Bollywood’s shadowy underbelly

Often, it is the underworld that dictates what gets made in Mumbai’s film industry

Partha Chatterjee Delhi

Far away and long ago in 1959, Guru Dutt (Padukone) made Kagaz Ke Phool in black and white and Cinemascope. In it, an unhappily married director falls in love with his protégé. It was a truly-felt love story, and a resounding flop, commercially. Now, in 2006, it is a cult classic appreciated even by non-Hindi speaking audiences in Europe and US. Nothing has been produced of its calibre in Hindi cinema in the last 45 years.

In truth, the Hindi cinema industry has regressed into an infantilism that can in part be attributed to spiritual malnutrition. Legitimate financing of films has always been a problem. Producers, at the beginning of their careers, and often even later, have to borrow money from loan sharks at a back-breaking 4 per cent per month (or 48 per cent per annum), thus inflating costs due to production delays; mostly attributed to clashing dates of stars who “sell” films and try to make the most of their usually short-lived careers. Banks rarely, if ever, back films for they regard them as high-risk investments.

Corporatisation can certainly streamline production methods; keep films within budget by completing them on time. It can, in the near future, also attempt to create an exhibition chain, parallel to the existing one, which represents certain unseen, vested interests. What corporate investment in mainstream Hindi film production cannot guarantee is meaningful yet entertaining films. Entertainment translates as “manoranjan” in Hindi. It is an exquisite word, meaning painting or rather illuminating the mind - since any idea of painting involves light.

The exhibition, distribution and financing of motion pictures in Mumbai is thus usually controlled by a shadowy underworld. It dictates the kind of films that get made and seen. The strategy of this conglomerate is simple – limit the choice of the paying customer and make him believe what he sees is what he likes. This formula does not always work, because of the shabbily written scripts and badly structured, sluggishly paced editing.

It is no secret that black money had entered the film industry by the mid-1960s. There is a photograph still in circulation of Hindi Cinema’s greatest showman, Raj Kapoor, touching the feet of Mirza Haji Mastan, the first known gangster-smuggler of Bombay who started as a coolie on the docks. Ratan Khatri, king of the numbers racket, even had a film made on himself. The Dholakiya brothers, who once owned Caesar’s palace, an infamous nightclub, also had a financial interest in certain films. Dawood Ibrahim and his lieutenant Chhota Shakeel had others front the productions they had backed. Producer S H Rizvi - said to be Chhota Shakeel’s man - was picked up by the police on the basis of a tapped cell phone conversation in which he had named a prominent Indian right wing politician who had always gone out of his way to help him. To say that gangsters and politicos work hand in hand these days is an unassailable fact. 

It is now possible for a fugitive from justice to be a resident of Dubai and actually dictate through his operatives in Mumbai the kind of films that are to be made and the people who will feature in them. Recent revelations in the press of non-controversial singers like Alka Yagnik and Kavita Krishnmoorthy having sung at Dawood Ibrahim’s sister’s wedding 15 years ago only confirms the idea of the Hindi film industry as always having been an extension of the underworld. The prospect is frightening indeed.