{"id":713,"date":"2026-07-15T10:37:49","date_gmt":"2026-07-15T10:37:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/americanlivingreport.com\/?p=713"},"modified":"2026-07-15T10:37:49","modified_gmt":"2026-07-15T10:37:49","slug":"modis-government-brought-bollywood-to-heel-hollywood-should-pay-attention","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/americanlivingreport.com\/?p=713","title":{"rendered":"Modi\u2019s government brought Bollywood to heel. Hollywood should pay attention."},"content":{"rendered":"
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In 2023, the Indian director Honey Trehan was on the verge of a breakthrough. His film Punjab \u201995<\/em>, which told the story of a human rights activist murdered for investigating mass killings of Sikhs in the state of Punjab, had been given a prominent slot at the Toronto International Film Festival. Trehan was convinced the film would be big; its star, Sikh Bollywood A-lister Diljit Dosangh, believed in the project so much that he didn\u2019t even ask for a salary.<\/p>\n

Read more Young people are afraid to run for office<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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But the premiere never happened. According to Trehan, his producer got a threatening call from someone affiliated with the Indian government, saying that if the film screened in Toronto, it would never appear at home. Trehan and his producer agreed, but the approval never came. India\u2019s ratings agency, the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC), demanded 127 cuts \u2014 including cutting the word \u201cPunjab\u201d from a film about the state. If implemented, they would have left the film (in Trehan\u2019s words) as little more than a \u201ctrailer.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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After years of court cases and failed wrangling, Trehan and his producer gave up on a theatrical release. They signed an agreement with Zee5, an Indian streaming service, to premiere the film exclusively on their platform in July under the new name Satluj<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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But just two days after the film\u2019s release on July 3, Zee5 removed Satluj<\/em> for Indian viewers at the request of the government, which claimed the film threatened public order and national security. This weekend, it was removed from Zee5\u2019s international service as well, meaning the film was no longer legally accessible anywhere on the planet.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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When we spoke on Monday, Trehan was still unsure why the government had gone to such great lengths to suppress his film. He claims to have heard nothing beyond vague public claims about the film threatening public safety and Indian sovereignty. But it\u2019s clear that the events had rocked his faith in his country.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cWhen all these kinds of things happen,\u201d he says, \u201cyou are bound to ask this question to yourself: are we still living in a democracy?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Since Prime Minister Narendra Modi took office in 2014, the Indian film industry \u2014 which has a cultural footprint that rivals Hollywood and even surpasses it in some regions \u2014 has undergone a transformation. Once seen as a bastion of Indian multiculturalism and secularism, the kind of business where Muslims and even Pakistanis could be stars, the Indian film industry has increasingly been remade in its right-wing government\u2019s image. Films that celebrate Hindus and demonize Muslims make up an ever-growing share of industry output; films that take up politically difficult topics, like Satluj<\/em>, are becoming scarcer.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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This is by design. As part of its broader assault on democratic freedoms, the Modi government has taken a series of very visible steps to reward ideologically simpatico filmmakers \u2014 and punish dissidents. The industry has gotten the message, and shifted its output accordingly. Those filmmakers willing to speak publicly, like Trehan, describe a widespread climate of self-censorship, painting a portrait of an industry that has chosen compliance over courage.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThere are so many things I want to make and I get told \u2018no one will touch it,\u2019\u201d the Indian director Shruti Ganguly tells me. \u201cActors who speak out against the government \u2014 they don\u2019t get work.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Understanding how this happened matters to Indians \u2014 but not only them. The Trump administration has, in several ways, laid the groundwork for a similar attack on cinematic free speech. While the American version is vastly less developed than what\u2019s happening in India, the subordination of Bollywood has exposed the general means through which a powerful and seemingly liberal entertainment industry can be brought to heel by a determined government.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In today\u2019s America, \u201cyou can see an [early stage] of what happened to allow institutions to be captured and politicized\u201d in India, says Sadanand Dhume, an expert on Indian politics at the Council on Foreign Relations think tank.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The fall of Bollywood<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Censorship in Indian film is hardly new. The CBFC, created in 1951, is empowered not just to rate movies but to block their release outright if it finds a film contrary to any of the sweeping categories in Section 5B of the : the sovereignty of India, the security of the state, friendly relations with foreign countries, public order, decency, or morality.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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It is a power that certainly had been abused prior to Modi\u2019s premiership. Aman Bhargava, a data scientist based in Bangalore, recently examined data on over 8,000 Indian films censored by the CBFC between its founding and the end of the 20th century. His investigation found extremely high levels of censorship in the board\u2019s first three decades, focusing primarily on depictions of sex and violence. But political censorship was hardly unheard of. During the Emergency, a two-year period from 1975 to 1977 where Prime Minister Indira Gandhi assumed essentially dictatorial powers, censors literally burned the prints of a film satirizing her leadership.