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value chain of filmmaking one occupied—production, distribution, or exhibition. For these reasons, I refrain from circulating numbers related to box-office receipts, for numbers are highly subjective entities in the Hindi film industry.

Part 1
THE SOCIAL STATUS OF FILMS AND FILMMAKERS

1947–1997: CINEMA AND THE DEVELOPMENTALIST STATE
    Ideologies of Development and Modernization
    Films are too important to be left to filmmakers alone.
    —H. Y. Sharada Prasad, Director, Indian Institute of Mass Communication
    The above statement, made during Prasad’s speech of welcome at the 1979 Symposium on Cinema in Developing Countries held in Delhi, best encapsulates official attitudes toward the medium of cinema for much of India’s post-Independence period. Cinema has been a consistent feature in discussions about development and modernization in India, and Hindi filmmakers have been interpellated as partners in these projects for decades. Much of the discourse about film in India communicates that it is a very powerful tool that can either be used for the greater good, or be very dangerous if in the wrong hands. It then becomes the state’s responsibility to ensure the production of films that engender positive or beneficial effects, as well as prohibiting those that can be damaging. Examples of the state’s prescriptive role include the system of national awards for films instituted in 1954, while its proscriptive role is primarily enacted through the institution of film censorship, which has been carried over from the colonial period. 14
    As a result of the high rates of illiteracy and the unparalleled popularity of films and film stars in India, the state has viewed film as a pedagogical tool in its modernization agenda. Illiteracy, or the lack of a formal education, signals to government functionaries that vast portions of the populace, who are referred to as the “masses,” are easily influenced— or incited by—onscreen images. Since the masses are perceived as very malleable—and in need of proper molding—elected officials and bureaucrats throughout the decades have been exhorting filmmakers to make “socially relevant” films to “uplift” the masses. For example, in the Silver Jubilee Souvenir Program, published by the Film Federation of India on the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of Indian sound films in 1956, a section titled “Blessings and Greetings” contains statementsmade by a variety of state leaders on the role of cinema in Indian society. The Chief Minister of Bombay 15 asserted, “A film, as we know, is the most powerful medium of our age, which not only influences but moulds the cultural outlook of the people. The film industry, therefore, can play an important role in carrying the message of peace and progress to the masses. I am glad to see that some producers have realized this, but it is necessary for the industry as a whole to come forward and help the people and the State in this matter” (FFI 1956: v). The Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh 16 described in greater detail the possibilities and problems of film in India, “Films not only provide the most popular form of entertainment in modern times but they are proving also a most powerful and effective medium of education and cultural advancement. They have immense possibilities of doing good as well as harm to Society. . . The responsibility for reforming the public taste is of the producers and is a public duty which carries its own reward. Pandering to what is vulgar in human nature will degrade all of us” (FFI 1956: vi). Both leaders echo earlier statements by Nehru and Naidu where entertainment is subservient to education, and filmmakers bear the burden of some manner of social reform. The Indian state’s concern with socially relevant cinema is connected to its “hypodermic-needle” understanding of media effects and influence. 17 In this simplistic top-down causal view of media influence, cinema—and