Post-Independence, Indian cinema started evolving at a breakneck pace.  While the film industry did suffer huge losses in terms of actors, writers, and technicians who decided to move to Pakistan, the industry greatly gained from the nation building campaigns helmed by Jawaharlal Nehru. For, many of these campaigns revolved around film stars whose mass appeal was leveraged upon by Nehru to give impetus to what came to be known as the Nehruvian idea of India.  There is no denying that we have come a long way as a nation over the last 75 years: from bullock carts to jeeps to airplanes to space to the internet. As far as cinematic storytelling is concerned, OTT is the new buzz word, even as the jury is still out on whether cinema the way we know it would survive or not. So, let’s take a look at the journey of cinema since independence. But, before we start discussing the journey of Indian cinema after independence, it is important to retrace our rich roots of storytelling.

There is no denying that storytelling is one of the most powerful tools known to mankind. It also happens to be one of the oldest art forms. Storytelling is not merely a means of indulgence but also a great source of learning. Since time immemorial, storytellers have spun yarns with the hope of delighting mankind. Be it the Illiad and the Odyssey of Homer, the Jataka tales, the Mahabharata of Vyasa, the One Thousand and One Nights, or the plays of Shakespeare, each of these sprawling sagas, above all, has proven to be a consummate manifestation of the human expression. Storytelling shares an intimate relationship with performing arts. As far as India is concerned, the history of performing arts can be traced back to Bharatmuni’s Natya Shastra, which describes art as the search for truth. Human life too is a pursuit for truth and happiness. It is this connection that makes life and art inseparable. While discussing art in the context of the 20th and the 21st centuries, it is essential that we expatiate upon the notion of cinema as a mass medium of storytelling that’s often looked upon as the definitive art form that seamlessly combines elements of storytelling, performing arts, and science.

The origins of the cinematic medium

At the turn of the 19th century, cinema became a phenomenon across Europe thanks to the exploits of the Lumière brothers who conducted private screenings of projected motion pictures in the world’s major cities such as Paris, London, New York, Montreal, and Buenos Aires. It was in July 1896 that the Lumière films finally got screened in Bombay (now Mumbai). A couple of years later, an Indian photographer named Hiralal Sen made India’s first short film, A Dancing Scene, from the scenes of a stage show, The Flower of Persia. It was followed up by H S Bhatavdekar’s The Wrestlers (1899) – a recording of a wrestling match at the Hanging Gardens in Mumbai – which was also India’s first documentary film. In 1912, Dadasaheb Torne made a silent film titled Shree Pundalik – a photographic recording of a popular Marathi play.

A year later in 1913, Dadasaheb Phalke made India’s first feature-length motion picture – a silent film in Marathi titled Raja Harishchandra. Phalke, who is often referred to as the Father of Indian Cinema, had mastered the art of integrating centuries old narrative techniques, borrowed from the indigenous epics, with the emerging technique of making motion pictures. In 1916, R Nataraja Mudaliar made Keechaka Vadham, the first silent film in Tamil. Bangla motion pictures soon followed. The year 1931 proved to be a landmark for Indian cinema as it marked the end of the silent era with Ardeshir Irani making India’s first sound film Alam Ara, made in Hindi/Urdu. The early commercial success of Phalke’s films not only paved the way for more such motion pictures but also set the ball rolling for cinema as a commercial art form. In the years to come, cinema in India evolved further as a potent art form capable of mirroring socio-political and economic issues plaguing India with films like Achhut Kanya (1936) and Sujata (1959). Hindi cinema gained international visibility with Chetan Anand’s Neecha Nagar (1946) and Bimal Roy’s Do Bigha Zamin (1953), which won the Grand Prix and Prix International awards at the Cannes Film Festival in 1946 and 1954, respectively.

Nehruvian socialism and post-independence Hindi cinema

National Award-winning film critic, M K Raghavendra, highlights in his book, The Politics of Hindi Cinema in the New Millennium: Bollywood and the Anglophone Indian Nation, how Hindi cinema, post-independence, played a big part in helping Indians imagine themselves as an entity binding them together – the Indian nation. Evidently, the first couple of decades after independence saw the influence of Nehruvian socialism on Hindi cinema. It is sometimes argued that popular films of the 1950s failed to capture the prevalent reality of the times owing to the filmmakers’ compulsion to fortify the nationalistic myths created by the newly appointed Jawaharlal Nehru government. However, if one tries to closely examine some of the most important films made during this period such as Raj Kapoor’s Awaara (1951), Bimal Roy’s Do Bigha Zamin (1953), Mehboob Khan’s Mother India (1957), and Guru Dutt’s Pyaasa (1957), it becomes evident that the Hindi films of this period were not always in harmony with Nehru’s vision of India. But, it is also true that other important films from this era like Andaz (1949), Naya Daur (1957), and Howrah Bridge (1958) did succeed in depicting the dichotomy associated with Nehru’s ideals of modern India – the good side of modernity shown through the doctors, engineers, etc. and the bad side through the caricatures of the gamblers, cabaret dancers, etc.