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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By the 1990s, instances of CBFC censorship had declined dramatically. Modi has not only revived it, but significantly expanded its scope \u2014 creating a new censorial regime even worse than what came before. \u201cThe past was problematic. The present is worse,\u201d Dhume says.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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This judgment is backed by extensive evidence, published in both the Indian and American press, demonstrating the government\u2019s increasingly tight grip over Hindi-language filmmaking.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The most obvious mechanism has been politicization of the CBFC. The current chair \u2014 a poet named Prasoon Joshi \u2014 is a vocal ally of the prime minister; in a phone call, the Indian film critic Sucharita Tyagi described him as a government \u201cstooge.\u201d Trehan, similarly, says the body is working \u201chand-in-glove\u201d with Modi\u2019s Ministry of Information \u201cto control the narrative\u201d on politically sensitive topics.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Over time, the Modi government has moved to remove checks on its allies\u2019 power. In 2021, it eliminated a decades-old special appellate board that allowed filmmakers to contest CBFC rulings \u2014 forcing them instead to go through regular litigation for relief. But India\u2019s justice system is slow and expensive, often an unrealistic option for movies that need to make their budgets back in a timely fashion. Trehan\u2019s Satluj<\/em> shows how difficult it is to fight the censor, and why so few in Bollywood are willing to do it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cOver the past decade, the CBFC has become less a certifying body and more an arm of state-sponsored and sentiment-driven censorship,\u201d journalist Saurav Das wrote last year in Frontline, an English-language Indian magazine published by The Hindu newspaper. \u201cWith every decision, every inexplicable demand for cuts, and every instance of folded resistance in the face of fringe protests, the Board has revealed what it truly is: a morality police in disguise.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Nor is the CBFC Modi\u2019s only weapon. \u201cThe tax authority,\u201d Dhume says, \u201cis basically completely politicized in India\u201d \u2014 and can be wielded against filmmakers and studios who step out of line. So can the police: five years ago, Indian police arrested the son of Muslim megastar Shah Rukh Khan on drug charges. The move was widely interpreted as retaliation for Khan\u2019s outspokenness on violence against Muslims. Khan\u2019s son was detained for three weeks and released on bail; prosecutors dropped the charges seven months after his arrest, ultimately admitting he never had possessed drugs in the first place.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Modi\u2019s BJP party also has something no prior Indian government possessed: a fervent online cadre that directs waves of threats and harassment at dissident directors, actors, and even film critics. In January 2021, a Muslim supporting actor in an Amazon-hosted streaming show called Tandav<\/em> \u2014 a soapy political drama that took shots at life under the BJP \u2014 became deluged by online hate. Angry Modi fans repeatedly reported him to the police for alleged insults to Hinduism; Amazon eventually cut one of his scenes to try and appease the mob.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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But the Modi government hasn\u2019t been satisfied with only punishing critical filmmakers. It has also provided ample incentives to studios who wish to make ideological propaganda.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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This began with 2022\u2019s The Kashmir Files<\/em>, a movie about very real killings of Hindus in the contested territory of Jammu and Kashmir that exaggerated the scope and severity of the situation to demonize Muslims. Widely panned by critics as dishonest shlock, the film received a huge promotional push from the ruling party. Modi personally endorsed it, and at least eight BJP-governed states gave it a special exemption from entertainment taxes to lower ticket prices. BJP states also gave government employees time off from work to go see the film, and even hosted screenings. As a result, it was one of the best-performing movies of the year.<\/p>\n

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The success of The Kashmir Files<\/em> showed that there was a real audience for aggressively nationalist films \u2014 as makes sense in a country that has elected Modi to the premiership three times, and where he currently enjoys a roughly 70 percent approval rating. As such, it has spawned more sophisticated imitators.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In 2025, a film called Dhurandhar<\/em> \u2014 a slick action movie about an Indian sleeper agent killing his way through mafia and terror networks in Pakistan \u2014 dominated the box office, becoming the third-highest grossing Hindi film of all time. Dhurandhar 2: The Revenge<\/em> premiered this year, and is more nakedly propagandistic: Variety\u2019s reviewer wrote that it \u201cpractically features Modi as a supporting character through endless news snippets.\u201d It has already surpassed the box office total of its predecessor.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The end result is a kind of profit-minded self-censorship. Increasingly, Indian film studios shy away from financing movies with controversial themes and shovel money at jingoistic fare like Dhurandhar<\/em>. An 11-month investigation by the Indian publication Article 14 concluded that this has effectively transformed the most prominent sector of the Indian film industry.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cBarring a minuscule minority, Hindi filmdom has collectively capitulated before the BJP government, thus handing a virtual cakewalk to the right-wing in India\u2019s most high-profile film industry,\u201d Article 14\u2019s Anna M M Vetticad writes.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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To be clear: It\u2019s not that critical voices in the film industry have been silenced entirely. Independent-minded films still get made \u2014 like 2023\u2019s Jawan <\/em>and Pathaan<\/em>, Shah Rukh Khan-led action films that the Atlantic described as \u201clittered with subversive commentary on India under Modi.\u201d The environment is markedly freer outside Hindi-language cinema; the Malayam and Tamil film industries have been more resistant to government pressure.