Commentary/Pritish Nandy

The Lesson for Bollywood

Bollywood is outraged. No new films are being announced right now. No one is boasting about his or her hits. Congratulatory ads have vanished from the trade magazines. Flash is out of fashion. Discretion is in, as the better part of valour. So is caution, as gun-toting cops protect the industry’s favourite stars.

The wild partying is over. The late, late nights. Suddenly no one gives a damn about who is sleeping with whom. Everyone is talking about extortions, ransoms, pay-offs, murders. How Bombay has become the crime capital of India. Hands shake while picking up cellular phones. Voices tremble while answering unknown callers. Ferraris are being sold off. Jaguars are locked up in the garages. Everyone is scared shitless.

But the anger, the resentment is growing. Against the media. Against cops. Against the tax guys. Against the system itself. Stars, film-makers, financiers have gone into a low growl. Mahesh Bhatt, never one to miss a photo opportunity, has come upfront to lend voice to the industry’s anger at being accused of playing footsie with the Mob. We are not guilty, shrieks, growls, snarls Bollywood’s favourite foot in the mouth artiste, staring menacingly at the camera. The media is out to frame us.

Yeah? How come no other business in India has had such an incestuous relationship with the media? It is a love-hate rishta even at the best of times. Bollywood worships you as long as you write great eulogies to it. But the moment you expose its squalid underbelly of crime and corruption, the moment you ask uncomfortable questions about where its money comes from or goes, you are an agent of Satan. You are the wicked, predatory face of the Indian media probing into the private lives of these wonderful people who have sacrificed their all to entertain the nation.

If Bollywood is so squeaky clean as Mahesh Bhatt claims, how come no producer, no director, including Bhatt himself, no financier, no distributor, no exhibitor and (surprise surprise) no star is ready to talk money openly. It is always hush hush. Always off the record, off the books of accounts. They want the film business to be declared an industry but, unlike corporates, they shroud their deals in darkness and secrecy, they file income tax returns that send the tax officers into peals of hysteric laughter, they keep no books of accounts except torn, dirty slips of paper on which mysterious, unexplained figures conceal more than they reveal. No one is, therefore, surprised when tax raids expose huge stashed away incomes. No one is surprised when extortion deals are struck in billions. Bollywood is a soft target for criminals because Bollywood itself is a hotbed of crime.

Ask anyone who makes a hit. No one will give you exact figures. Ask anyone who earns how much. There is no clue, no official record. Transactions are shrouded in mystery. Hot money moves in and out of most deals, leaving blazing trails. But no one cares. Because the blinding extravaganza leaves everyone spellbound. Including the tax officers at times. Including even the government. ABCL owes Doordarshan Rs 140 million and the beleagured national broadcaster has gone to the law ministry last week to seek ways and means to recover this huge amount, pending for almost two years. But has anyone even asked how ABCL built up such huge dues when others would have been hounded or thrown off the air if their dues crossed a few hundred thousand rupees?

Even simpler, look at the programming on Doordarshan prime time and you will instantly know who gets the chunk of its revenue. Bollywood, of course. Films, films, films. Re-runs, re-re-runs, re-re-re-runs. Plus film-based shows, film-based quizzes, film-based games, film-based countdowns, film-based news, film-based serials. Every television channel acts as a proxy for Bollywood. And yet all that Bollywood does is bitch, bitch, bitch.

It bitches about the media. It bitches about television and how it is eating into its viewership. It bitches about the tax system. It bitches about its non-industry status. It even bitches about itself. Ask any successful star or movie-maker what he thinks about another, and you will know what I mean. Bollywood is all about grab, grab, grab. Bitch, bitch, bitch. Everyone knows this. But no one complains. It is treated like one’s favourite, dimwit child.

But Bhatt’s tantrums are getting too noisy. If Bollywood takes this posture, I fear it will be in for more trouble. Because the media is now sick and tired of being their favourite whipping boy. It will now start doing what it should have done in the first place, nosed around for the dirt. Not who’s sleeping with whom. But who’s funding whom, with what kind of money and where it was earned. Who’s making how much, inside and outside the books. Who’s playing footsie with the Mob. Who’s providing the girls and to whom. Who’s partying where and at whose cost.

There are many businesses in Bombay. Successful, in fact hugely successful businesses. How come they are not targets for the Mob? How come the stock market and the diamond bourse have remained unscathed? How come the Mob has focussed only on four trades. Construction, Bollywood, hoteliering, trade unions. And, even there, the Mob does not intimidate Tata Housing or Godrej Housing or Lloyds Realty. It does not extort Crest or TV18 or Plus Channel, in which Bhatt himself has a substantial stake. It does not harrass Zee or Star or Sony. It does not threaten The Taj or The Oberoi or The Leela. It picks on only those it feels it can intimidate. It is selective targeting. That is why most people believe — perhaps rightly -- that it picks on those they know, with whom they have done business in the past. Those who will find it difficult to report their threats to the police. Those who have actually something to hide.

I am as sure as Bhatt that all of Bollywood is not criminal. There are many clean people in every business and it is unfortunate when they get hurt.But the fact remains that if you do business with people who are criminally inclined, you must be ready to pay for this indiscretion. As you sow, so shall you reap. And it is no use blaming others for your own foolishness. Get clean or get out: that is the only advice I can offer my friends in Bollywood. As in the old Bengali proverb, you have dug a canal and brought the alligator in. Now, you have two choices. You can either change your style of business. Or you can find another job. Bhatt can try the Rajya Sabha. There are enough criminals in politics looking for someone to defend their honour.

Hollywood had the same problem once. But it grew out of it. It corporatised, puts its house in order, opened its books of accounts, invited audit, paid its taxes. Today, it is clean in both senses. The business has become an industry. It has globalised. The Mob has fled.

Bollywood needs to do the same.

Remember, the underworld sets up shop in dark, dingy corners where the rules of the game can easily be flouted. Bollywood made the first mistake by giving it tenancy in the hope of picking up easy money. It did. But the price was too high and it is getting more and more expensive. It may be sexy to have gun-toting commandoes around you but once the shooting starts, the blood smattered footpath is an ugly sight. Even if the corpse is your rival’s.

The builders have learnt the hard way. So have the hoteliers. It is time Bollywood stopped posturing and cleaned up its act. There is enough money to be made the right way. Legit funding is now possible from global entertainment funds. Look at making movies as just another business and you will make money without having to look over your shoulder every few minutes.

(Pssst: Pay your taxes too. Chidambaram will also get you once December is over!)

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