Boycotts have been the flavor of the month lately. Especially when it comes to the Hindi film industry. Even British colonists did not have to bear the wrath of boycotts as Bollywood is currently facing. But let's not get carried away here. Boycotts' impact will be limited in terms of revenues and will have an expiry date. The reality is that Indian moviegoers care only so much about boycotts beyond a certain point. The moviegoer will not be missing out on a good movie because of #trends on Twitter. Case in point - the movie Dangal. It is the same Aamir Khan of Lal Singh Chaddha and he had already made a lot of controversial statements, yet the movie was a blockbuster. It made hundreds of crores in India and then crossed the border into China to make a few hundred crores again!
But these boycotts are necessary and were long coming. Good to see the arrogant Bollywood facing the consequences of their actions. It's already unfortunate that Hindi movies, for most purposes, debase the art of storytelling and narration. On top of that, these entitled brats venture into social and political issues with incredible tone deafness and ride the horses of stupidity sermonising 'India' on what's what. I am all for actively participating in social and political issues but instead of leveraging their status in society to enrich the debate, they purposefully stroke the controversy.
Let's go into a bit of detail here. Bollywood has increasingly been funded by unknown sources. At least since the late 90s. Many believe that the Mumbai underworld funds the movies as a way to profiteer but also to launder money. And since money is flowing from anti-national sources, it is obvious that the agenda will also be set by them. Though they are not brazen enough to paint India as a villain, they try. As part of the soft agenda, Pakistan is increasingly shown in a positive light, and Pakistanis are painted as good people. (Latest, Lal Singh Chaddha) Indian army is shown as either neutral or from the perspective of Pakistanis. (Main Hoon Na, Haider) Politicians are painted badly but then only Indian politicians are painted yellow. (Kashmir File) Similarly, only Hindu fanaticism finds prominent mention while Islami jihad and terror are expertly shown as victimhood. (PK?). The list of agenda-driven, narrative-setting, and biased movies is long. Shahrukh Khan pontificates in Main Hoon Na about Humanity and war crimes where an ex-Indian army man is shown as a war criminal while in reality, it is the Pakistan army that has repeatedly resorted to war crimes against the Indian army. The movie was superhit though. Why? The subtlety was not lost on the Indian audience but till the very recent past, they simply did not care enough. The aforementioned movie had great songs, good comedy, a decent plot and of course, movie had a superstar as a lead!
However, the situation started changing with the advent of social media and with the rise of the Modi-led BJP. The dissenting voices against such Hindi movies grew bold since they knew they won't be ignored and they won't be 'taken out by either the Underworld or by the state machinery ruled by non-BJP governments. They found an audience who were either clueless about the subtle narration or just needed someone to lead them. The dissent was earlier ignored, then ridiculed and when the impact was hard to miss, it was branded as fascist. The reality is that Bollywood is no longer immune to a backlash. It is no longer a one-way street of portraying stories to their whims and fancies. It is no longer the discretion of a few producers and directors to set the anti-Hindu or anti-India agenda. It is no longer acceptable to defame one religion just so that they can capture the movie-going market of Muslim countries. The audience will be calling this bluff and will ensure the impact is seen in the bottom line.
As if this was not enough, South Indian movies started making inroads into the Hindi belt. Telugu or Tamil movies are abashedly Hindu in outlook and do not hide or defame their faith for the sake of secularism. The production quality and storylines were much better than the majority of the Hindi movies that came in the last decade. The South Indian movie producers astutely collaborated with Hindi movie distribution houses, which ensured same-day release in Hindi. I believe this strategy is adopted by the massive budget Hollywood movies.
The twin shock meant that big-budget Hindi movies took one after another. Old stupid utterances and old tweets defaming Hinduism or Hindu sensibilities by anyone involved in the production of the big star movies were dug out and became a war cry. The right to speech is for all. If one is free to defame then others have the right to protest.
However, I don't see this trend of boycotts surviving for too long. It's a legitimate dissent but it is a leaderless movement. Such movements cannot hold for too long since people have work to do. Also, since it's leaderless the agenda is set by everyone. So, everything will be in line for boycott and that means, the boycotts will soon not work for anyone! Sooner or later, a superstar and a good director will make a good movie. Someone will attempt to boycott it and the boycott will fail miserably. After that, the boycotts will be boycotted since they will no longer be taken seriously.
Though the boycotts will lose steam, the impact of this people-led movement will be everlasting.
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