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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But the Hindi industry is the biggest and most influential: the term \u201cBollywood\u201d itself generally refers only to Hindi studios. And it\u2019s clear that the balance is off there \u2014 leading the government\u2019s anti-Muslim narrative to dominate in one of India\u2019s most important cultural spheres.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThere are so many filmmakers whose film is stuck,\u201d Trehan says. \u201cBut they are not ready to speak out of fear.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The future of Hollywood?<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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What Modi has done to Indian film carries clear lessons for other backsliding democracies \u2014 most notably, the United States.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The first lesson is that free expression in major industries depends, in large part, on preserving nonpartisan leadership and norms in powerful government agencies.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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India\u2019s CBFC, tax agencies, and law enforcement have long had problems, including abusive political interventions. But Modi has made these problems considerably worse, to the point where it is less a change in degree than in kind. Today, key agencies have become staffed by political cronies who act like extensions of ruling parties. This capture of nominally nonpartisan institutions is what enabled him to bring so much political pressure on studios, producers, and actors.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The second lesson is that big cultural industries \u2014 whatever their professed political values \u2014 are first and foremost profit-seeking entities. Bollywood has a reputation as a more culturally progressive space, even casting Pakistani actors in prominent roles during the early Modi years. But when it became clear that the balance of financial power favored the government, that critical films might never see the light of day and propagandistic ones would make bank, Indian film studios shifted accordingly.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cMovie-making is an expensive business, so you understand where they\u2019re coming from.\u201d Dhume says. One film critic, granted anonymity by Indian journalist Kaashif Hajee, was even blunter: \u201cThe only God is the box office.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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We have seen both of these mechanisms at work in the second Trump administration.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The president has famously demolished the independence of agencies like the Justice Department and FCC, and even tried to weaponize them against its enemies in the entertainment industry \u2014 most notably when it tried to force Jimmy Kimmel off the air earlier this year.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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That effort failed. But there are also many examples of American conglomerates seeming to bow to government pressure, like CBS\u2019s decision to cancel Trump critic Stephen Colbert\u2019s show while its parent company awaited FCC approval for its merger.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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There\u2019s even a handful of examples of studios pushing out films nakedly bidding for the president\u2019s favor, like Amazon\u2019s Melania<\/em> documentary. While that film was a box office dud \u2014 it made just $16.7 million on a $75 million budget \u2014 it was widely seen as an effort to win favor with the administration on other regulatory matters. Ted Hope, one of the founders of Amazon\u2019s studio arm, called the film \u201can outright bribe\u201d in an interview with the New York Times.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Overall, however, these cases remain exceptional. There is no evidence that the American entertainment industry is shifting toward MAGA propaganda in any mass way; Trump critical-fare (like the Star Wars series Andor<\/em> or the superhero satire The Boys<\/em>) remains vastly more popular with critics and audiences.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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This owes partly to structural dissimilarities between the United States and India. The American ratings board has long been far weaker than the CBFC, and the First Amendment is far stronger than India\u2019s constitutional speech protections. We are less than two years into Trump\u2019s second term; Modi has been in power continuously since 2014. It would be very surprising to do in a year and a half what Modi accomplished over a decade.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The lesson of India\u2019s film industry is not, then, that Trump is on the verge of conquering Hollywood. Rather, it\u2019s that he has identified the right mechanisms for pressuring the entertainment industry: using politicized agencies to both raise the costs of free speech and create incentives for companies to toe a state-friendly line.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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That these lines of attack are at present underdeveloped in the United States does not mean they could not, eventually, become something more serious. Any effort to future-proof American democracy, to safeguard its foundations from further assault, requires serious study of how these tactics worked in places like India and identifying means of blocking them.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThe situation with a film like Satluj<\/em>\u2026is a warning call. Not just for Indians, but other countries around the world when it comes to how governments are going to control the creative business,\u201d Ganguly says.<\/p>\n

Read more ICE is quieter but still deadly<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

See More:<\/span><\/p>\n
    \n
  • India<\/li>\n
  • Politics<\/li>\n
  • World Politics<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    \ufeffA censored Indian film shows how quickly creative freedom can buckle under political pressure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":712,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"yoast_head":"\nModi\u2019s government brought Bollywood to heel. Hollywood should pay attention. - American Living Report<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/americanlivingreport.com\/?p=713\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Modi\u2019s government brought Bollywood to heel. 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