While these trends continued, Hindi cinema never eschewed from capturing the nerve of the important historical events in post-colonial India such as highlighting the gloomy reality of the Sino-Indian war, the euphoria associated with green revolution of the mid-1960s, Indira Gandhi’s meteoric rise in the late 1960s, her growing populism in the 1970s and her crushing defeat in the 1977 general elections following the 21 dark months of Emergency, emergence of regional conflicts during the 1980s like the Khalistan movement, and the economic liberalization during the early 1990s under the prime ministership of P V Narasimha Rao, ushering in a new era of globalization.

Amitabh Bachchan and the Rise of the Angry Young Man

While during the late ’60s and early ’70s Hindi cinema witnessed the dominance of romantic movies with actors like Rajesh Khanna, Shashi Kapoor, Dharmendra and actresses like Sharmila Tagore and Asha Parekh becoming household names, by the mid-1970s a new kind of hero emerged who was not identified by his chocolate boy image but by his rugged machismo. Popularly described as the ‘Angry Young Man’, this new protagonist actually represented the anger and frustration of an entire generation exploited by those in power. For, this was a period of political, social, and economic upheaval in India with the issues of poverty, unemployment, and political violence plaguing the common man more than ever. While Amitabh Bachchan made this character his own (with the grand success of films like Zanjeer, Deewaar, and Sholay) through the ’70s and the ’80s, actors like Anil Kapoor and Sunny Deol carried the mantle forward into the ’90s. The ’70s and ’80s also marked the advent of the Indian New Wave or Parallel Cinema with films like Ankur (1973), Nishant (1975), Manthan (1976), and Saaransh (1984). Mrinal Sen’s Bhuvan Shome (1969) is widely considered as the starting point of this movement. Shyam Benegal, Mani Kaul, Ketan Mehta, and Govind Nihalani are some of the prominent names of the Indian New Wave.

The ’90s and the Khan Trio

The late ’80s and the ’90s witnessed commercial Hindi cinema go from strength to strength with blockbusters like Mr. India (1987), Tezaab (1988), Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak (1988), Maine Pyar Kiya (1989), Khiladi (1992), Darr (1993), Mohra (1994), Hum Aapke Hain Koun..! (1994), Karan Arjun (1995), Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge (1995), Raja Hindustani (1996), Dil To Pagal Hai (1997), Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (1998), Pyaar To Hona Hi Tha (1998), and Mann (1999) setting new box office records. Many of these films starred Anil Kapoor, Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan, Akshay Kumar, Aamir Khan, Ajay Devgan, Madhuri Dixit, Karisma Kapoor, and Kajol. At the turn of the 21st century, parallel cinema underwent a revival of sorts with the arrival of filmmakers like Ram Gopal Varma, Madhur Bhandarkar, and Anurag Kashyap, whose cinema mainly dealt with depiction of organized crime. The success of Satya (1998), Chandni Bar (2001), Company (2002), Black Friday (2004), and Sarkar (2005) proves beyond doubt the changing tastes of the Hindi film audiences during this phase.

The growing influence of the Indian Diaspora on Bollywood filmmakers

If we study Hindi cinema closely, we observe that the 1990s proved to be the tipping point with Nehruvian socialism making way for economic liberalization in India. As the Indian economy gradually opened up to the world, the Hindi cinema underwent an Anglicization of sorts owing to the growing influence of the Indian Diaspora – a trend that is best demonstrated by films like Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (1995), Pardes (1997), Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham (2001), and Namastey London (2007). During this period, Bollywood started catering more and more to the English-speaking Indians rather than the whole of India as used to be the norm earlier. In other words, the poor were no longer the subjects of Hindi movies. The trend perpetuated with the continuous expansion of the urban middle class under the Anglophonic cultural influence as well as the multiplex boom.

