‘The film will make you Rs 100 cr, look at Kashmir Files’: Inside the quiet capture of Bollywood
Bollywood is the world’s most-watched film industry. Over the past few years, it has also become one of its most politically compliant. This is the first part of a series that examines how that happened, who made it happen, and what it cost.
His social media reads like a saffron scrapbook. A picture with Yogi Adityanath. A Modi birthday wish. His new film marks the Sangh centenary. His character declares his RSS faith: “Swayamsewak ke dil mein shunka nahi, Shankar baste hain.” Both in reel and real life, Sanjay Dutt is blending fine with the saffron.
Except: his father was a five-term Congress MP who spent his life bridging communal divides. His sister was a Congress MP. He himself contested on a Samajwadi Party ticket. He once told a rally that police tortured him because his mother was Muslim. He even got convicted for an AK-56, hand grenades, and a 9mm pistol passed on to him through the Dawood Ibrahim network.
If Sanjay Dutt can go saffron, anyone can. Which is exactly what makes him the perfect emblem of what has happened to Bollywood.
He is not alone. Not even close.
On Modi’s 75th birthday last year, just like his 70th birthday five years ago, all three Khans, along with several Bollywood A-listers, showed up online to sing his praises. Shah Rukh. Salman. And Aamir – the same Aamir Khan who was once told to “go to Pakistan” for questioning rising intolerance. Their tributes were amplified across Doordarshan, MyGov India, and All India Radio. Arjun Rampal, who once suggested IIFA should be held once in Pakistan – three years after the 26/11 attacks – now says acting in Dhurandhar felt like “taking revenge for the Mumbai attacks”.
Something has happened to Bollywood. An industry that gave India Garm Hava, Ardh Satya, and Rang De Basanti now churns out coordinated birthday tributes and a procession of films – The Kashmir Files, The Kerala Story, The Sabarmati Report – whose politics are indistinguishable from BJP campaign material.
On closer look, one reading of events suggests it is the result of a sustained effort to bring one of the world’s most influential cultural industries to heel. The meetings began in 2018. The films followed. And certain names keep appearing at nearly every turn.
This report examines patterns in Indian cinema’s relationship with political power, drawing on public records, film releases, social media archives, and interviews with industry figures speaking on and off the record. It documents meetings and associations as a matter of record; it does not assert that every individual present at those meetings endorsed a coordinated agenda. Several films that fit the broader pattern, including Toilet: Ek Prem Katha and Padmaavat, predate the meetings described here. Responses sought from named individuals and entities are noted in the text.
This is the first installment of a three-part series tracing how the world’s most-watched film industry also became one of its most politically compliant over the past few years. The second part will focus on the agents ostensibly driving the shift. The final will track the network connected to it all.
The meetings
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