India's government is being accused of waging a war on Bollywood the country's most powerful cultural force and using it as party propaganda. Filmmakers who resist pressure to produce pro-government content face a backlash while those who follow the party line get public support from the prime minister himself.
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00:00 On a set in Mumbai, director Vivek Agnathothri is making a new movie about India's COVID
00:10 vaccine. It appears to echo Prime Minister Narendra Modi's stance on the pandemic, despite
00:16 widespread deaths.
00:18 What kind of story does it tell about India to the rest of the world?
00:21 About commitment to humanity, about conviction that we can do it when everybody thought we
00:27 can't do it.
00:28 Some states ruled by Modi's party, the BJP, gave discounted tickets and days off work
00:34 to get people to watch Vivek's last film, The Kashmir Files.
00:40 And Prime Minister Modi met with Vivek and his wife, Bollywood star Pallavi Joshi.
00:46 When you know that the Prime Minister is kind of endorsing the film in a way, you know that
00:50 you're doing something right.
00:52 Some critics say The Kashmir Files was misleading and Islamophobic because it ignored Muslim
00:58 persecution.
00:59 But Vivek says he was telling the Hindu side of the story.
01:04 There are a lot of concerns that this is incited violence and anti-Muslim violence.
01:08 What do you say to that?
01:09 First of all, I'm not answerable to that.
01:11 That's Indian culture.
01:12 People vent their emotions out in cinema hall.
01:14 When the big star films come, people dance in cinema halls.
01:19 Sometimes they abuse the villain in cinema halls.
01:22 Cinema studies professor Ira Bhaskar says she's witnessed a transformation of films
01:27 since Modi came to power.
01:30 This government and the Prime Minister, Mr Modi himself, really for the first time have
01:37 mobilised cinema as a propaganda tool.
01:41 The Modi government minister in charge of films and streaming did not respond to the
01:46 ABC's requests for comment.
01:48 [BLANK_AUDIO]