Subsequently, filmmakers like Vishal Bhardwaj, Anurag Kashyap, and Tigmanshu Dhulia made efforts to bring about a change to this trend by making films such as Matru Ki Bijlee Ka Mandola (2013), Gangs of Wasseypur (2012), Paan Singh Tomar (2012), etc. even as many major production houses remained quite content in sticking to the safe formula of making films that cater to the Anglophonic tastes of the diaspora as well as the urban middle class, as evident from films like Jab Tak Hai Jaan (2013) and Dil Dhadakne Do (2015).

Bollywood and the 100 Crore Club

During this phase, Hindi cinema continued to take new leaps in terms of revenue generation but there appeared to be a stagnation of sorts in terms of creative thinking. The success of a Hindi film started depending on whether it entered the ‘100 Crore Club’ or not. Even the most successful films would run only for a few weeks as opposed to the ‘Jubilee Era’, when success was measured in terms of the number of weeks a movie ran in the theatres: 25 weeks (Silver Jubilee), 50 weeks (Golden Jubilee), or 75 weeks (Platinum Jubilee).

Hindi cinema and the Hindi heartland

Building on the trend that was started by the likes of Anurag Kashyap, Tigmanshu Dhulia, Vishal Bhardwaj, and Aanand L. Rai, Hindi films subsequently started focusing consciously on stories based in the Hindi heartland. The diaspora no longer remained the primary target of Hindi filmmakers and as a result as the industry witnessed a surge in the number of films that are set in north-central India which enjoys a Hindi-speaking majority. But, a lot of the mainstream Hindi films since Lagaan (2001) seemed to lack the impetus needed to march in the global arena. It is true that there have been Hindi films like Miss Lovely (2012), Titli (2014), and Masaan (2015) which have made it to the Un Certain Regard Section at Cannes. But, our films have consistently found it hard to make it to the competition grade at the world’s premier film festivals such as Cannes, Berlin, and Venice? And no film since Lagaan has got nominated for the Oscars. Where is Hindi cinema’s answer to the Terrence Malicks, the Nuri Bilge Ceylans, the Christopher Nolans, and the Paolo Sorrentinos of the world? Let’s not forget that there was a time when stalwarts like Chetan Anand and Bimal Roy competed head and shoulders with some of the world’s best filmmakers at the leading cinematic forums across the globe. What Hindi cinema needs today are brave filmmakers with novel and ingenious ideas. Perhaps, Hindi cinema can take the lead from Marathi cinema, which has really come of age during the last few years. Along with the upcoming crop of filmmakers, the onus also lies with the young Hindi film audiences to grow choosier and become more demanding of the filmmakers. As the French  author Andre  Malraux said: “Great  films  will  be  made  when  we  become  a  great  audience.”

The rise of web and the OTT platforms

Speaking of the audiences, the rise of various OTT platforms has had a dramatic impact on nature of content produced.  Today, we have audiences with such diverse tastes that content creators are forced to create content targeted at different segments of audiences. The COVID-19 pandemic has further given a fillip to OTT platforms. With cinemas indefinitely shut down more and more viewers are forced to shift to one or more of these platforms for their daily dose of entertainment. This has also given rise to what is described as binge-watching. But before we try and examine this in detail, it is first important to decipher the nuances of binge-watching. For the uninitiated, binge-watching is a way of consuming content all in one go as opposed to consuming it in serialized weekly installments. It’s an effective way to watch plot-heavy shows. Now that we have a basic understanding of this novelty we will try and analyze its various aspects. For years cinema has been enjoying an undisputed status over its poor cousin television. While one agrees with the classification of cinema and television as two different mediums it cannot be denied that with the advent of new age content the line between the two is fast fading. In fact, today we can easily look at the majority of binge-worthy international television / web series as 8 or 10 hour films and that’s primarily because of the topnotch production values and the cinematic grammar associated with them.

The advent of streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Prime has given rise to Indian original shows like The Family Man, Special Ops, Sacred Games, Breathe: Into the Shadows, Inside Edge, and, most recently, Ray. The greatest marker of these shows is the cinematic quality associated with them. Not to mention that these shows mostly star A-list actors in the major roles. Clearly, this rapid emergence of binge-worthy content is proving to be a real game changer for the Indian entertainment industry at large. This is in stark contrast to some of the daily soaps we have grown accustomed to watching on Indian television over the years. But there is interesting flip side to this trend. Often the viewer is in such a hurry to finish off a season that he / she often ends up overlooking some important details. Perhaps, this is a price that most viewers are willing to pay.

