Indian Popular Culture

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Indian Popular Culture
3 Idiots 2009
Naya Daur 1957

• AST1ICI-lecture 06

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Street musician Dharamsala 1995
http//www.youtube.com/watch?vY67dkDTLTr0feature
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What is Popular Culture Ramlila?
NDTV program
http//www.youtube.com/watch?vIDQsldnWDOc
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Nautanki Theatre and Parsi Theatre
http//www.youtube.com/watch?vi_pZO5GLOKk
http//www.youtube.com/watch?vOwDYtbVYDS4
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Earliest Indian Films

• Earliest Indian silent film was Raja
  Harishchandra 1913

• Earliest talkie was Alam Ara 1931

http//www.nfaipune.gov.in/raja_harishchandra.htm
http//www.youtube.com/watch?vIJxqlw5E5lc
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Media communication/commerce

• Main phases in modernisation
• Colonial era (1857-1947)
• Planned era (Nehruvian 1947-1970s)
• Eclectic (Indira Gandhian 1970s-1990)
• Free Market (1990-to present day)

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Naya Daur 1957 Saathi Haath Badhana Saathi Re
Dilip Kumar and Vijayantimala
http//www.youtube.com/watch?vzdOLc8tBZsEfeature
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http//www.youtube.com/movie?vyLgbF1N9cH8obav1n
featuremv_sr
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Awara 1951 Awara Hoon
http//www.youtube.com/watch?vW-BIdvqYIiofeature
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Honour culture-consumer culture

• Status in pre-modern Indian society often
  perceived in terms of honour, status in the
  community due to propriety.
• Status in Free market society becoming perceived
  in terms of consumer goods
• Influence on customs, such as wedding customs,
  celebrations of tradition transformed into
  celebrations of consumption.
• Devdas, Dilip Kumar, Vijayanthimala, Bimal Roy
  (1955)

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Jagriti 1954 Aao Bachchon Tumhen Dikhayen Jhanki
Hindustan Ki
Jagriti (1954)
http//www.youtube.com/watch?v4E09twioyfs
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Teesri Kasam 1966 Duniya banane waale
http//www.youtube.com/watch?vuW2u-l11JNkfeature
fvwrel
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Sholay New Images of India

• 1970s films saw the birth from the flames Sholay
  (1975) of modernity
• Hard edge imagery depicting struggle in a world
  in which ideals are now seen as now lost in
  pragmatic struggle to survive
• Amitabh Bacchan as the archetypal angry young
  man

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Sholay 1975 Yah Dosti
http//www.youtube.com/watch?v6iPTGvlmtoQfeature
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Family Cinema

• Film survives arrival of TV in the 1990s and
  stronger than ever, estimated 3.6 billion tickets
  sales annually
• Individualising families, creating images of
  ideal families
• Films like Ham apke hain kaun (1994) depicting
  traditional life, whilst displacing it
• Blurring of TV/Cinema distinction
• Families breaking up around individual TV sets

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Cinema Kollywood

• Kollywood cinema rival and co-partner in Indian
  cinema
• Interaction with Bollywood, musicians, stories,
  such as Dil se, Shahrukh Khan (1998)
• Interaction with politics movie stars as
  ministers

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Cinema Regional

• Other distinctive regional flavours of cinema
  Bengali, Malyalam, Punjabi, Bhojpuri, etc.
  Realism and Melodrama
• Bengali cinema art films, Satyajit Ray
  (1921-1992)
• Malayalam cinema hot films in the 1980s,
  realism today
• Punjabi cinema folk drama
• Bhojpuri cinema struggling for identity

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The Diaspora in India

• Diaspora India in India, India in the diaspora
• Films like Kal ho na ho (2003) depicting Indian
  life in the US for Indian markets
• Films like Salam Namaste (2005) and the notion of
  how Indians abroad can remain Indian while
  changing their family relationship patterns

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New Viewers, new ideas

• Films like Rang De Basanti (2006) show change in
  viewership to new upper middle class at
  cineplexes
• New images of Western culture as a western
  heroine helps young Indians to see their past.
• New notions of what it is to be Indian, not India
  and other West, but negotiating self

http//www.youtube.com/watch?vTe9mIbC3roAfeature
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Redefining Public Spheres

