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How Sri Lanka has been taken over by Bollywood
WHATs happening to our television channels, a colleague asked, protesting at the over-Hindiisation of local channels.
Almost every local channel telecasts a Hindi film daily or every other day in addition to popular Bombay soaps. Recently, when I switched on the television, a Shah Rukh Khan film was on. I changed the channel.
I was exposed to a Salman Khan movie. I changed the channel again. This channel was airing a programme of old Hindi movie songs. For a moment, I was wondering whether I was in Sri Lanka or whether the Indians have taken over the country.
Sri Lankans — almost 99 percent — do not speak or understand Hindi, although our closest neighbour is India. Many of us have seen blockbusters, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gam and Kal Ho Na Ho, but unless we are told by someone, we do not know even the meanings of the titles.
My colleague protested, saying the trend should be curtailed. But I told her that she was angry because she felt the time allocated for the Hindi movies could have been used for English programmes — Hollywood movies or programmes made in an English-speaking country.
I told her that if over-Hindiisation should be resisted, then over-westernisation also should be opposed. Complaining about an overdose of Hindi on local television channels, while allowing western cultural imperialism to take root in Sri Lanka smacks of hypocrisy and double standards.
Take for instance, the local FM radio culture. Popular radio channels have come under fire from cultural nationalists for adulterating Sinhala. They lambaste programme presenters who speak a language that is half Sinhala and half English. Recently I happened to tune in to a Tamil FM station. I was shocked to hear the programme presenters speaking Tamil with an American accent.
But unlike western cultural imperialism which was forced on us, the Hindi invasion is voluntary and on popular demand. India is not imposing Hindi on us as India’s Congress governments tried to do on non-Hindi states in the 1960s. When the Official Language Act came into force in 1965 in India, violent protests rocked the state of Tamil Nadu with some leaders of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam immolating themselves. It was the anti-Hindi and anti-Brahmin stance of the south Indian politicians which galvanised the Dravidian movement in the late 1930s and again in the late 1960s. The Dravidian protests eventually led to the amendment of the Official Language Act.
But in Sri Lanka, we are unable to protest because every aspect of our culture has some Indian influence. It is said the culture of a powerful country diffuses to its neighbours whether they try to resist or not. In the past, the culture of the bully was imposed on the weak or the colonised countries. But today, cultural exports take place through movies, television, books and popular music. So it is no wonder that Osama bin Laden labels his war on America as a war against US cultural imperialism.
But we cannot accuse India of imposing its culture on us. The Indian cultural export operates on a demand-and-supply basis. We like many things Indian. We like Indian music. Our women like to wear sarees and salwars. We like Indian food such as biryani and tandoori chicken, though some point out it was the Moghul rulers who introduced spicy food to India with the spices coming from Sri Lanka.
We have a big following for Indian movies in Sri Lanka. Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan, Aamir Khan, Aishwarya Rai, Priyanka Chopra and Rani Mukherjee are household names in Sri Lanka. A couple of years ago, a controversy arose when a mega cultural show featuring Shah Rukh, Saif Ali Khan, Preity Zinta and Priyanka Chopra coincided with the first anniversary of the death of a popular nationalist monk. The nationalists led by the Jathika Hela Urumaya demanded that the show be postponed but the organisers said that they could not do it because all the arrangement had been made. This led to a death fast by some nationalist monks and protests by JHU activists on the day of the show. Police baton-charged the protesters and used tear gas to disperse the raucous crowd outside the venue.
Despite the live TV coverage of the mini battle outside the venue and the exorbitant ticket price, tens of thousands of people — a majority of them being diehard female fans of Shah Rukh — turned up for the star-studded show, which ended with a bang — a bomb blast.
About five years ago, the Hindi soap Shanthi was number one TV hit in Sri Lanka. When its main actress, Mandira Bedi, who is not exactly a big name in Bollywood, made a visit to Sri Lanka, thousands of people gathered outside the airport and lined up along the Colombo Airport Road to have a glimpse of the star.
Whether we like it or not, Hindi invasion has already taken place.
Ameen Izzadeen is a senior Sri Lankan journalist based in Colombo
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