The emergence of binge culture is not just impacting the end consumers it is also pushing the artists to expand their horizons. The rise of binge culture poses a big challenge for the artists to make themselves platform agnostic. Putting together an 8 to 10 hours of quality content for every season requires a different level of creative commitment. However, at the same time, it provides them with a wonderful opportunity to reinvent themselves as per the changing needs of time. Now, India’s entertainment industry has a great scope for embracing new trends, the rise of binge culture is bound to have a strong impact on cinema viewing in the longer run once normalcy returns post-pandemic. While the opinions surrounding binge culture may widely vary, even the staunchest critics wouldn’t deny that the rise of new platforms like Netflix has led to greater accessibility, reach, and creative freedom.

The contribution of NRI filmmakers to Indian cinema

While discussing Indian cinema post-independence one would be remiss to overlook the contributions of NRI filmmakers whose multifaceted work offers a unique blend of cinema that binds the Indian Diaspora with the general populace. Emmy-nominated Indian-American filmmaker, Ayurveda restaurateur, and Happy Life Yoga speaker Tirlok Malik is best known for making films about Indian immigrants in the US. Malik’s filmmaking journey started with his pioneering work Lonely in America (1990) which he wrote and produced while also acting in it. The film was shown in over 70 countries and screened at several leading festivals all across the globe. Since then he has made several other films about issues pertaining to the Indian diaspora such as Love Lust and Marriage, On Golden Years, and Khushiyaan which he shot in India with an ensemble cast that featured the likes of Jasbir Jassi, Tisca Chopra, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, and Rama Vij. Malik’s new short film project titled To New India with Love is set to release on the nritvfilmclub YouTube channel on the occasion of India’s 75th Independence Day. The film is being presented by Padma Shri Dr. Sudhir Parikh, chairman of Parikh Worldwide Media. It explores the subject of youth aspirations through the story of a young college student who asks a visiting NRI professor to help him go to America. Many internationally acclaimed filmmakers have also contributed wholeheartedly to the growth and development of Indian cinema in the global arena-most notably Mira Nair (Salaam Bombay!, Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love, Monsoon Wedding, The Namesake, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, A Suitable Boy), Deepa Mehta (Fire, Earth, Midnight’s Children, Leila), and Gurinder Chadha (Bend it Like Beckham, Bride and Prejudice, Viceroy’s House, Beecham House). Also, filmmakers Raj & DK deserve a special mention here as they too started their filmmaking journey outside India with their 2003 film Flavors about Indian immigrants living in America. In the recent years, Raj & DK have emerged as two of the most sought after filmmakers in India. Their Amazon Prime Video web show The Family Man starring Manoj Bajpayee in the role of an Indian intelligence officer named Srikant Tiwari has emerged one of the most popular shows in the Indian web space.

Some reflections on the 75 year journey since independence and the way forward

The journey of Indian cinema since 1947 has had its share of ebbs and flows and the path forward is laden with difficulties and challenges. While there are opportunities galore, there are also many obstacles. Amit Khanna, the writer, director, and producer who has been an integral part of the Hindi film industry for the last five decades, recollects how he convinced his filmmaker friends to join him for a meeting he had set up with Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI) during the early ’90s which proved to be instrumental in helping Bollywood get an industry status. “After our studio system got dismantled around WWII, it took us almost five decades to once again get a little organized and corporatize things. I remember when I took my close friends such as Yash Chopra, Manmohan Shetty, Ramesh Sippy and others to a meeting with FICCI they all questioned the rationale behind it. Then over time the people realized the importance of the corporate connect. Back then I was the lone voice pushing for institutional financing and recognition as an industry. Through repeated representations with the government and relentless efforts we finally succeeded in securing the industry status that paved the way for the entry of the larger corporate players while some of the smaller ones also started getting institutionalized as funding became a lot more transparent,” explains Khanna who began his career as an executive producer with actor-producer Dev Anand’s Navketan Films in 1971. “In the ’70s the video came in and kind of disturbed the equilibrium. There was a lot of resistance from producers and distributors against video. Also, there was a video piracy which continued well into the ’80s. From a peak cinema screen count of 13,000 the number went down drastically by the ’90s to less than 9,000. It was only towards the end of the 90s with the multiplex boom that things changed,” recollects Khanna who is chuffed to see the improving standards of professionalism in the industry in the recent decades.

