For years the tinsel town of Mumbai had been city of dreams for dreamers and city of opportunities for dreams to come true on the silver screen for many decades since Independence.
The city is trend setter for the Indian film Industry at large and have overwhelming impact for the one sixth of humanity residing in the country with the large presence of Indian diaspora following.
The Hindi Film Industry forms the fulcrum of Bollywood and for years the industry has evolved enticing the audience with its formula of masala entertainment – singing, dancing, fights, sexy steamy scenes, raunchy item nos with melodramatic family themes, nationalistic themes, biopics from time to time delivering record breaking hits.
Due to the overwhelming influence of Bollywood the film artist have over the years acquired Demi god status and have mass following with temples being built. Many of the actors are nicknamed “Badshah”, “Shenshah”, “Perfectionist”, “Dabang” for films are breaking barriers garnering record collections ranging into multi hundred crores in recent years. The residence of popular actors “Mannat” , “Prateeksha” etc are popular star spotting pastime for the residents of Mumbai.
With around 1500 Plus movies being produced by Bollywood the industry ranks third in the world in terms of revenue with around revenue generation of approximate $2.3 Billion USD annually.
Considering all the facts as mentioned above Bollywood enjoys disproportional influence over the psyche of Indian masses. Many production houses are making movies which are more masala in nature that depict illogical scenes & spicy item nos. And over the years these movies have depicted the traditional Indian culture in bad light.
Underworld Mafia control the film industry due to industry access to funds through financial institutions was restricted by Government. And the industry became well institutionalized syndicate for the mafia to launder money. Inspite of industry status being granted by Vajapayee Govt in 2002, Bollywood continued to funnel & launder funds of mafia don. And the front companies had near control over film distribution.
Bollywood Gangsters used to intimidate and threaten popular film personalities and unsuccessful attempts were made to murder Rakesh Roshan.Owner of T-Series Gulshan Kumar was killed and popular film composer Nadeem Saifee who was suspected to be accused fled the country. With such violent incidents the ecosystem of Bollywood succumbed to the threats of Mafia don Dawood Ibrahim who used the glamour and glitz of the industry for creating his distribution network for drugs.
The shocking revelations by popular actress Kangana Ranaut, stating that 90% of the industry artist are drug addicts. In the murder of Sushant Singh Rajput the Narcotics Bureau investigating Rhea Chakraborty found on whatsapp chats about popular actress Deepika Padukone, Sara Ali Khan, Shraddha Kapoor, Rakulpreet Singh being in possession and consumption of drugs on regular basis. The drug problem is well entrenched and to be part of the crowd you are encouraged to consume drugs.
Actor and BJP politician Ravi Kishan was getting threatening calls after he spoke about Bollywood and its alleged drug nexus and he was provided with Y+ security by Yogi Adityanath in UP.
Actress Kangana Ranaut publicly slammed “Karan Johar” for being flag bearer of Nepotism and suspicion flew that Sushant death was conspiracy to protect the film careers of Dynasty Star Coterie. Popular actress of yesteryear Simi Grewal echoed her sentiments and applauded Kangana to voice her concern fearlessly.
The association of Bollywood celebrities with franchises of Indian Premier League is well known. The multi-billion dollar cricket tournament was discredited with generation of black money, money laundering and betting few years back. Popular film celebrities Arbaz Khan and popular celebs are involved in betting which has connection with Dawood and Chota Shakeel gang.
In recent years Bollywood has started producing films “Raees”, “Daddy” etc glorifying gangsters, who were behind the terror attacks, in the process making these terrorist the role model for youngsters in the future.
Script writers from decades have been scripting hateful stereotypes of Hindus like depicting the crooked pandit, the cruel village Thakur, greedy Baniya with no morals, depiction of Hindu Women falling in love with Men from the second largest community of India. Recently many films in Bollywood like “Padmavat”, “Bajirao Mastani”, “Jodha Akbar” were stated to have presented distorted historical facts in their films hurting the sentiments of the Hindu community.
In recent times Popular film maker Vivek Agnihotri presents a light in the gloom of darkness that has engulfed Bollywood. In 2019, his film “Tashkent Files” investigates the mysterious death of independent India’s second prime minister, Lal Bahadur Shastri, from all possible angles. He is lone warrior who is fighting maoist and their supporters in media, academicia to expose their plans to conquer India by 2050.
The filmmaker is now working on his upcoming film “The Kashmir Files” which is based upon the genocide of Kashmiri Hindus carried out by Islamists in the early 1990s.
All the above factors show that Bollywood needs to be decentralized and its time to spread the film industry across Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Chattisgarh. Mumbai city crumbling infrastructure cannot match the growth requirements which is unable to capitalize the growth potential the city posses.
Recently the Supreme Court of India observed in the case pertaining to demolition of property of Kangana Ranaut stated BMCproceeded on wrongful grounds, against the rights of the citizens. It is nothing but malice in law.
And the apex court also granted bail to Arnab Goswami thereby signalling the law enforcement agencies to act adhering to persons civil liberties. This shows the city of Mumbai has lost the vibrancy and vitality it was remembered for. How can the film industry thrive and survive when the authoritarian actions of the govt crushes dissent and freedom of speech & expression ?
And with Infrastructure development picking up in UP big way, the CM Yogi Adityanath announced he set up the country’s “biggest and most beautiful” film city in Noida.
UP CM has also allocated 1000 acres of land for the proposed film city which is close to Agra, Mathura, the proposed logistic hub in Noida, and the proposed dry port and freight corridor, thus providing all facilities of transport and movement. He stated international airport will become operational by 2023 and is very close to the proposed site which will be provided with world class data centre along with all pre-production and post-production infrastructure, processing labs, VFX and digital studios of international level.
The industry needs to be overhauled for professionalism based on moral character and integrity it was known for and UP CM has meet prominent Bollywood personalities Akshay Kumar, producers & directors to discuss the future plan of proposed film industry in the state.
With the rich cultural heritage Uttar Pradesh possess it is quite natural for the film industry will achieve considerable transformation with respect to financing, distribution of movies, presentation of facts without historical distortion, reducing the influence of underwold mafia, dismantling of drug & betting mafia in the coming years.
Dawoodification of Bollywood has to be uprooted for Sanatanization of Bollywood to become reality and this can happen only under Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath.
