Independence Day 2024: Lawyers reading scripts and streamers pausing ‘sensitive’ shows, political fear looms large over Bollywood

The last decade saw films in sync with the government on its political messaging, with Uri: The Surgical Strike, The Kashmir Files to The Kerala Story being just a few. Streaming platforms such as Netflix and Prime Video trashed projects that went against the narrative — Anurag Kashyap’s three-part adaptation of Suketu Mehta’s Maximum City was abandoned by Netflix, the streamer also refused to release director Dibakar Banerjee’s completed film Tees. Vikramaditya Motwane’s documentary on Indira Gandhi still awaits a release.

“It has not been an easy ride, but it will be wrong to say that things are stormy today,” a Hindi film star said on the condition of anonymity. The actor detailed how some of the political controversies that rocked the industry and kept it on the backfoot — Pathaan’s saffron bikini row, Karan Johar’s casting of Fawad Khan, Ranbir Kapoor’s alleged beef-eating comment — now look like fizzling out.

“Until the last term of the government, it was a novelty to get stars on board for political things. So, we would have selfies with the PM, actors attending special meetings and all of that would go viral. But today, it has lost its sheen. There is no shock value, which now doesn’t help start any conversation. Which is why it feels the direct proximity of important movers of the industry and the government has reduced,” the star added.

‘The fall’

While the result of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls had an impact, the audience’s reception towards such movies also played an important part. In the past, films like Vivek Agnihotri’s The Kashmir Files and Vipul Shah-backed The Kerala Story — both endorsed by the PM himself — went on to be huge money spinners at the box office, collectively earning approximately Rs 500 cr.

It felt like a turning point in the Hindi film industry struggling to find its feet post-pandemic. Many felt such blatantly political films, also slammed as ‘propaganda’ by a section and the opposition political parties, would become the norm in the industry. What few saw coming was how almost all of these films bombed at the box office within six months.

“The Kashmir Files was at least telling a story that resonated with a section, which felt their pain was unresolved and their trauma unseen,” an actor-filmmaker shared with Indianexpress.com. “But everything else felt designed to evoke the same response. The agenda wasn’t storytelling but to tap into a set audience and perhaps get closer to the government. But they all fell flat.”

Anupam Kher in a still from The Kashmir Files. (Photo: IMDb)

Starting January, the Hindi film industry saw multiple films — most released before the 2024 general elections — such as former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee biopic Main Atal Hoon, Yami Gautam-starrer Article 370, Accident or Conspiracy: Godhra, Bastar: The Naxal Story by The Kerala Story director Sudipto Sen, Randeep Hooda headlined Swatantrya Veer Savarkar and Jahangir National University. Except for Article 370, all were washouts.

A trade critic on the condition of anonymity shared that why some of the films in this space failed to attract any audience — because they were not engaging enough to begin with. “Article 370 was a well-made film which went on to do a business of over Rs 100 cr worldwide. So even if one makes a so-called propaganda film, it is about doing it right. You can’t make a film to titillate the audience or shock them, even if it doesn’t organically fit in the narrative,” the trade critic shared.

It is also a shift in times, as the “aggression” of the pandemic, and the religious vitriol that followed in the lockdown, found an easy outlet in some of the movies that came immediately after. “Shah Rukh Khan’s Pathaan brought back Bollywood and thus began the year of mighty action films. But everything has a phase, now it is the phase of light-hearted films and comedies. People are tired of seeing dark films and thrillers so that transition is also happening now when it comes to films dubbed as ‘propaganda,'” the trade source added.

‘Tandav of censorship’

Though it might look like things are calm on the surface level, the cracks are deeper than they appear, and the fault lines lead to the 2020 Prime Video series Tandav. The Ali Abbas Zafar series was accused of hurting the religious sentiments of a section of the audience with a “controversial scene” featuring Mohd Zeeshan Ayyub, who, dressed as lord Shiva, was seen mouthing lines about “azaadi.” FIRs were filed, and a political storm was brewed which resulted in the streamer issuing an apology and eventually snipping out the said sequence. But a precedent was set, which altered the OTT landscape.

During an episode of The Streaming Show on Spotify, filmmaker Nikkhil Advani was asked if something “shifted” in the OTT space after the Tandav controversy in terms of subjects that one could and couldn’t touch. The filmmaker, whose latest feature Vedaa is in cinemas, said, “Absolutely. Even as producers and showrunners, when we are pitched stuff we say, ‘Hey this isn’t going to work.’

“We made Empire, which was a story about Babur, we made Rocket Boys, which had Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi as central figures. We don’t have season two of Empire. So, it is difficult today to make an out-an-out political show.”

According to a writer, a streaming giant in India had asked a reputed filmmaker — known for helming socio-political films — to change the colour of a “saffron scarf” sported by some men in a riot sequence of his film. Another streamer has paused a mythological show, fearing it might be too controversial for the audience. The show was green-lit, cast, shot but now awaits a “better time” to be streamed.

“Censorship is still there, it is not easy to pitch and green-lit a show about mythology or politics. Lawyers examine your script at every stage. I had pitched a show to an OTT platform, but it was put under ‘review’ till the government formation,” the actor-filmmaker shared, adding that there has been no update, despite it being two months since the government came into power.

“People have become sensitive, it is not that the government intervenes directly,” the Hindi film star told Indianexpress.com. “But now the atmosphere is such that even if you make something that a section doesn’t like, there is backlash and social media boycott, without the government doing anything directly.”

The actor-filmmaker shared that such an atmosphere has led to self-censorship, with even writers second-guessing their ideas before pitching. “Earlier a character would be seen talking to God, like a friend, and that would not be a problem. Today, it is going to be an issue on multiple levels. Today two friends can’t talk politics on screen, how do you make a film for the entire country?”

Almost all the stakeholders Indianexpress.com spoke to believe a clearer picture of the trend will emerge by the year-end when some of the shows stuck in post-production out of fear are released, and some more films leaning towards a specific political ideology hit the screens. The noise they make and how they fare at the box office will decide where the industry might head in the next few years. Till then, everyone has put their heads down and is doing what seems to be the only way out now: course correction.