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Back to Bollystan: Imagined Space and Diasporic Identity in Contemporary Hindi Cinema

The Indian film industry, once limited primarily to South Asia in its scope and resources, has become increasingly global, attracting greater international audiences and foreign investment.1 Since 2005, companies like Eros International, India Film Company, and UTV Motion Pictures have been traded on the London Stock Exchange and its Alternative Investment Market. The Walt Disney Company acquired a majority stake in UTV in 2011, and UTV and other Indian media companies have entered into production and distribution agreements with global media conglomerates, as in the partnerships between Disney and Yash Raj Films, 20th Century Fox and Dharma Productions and Warner Bros. and People Tree Films.2 The Mumbai-based Hindi film industry alone was worth up to two billion dollars annually by 2007, fed by DVD, foreign and television rights sales, with a growth rate of 16 per cent. Although the industry was hurt by the global economic crisis, in 2009 Indian films still sold an estimated 3.6 billion tickets worldwide compared to 2.6 billion for Hollywood releases. With the continued development of multiplex cinemas across India and the drive toward digital distribution, by 2015 overall revenues are expected to rise as high as 30 to 56 per cent above 2011 figures.3 Alongside these market developments, Indian film narratives also have became more global in scope. With the rapid expansion in communication and economic networks between South Asia and its Diaspora at the end of the 20th century, the complex relationships between Indians, Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) and their descendants have served as primary and secondary plot points in numerous feature releases. In the Hindi film industry—more commonly known as “Bollywood”4—international hits like Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (Brave Heart Will Take the Bride, Aditya Chopra, 1995), Dil to Pagal Hai (The Heart Is Crazy, Yash Chopra, 1997), Pardes (Foreign Land, Subhash Ghai, 1997), Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham (Sometimes Happiness, Sometimes Sorrow, Karan Johar, 2001), Kal Ho Naa Ho (Tomorrow May Not Be, Nikhil Advani, 2003), Salaam Namaste (Siddharth Anand, 2005), Namastey London (Vipul Amrutlal Shah, 2007), Jhoom Barabar Jhoom (Dance Baby Dance, Shaad Ali, 2007), Heyy Babyy (Sajid Khan, 2007), New York (Kabir Khan, 2009), and My Name is Khan (Karan Johar, 2010) all have seized upon the South Asian Diasporic experience as a major component for romance, comedy, action and melodrama. This transformation in markets and narrative has created a new tension in Hindi film, according to Amit Rai. “[I]t selectively sells a chauvinistic brand of national culture, thereby