Kurbaan, MNIK and many more: See how a twitter user exposes specific agenda of foreign movie production houses

The Bollywood industry has long been accused by its naysayers of being a platform that only pushes a certain type of agenda, based on the whims of the rich and influential. Vijay Patel, a netizen, has now created a detailed thread dissecting how Bollywood uses subtle messaging to play with and influence the psyche of viewers through its movies and big production houses.

Sharing documents of Office of Strategic Services (USA intelligence agency before CIA), the Twitter user showed how the USA had much before started using motion pictures as a form of a propaganda channel.

“The motion picture is one of the most powerful propaganda weapons at the disposal of the United States, and it may be used for a variety of functions,”reads the document whilst further adding, “Motion pictures are an unparalleled instructional medium- they can present new information about important problems about which people are ignorant and should be informed; they can clarify complicated problems about which people are confused.” 

According to WikiLeaks, two US officials, EUR Senior Advisor Farah Pandith and S/P Member Jared Cohen met with certain people in the UK in 2007 to discuss future plans to work with Bollywood on their agenda. They wanted to make films that represented Muslims in a good light.

Pandith was appointed as the US Department of State's special representative to Muslim communities by the Obama administration in 2009. The two officials visited Islamic countries in Leicester and other parts of the United Kingdom and held a wide range of discussions, including how to use Bollywood to promote anti-extremism messages.

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“Bollywood actors and executives agreed to work with the USG to push anti-extremist messages through third party actors and were excited about the idea of possibly partnering with Hollywood as well,” according to a WikiLeaks cable from the US embassy.

Humeira Akhter was present at that meeting. She has strong links to Bollywood's top ranks, and she has stated that some of the "stars" are already interested in working with them.

Soon after the leaks, Karan Johar's Dharma Films released the film "Kurbaan" in 2009, starring Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoor Khan, based on a subject that had been discussed by US officials. While the film big dud at the box office, its message was clear: it sought to soften the public's against extremists. It's important to note that the film's distribution at the time was handled by UTV. The Indian firm is now a subsidiary of Hollywood behemoth Disney.

A year later, Karan Johar released ‘My Name Is Khan,' another film along similar lines. Johar, on the other hand, used a more well-known face this time to draw audiences to the theatres. Shahrukh Khan reprised his role as the protagonist in the film, which was a big success. It was Fox Star Studios' first film in India, and they spent a stunning 1 billion INR for the distribution rights in 2010, the highest sum at the time.

While the film did well at the box office, it is important to outline the timeline for the film's development. Shahrukh was supposedly detained for two hours at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey in 2009, according to Vijay. He was in the US at the time to promote his film "My Name Is Khan," which is ironically about Muslim racial profiling.

Despite working for a US agency, Shahrukh was allegedly biased against, but with no real proof of the chain of events, Vijay said it as an elaborate PR stunt to gain sympathy from a gullible audience.

Vijay says there are many such movies that Bollywood has churned over the years that pander to certain ideologies and ideas. Their sole aim is to create a favourable narrative while playing down the others.