Widen that lens

Despite its global reach and appeal, even if largely confined to the so-called Indian 8220;diaspora8221;, the people of Indian origin living overseas, Indian cinema has never really had a role in Indian foreign policy and has never consciously served any strategic objective. Perhaps Raj Kapoor was an exception. In his Mera Naam Joker he paid tribute to the Russian people for the love they so generously extended to him and to this nation. However, rarely has an Indian film been made to reach out to a different nation, a non-Indian audience, with an explicit foreign policy objective.

This reticence of the world8217;s second largest film industry stands in contrast to the declared global interest of the world8217;s largest film industry, Hollywood. Its willingness to use the medium of cinema to befriend nations or demonise them manifested itself across a wide range of movies from propagandist anti-communist thrillers to romantic entertainers. When Frank Sinatra sang Cole Porter8217;s 8220;I love Paris8221; in Can Can he was doing so at a time when Charles de Gaulle was making it difficult for Americans to say so officially!

If Hollywood was wooden in its anti-Soviet propaganda, blase in its treatment of Latin Americans, it was more subtle in winning friends in Europe and Asia. Hollywood made films that enabled the United States to strike a chord with diverse nations, from Africans to Europeans, from Arabs to Japanese. American cinema played an explicit foreign policy role.

By contrast, the only interest that Indian cinema has shown in India8217;s relations with the outside world has been largely confined to India8217;s relations with Pakistan, through films devoted either to the heroism of our soldiers or the life of families touched by Partition. Film-makers from among people of Indian origin have explored relations between Indians and non-Indians in such films as Mississippi Masala and Bend It Like Beckham, but these have not been conceived in the framework of any national foreign policy objective. Nagesh Kukunoor8217;s Hyderabad Blues considers the angst of a non-resident Indian visiting home, but no one has looked at Indians interacting with foreigners abroad and creating bilateral relationships that can serve larger national policy objectives. Hollywood does it all the time. Bollywood never so far.

Is there a dearth of themes and contexts? Hardly. The life of the famous Indian doctor in China, Dr Kotnis, the subject of a forgotten Hindustani movie, reminds us that there are stories to tell with possible implications for relations between nations. Consider the theme of the life story of Indians in Southeast Asia, the restorers of Angkor Wat, a movie on a grand historical scale, or of Indian Americans who have made it big in the US. Consider the saga of Indians in the Persian Gulf and Africa and their positive contribution to these societies.

Why has Bollywood or Bengali cinema not made a film so far about Bangladesh8217;s war of liberation? Hollywood used cinema to remind Europe in the 1960s about its contribution in the Second World War to European freedom and democracy, lest the French forget the role played by heroic Yankee troops! The world and South Asia must be reminded of what happened in 1970-72. It8217;s as heroic a tale as The Longest Day, the Hollywood megamovie that captured the heroism of Allied troops at Normandy.

Forget war and liberation, there is a tale of romance and adventure to be told, as there is of the influence of ideas and people. A movie about the travels of Huang Tsang or the Buddhist monks who walked to Bukhara. Consider the adventurous flying career of the late Biju Patnaik and his role in the naming of Indonesia8217;s present president, Megawati Sukarnoputri. Can stories not be written around the role of our peacekeepers in Somalia, or our entrepreneurs in America. The Motel Patels and the Silicon Valley Andhras. Is their story of globalisation not worth telling so that attitudes at home to the outside world can change? So that attitudes abroad towards India can be moulded? Is this not an objective worth considering for Indian cinema makers?

Indian film-makers use the world outside as a cute and colorful backdrop for frolicking and singing. Till recently foreigners made an appearance in an Indian film either to hold a glass of whisky and shake a leg at a smuggler8217;s party or to stand amused on a roadside watching a young couple behaving like clowns. If the outside world ever enters an Indian film frame it is either in the form of a diasporic Indian, most often a Punjabi from a London suburb or a Tamil from Singapore. The globalisation of Indian cinema8217;s audience has at best forced producers and story writers to incorporate people of Indian origin into their navel-gazing themes.

But the time has come for Indian cinema to take a larger view of its relevance to the nation. A globalising industry cannot remain a frog in the Indian, even diasporic, well. The world is a stage it must grandly straddle.

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