Noted author Nandita Puri, the chairperson of the Om Puri Foundation and wife of the late actor Om Puri, feels that Indian cinema has come a long way since independence. “The cinema in India since 1947 has undergone a massive change, both technically and content wise. We have sailed from the black and white era gracefully into the color and now the special effects scenario has captured the medium. Also from mythological stories (that’s how India got the tag of a country of maharaja and snake charmers and elephants) to the middle of the line cinema of Bimal Roy and Raj Kapoor to the realism of Satyajit Ray (who got us noticed in the West) to the blockbusters of Desai & Co (inane but entertaining) to the parallel cinema of the 1980s and to finally the multiplex filmmakers (sensible, realistic entertainment i.e. infotainment)… we have indeed traversed a long way,” explains Puri.

German-born Indian actress Suzanne Bernert is fascinated by the vastness and scope that Indian cinema offers. “Indian Cinema is a giant… and at the same time intricate and detailed… how is that possible? If you see the vastness of India and look at how many regions exist you might get an idea how many ‘cinemas’ exist. In comparison, Germany has just one language and one audience. My own journey into regional Indian cinema is unlike anything I experienced before. You travel in India to a different state and you enter a new World. It’s distinctively Indian and at the same time you encounter a new treasure trove of language, culture and the art of shooting a movie. An experience I love and can highly recommend. Watch a regional movie and enter a new corner of India,” explains Bernert.   Award-winning filmmaker, international entrepreneur, motivational speaker and author Dr. Bhuvan Lall feels that the rich diversity that the Indian cinema continues to enjoy is seen nowhere else in the world. “A healthy cinema culture with regional flavors can only exist in a democratic setup where the artists are free to speak. India is a striking example of the largest producer of content on earth today. There is no denying that despite all the problems that we face as a country, our film industry is totally secular, totally based on Indian ethos, and capable of producing a vast array of content ranging from realism to fantasy. Here people love to say what they want to say. In any other country this is not possible as the population size doesn’t allow it. At the end of the day, you need to have a market for such diverse content and most countries in the world don’t enjoy the same luxury,” explains Lall who feels that the superstardom that the Indian actors enjoy is seen nowhere else in the world. “The star system that Indian cinema has created really has no equal. Our superstars such as Rajinikanth, Amitabh Bachchan, Shah Rukh Khan, Aamir Khan, Salman Khan, and Hrithik Roshan, among others stand head and shoulders above the leading names in Hollywood in terms of fandom and craze,” opines Lall who is Executive Chairman of Lall Brothers Media and Entertainment which provides strategic advice to the top influencers in Hollywood and Global M&E companies.  Actor-Author Vivaan Shah is fascinated by the richness of Indian cinema, “In the 75 years since Independence, the Indian cinema has had a fascinating trajectory. It has grown from a form of expressionistic extravagance to documenting the sober realities of our society, from the baroque to the naturalistic, from the geographic to the philosophical, and from the real to the surreal. Ours is a cinema of pageantry, a carnival of colours and sensation, and a document of truth and cold hard experience,” explains Shah.

Noted Indian critic Ajit Rai throws caution to the wind by reminding that unlike films from Hollywood, the Indian films have very limited global influence outside the Indian Diaspora. “Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to establish the film industry in India like the way we have in the US and Europe. For the longest time the bulk of the films made in India have been modeled on the kind of cinema produced in the West and there are very few exceptions. In fact, if you talk to any European you will come to know that they don’t know much about Indian cinema beyond the works of Satyajit Ray. In the past, most of our commercial films to have tasted global success outside of the Indian Diaspora actually had a strong melodramatic appeal which greatly worked to their advantage,” opines Rai who is currently working on a book on the Hinduja Family and the Indian Cinema. “One of the key advantages of American cinema is that it has continued to enjoy a healthy base of non-American audiences worldwide. That’s why their business model is truly global. On the other hand, Indian cinema doesn’t have the same luxury. Most of the global business that our films do can be attributed to the diaspora. What we are dearly missing is a healthy budget for good scripting on our films. Our makers are happy to spend millions to shoot a song in exotic locations in the West but when it comes to scripting they are not very keen to spend wholeheartedly. Also, there is a great dearth of good film institutions in the country of almost 140 crore population,” sums up Rai.

(Murtaza Ali Khan is an Indian Film & TV Critic / Journalist who has been covering the world of entertainment for over 10 years. He tweets at @MurtazaCritic and can be mailed at: murtaza@apotpourriofvestiges.com. His video essays / commentaries can be watched on his YouTube Channel at: https://www.youtube.com/c/murtaza19alikhan).