I don't think Bollywood is dying. It is just that any political references in its films have become crassly pro-Hindutva, whether in the tri-star film Sooryavanshi which has Bombay police officers battling against Muslim "terrorists" including Love Jihadis even if the entire country has Hindutvadi terrorists running riot, or the film Kesari which is set in 1897 and is funnily about Sikh soldiers in the colonizing British army, battling against Afghan raiders when the same Sikh soldiers should have been battling against the Britishers, or this latest film Kashmir Files which just in the last five days of its run has earned 60+ crores. All these are popular films which shows the change in the thinking of the masses.
In late 2014 was released the film Haider which was again about Kashmir but from the POV of those living under the military occupation. Some regular Hindi film masala elements were there but the film was a good attempt in trying to bring the Kashmir issue to the masses and because of that the pseudo nationalists / fake patriots / Hindutvadis called the film and its makers and the writer as "anti-nationals" as any sensible Indian is generally called. Listen to
this nice song from that film - Aao na - which is set in a graveyard and is sardonic. I couldn't find the song's visuals of the gravediggers digging in the snowed ground. Modi had taken rule that year and there were threats to that film from his admirers.
This is a nice background article for the film :
Please read the rest of the article. And those in the media who had welcomed Haider in 2014 will be drowned out today in the shouts and lies of so-called journalists Arnab Goswami, Shweta Singh and their like. I watched Haider in the cinema when it was released and there were watchers despite the controversy.
In the 1950s however, as your vid says the theme of Bollywood was Socialism maybe because of the recent independence of the country in which Communist and Socialist idealism was somewhat more popular among the masses and the film crews than the crass right-wing turn of now. In 2019 I posted
this thread which included references to Bollywood films of those times including Mother India many of which had Socialist themes :
Another 1950s Socialist-themed film was Shree 420 :
The film had a famous song which probably predicted the non-aligned stance of the Nehru government :
"Mera joota hai Japani
Ye patloon Englistani
Sar pe laal topi Rusi
Phir bhi dil hai Hindustani"
Shree 420 and other such Socialist-themed Bollywood films especially of Raj Kapoor were popular in the USSR.
And then from the 60s to the 80s there were escapist films like your vid says whose themes were either unrealistic romances or religion, though there were a few films which depicted social issues like women's rights or urban criminality or political corruption. About the last theme there was the wonderful satire Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro that has Naseeruddin Shah, Satish Shah and others ( you should watch it -
part 1,
part 2,
part 3. You will enjoy a lot and think of society ). Though in the 1970s too there were some very good Bollywood films by the director Basu Chatterjee which were essentially social satires many a time about the middle class like Chhoti Si Baat. In the recent times I have watched very few Bollywood films including Rocket Singh : Salesman of the Year (
trailer ) which is about corporate greed and also the film is an inspiration to anyone who wants to start a company that too of what can be called a Communist type.
@Joe Shearer @DrJekyll, your choices ?
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