Of ’Metaphorical’ Politics: Bombay Films and Indian Society
Author(s)
Sircar, A.
Abstract
A formal rebuke to Akbar S. Ahmed’s article on the cinema of Bombay, this article seeks to dissuade the reader from the perspective of post-colonialism and to establish instead an understanding of the marginalized Indian cinema as a means of resistance and activism. Sicar wishes to show that mainstream cinema, as it is produced and critiqued serves the purpose of maintaining the dominance of western images in their former colonies. Ahmed, Sicar claims, has cast the films of India as little more than a poor attempt to copy the West, while he argues that in reality it is an art form coupled to an industry that has worked to depict socially constructed realities of Indian life. Thus, as historians no longer view Indian cinema as a crude recasting of more western works, a degree of independence is being granted to those who were once subjugated.
