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64 << Industrial Identity in an Era of Reform

UTV’s home page, in which the company is defined as a media conglomerate that has
transformed prevailing organizational structures and cultures of production in the
Bombay film industry.

is one that Shree Ashtavinayak Cine Vision, Percept Picture Company, and
other corporate entrants also rely on to establish their presence in Bollywood
Inc. In fact, Shree Ashtavinayak Cine Vision’s claim is even bolder, with the
company declaring itself to be “the pioneering corporate structure in the tin-
19
sel town.” Further, in keeping with the discourse of safai (cleaning/cleans-
ing) that I discussed in the previous chapter as being crucial to the refashion-
ing of Bombay’s media space, these websites also place great emphasis on
presenting companies as operating within a very different culture of capital-
ism, especially in relation to the issue of transparency. Both the UTV and
Shree Ashtavinayak sites, for instance, include a prominent link (“Investors”)
leading to a page with details regarding the board of directors, quarterly
results, annual reports, and shareholder details. Declaring that the company
is “committed to maintaining the highest standards of corporate governance,
financial transparency, and maximizing shareholder value,” this section of
the Shree Ashtavinayak website deploys the same formal vocabulary of busi-
ness administration as various FICCI consultancy reports. Without a doubt,
these elements of industrial identity are related to changing patterns of cor-
porate governance and the emergence of a managerial system that is built
on clear distinctions between different domains of the business entity. At