Abstract: The purpose of this study is to document the representation of Bihar in the Bollywood and to investigate the impact of these movies on the audiences of Bihar as well as those belonging to other states and how they decode these kinds of movies. Moreover, the attempt is made to understand why Bollywood have mostly focused on the crime, bribery, corruption, etc in case of Bihar and the why it is necessary to focus on other aspects also. Because there is much more to explore and change in the theme and storyline of the films that are about Bihar is necessary. A purposive sample of 10 young individuals, 5 from the Bihar state and 5 from the other state individuals were taken to find out the impact of these type of movies, how do they decode these kinds of movies and if they want some change in the storyline that is different from the usual crime-based movies. Methodology adopted is qualitative in nature, based on in-depth interviews. Three Bollywood movies that are selected for this purpose are of different time period, unique in concept and dissimilar in content have and all of them have performed well in the box office. An attempt is made to analyse social, cultural, and political process using these movies through sociological lens.
Introduction
In 2000s Uttar Pradesh and Bihar became one of the reasons to begin a new era in the Bollywood. Although they were seen as the less sophisticated states but it led to the prominence of the film makers as the response of the audiences were very interesting. In terms of the political genre of movies, Bihar has been one of the famous sources for Bollywood for such a long time. Through the stories of Bihar, the filmmakers presented a somewhat different socio-economic as well as political reality of India by bringing the crime affected areas in the spotlight.
It is very evident that in case of Bihar, the Bollywood has mainly focused on the nexus between the criminals and politicians, crime, corruption, gun culture, backwardness, etc. But is it the only reality of the State? Movies have a great impact on the society and they also shape people’s outlook. So, when mostly this type of storyline is presented about Bihar it led to the formation of various misconceptions, and stereotype about Bihar in the mind of audiences that belong to other states of India. As Ravi Vasudevan also says that, Melodrama has always searched for the occulted truth. But even this occulted truth has the power to be on the higher side when compared to cognitive awareness and rational analysis (Vasudevan 2021).
It is not true that crime is the only reality of Bihar, life-changing stories are taking place everywhere be it Mumbai, Delhi or even any small town in India. Bihar is not considered as glamorous in respect to the other states but it does not mean that Bihar is sort of stories in the present context, we can notice the changes in the theme and storyline from Crime to Biopic kind of movies that are inspirational and different from the usual films that are made about Bihar. It is true that reality should be portrayed but there is much more to explore.
I have selected three Bollywood movies based on Bihar’s stories. These are Gangaajal (2003), Gangs of Wasseypur (2012) and Super 30(2019). In the first two movies, the storyline is based on custodial violence, corruption in politics, crime, gun culture, etc whereas the story line of the third film is totally different and it is a biopic and story of a teacher who succeeds over many challenges that came in his life and set an example for the world.
Literature Review:
Stuart Hall in his study ‘Encoding/Decoding’ (2009) explains about the concept of encoding and decoding and how the communication process is not linear. Also, there are several factors which the filmmakers keep in their mind to ensure that the message decoded by the audiences are same as the message encoded. ‘The Melodramatic Public’ by Ravi Vasudevan provides a base to understand the development and transformation of Indian cinema over the years. His work also helps in understanding how the idea of ‘better cinema’ took place in India in the 1950s. he also studied the aspect of Melodrama in Indian movies. And, how do film audiences react with the socio-political issues. Along with this he also focuses on the role played by the cinema in the emergence of new economic forms, consumer cultures and digital technologies in a globalizing world. Shubhra Rajat Balabantaray’s research paper Impact of Indian cinema on culture and creation of world view among youth: A sociological analysis of Bollywood movies (2020) investigate the ongoing cultural transformation that have happened over a point of time in Indian cinema. In his research, he also tries to investigate, how Indian movies have initiated various changes with regards to thought process on one hand and life style on another. Bourdieu’s ‘Theory of Capital’ argues that capital forms the foundation of social life and dictates one’s position within the social order.
Plot Summary
Gangaajal is a movie about an IPS officer Amit Kumar who is given the charge of fictitious Tezpur, a small town in Bihar where he is surrounded by the dysfunctional and corrupt police force. And in the amidst of all these he fights against the corrupt politician. Tezpur is full of crime, corruption, bribery, nepotism, etc. with time, Amit realises that the main reason behind the Tezpur’s crime is the local influential politician, Sadhu Yadav and he is the one who is most benefitted out of all these crimes (IMDb n.d.). Due to slow response of the local police, the residents of Tezpur take the matter to end crime in their hands and started pouring acid in the eyes of the criminal as an extra judicial justice (Wikipedia n.d.).
