We can?t measure India?s soft power without looking at the impact of its film industry. In the last few years, India has produced the largest number of feature films in the world, with 1,164 films produced in 2007. The US came second with 453, Japan third with 407 and China fourth with 402. Indian film production is usually equated with Hindi-language Bollywood, often described as the largest film producing centre in the world. Bollywood films are watched in South Asia (Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka), the Middle East (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Palestine, Jordan), Africa (Somalia, Nigeria, Syria, Egypt, Mauritius, Kenya, Senegal), Eastern Europe (Russia), Western Europe (Britain, Germany, France, Scandinavia), the Americas (the US, Canada, the Caribbean) and Oceania (Australia, New Zealand, Fiji). They are sometimes dubbed in local languages and viewership is not restricted to the diaspora.
One often tends to forget that several Bollywood-related awards (Bollywood Movie Awards, Global Indian Film Awards, IIFA Awards, Zee Cine Awards) are held overseas, films are shot in overseas locations, technical work is outsourced, films are watched through cable television and DVD routes and there is the occasional foreign actor or actress who has featured in Bollywood films. Similar effects exist for television serials and Bollywood songs and song-based contest programmes, and the odd Indian choreographer and music composer has now been hired for Broadway and Hollywood. While Bollywood stories and music have borrowed liberally from Hollywood, Munnabhai MBBS is now being remade in Hollywood. But one shouldn?t equate the Indian film industry with Bollywood alone. There is the Kannada (Sandalwood), Bengali (Tollywood), Assamese, Tamil (Kollywood), Malayalam, Marathi, Oriya (Ollywood) and Punjabi (Pollywood) film industry too. Ismail Merchant, who died in 2005, was a director many in North America and Western Europe would have identified with.
India has a strong classical music tradition. Despite this tradition having interacted with Western music through exponents like Ustad Ali Akbar Khan and Pandit Ravi Shankar and resulting in fusion, often of the rock and roll variety, this trend didn?t really become mainstream, transcending the diaspora. The mainstreaming occurred largely because of popular or film music, with Bhangra thrown in. Ethnic Indian musicians have also contributed to this fusion, as has MTV, and international stars have appeared in Indian films. This is no longer a passing John Coltrane, George Harrison, Miles Davis or John McLaughlin phenomenon. Much the same can be said of Indian classical dance. Films spliced classical and folk dance traditions and combined then with Western dance forms, resulting in the mainstreaming of what has come to be called Bollywood dance. This is being choreographed, danced and taught everywhere in the world, and is also branded as a popular form of exercise.
While the most famous fashion weeks may be those in Milan, Paris, London and New York, Mumbai has held a fashion week from 2001 and Delhi has hosted the Indian Fashion Week from 2000 and the Delhi Fashion Week from 2008. Indian fashion designers have been globally noticed. Perhaps there is a correlation with beauty contests. The Miss Universe contest started in 1952, but India didn?t win a title till 1994 (Sushmita Sen), followed by 2000 (Lara Dutta). The Miss World contest has existed since 1951 and India first won it in 1966 (Reita Faria), followed by 1994 (Aishwarya Rai), 1997 (Diana Hayden), 1999 (Yukta Mookhey) and 2000 (Priyanka Chopra). As with Venezuela, going beyond the product, this was a question of getting the packaging and strategy right.
By its very nature, cuisine cannot be homogeneous in a large country. And cuisine is also subject to cross-cultural and cross-country influences. Had it not been for such influences, tomatoes, potatoes, chillies and squash wouldn?t have existed in Indian cuisine. Nor would there have been any presence of baking. And had it not been for the ingredients that go into Indian cuisine, Christopher Columbus wouldn?t have discovered America. Indian cuisine has influenced cooking styles in Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and even the Arab world. There are estimates that there are more than 10,000 Indian restaurants in the US, more than 1,200 Indian food products have been introduced in the US since 2000 and the Indian food industry in Britain accounts for two-thirds of all eating out. In England, Indian restaurants employ more people than iron and steel, coal and ship-building combined. If the parentage of chicken tikka masala is contested?by the Scots?no better proof of soft power can be given. People only contest things that are important and interesting.
(To be concluded)
The author is a noted economist