In a year overshadowed by the coronavirus pandemic, Bollywood has hit upon key developments on the political front to turn into feature films in the coming months.
A day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Ayodhya on 5 August to lay the foundation stone of the Ram temple, former censor board chief and producer Pahlaj Nihalani announced a film called Ayodhya Ki Katha.
The multilingual project, he said, would go on the floors this November and arrive in cinemas by Diwali 2021.
Last week, producer Shailesh R. Singh and director Hansal Mehta, who have previously collaborated on Shahid, Aligarh and Omerta, announced a film on gangster Vikas Dubey, believed to be politically connected, who was shot dead after he allegedly tried to escape from police custody in Kanpur this July.
Actor Ajay Devgn has already committed to producing a film on the Galwan Valley incident where at least 20 Indian soldiers died in a border clash with China.
The new titles join the list of films on recent political issues Bollywood had announced previously.
Filmmaker Vivek Agnihotri is working on a movie titled The Kashmir Files about the “genocide of Kashmiri Hindus", while actor Vivek Oberoi had announced a project on Indian Air Force’s Balakot strikes last year.
Clearly, filmmakers see value in news and current affairs for stories while media experts point to the enduring appeal of narratives high on the nationalist sentiment.
“It is an important story, a reflection of our times and our system where politics, crime and lawmakers form a curious nexus," director Mehta had said in a statement issued to announce the Vikas Dubey film. “It is early to discuss approach, but it (the film) will be approached responsibly and as a fascinating recounting. I see an edgy political thriller emerging out of this, and it will be very interesting to tell this story".
Meanwhile, a statement to announce Devgn’s film said, “it narrates the story of the sacrifice of 20 Indian army men who fought the Chinese army", adding that “the actor, who, in the past, has acted in films like LOC: Kargil, The Legend of Bhagat Singh, Tanhaji, Singham and RAID, is all set to showcase the might, valour and sacrifice of the Indian army".
Bollywood stopped addressing sociopolitical issues after the Emergency in the 1970s when Kissa Kursi Ka, a satire on the politics of Indira Gandhi, was banned and its prints confiscated.
Of late, however, it has more than embraced the surge in nationalism with films like Tanhaji: The Unsung Warrior ( ₹269 crore), Uri: The Surgical Strike ( ₹244 crore), and a host of political biopics in the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections last year such as PM Narendra Modi, Thackeray and The Accidental Prime Minister.
“Filmmakers make films based on the mood of the day, and there is no doubt there is an attempt to drive an ideology and agenda around ideas of nationalism and patriotism currently," film critic Manoj Kumar R. had said in an earlier interview to Mint.
The new generation of filmmakers, like common people and audiences, does not shy away from chest-thumping, a phenomenon that has been especially evident since the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government came to power.
“The Modi government has used the emotive sensibility of cinema to reach out to the masses. It has realised that films have an impact and are a mass genre of entertainment," political analyst Manisha Priyam said in an earlier interview.
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