• Benedict Andersons Imagined Communities
  Reflections on the Origin and Spread of
  Nationalism(1983) established concept of print
  media and the creation of the public sphere
• Arvind Rajagopals Politics after Television
  Hindu Nationalism and the Reshaping of the Public
  in India (2001) argued for a Hindi and an
  English speaking public spheres in India, and for
  the creation of a split public by media and
  politics

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Epic romances

• Devaki Nandan Khatri (1861-1913) From Bihar,
  settled in Varanasi wrote
• Chandrakanta, Chandrakanta Santiti and Bhootnath
  (finished by his son)

http//www.indiantelevision.com/headlines/y2k4/feb
/feb205.htm
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Munshi Premchand (1880-1936)

• Greatest Hindi author, also wrote in Urdu
• Supporter of Gandhi and the freedom struggle
• Supporter of Progressive writers movement

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Popular fiction in India

• Large scale sales of pulp fiction in India
• Jasusi Duniya a monthly series of detective
  stories. Originally by Ibn Safi, famous Urdu
  detective story writer
• Translated/transcreated into Hindi

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Television Durdarshan to Cable

• TV began in India in 1959, regular in 1965, seven
  cities by 1975
• 1982 service goes national
• Limited number of sets
• Limited range of programming
• Heavy hand of government control

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Regional TV

• Durdarshan towers reaching out in early 1980s to
  regional centres
• Arrival of TV heralds change in urban life
• Change from public sphere to home focus
• Parallel to changes in the west, decline in
  cinema etc expected
• Death knell for traditional social culture of
  poetry readings, library visits etc.

http//www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t507
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Satellite-Cable Cablewalas

• Late 1980s arrival of satellite/cable TV
• unique model for distribution of satellite
  through community level resellers now reaches 40
  of households
• Government content control mediated through local
  market forces
• Growth of variety in commercial content
• Advent of Z TV and pop culture

http//flickr.com/photos/12951450_at_N00/80818552/
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Serials and Mythologicals

• TV content reflecting divergent trends in
  modernity
• Serials life in idealised upper middle class
  urban India
• Comedies Indianized version of shows like Ugly
  Betty Jassi jaise koi nahi (2003-2007)
• Mythological serials and the recreation of the
  Indian past for a new age

http//www.youtube.com/watch?vqKeV_pZ2k9kfeature
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Newspapers English to Vernacular

• Newspaper readership pre 1980s low in terms of
  numbers, English press outsold the language
  press
• Origins in 19th century reporting
• Adoption by nationalist movement
• Elite market, no popular press in any language

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Newspaper revolution

• Technology allowed language press to grow
• free market drove press into creating new markets
  in regional areas
• Shift from press as educator to press as
  advertiser, part of world movement in the role
  that press plays

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Readership growth

• Readership now mostly language press, 50 Hindi,
  40 other, only 10 English
• Figures reflect not only growth in literacy but
  also growth in regional areas importance
• Readership also reflects interaction between
  press and TV, people reading about what is on TV
  drives readership

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Disney unveils Kidsense codes survey

• Systematic study of India as a market.
• Middle class India as a market for commercial
  aspirations.
• tweens have million dollar dreams

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Hindi High School Musical?

• Disney moves into India 2006.
• Attempts to localise High School Musical.
• Locally made Indian versions of songs from movie.

http//www.dnaindia.com/mumbai/report_disney-prese
nts-high-school-musical-bollywood-style_1054690
http//www.youtube.com/watch?vQCWkiEJhteo
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Cheetah girls One world 2008

• Disney tries to blend India and America.
• A success in neither country it seems in
  commercial terms.

http//www.youtube.com/watch?vTrjVL6o_z6E
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Do Dooni Char 2010

• 2010 Disney Indian movie.
• Fully Indian cast, story, setting.
• Disney story style.
• Moderate success.
• Rates as below average in terms of earnings.

http//www.rediff.com/movies/slide-show/slide-show
-1-bollywood-films-set-in-delhi/20110428.htm
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Conclusion India and the world

• India is an ancient civilisation that has
  constantly changed to adapt to the times.
• Is the end the real question is how will the
  world change as India emerges again onto the
  world stage?

http//khamerlogue.files.wordpress.com/2008/12/sri
vijaya-empire-map1.jpg
http//www.youtube.com/watch?vQ7IvS-35rbIfeature
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