Producing Bollywood: Inside the Contemporary Hindi Film Industry (13 page)

Chitra Subramaniam, who at the time
of
our meeting was an executive producer with Percept Picture Company—a production and distribution company created in 2002 by Percept Holdings, a media and communications conglomerate—explained the impact of industry status within the corporate world: “There was a certain amount of respectability. What does that mean? That means you can have different sources of financing, which therefore makes it respectable; that makes it something that corporates decided to get into it because—even if they wanted to get into entertainment—it was a field that nobody knew how it was run. You know it was a typical Mom and Pop shop kind of thing” (Subramaniam, interview, May 2006). “Respectability” has been a longstanding concern of Hindi filmmakers and in chapter three I discuss other avenues of achieving and displaying respectability on the part of the film industry. Subramaniam’s characterization of filmmaking as a “Mom and Pop shop” is a reference to the centrality of kinship networks within the Hindi film industry. She continued by pointing to why corporations are entering filmmaking, “Companies like ours are companies that have gotten in because they feel that this is a good business to get into. . . I think the corporates are here to stay. I think that a lot of companies will get into it: new sources of financing which are accountable; revenue streams are improving; distribution channels are improving; you know. . . all these things are coming in, so people are seeing it as a business opportunity of basically creating content and finding ways of revenue streams to get that content across” (Subramaniam, interview, May 2006). Longstanding industry members hail these developments as positive steps toward bringing greater discipline, efficiency, and financial transparency to filmmaking. “Corporatization” is the favorite term bandied about by Hindi filmmakers and the Indian press, which is used to describe the efforts of the Bombay film industry to become more organized. In chapter seven, I discuss the multivalent nature of the terms “corporate” and “
corporatization
,” and the way they articulate with the film industry’s own practices of creating distinction.

In addition to new modes of financing and producing films, the other concrete impact of industry status has been in the exhibition sector, most visibly manifest by the boom in multiplex construction. From the late 1990s, news of ventures and agreements to construct multiplex cinemas in India kept surfacing periodically in the media, since the exhibition sector was regarded as severely underdeveloped, with theaters in short supply for such a vast film-going public. India has one of the lowest ratios of screens to population in the world. Although the first multiplex theater in India opened in New Delhi in 1997, there were no others until after 2000, when the Central government’s granting of industry status to filmmaking, in 1998, was actually operationalized into more specific policy. In 2001, with the professed aim of promoting tourism, several state governments announced tax incentives, such as the complete or partial waiver of entertainment tax for a prescribed period, in order to spur new investments in the exhibition sector.
⁴⁰
The first four-screen multiplex in Bombay was inaugurated on October 25, 2001, taking advantage of new tax benefits granted under the state of Maharashtra’s newly formulated multiplex policy, which granted a complete exemption from entertainment tax for any theater with a minimum of four screens totaling at least 1,250 seats in its first three years of operation, and then a 75 percent exemption for the next two years (Shringar Red Herring Prospectus 2005).
⁴¹
The pace of multiplex construction in India has been quite rapid: from 80 multiplex screens in 2002 to about 900 screens by 2009 (Mukherjee 2009). Six national chains account for more than 80 percent of the
multiplex theaters
in India, representing a significant consolidation of the exhibition business, while the single-screen sector remains relatively fragmented in terms of ownership, operation, and branding.
⁴²

