Page 55 - From Bombay to Bollywoord The Making of a Global Media Industri

42 << Media Industries and the State in an Era of Reform

by an organization called Bombay First in collaboration with the New York-
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based McKinsey Consulting. In other words, the issue of redefining Bom-
bay’s media space was very much caught up in a broader spatial politics that
involved the production of clean and purified spaces—from ridding parks
and pavements of loiterers and hawkers to the construction of high-end
malls, multiplex cinema halls, and gated residential communities. 52
Where the film industry is concerned, these spatial conflicts and the pro-
duction of an image of urban India that is no longer chaotic and filthy but
rather, projects an image of success, competence, and cultural stability, were
resolved on the screen well before processes of corporatization were set in
motion. Mapping the emergence of a group of professionally trained inte-
rior designers in the media industries, Ranjani Mazumdar has argued that
“in India after globalization, particularly in Bombay, the physical topography
of public space has accelerated the stylization of the interior both in literal
(through the redesigning of homes, offices, banks and cafes) and imagina-
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tive (through film) terms.” Mazumdar’s analysis shows how the creation of
a new “panoramic interior” in films such as Hum Aapke Hain Kaun. . !, Kuch
Kuch Hota Hai (Karan Johar, 1997), and Dil Chahta Hai (The Heart Desires,
Farhan Akhtar, 2001), spaces that “operate almost like pages out of an inte-
rior-design catalog,” is intimately linked to the transformation of elite spaces,
both private and public, over the past two decades and speaks to the desire to
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conjure up a “shining India.” However, cleaning up, be it by removing street
hawkers or shady financiers, could never be a straightforward and uncon-
tested affair, particularly given the limited reach and appeal of the idea of
corporatization, as we will see in the next chapter. Furthermore, reorienta-
tion in state policy was not limited to cleaning up and creating opportunities
for filmmakers to approach banks and other financial institutions. The larger
goal was to create a media and entertainment sector with Bollywood at the
center.

Repositioning Bollywood

Beginning in the late 1990s, the state began playing an active role in articu-
lating a vision of Bollywood positioned at the center of a larger media and
entertainment sector that would be aligned with the demands of global capi-
tal. At stake was nothing less than a complete overhaul of the institutional
framework of the Bombay film industry, and one of the key moves involved
bringing the film industry under the purview of the Federation of Indian
Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI). In addition to “facilitating
the policy framework for the growth and development of the film industry,”