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Industrial Identity in an Era of Reform >> 67

as well as stars like Aamir Khan and Shahrukh Khan who manage their own
small-scale production companies and also routinely invoke “local cultural
difference,” points to how this identity claim is tied to a broader economic
and institutional imperative. Consider the following exchange.
Toward the end of the question and answer session of the panel titled
“The Business of Filmmaking in 2008: Agony or Ecstasy?” a middle-aged,
diminutive man seated in one of the last rows raised his hand and stood up.

Q: I am an independent businessman, and I have been in this business
for many, many years now. I belong to the exhibition sector. We own
theaters. And I read FICCI’s PwC (Pricewaterhouse Coopers) report
regularly. Once, I was called for an interview at Star Plus and a PwC
rep was also there. He projected that in 2006, the industry was worth
43,700 crores and in 2009, 1 lakh crores—across entertainment and
media. I said, please you talk only about entertainment because I know
only film production, distribution and exhibition. Figures were show-
ing 8,500 crores, and projection was some 12,000–13,000 crores. Even
last year, 216 films were released. Only six were hits.
Vishesh Bhatt (interrupting): A lot of people are trying to dodge the
discussion, but I’m on your side.
Q: Once a picture is released on Friday, its fate is decided. So I asked the
PwC man: how do you get those figures? Ultimately, he said please
don’t ask such questions. Then they gave me a ring. I said you tell me
where you got those figures. They are misguiding.

Before he could finish, Amit Khanna, seated in the first row, interrupted.
Khanna, Chairman of Reliance Entertainment, also serves as Chairman of
the Convergence Committee of FICCI and has been one of the most influ-
ential industry figures to champion corporatization as the way forward for
the Bombay film industry. Even before this question was posed, Khanna
had expressed his disapproval of Vishesh Bhatt’s outburst. Paying no heed to
the moderator’s request to let the audience member complete his question,
Khanna intervened:

Amit Khanna: I am responding on behalf of FICCI. It’s very simple. No
figures are fudged. You probably don’t know how to read the report.
These are not numbers that are pulled out of a hat. There is a lot of
research that goes into this, and there is a methodology. There were
3.6 billion admits in India last year. So we average out the costs.