Page 59 - From Bombay to Bollywoord The Making of a Global Media Industri

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

lead to any substantial changes in state-industry relations. As Prasad notes,
not only was the financial assistance provided insufficient, but in the absence
of a “political alliance between the state and the industry . . . the economic
intervention via the FFC was ineffectual.” 67
In fact, by the late 1970s it was clear that the film industry did not antici-
68
pate any significant changes in the state’s ad hoc approach to cinema. React-
ing to an announcement of a commission to “hold extensive consultations
with all sections and regions of the industry,” an editorial in the leading film
magazine Filmfare remarked:

Our first reaction to this suggestion was that it would be redundant, the
Film Enquiry Committee of 1951 and the Estimates Committee Report of
Films, 1974, having already fully researched and explored the subject mat-
ter of an enquiry into the trade’s ills and woes. The trade’s problems are
the same as they were in 1951, they have only become acuter . . . if at all
such a commission is appointed, it will not do to confine its scope to the
trade’s current problems . . . above all, the commission will have to exam-
ine the Government’s responsibility to cinema and the social responsibility
of cinema. 69

Given this history, the Indian government’s overtures toward the film
industry during the last few years and its support of a series of “reforms”
directed at the film industry do appear remarkable and indicative of a major
shift in the relationship between the state and the Bombay film industry.
The state’s investment in refashioning the Bombay film industry into Bol-
lywood, worked out over the past decade in various settings and most vis-
ibly at venues such as the FICCI-FRAMES conventions, was perhaps best
demonstrated by the “filmy” remarks made by the finance minister Yashwant
Sinha. In his budget speech in 1999, Sinha made the government’s intentions
clear, saying: “Do not ask us hum aapke hain kaun (Who are we to you?) . . .
let me assure you that it would be our endeavour to support the entertain-
ment industry Dil Se (From the Heart).” In the following year, Sinha went
on to remark: “I hope these concessions combined with what I have already
done on the indirect tax side will reassure the entertainment industry that
Hum Saath Saath Hain (We Are Together).” In 2001, Sinha invoked the title
of another big-budget “family film” (K3G) and observed that it was “time to
bring about a fiscal regime to usher in more Khushi (joy) and take away the
Gham (sorrow).” 70
Over the next few years, corporatization became a catch-all buzz word
that alluded not only to new modes of film financing and the attenuation of