SOCIETY
Bollywood reels in Pakistan
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B. MURALIDHAR REDDY examines the hold of the Indian entertainment industry on Pakistani society.
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AP
THERE is something very unnatural in the connection between the Pakistani establishment and the people. Despite five decades of hostilities between the countries, the Pakistanis continue to be swayed by the Indian entertainment industry.
In fact, every new attempt by Islamabad to deny its people access to Indian entertainment has had the opposite effect. Bollywood films, soap operas, filmi and non-filmi songs and Indian pop groups (mostly Hindi) have become the staple diet of majority of the Pakistani society.
Come Thursday, people throng the video rental shops across the towns in every nook and corner. That is the day new Hindi films, released all over India on Friday, hit the market in Pakistan, smuggled presumably most of the time via Dubai. For instance, AA Video in Lahore, Sangeet in Multan (in the Punjab province) and Zohaid Video in Quetta, stock the latest Ajay Devan and Amisha Patel starrer, "Parwana". Another amazing aspect is that they strongly believe in the dictum that patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. There is no other explanation for the enthusiastic release and reception for yet another Ajay Devgan film, "Zameen" in October. The film recaptures the dramatic hijack of Indian Airlines plane from Kathmandu to Kandahar by four terrorists demanding release of Maulana Masood Azar.
Despite the pronounced anti-Pakistan bias in the film, neither the "distributors" nor the viewers seem to have any complaint in Pakistan. According to retail video shopkeepers the take off on the Parliament attack, "December 17" did not do well due to lack of "technical sophistication and a thin story line". No one mentioned that it was shunned because the blame for the attack was pinned on Pakistan and the consequent tension with India!
After the 1965 war, Pakistan Government had imposed a ban on screening Indian films. Till then, films were freely traded across the border. In fact, till that war, there was nothing much to distinguish between films made on either sides. The themes, songs and the way heroes and heroines looked were the same. Yet, Indian films had a market.
The 1970s were a tumultuous decade for Pakistan. First came the war with India leading to the birth of Bangladesh. Then the Zia-ul-Haq era and so-called Islamisation during which anything even remotely related to entertainment was considered "anti-Islamic".
Pakistani theatre, however, not only managed to survive but also made a big splash in India. The concealed satire against the ruthless dictator was much appreciated in India.
The advent of the VCD in the 1980s provided a golden opportunity for the entertainment starved people to get Bollywood films again. The emergence of cable, CD and Internet appears to have made the bond eternal. Dictators may come and go but Bollywood directors have come to stay.
It is against this backdrop that Pakistan witnessed an unprecedented agitation by the cable operators, in support of their demand for lifting of the ban on Indian entertainment channels. Though it fizzled out mid-way, thanks to the enormous pressure exerted by an embarrassed government, it would go down as a unique event in the annals of Pakistan's history. A country, which defines its identity by its anti-India stance, witnessed a strike for Indian entertainment!
The cable operator's strike is all the more significant in the context of the developments in the last two to three years in the field of electronic media. The cable industry in Pakistan was legalised in 2000. Pakistan Television (PTV) had total monopoly in the television industry till private channels, run from outside but catering to Pakistani audiences, began surfacing in mid-2002.
Before the private channels, the television industry in the country was completely dominated by the Indian channels, news and entertainment. In fact, Pakistan was so hard hit by the patriotic fervour of some Indian channels during the Kargil war that the establishment, for the first time, seriously began considering competition to the much-maligned PTV.
Post-Kargil, the Indian news and entertainment channels became a regular feature of the Pakistan cable industry. There were occasions when the Government fretted and fumed over the alleged anti-Pakistan bias of some Indian channels but it did not place any restrictions on them.
On the entertainment front, a storm was brewing. People across Pakistan were slowly and steadily being lured by the Hindi soap operates. They lapped up "Kyunki saas bhi kabhi bahu ti" type. After the December 13 attack on Parliament, Indo-Pak ties hit a three-decade low. The tensions triggered by amassing of troops and the daily dose of allegations and counter allegations provided the much-needed opportunity to Islamabad to impose a ban first on news and then on all Indian channels.
This period also coincided with the birth of private channels, up-linking from other countries, aimed exclusively at Pakistani audiences. These included the ARY and Indus which operate from London. Geo TV, established a year ago, functions from Dubai. In the last few months, several more have come up and are struggling to establish their identity. In the desperate bid to capture vacuum created by Indian channels, most of the Pakistan-centric channels have began airing either some of the look alike programmes or hiring Indian hosts.
There are two reasons why these channels are not up-linked from Pakistan. The first, and most important, is that they want their functional freedom.
Till recently, the Pakistan Government's policy on up linking was not clear, as it had placed several restrictions like nature of ownership of the company.
Second, all these channels are aimed at audiences beyond Pakistan. Cable reaches over 10 per cent of the population in Pakistan. But the advertisement avenues and revenues in Pakistan are limited. So it is not easy for a new TV dependent exclusively on Pakistan market to break even quickly.
These were some of the dynamics at work when the cable operators chose to raise a banner of revolt and do some thing equivalent of blasphemy.
Credit for giving courage to the cablewallahs goes entirely to the track-II optimists on both sides. The atmosphere created by them provided the cable operators much needed space to fill in their demands.
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