However, rather than increasing, the total number of screens in India appears to be declining, as it has been for a number of years.
⁴³
According to statistics compiled by the Government of India’s Ministry of Statistics, the number of permanent cinema halls in India decreased approximately 27 percent between 1999 and 2009, from 9,095 to 6,607.
⁴⁴
Of these, about 300 are multiplexes with a total of 900 screens, which leads to an estimated total of 7,207 screens for all of India in 2009—a 20 percent decrease in the number of screens from the previous decade. Therefore, the expansion of multiplexes thus far appears to not have actually increased the overall number of screens in India, despite the main argument advanced by members of the industry most involved with the development and expansion of multiplexes: that India is severely “under screened,”
hence their ventures are necessary to rectify that situation. The reason is that while multiplexes are mushrooming throughout the urban centers of India, the large
single-screen theaters
that have been the mainstay of the theatrical exhibition sector for cinema have been slowly closing down. Since the 1980s with the advent of video and the expansion of television, movie theaters have faced a variety of challenges due to high taxation, video piracy, competition from other modes of entertainment, and capricious audience behavior. As mentioned earlier, entertainment tax has been one of the most contentious issues between filmmakers— especially exhibitors who bear the brunt of the tax most directly—and the state at the regional level, resulting in periodic strikes on the part of theaters as a way of protesting heavy taxation. For example, in a span of less than one year, approximately one thousand single-screen theaters in Maharashtra went on strike three times—refusing to screen films from periods of a few days in May and October 2003, to three weeks from March to April 2004—to protest the state’s entertainment tax rates and multiplex incentives.
⁴⁵

Although exhibitors I met in 1996 discussed the difficulties facing the theatrical sector, they were generally optimistic about the future. By 2006, however, with the spread of multiplexes throughout Bombay, the owners and managers of single-screen theaters I met were much less optimistic about the future. Rajkumar Bajaj, who controlled some landmark single-screen theaters in downtown Bombay, and at one time was referred to as the “South Bombay King,” asserted, “multiplexes are definitely killing the single-screen cinemas.”
⁴⁶
He explained that most singlescreen theaters were going out of business, as they were unable to earn the revenues necessary to pay salaries or even electricity bills. Although one of Bajaj’s theaters, Eros Cinema, was still doing reasonably well, according to him, because of its location and well-maintained interior, his overall demeanor during our interview was one of resigned acceptance of the changes at hand, stating at one point, “It’s nobody’s fault; it’s only our bad luck.”

While Bajaj appeared resigned, Nester D’Souza—manager of the erstwhile Metro Cinema and former president of the Cinematograph Exhibitors Association of India (CEAI), which spearheaded the theater strikes in 2003 and 2004—offered a variety of social, economic, and political explanations for the troubles of single-screen cinemas. As we sat in his office, surrounded by the sights and sounds of construction—since the Metro was being converted to a multiplex in 2006—D’Souza castigated state
policy, specifically the tax holidays offered for multiplex construction.
⁴⁷
Arguing that it was not “fair to the mass of the people,” D’Souza objected to the standard reasons explaining the benefits offered for multiplexes. “Come on, what do you mean he [the multiplex operator] has put up a new project, therefore it [a tax holiday] has to be given? When I put up a new project, did you give me a tax benefit? So why are you differentiating with him?” D’Souza challenged the right or claim of multiplexes to any sort of government benefit, asserting, “From 1936, I [referring to Metro and not himself personally] have been paying the government, you [the multiplex operators] did nothing. His [the multiplex operator’s] argument is, ‘you recovered your investment.’ So I say, you too will recover your investment just like we did, even with 75 percent tax rates.” Regarding the oft-cited claim that multiplexes were equipped with far superior amenities and state-of-the-art sound and projection facilities, D’Souza asserted that his theater was not inferior: “Dolby, DTS? I have that; I have a bigger screen. What else does he have? Cleanliness; toilets? That we all have to have.” He posited that rather than a blanket policy that favored multiplexes over single-screen theaters, the state should establish a set of standards for service and quality as the basis for extending tax benefits, regardless of screen numbers. Thus, older single-screen theaters would also have an incentive to upgrade their facilities, and those whose facilities were on par with the multiplexes, like the Metro, would not be unduly disadvantaged.

D’Souza chafed at what he felt were the state’s unduly unequal policies favoring multiplexes over single-screens, “Today all the cinemas have died, and I am not saying it’s only because
of
multiplexes; but, you know, you have really created an uneven field. You are giving him tax breaks, but not giving me any tax breaks. You bend backwards or even change the rules for him. We are all supposed to close down at one o’clock [1:00 a.m.]. How come he can close down after? Now why am I, why was I not allowed to do that? Now that has nothing to do with the quality difference between a multiplex and a single-screen” (D’Souza, interview, May 2006). State policies favoring multiplexes, which cater to high-income individuals, over single-screen theaters, which draw viewers from a broad socioeconomic spectrum, are a powerful manifestation of what Leela Fernandes has described as the “politics of forgetting,” which is a “political discursive process” whereby an assertive
middle-class identity
works to displace the poor and working classes from public space and national political discourse (2004).

