Page 14 - From Bombay to Bollywoord The Making of a Global Media Industri

Introduction

In May 1998, the Indian government transformed world media by granting
Bombay cinema “industry” status. It was a remarkable decision, given the
history of the state’s relationship with popular cinema. Even though Bombay
had emerged as a major center of film production during the 1930s and 1940s,
the Indian state did not regard filmmaking as an important industrial activ-
ity or as central to the project of defining national culture. As a consequence,
filmmaking did not receive the concessions and support that media—includ-
ing radio and television—did. Punitive taxation, licensing, and censorship
codes defined the state’s approach to cinema for nearly five decades.
Ascribing industry status to filmmaking in 1998 was, at one level, an inter-
vention in film financing. The government framed the decision as an attempt
to rid the film business of “black money” (untaxed/unaccounted) as well
as the involvement of the mafia/underworld, and to encourage transparent
accounting practices. More broadly, this moment of reform also generated a
discourse of “corporatization,” a set of changes deemed necessary for the film
industry to shed its image as a dysfunctional “national” cinema and assume
its place as a global media industry. Corporatizing the film business seemed
all the more urgent given the phenomenal growth of other media sectors in
India (television and telecommunications in particular) and the emergence
of a globally competitive IT and software services sector in cities like Ban-
galore and Hyderabad during the 1990s. Narratives of India Inc. confidently
and triumphantly navigating the global economy were not lost on either the
state or those in the film industry. This process of reform has by no means
been smooth or uncontested. There has been much disagreement and confu-
sion regarding the many institutional, creative, and social transitions under
way within the film industry and the media industries at large in Bombay
and other cities across India. And media industry professionals remain
deeply ambivalent about changes that a decade of reform has wrought and
what it means to adopt and perform globally recognizable practices of orga-
nization and management. This sense of uncertainty and ambivalence about
“going global” notwithstanding, two things are clear.
First, the spatial coordinates and geographic reach of Bollywood have
changed dramatically over the past decade. The answer to the question,
“Where in the world is Bollywood?” is, to be sure, “Bombay.” However,
Bombay’s emergence as a global media capital cannot be grasped without
>> 1