Page 82 - Battleground The Media Volume 1 and 2

Bollywood and the Ind an D aspora | 1

India, and can claim the status of a “national” cinema because the films are
made in Hindi (India’s national language), several regional-language film in-
dustries (Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, and Bengali) are just as prolific and suc-
cessful. Furthermore, given that the Indian diaspora in countries such as the
United States is highly diverse in terms of language and region, it is important
to qualify claims of Bollywood’s influence in the diaspora by pointing out that
families from the states of Tamilnadu or Andhra Pradesh are more likely to
watch Tamil and Telugu language films rather than Hindi-language Bollywood
films.
Second, we need to note that not all Bollywood films are successful in the
diaspora. Even a cursory glance at box office figures indicates that only a certain
kind of big-budget, family-oriented film does well among NRIs. In these family-
centric Bollywood films, class, regional, linguistic, and religious differences are
consistently erased in favor of an “Indian” family that is highly educated, afflu-
ent, north Indian, Hindu, patriarchal, and upper caste. Indeed, it becomes clear
from these films that it is only a certain kind of NRI who is of importance to
Bollywood and to the nation. Other ways of being Indian and claiming Indian-
ness are often marginalized.
The importance of Bollywood’s role in defining “Indianness” in an age of global
flows, of who can claim “cultural citizenship” in India, becomes particularly
clear when we consider the Indian government’s recent efforts to reach out to
NRIs. In this new imagination of a “Global India,” only people of Indian origin
from “dollar and pound” countries like the United States, United Kingdom, and
Canada are being offered dual citizenship. Others, either poorer migrants in
these “dollar and pound” countries, or those from “third-world” countries like
Fiji or Trinidad, are being excluded.
Thus, we need to approach the idea of “cultural citizenship” in the context of
globalization and diasporic communities by acknowledging that media create
spaces for people to work out notions of belonging and entitlement on a daily
basis while remaining attuned to the ways in which “citizenship” gets circum-
scribed both by the workings of media industries and larger social and political
forces.
see also Communication Rights in a Global Context; Cultural Appropria-
tion; Cultural Imperialism and Hybridity; Global Community Media; Media
and Citizenship; Nationalism and the Media; Runaway Productions and the
Globalization of Hollywood; Tourism and the Selling of Cultures; World
Cinema.
Further reading: Appadurai, Arjun. Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization.
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996; Cohen, Robin. Global Diasporas: An In-
troduction. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1997; Gillespie, Marie. Television,
Ethnicity, and Cultural Change. London: Routledge, 1995; Gopinath, Gayatri. “Bom-
bay, U.K., Yuba City: Bhangra Music and the Engendering of Diaspora.” Diaspora 4
(1995): 303–21; Jenkins, Henry. Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Col-
lide. New York: New York University Press, 2006; Lipsitz, George. Dangerous Cross-
roads: Popular Music, Postmodernism, and the Politics of Place. New York: Verso, 1997;
Maira, Sunaina. Desis in the House: Indian American Youth Culture in New York City.