In ‘Gangs of Wasseypur ‘the main hero is the village ‘Wasseypur’ itself. Wasseypur is a neighbouring locality in the city of Dhanbad and is famous for its coal fields and gangsters who operates nearby these fields. The story of the movie starts with the villager Shahid Khan, who does the business of looting the trains, to support his family (IBNLive.com 2012).Shahid leaves the village and comes to Dhanbad where he catches the eyes of a local landlord and businessman Ramadhir Singh (Tigmanshu Dhulia). He becomes Singh’s chief muscle man before being murdered in a planned way. Sardar Khan (Manoj Bajpayee) is Shahid’s son whose sole purpose in life is to avenge the death of his father. Slowly and steadily, Sardar Khan understands the black-business of colliery, but it takes him a life time to reach to the position when he could openly challenge Ramadhir Singh. Sardar is portrayed as the passionate and a man with audacious nature. He pans very carefully and takes bold steps. He has an edge over sultan who is a Quraishi leader. Therefore, his direct fight is with Ramadhir Singh, who supports Sultan. Later Sardar’s son falls in love with Sultan’s sister and this does not make Sultan happy (IBNLive.com 2012). As result, he takes vows to kill Sardar Khan. Meanwhile, Sardar’s second son Faisal takes over his business. He is portrayed as a depressed man who is influenced by 90s Bollywood.
In the movie Super 30, the protagonist is a passionate teacher Anand Kumar whose dreams of studying at Cambridge university shattered despite of being selected because of his poorer economic conditions (Jamkhandikar 2019). He started free IIT coaching for poor students in Bihar in the 1990s amidst all the struggles of his life. His students are from the poorest corners of Bihar who were sons or daughters of rickshaw pullers, labourers, etc. Bihar is one of the poorest states in India and for the people who lives in the poverty, education is the only means to upgrade their standards in the society (Jamkhandikar 2019).
Analysis of the movies.
Gangaajal movie has been put in the category of dark movie. This movie is about custodial violence and blinding incidents known as the ‘Ankhfodwa Kaand’ that happened in Bhagalpur, Bihar. This movie presents how powerful and influential people especially politicians in any area take the law and order in their hands and manipulate it. They are the main reason behind the crime occurring in the area. This movie can be a good example of how the law is being presented in the books and how it is practiced in reality (Singh n.d.).
One important dimension that is being focused in this movie and we can also relate with the reality of our society is the ‘custodial violence’ and torture by police over the victim. The custodial violence acts as an instrument where the will of the ‘strong’ is imposed over the ‘weak’. In the recent year series of positive judicial and administrative initiatives have taken place regarding the torture during arrest and detention but still it persists. A landmark judgement was made in 1996 by the Supreme Court of India regarding this matter that led police to rethink before committing these illegal acts (Singh n.d.).
Another aspect that can be studied through this movie is of ‘mob lynching’. In this movie, the scene where cops pour acid in the eyes of the criminal when they were in the custody, they claimed that they have brought justice faster than the due process of the law. Later, this spread to the neighbouring areas also and this practice of pouring acid was adopted by the common residents also. There is also a scene where the enraged mob gathered and threatened the local journalist. All these scenarios were just watched by the police supporting the mob and not doing any action to prevent this kind of activity.
In the next part, this movie shows that despite the public being with police, this is a ghastly action against the moral law. Mob lynching can never be the solution for a society that is founded on the democratic principles. Therefore, it is a Socio-political issue. In the next part, this movie shows that despite the public being with police, there is negligence of the moral law. Mob lynching can never be the solution for a society that is founded on the democratic principles. Therefore, it is a Socio-political issue (Pandya 2018). Through this movie, we can also detect the point from where the mob behaviour germinates. The culture of mob violence does not exist just due to assembling the group to vent out their anger. This is because, to do these kinds of activities the group requires tacit endorsement from the state.
Moving on to the second film that is ‘The Gangs of Wasseypur’ is considered as a ‘modern cult classic’. Although this film does not fit in the regular definition of the cult film, there are some benchmark achievements of this film that have given it that cult status and it gave mainstream movies a new direction. Cult movie does not feature mainstream stars and has a small but dedicated fan following that is very attached to the film and its milieu. Films have been popularised by word of mouth or organically on social media via post, tweets, etc (Rathee 2020).
