Bollywood plays a major supporting role in Indian elections

By Preminda Jacob, Associate Professor of Art History and Museum Studies

As India's largest electorate in history goes to the polls from April 19 to June 1, 2024, political parties are trying to influence voters' decisions – through cinema.

The incumbent Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is seeking a third term under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has used the medium of cinema more than others to spread the party's goals and ideas.

The BJP claims that India is a Hindu nation. The Modi government openly supports films that promote BJP ideology by giving tax breaks and removing regulatory restrictions, especially when such films are strategically scheduled to release before elections. “Swatantrya Veer Savarkar,” a biopic about a passionate advocate of an all-Hindu nation, was released a few weeks before polls begin for the 2024 elections.

India's entertainment film industry is a complex behemoth, producing around 1,500 releases per year and a fan base that extends across the globe. Fabulously choreographed dance performances, catchy texts, memorable dialogues and historical and religious images make it a popular communication medium – also for political parties.

The use of Indian popular cinema for political purposes has a long history – a history that began before India's independence. As an art historian, in my 2009 book Celluloid Deities: The Visual Culture of Cinema and Politics in South India, I documented how cinematic images were used to create a heroic aura around political figures in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu.

The connection between cinema and politics made it the primary vehicle for the long careers of numerous charismatic politicians – some of them screenwriters and film producers, others leading men and actresses. Since the 1980s, it has also sparked a nationwide trend of using film to attract voters' attention.

Mobilization of film fans for election campaigns

Watching films in the cinema is an exciting and entertaining experience that attracts a mass audience. As sociologist Lakshmi Srinivas describes in her 2016 book “House Full,” the release of highly anticipated blockbusters is similar to a festival. What is most striking is the audience's enthusiasm as they recite the dialogues, dance to the lyrics and greet the stars as they appear on the screen.

In the Indian context, the impact of cinema extends from the cinema to the streets in the form of advertising, fashion and film music that dominates the public space. Art historian Shalini Kakar argues that the spectacle of cinema evokes passionate responses in crowds that resemble religious emotions. She discusses case studies of film buffs who even worship their favorite stars as deities by building temples for these stars in homes and businesses. These fans perform religious ceremonies and organize public parties for their favorite stars.

But more often, fans are part of a large and vocal collective. Media theorist SV Srinivas found that film fans can make or break the careers and lives of stars. When a star decides to venture into politics, these film fans can become active participants in the star's political campaigns. But if the star does something that the fans disapprove of, they will just as easily boycott his films and even destroy the star's career.

A connection between cinema and politics

Since the 1940s, the cinema industry in Tamil Nadu has developed more closely with the political and social developments in the region than any other in India. The ideals of Tamil nationalism, a political movement that changed the course of history in Tamil Nadu, were powerfully communicated through the medium of entertainment films. Often the personalities associated with these films were physically present alongside politicians at party meetings.

In my research, I found that the convergence of cinema and politics in Tamil Nadu was supported by the use of identical advertising media. Political parties regularly commissioned advertisers to produce “star images” of politicians. A popular advertising tool for both the cinema industry and party members was the hand-painted plywood cutout. These full-length portraits, ranging from 20 to 100 feet tall, depicted charismatic leaders of Tamil nationalist parties such as M. Karunanidhi, a prolific and influential screenwriter, and J. Jayalalithaa, a famous film star-turned-politician.

Although these political portraits were intended to be realistic rather than melodramatic, the style and scale of these portraits resembled the cinematic star image. In this way, they contributed to transferring the power of the cinematic star image to the image of the leader.

I argued that these advertisements played an important role in visualizing and shaping the identity politics of Tamil nationalism.

The audience for these images numbered millions. When these colorful portraits of movie stars and political leaders appeared side by side in public spaces, they floated above the skyline like celestial beings. The pictures often became the focus of admiration. They were celebrated and decorated with garlands, people danced, burst crackers, cheered and crowded around these images and posed for photos next to them.

The charismatic politicians of the Tamil nationalist movement set the trend of combining the glamor of the star image, the power of political portraits and the divine aura of icons in their advertising.

The role of cinema in divisive politics

Under Modi's leadership, three themes emerge in a number of films that promote the BJP's goals and policies and are supported by the party: recognition of welfare initiatives, instillation of Hindu nationalist beliefs in society, and exacerbation of tensions between the Hindu majority and Muslims Minority communities.

For example, the 2017 film 'Toilet: Ek Prem ki Katha' or 'Toilet: A Love Story' tells the story of a couple whose marriage begins to fail due to the lack of a toilet in the house. At the beginning of the film, which is an entertaining musical melodrama, viewers are informed that while Mahatma Gandhi advocated for a clean environment, it is Modi who is making this dream a reality by allocating budgets to build toilets across the country provides.

Another film series in the biopic genre highlights the historical legacy of right-wing Hindu nationalist organizations and their leaders. “Prime Minister Narendra Modi,” which reminded voters of the prime minister's rise from poverty, was scheduled to be released shortly before the 2019 elections. But the Election Commission of India, an independent body tasked with ensuring free and fair elections, ordered that the film not be released until after the elections.

A third and more troubling genre is politically polarizing films. The scripts of these films are based on ethnically charged actual events where communities of Hindus and Muslims clashed, and dramatize highly biased narratives that portray Hindus as victims and Muslims as evil perpetrators.

Highly acclaimed examples of this genre include “Kashmir Files,” which depicts the mass exodus of Hindus from the northern Indian state of Kashmir in the early 1990s, when they were targeted by a pro-Pakistani armed insurgency by Kashmiri Muslims. The film, which demonizes Muslims and shows them committing extremely barbaric and cruel acts, is among the films that the Prime Minister himself has publicly endorsed.

Film producers and distributors I interviewed for my research agreed that it was impossible to accurately predict whether a film would be successful at the box office, nor the results of elections.

However, if the BJP succeeds, one might justifiably conclude that one element of the hat-trick was a clever endorsement of cinema as a tool for party propaganda.

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Preminda Jacob, Associate Professor of Art History and Museum Studies, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Tags: art history, CAHSS, museum studies, The Conversation