THE Hindi film industry in Bombay has in the past contributed immensely in the growth of peace, solidarity and secular nationalism and progressive popular culture in India. The actors, directors, singers, artists, producers and writers of Bollywood have challenged power and stood behind people and their citizenship rights by upholding highest traditions of art and cinema.

However, the market-driven commercial culture motivated by profit has diminished such noble traditions within the India’s tinsel town. Commercialisation has dehumanised, distilled and alienated actors from the people and their issues.

The profit-driven advertisement industry helped this process to grow to sell dreams and alienate people from their everyday realities. The market and religious forces have used popular culture of art and cinema to promote and propagate their ahistorical and reactionary ideology to capture power in the name of culture, religion and nationalism. Such transformations have produced celebrities like newly inducted Padma Shri Kangana Ranaut.