The authenticity of Bihar is shown in this movie since the location is also from Bihar. This film is somewhat different from the classic Bollywood film because the portrayal of character is unique. This film challenges the preconceived notion of what a gangster is. He is not shown a s someone who wears fancy suits, has flashy weapon and is very serious. Therefore, though this movie it can be noticed how makers of film have given importance to the encoded process so that the audience can decode the meaning and interpret whatever they want to produce the meaning. Ravi Vasudevan also talks about the importance of interpretation an considered it an important form. It has also been an important way of discussing the relationship of sound, image, and narrative to social, cultural, and political imaginaries (Vasudevan, The Melodramatic Public: Film Form and Spectatorship in Indian Cinema. 2010).
This movie is somewhat different from other movies that showcases Bihar because of its originality factor. This can be noticed through the songs that are there in the movie too. The songs of this movie are also very different from the regular Bollywood movies and they were hit after the release of the movie unlike other Bollywood movies. The songs are related to the movie and character, it moves forwards the story of the movie and it has the meaning to it. Apart from the music and sound, understanding the skill of sound track is also important because it displays the underlying emotions in cinema. Understanding this fact, if we notice the songs that are there, even the instruments that are used in the songs are also indigenous to Bihar that is very noticeable. For example, playing dholak with spoon, Harmonium, etc. In the ‘womaniya’ song, the woman singers are native Bihari women and some of them are not even professional singers. Stuart Hall’s theory of ‘Encoding and Decoding’ is very much helpful in understanding why filmmakers have been prioritising on the authenticity of the scenes. Hall says that in order to generate meaning out of any media and have an ‘effect’, it must be decoded by the viewer. Therefore, it is the act of viewing that releases signifying potential since the intrinsic meaning is not embedded by its producer. Therefore, he says that it is the act of ‘decoding’ that helps in acquiring ‘social use or political effectivity’ of any scene. Hence, decoding is the most important aspect of the communication process.
The women in this movie are although depicted as strong and independent. But they are very much tied to the fate of men around them and ended up corrupted by them. This tells us about the reality of our society. As is evident in the film gangaajal also, how the son of the politician captured the women and treats her like an object. Throughout the world, there are several social and cultural norms that dictates the power imbalances between the men and women. The behaviour of men and the decision that they take are shaped by the rigid social and cultural expectations that are present in the society. Understanding the gender norms that affect both men and women will help us in analysing the power relation the society and how they disadvantage all women (Sivakumar 2021).
The third movie ‘Super 30’ shows us the difference of have versus have not in our country. Also, the corruption that is there in the bureaucratic system of our country and how it acts as a hurdle in promoting the talent of the country. This film also makes us to introspect how people belonging to the poorer community never gets out of their cycle of poverty because they believe its is because of their own fate to live in this social and financial condition. However, this film shows how any person in a society can change their social and economic status in the society through education. Bourdieu’s theory of Capital is very much useful in analysing this film (Gupta 2019).
According to Bourdieu, the major role of education system, is the cultural reproduction. By cultural reproduction, he meant the reproduction of the culture of the dominant classes. Bourdieu is referring to the possession of the dominant culture through education as cultural capital because only then it can be converted into wealth and power. This movie is the best example to study this aspect of society. According to Bourdieu, due to difference in class structure, the cultural capital is not evenly distributed and this results in class difference in the attainment in educational attainment (History learning site 2015).
Bourdieu through his concept of habitus says that the world view or culture is linked with the social class or social group. The habits, skills, and the way in which a person behaves depends on the group in which he belongs. He says that the aspect of the working class can be associated with being less academic. This can be due to the difference in codes since, he argued that teachers, textbooks, exam papers and middle-class people share a different language code as compared to those who belongs to the working class (History learning site 2015). Even in Super 30, the movie portrays the difficulty that the Anand Kumar faced while he was teaching students because all of them had a very little or no academic background in their family. Therefore, he had to prepare the students from the bottom. Bourdieu says that the children who belong to the dominant culture have already internalised the skills and knowledge during their junior years. so, it becomes easy for them to gain knowledge easily in comparison to those students who does not belong to the dominant culture of the society (History learning site 2015).
Another aspect that can be inferred through this movie is the value of parenting. It portrays that in the society, if children are encouraged from the very young age, they can break their cycle of poverty and can challenge the notions of the society. The parents are the primary contacts of the children and thus the way either the caregiver or parents interact with them sets the primary socialisation stage and has a huge impact on the children (Neel 2017).
