Reclaiming the Silver Screen: Why India Must Rethink Cinema as Civilisational Power
Vikram Kesari Jena
Saikrishna Swain
In the twenty-first century, cinema is no longer mere entertainment; it is geopolitics in motion, economy in spectacle, and civilisation in narrative form. The world’s most influential nations understand this. The United States built an empire not only through military alliances and trade agreements but through the myth-making machinery of Hollywood. China has strategically transformed its domestic film sector into a state-backed cultural powerhouse, with companies such as China Film Group Corporation acting as instruments of national influence. Japan, through studios like Toho Co., Ltd. and global franchises born from its animation and storytelling traditions, has shaped global pop imagination. Meanwhile, India home to one of the largest film-producing ecosystems in the world continues to underplay its cinematic potential as a driver of global soft power and economic development. Despite the immense scale of Bollywood and vibrant regional industries, cinema remains structurally unsupported, academically marginalised, and policy-neglected.
India produces more films annually than any other country. The diversity of its linguistic industries Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Bengali, Marathi and more, reflects a cultural depth unmatched in scale. Yet quantity has not translated into coordinated global strategy. Unlike Hollywood, which enjoys deep integration with financial markets, distribution monopolies, technology ecosystems, and state-backed diplomatic leverage, Indian cinema operates in fragmented silos. Hollywood’s studios. The Walt Disney Company, Warner Bros., and Universal Pictures, are vertically integrated conglomerates with global distribution pipelines and sophisticated intellectual property monetisation strategies. China’s film sector benefits from protective policies, curated imports, vast domestic infrastructure, and planned cultural export agendas aligned with national strategy. Japan carefully cultivates its anime and cinematic heritage as export industries. India, by contrast, celebrates box-office numbers but hesitates to institutionalise cinema as a strategic industry.
The irony is stark. A civilisation that once served as a global intellectual guide now struggles to recognise the power of narrative capital. When Baahubali: The Beginning or RRR achieves global recognition, it does so largely through private initiative, risk-taking producers, and diasporic markets, not because of a coherent national cinematic policy. There is no comprehensive infrastructure mission comparable to those established for IT, pharmaceuticals or space research. Film cities exist, but not as globally benchmarked production ecosystems with tax incentives, research labs, advanced post-production hubs and international training pipelines. Subsidies remain inconsistent across states; national-level film policy is fragmented. While China builds thousands of screens annually and integrates cinema with tourism, gaming and merchandise, India continues to treat cinema primarily as glamour or populist distraction rather than as industrial strategy.
Cinema is not merely culture; it is economy. The global entertainment industry contributes hundreds of billions of dollars annually to GDP across nations. Streaming platforms, gaming tie-ins, merchandise, theme parks, intellectual property licensing and tourism multiply revenue far beyond ticket sales. Hollywood understands this multiplier effect. A single franchise can generate decades of cross-sector revenue. Japan’s animation industry integrates publishing, gaming, collectibles and global conventions. China’s domestic market, protected and scaled, ensures financial sustainability before global expansion. India, despite its storytelling reservoir from epics to folklore, has not systematised intellectual property development at scale. Our narratives are rich, but our frameworks for monetising and protecting them remain underdeveloped. We celebrate creative success but rarely build durable institutions around it.
The deeper issue lies in education. India’s premier institutions Indian Institutes of Technology, Indian Institutes of Management, and major central universities, do not treat film studies, entertainment economics, or media geopolitics as core disciplines. We produce engineers, doctors, chartered accountants and lawyers in abundance. But where are the thinkers trained to analyse cinema as a driver of GDP, diplomacy, tourism, technology and national branding? Where are the interdisciplinary programmes that connect film production with artificial intelligence, design, public policy and behavioural economics? Nations that dominate global narratives invest in narrative literacy. India still treats cinema studies as niche or ornamental. In doing so, we limit our capacity to envision a coherent roadmap for the entertainment economy.
Comparisons with China and Japan reveal a structural gap rather than a talent deficit. China’s state-backed strategy aligns cinema with national identity and global projection. Japan leverages tradition and technology seamlessly, preserving cultural uniqueness while embracing innovation. Hollywood operates as a consortium of capital, creativity and state influence, reinforced by financial markets and global media diplomacy. India, despite its civilisational storytelling heritage from the epics to classical theatre lacks coordinated policy imagination. The absence of sustained subsidies, tax harmonisation, infrastructure missions, and global co-production frameworks weakens competitiveness. Private producers shoulder disproportionate risk. Piracy and fragmented distribution erode margins. Meanwhile, international studios enter Indian markets with superior capital and marketing muscle.
This editorial is not a lament but a call for intellectual seriousness. Film studies must be elevated as a prime academic discipline, integrated with economics, international relations, data science and entrepreneurship. Entertainment should be analysed as infrastructure, not indulgence. A nation aspiring to global leadership cannot ignore the persuasive power of its stories. If India once shaped Asia through philosophy and trade, it can shape the twenty-first century through cinematic imagination, provided it recognises cinema as policy, not pastime. We need research centres on entertainment economics, national film funds with transparent governance, global film schools linked to technology institutes, and policy think tanks that map entertainment’s contribution to GDP and soft power. Without such measures, we risk remaining prolific yet peripheral.
India stands at a decisive cultural juncture. Our screens are vibrant, our talent undeniable, our audiences vast. But scale without structure breeds volatility. If we continue to prioritise only conventional professions while neglecting creative industries as strategic assets, we will produce skilled workers but not visionary architects of national narrative. Cinema is the mirror in which a civilisation sees itself and the window through which the world sees that civilisation. To reclaim our position as a global guru in the modern age, India must treat its entertainment industry not as spectacle alone but as sovereign capital. The silver screen is not secondary to steel or silicon; it is the emotional infrastructure of the global economy. The question is not whether India can compete. The question is whether it will finally choose to think big enough to lead.
