are very solicitous of the women and their family."
"there is like a 360 degree turn in how business people are morally portrayed or how their morality is being portrayed."
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