Methodology used:
The present study conducted is basically qualitative in nature. The data are extracted from both the primary and the secondary sources. The primary sources of data included information that is taken from the respondents on their perception of this kind of movies that are made about Bihar, influence on the non-Bihari audiences and the changes that they aspire to see in the storyline and theme. Purpose sampling as a method has been used for collection of the information.
Sample characteristics:
The sample size selected for the study is limited in number. Since, the main focus of the study is receptional analysis of the selected movies. Some of the questions that the respondents were asked on the perceptions. The respondents were 10 in number, 5 from Bihar and five from other states.
Observation and findings:
One of the respondents from Bihar said that, movies like ‘Gangs of Wasseypur’, ‘Gangaajal’, etc are thoroughly enjoyed by almost every age group as these movies focuses on the leadership, politics, etc which seems to be exciting and to some extent relatable also. But along with that he said that the ideas of portraying Bihar as a land of gangster is not a good idea. Because there is another side of Bihar too and has much more to explore which often go unnoticed. Most of the respondents from Bihar mentioned about the stereotypical image that these movies create in the minds of people that are not from Bihar. One of them is that having a gun is a common feature of every household in Bihar.one of the respondent repeated the famous stereotypical phrase regarding Bihar that “I am a Bihari and I don’t own a gun”. Another respondent said that focus of the Bollywood must not be crime, bribery, corruption all the time because this is only spreading hatred and is adding up on why people should not visit Bihar. Adding to this other respondent says that, although there was a dark period in Bihar but things are changing now. When asked about the theme and storyline that if they want to see any change, to this another respondent said that, “there should be more movies like Super 30 because it is non repetitive as well as inspirational biopic movies that shows that crime is not the only topic that can be chosen about Bihar there are many more unheard inspirational stories that are worth for the storyline of the movies. Therefore, Discrimination and regionalism should be avoided.
However, when the respondents from other states were asked some of the questions as a part of the survey, one of them said that he enjoys watching kind of movies as a source of entertainment. He said that also has a particular image of Biharis in his mind and their association with gun. Further he also added that there are some generalisations about the socio-economic conditions of Biharis that may not be true. Another respondent, added how he sees Bihari slangs and, chewing gutkha as one of the indicators of Biharis because this is what is shown in most of the Bollywood movies that are made on Bihar. Therefore, as Stuart Hall says in his work, audience members play an active role in decoding messages as they rely on their own social contexts and capability of changing messages through collective action (Hall 2009). This can be understood through this sample.
Along with creating the negative image of Biharis, it does not stop at this level. It should be noticed that watching violence in movies not always mean that we will turn violent and aggressive. But it increases its chance of happening. Therefore, the impact of these Bollywood movies on the audiences of Bihar should not go unnoticed as researchers have shown that violent films results in violent behaviour also. Along with that it also gives ideas to commit crime (Balabantaray 2020). Therefore, the acceptance and Appreciation of movies like ‘Super 30’ shows the inclination of audiences towards these kinds of storyline also in terms of Bihar.
Conclusion
Movies have a great impact on the society and they also shape people’s outlook. Bihar and Uttar Pradesh have been one the reason for the bringing change in the genre of the Bollywood movies. Through the stories of Bihar, the filmmakers represented a different socio-economic reality of India and the response of the audiences were also good. But in these films, we can notice various stereotypes that are there in societies related to Bihar and its relation with crime, corrupt politics, bribery, etc. These stereotypes create various assumptions in the minds of audiences of other state when they decode the movies according to their own cultural background. With time, the situation in Bihar has also been changed, therefore storyline and theme should also be changed since there is much more to discover. Because showing violence in movies is not only related with entertainment, it results in violent behaviour too. This assignment also focuses on the way in which film makers takes into the consideration to maintain the authenticity in the encoding process so that audience decode the messages in the same way. Since the communication process is not linear. The three selected movies have been studied thoroughly through sociological lens to understand this concept.
References
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I am a dedicated sociologist with a passion for unraveling the intricate threads that bind our society together. Holding a Masters degree in Sociology from the Delhi School of Economics, my academic journey has honed my empirical research, writing and analytical acumen as well as enabled me to cultivate a deep understanding of social nuances. I have passionately engaged in an array of research projects spanning a diverse spectrum of subjects.