Bollywood i polityka

The article focusing on the relations between Bollywood cinema and politics in India provides the analysis of Ram Gopal Varma’s films Sarkar (2004) and Sarkar Raj (2008). The films indirectly portraying the right-wing Hindu political group Shiv Sena and its leader Bal Thackeray show the violent reality of Indian politics as well as various universal political mechanisms: legitimacy of power through charismatic leadership, political control over media, information and other resources. Despite media rumours the filmmaker denies support for any political party and claims to be intrested in the power itself. Indeed, the hero Subhash Narge (Amitabh Bachchan) is an ideal example of the leader deriving from the ancient hindu script Bhagavadgita or described in modern times by a German sociologist Max Weber. In-depth analysis of the Ram Gopal Varma’s films as well as others of that gender, i.e. Vishal Bhardwaj’s Omkara and Maqbool, allows to see such phenomenon as political propaganda through cinema, censorship and auto-censorship and finally the universal relation between political power and art.