Page 38 - From Bombay to Bollywoord The Making of a Global Media Industri

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Bollywood Is Useful

Media Industries and the State in an Era of Reform

Held in the “grand ballroom” of the five-star Renaissance Hotel in subur-
ban Bombay, the inauguration of the FICCI-FRAMES 2009 convention was
a lavish affair that opened with Amit Mitra, the Secretary-General of FICCI,
inviting the Minister of State for Information & Broadcasting and External
Affairs, Anand Sharma, on to the stage to light a lamp—a widely practiced
ritual to begin an event on an auspicious note. As the ritual came to a close,
Mitra invited five others to join the minister on the stage: Sushma Singh, Sec-
retary, Ministry of Information & Broadcasting; Yash Chopra, legendary film
producer and director, head of the powerful family-owned studio Yash Raj
Films, and chairman of the FICCI Entertainment Committee; Kunal Das-
gupta, CEO of Sony Entertainment Network and co-chairman of the FICCI
Entertainment Committee; Amit Khanna, Chairman of Reliance Entertain-
ment and chair of the FICCI Convergence Committee; and Donald White-
side, Vice President and Director of Global Public Policy, Intel Corporation.
And as I mentioned in the previous chapter, a few minutes into his address,
Yash Chopra proceeded to invite Karan Johar, another influential producer-
director in Bollywood, to join him on stage.
The prominence granted to Anand Sharma and Sushma Singh from
the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting was not surprising given the
remarkable shifts in state policy toward the media industries in general
and the Bombay-based Hindi film industry in particular. Yash Chopra and
Karan Johar’s presence seemed appropriate as well. After all, their films—
Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (The Big-Hearted Will Take the Bride, Aditya
Chopra, 1995) and Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham (Happiness and Sorrow,
Karan Johar, 2001)—had played such a crucial role in reimagining relations
between India and the diaspora as well as establishing the overseas territory
as a lucrative market for Bollywood. Further, the importance accorded to
these two personalities also spoke to the influence that family businesses
and kinship-based networks of media production and circulation wielded
in Bollywood.
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