Opinion RRR at the Golden Globes: Evolution of India’s soft power

The Golden Globe nominations for S S Rajamouli’s RRR are, in a sense, an acknowledgement of the film’s immense popularity and impact across the world. Domestically, like the two-part Baahubali, Rajamouli’s Raj-era action extravaganza transcended linguistic barriers and became a pan-Indian blockbuster. On the international stage, it now represents a new stage in the evolution of Indian mainstream cinema’s soft power. In that sense, RRR marks a phenomenon that is both novel and known.

Indian cinema’s cultural influence for the first few decades after Independence was outsized compared to its economic and political might. Initially, and for years thereafter, the storied popularity of the socialist era and its ethos in Raj Kapoor’s films, particularly in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe made it one of the country’s primary cultural exports. That tradition, in spurts and starts, continued until the nature of the Indian economy and — perhaps as a result — Hindi cinema changed. At the beginning of this century, films that appealed to the Punjabi diaspora as much as they did post-liberalisation, upwardly mobile Indians became Bollywood’s crossover offering. Around the same time, Tamil-language blockbusters, notably Rajinikanth’s films, began finding large audiences in Southeast Asia and Japan, cementing his Superstar status.

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RRR’s international recognition and popularity, then, expands the horizon for Indian cinema further, and potentially into the bastion that is Hollywood. While its two nominations — for best non-English language film and best original song — aren’t necessarily the most popular categories, they nonetheless illustrate that Indian cinema from the likes of Rajamouli has reached a level of technical competence that allows it to appeal to audiences that are used to some of the best action sequences in the world. And, perhaps, as Indian filmmakers get the confidence to work with bigger budgets and more special effects, the dollars from the Western market will provide some incentive to experiment.