This chapter has detailed how—after years of disapproval, disdain, criticism, and neglect—the Indian state changed its attitudes and policies toward commercial filmmaking. From being regarded as a locus of “sinful technology” (Gandhi) in the 1920s, and a producer of “culturally vacuous films exclusively designed for making money through audience manipulation” in the 1980s (Working Group), filmmaking became a “serious business” that has to be “tuned to the demands of today’s competitive business economy” (FICCI 2003).
⁴⁸
The intersection of neoliberal economic rhetoric with the rise of cultural nationalist politics signified by the Hindu nationalist and pro-business Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) were important factors in the shifting attitudes toward filmmaking and the Hindi film industry. It was no accident that a BJP-led government granted industry status to filmmaking, since its support base is heavily drawn from the small business owner and entrepreneurial class who also comprise the vast distribution, exhibition, and finance apparatus for Hindi filmmaking. Additionally, as I will discuss in the next chapter, Hindi films from the mid-to late 1990s—emptied of all poverty and class conflict and populated with wealthy families, Hindu rituals, and elaborate weddings—presented a nostalgic vision of Indian culture and “family values” that frequently corresponded with, or did not pose a challenge to, the BJP’s own cultural rhetoric.

The granting of industry status fits in with the new economic imaginary (Wyatt 2005) articulated by the Indian state since the advent of neoliberal reforms. Satish Deshpande (1993, 2003) discusses how the Nehruvian era emphasized the centrality of production, symbolized by key heavy industries—steel, power, mining—as the path toward a modern and successful national economy, which served as a metonym for a modern and successful nation. He points out how Nehru, in his statements and policies, was consistently forging connections between production and patriotism. Deshpande argues that the contemporary Indian state’s economic imaginary, with its emphasis on consumption, represents a significant departure from the Nehruvian one; when production is valued, it is that which serves the needs of global markets rather than those of the nation (2003: 73).

These changing
regimes of value
within the economic imaginary— from production to consumption, from domestic needs to global markets— help to account for the altered status of filmmaking, from an extravagant expenditure of scarce capital and resources to an engine of
economic growth. Software is not the only commodity to displace steel in the national economic imaginary (Wyatt 2005); as apparent from Arun Jaitley’s statements, films also occupy an important position in that imaginary. Film exports—India has been exporting films since 1950s, and systematically since the 1970s—are now seen as a potential gold mine of foreign exchange earnings. Cinema’s significance in a neoliberal economic imaginary arises, however, from its ability to circulate in a variety of global markets, which becomes a cause for nationalist celebration. With cinema occupying an important position in the national economic imaginary, the circulation of Hindi films in places like the United States, United Kingdom, or Germany represents the success of the Indian nation on the global stage. That the Hindi film industry is the only other dominant globally circulating film industry, and that Hindi films are registering equal or higher box-office grosses than Hollywood films in advanced industrialized countries such as the United States, Japan, or Britain, are facts interpreted by the Indian state, press, and filmmakers through a matrix of national pride and distinction. The steady stream of European, Australian, Canadian, and American representatives of tourist boards and film councils to Bombay, meeting Hindi filmmakers and offering incentives to shoot in their countries—with the hopes of increasing tourism from India—demonstrates how filmmaking can operate as a medium for reversing the typical economic relationship of the First to the Third World, which had defined India’s status in the world system since Independence.

In an era dominated by neoliberal discourses of market forces and free trade and the dismantling of state supports and the public sector, the growth and survival of the Hindi film industry, despite official neglect, has been recast by the Indian state, corporate sector, and media as a symbol of native ingenuity and success.
⁴⁹
This resignification of the film industry is an important dimension in its gentrification, as it has accorded filmmaking a level of legitimacy and respectability that had not existed in earlier periods. The next two chapters examine how this resignification interacts with the film industry’s longstanding concern with cultural legitimacy and social respectability.