Corporate Culture, Censorship Consumed Cinema

Extreme capitalism has gripped the world’s biggest cinema industry based out of Mumbai, India, often called Bollywood. Passion seems to have gone out of Indian cinema and investigative journalism is as good as dead. There has been a sudden change in the working of Bollywood since 2017. These were among the remarks made by Tigmanshu Dhulia, popular writer, director and actor while delivering the Rajendra Mathur Memorial Lecture 2026 organised by the Editors Guild of India. Dhulia said the first part of the film “Dhurandhar” was crafted very well and made it very popular despite the criticism that it was nothing but right-wing, Hindu nationalist propaganda. The talk, titled “The State of the Media and the Film Industry” followed by a question-answer session, took place on Friday 04 September on a rain-soaked evening in New Delhi. The function was presided over by the president of the guild Sanjay Kapoor and moderated by senior journalist Ashutosh, who quipped that the title of the talk should have been “media of the state and the industry of films.” The vote of thanks was given by Raghavan Srinivasan.