India and China share a filmy connection and New Delhi should work to leverage this phenomenon. Soft power may not resolve differences but will make a difference
As India and China struggle to find a new language to connect over geo-politics, the latest Indian film Hindi Medium has won over the Chinese, who find the struggle of refinement and social ascension through the knowledge of English and a Western construct equally alien to them. Tiger parenting, a concept that unifies parents of primary school-going children in southeast Asia and which involves getting them a great start in life by endowing them with genius abilities, has clearly gotten the two peoples together. According to a Chinese daily, “Many Chinese parents, especially those living in first-tier cities, quickly relate to the anxious parents and their embarrassing situations in the movie.” While the film has far outdone its India business at Rs 200 crore, its sameness of a cultural construct has made Bollywood the arrowhead of a “soft diplomacy” beyond Buddhism, yoga and food.
Not too long ago, the mammoth bookings for Aamir Khan’s Dangal and Secret Superstar had shown that our films had toppled not only Hollywood but even China’s domestic films. Khan is almost an honorary citizen with his “call to conscience” roles and aura as a champion of the dispossessed. So when Prime Minister Narendra Modi met Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Kazakhstan last year, the latter told the former how much he had appreciated Dangal. So what worked for the Chinese viewerIJ A realistic, everyday story set in an Oriental context. Be it a father determined to turn his two girls from the back-of-the-beyond into competitive wrestling champions, challenging the male status quo of physicality or an aspirant singer breaking the shackles of conservatism, the ordinary Chinese could relate to the denial of the right of expression in a feudal, hierarchical and regimented society. This, in the Chinese insular scenario, is somewhat like Voldemort, “the one who should not be named.” So that hidden voice has transmigrated to these Indian onscreen characters. The Chinese system is so monolithically obsessive about appropriating and exceeding Western benchmarks in every sphere of life that even films are about technical finesse, superheroes, epic conflicts and Western templates rather than feeling. Indian story-telling, has, therefore, touched a human core and is referenced in everything Eastern, be it far east, near east or south east. And that civilisational comradeship, something that China likes to harp on as shared history, certainly has had a greater impact than any propagandist machinery.
Though soft power can only be a subsidiary of economic and military might and be a track II effort at best in reducing differences and reconciling people on either side, its hold on the Chinese mind is perhaps for the first time nullifying the primary rules of engagement. Particularly after Doklam, which has brought the two Asian neighbours precipitously close to conflict, our films are turning out to be a mass opiate of sorts. Pitted against Chinese scale and giganticism, our films may seem a lot like a giant helium balloon but one which is giving us something to soar over Chinese anxieties. Indian ambassador Gautam Bambawale recently told the Global Times: “China must import more Bollywood films to understand India better.”
China was ranked 25th in the Top 30 Soft Power Index last year, a list where India could not break through. But it sure has toppled China in the game on the great wall of constructs on the latter’s home turf. So while Aamir has endeared himself as “uncle” and “soul of India,” we have trouble recalling a Chinese superstar. China has made huge investments in its film industry but hasn’t had a crossover hit since Ang lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon in 2000. All its efforts for a global blockbuster since then have failed.
At the moment, China’s soft power tools like the Belt and Road Initiative, a subterfuge for economic colonisation of smaller countries in the name of sharing resources and empowering them with a growth corridor that couches its strategic invincibility, have failed to cut ice in India. Though China claims to be willing to address India’s concerns on its economic corridor with Pakistan and insists it is not a lassoing enterprise, its infrastructural overlordship in Nepal, Sri lanka and the Maldives proves otherwise. The dependencies of India’s immediate neighbours can hardly be called altruistic. And while Belt initiatives have acknowledged the Buddhist arc — China has ramped up Buddhist monuments in its frontline provinces bordering Myanmar and Thailand to establish a cultural contiguity of context — they have not quite been relevant in the land that Buddha was born.
Of course, China has scored big with its educational institutions and universities. In 2016, there were over 18,000 Indian students in China, higher than the UK. Universities in Yunnan offer average Indian students, who do not make it past the entry norms at home, a chance to pursue everything from medicine to the sciences in an overseas environment. China has focussed on the quality of research and teaching in its bid to control the knowledge economy with Peking and Tsinghua universities featuring in the top 30 of elite global centres of learning. Not only that, China has been handsomely funding fellowship, scholarship and exchange programmes to build a deeper cultural understanding. The India-China Yoga College at Yunnan Minzu University has begun master’s level courses in yoga and an undergraduate Hindi course. The Chinese have begun to love our roti and paratha but it is not quite the culinary invasion of Chinese food here. It is difficult then to quantify the cultural dividend. Tourist numbers are going up on both sides while Chinese investment in India and bilateral trade volumes are on an upward spiral. While we import more finished goods than we export — that area still dominated by components, accessories and raw materials — the film market, based on a revenue-sharing model, is working to mutual advantage and thriving. The Chinese market is difficult to get into considering it just accepts four Indian films a year compared to 38 of Hollywood. But when Secret Superstar rampaged the Chinese foreign box office, making almost 450 crore plus in 10 days toppling Star Wars: last Jedi and The Maze Runner, followed by Bajrangi Bhaijaan and now Hindi Medium, popular culture seemed to be our most fruitful engagement. Meanwhile, Aamir is even thinking of joint productions, having met Chinese actors even as he has managed to get production house Peacock Mountain on board.
The Chinese know their conventional strategic depth but the film collaboration, given the emotional sway Bollywood has, also helps them lull Indians into a larger acceptance of their credo, one that in the Indian mind has degenerated into stereotypes of mistrust and inscrutability. Besides, Indian films allow a collective outpouring of angst that cannot be otherwise accommodated through tutored platforms. And by allowing the gradual ascendancy of Bollywood, China intends to cushion its expansionist territorial and economic designs as a sub-set of bilateral relations. So much of Xi’s appreciation could be more about strategic acquiescence.
Both India and China are subtly competing in this well-crafted goodwill game which does have a way of working through the complex relationship matrix. Soft diplomacy has played an important role even during heightened tensions. At least in the frontline provinces of Yunnan, there’s a new sensitivity with young people acknowledging the challenges of population vis-à-vis growth in both economies. They are looking beyond the Western media stereotypes of India as dirty, impoverished slumdogs who can never be millionaires. With Delhi being labelled as a rape capital by the foreign press, Yunnan students are talking about the challenges of migration into cities and the unequal social and ethical evolution that leads to conflicts and violence like rape.
Already borderline provinces like Yunnan have developed a degree of porosity with our eastern states. Its capital Kunming is Kolkata’s sister city and tactfully revives old trade routes through car rallies. Whatever the agenda, there is clearly an opening up of minds and understanding that is not dictated by the media or propaganda. Soft power by itself cannot resolve differences between India and China but can certainly make for balmy weather amid hot summer days.
(The writer is Associate Editor, The Pioneer)
