As you are aware that few days back Sushant Singh Rajput committed suicide, and after that there have been many posts in social media regarding groupism and nepotism in Bollywood. There have been enough discussions on this topic on TV channels also. The main contention of all these post on social media was that as Sushant was outsider with no Godfather in Bollywood, so he was not accepted in the inner circles of Bollywood, he started losing assignments because of this and went into depressions and then committed suicide. Earlier also there have been many instances when talented artists/technicians left the Bollywood because of prevailing nepotism and groupism.
The fact is camps and nepotism is there in the Bollywood from the earlier days. In the 1930s and 1940s there were many production houses which worked as camp, like Prabhat, Bombay Talkies, Minerva Movietone and many more. Here they used to hire actors and technicians who were bound with them as they could not take any assignments with other production houses. After independence slowly this system went into change and most of the actors/technicians became freelancers. In the 50s and 60s it was actors who became stars and started creating their own camps. In those days Raj Kapoor, Dilip Kumar and Dev Anand were big stars and they used to work within their camps with their preferred co stars and technicians. If you remember , earlier Raj Kapoor always preferred to work with Nargis, and most of his films had a music by Shankar Jaikishan, and songs were written by lyricists Shailendra & Hasrat Jaipuri. Similarly Dev Anand always preferred to work with SD Burman as Music Director and Sahir as lyricist in earlier films, it was only after the break up Sahir and SD Burman, Dev Anand started using other lyricists. Diilp Kumar always preferred Naushad as Music Director, Shakeel Badayuni as lyricist for his films, in the 50s there were very few films of Raj Kapoor, Dev Anand and Dilip Kumar, which did not have above mentioned music directors of their respective camps. As these three big stars and even when they did films with other producers, they complied with star’s request for choice of co stars and music directors.
With arrival of new actors and new music directors in the 60s, slowly this trend started changing, but different camps were still there, and they are still continuing over the years. Even star preferred to work with their preferred playback singers, Raj Kapoor stuck with Mukesh but occasionally used Manna Dey, Dev Anand was with Rafi & Kishore and Dilip Kumar with Talat Mehmood and Rafi. Whenever for some reasons other singers were used for these three stars, people liked those songs but these stars stuck up their original choices. There were many more smaller camps but I am not going into details of them. So media saying the different camps are existing in Bollywood, yes they are there from the beginning and are going to stay, and this is not going to change because of media.
Now coming to nepotism in Bollywood, like camps/groupism this is also existing in Bollywood from the good old days. Few examples of the olden days
1 Kapoor family-Prithviraj Kapoor was theatre actor who then entered into films. Because of him his elder son Raj Kapoor got into Bollywood first as a assistant director and then as actor/star, producer and director and proved that he has a talent then survived on his talent for more than 3 decades. Raj Kapoor’s younger brother Shammi Kapoor started as actor but most of his earlier films were either flops or super flops and few were average films, but because of his Kapoor lineage, he got umpteen chance and later he reinvented himself with film called Tumsa Nahin Dekha and his career took off. Similar was the fate of other brother Shashi Kapoor, after his film stared flopping in the initial days as actor, he also got many chances to prove himself, he proved himself with films like Jab Jab Phool Khile & Waqt and then his career also took off. Raj Kapoor’s one son Rishi kapoor succeeded as an actor but other two sons Randhir and Rajeev, even after many chances could not succeed as actor. Now both the daughters of Randhir, Karishma and Kareena enjoyed success from their early films. Even Rishi’s son Ranbir has proved himself as good actor from his early films. Shashi Kapoor’s 2 sons and 1 daughter also tried acting in films but could not succeed. So for this family even nepotism could not give the desired success in few cases.
2 Anand family- First to enter the Bollywood was Chetan Anand in 1940s who became famous as an actor and director. This prompted younger brother Dev Anand to enter Bollywood as an actor, after an early hic up he succeeded as an actor and first he formed his banner Navketan and after 2 decades he even became director, and he was active in Bollywood for 6 decades as producer/director/actor. Dev’s younger brother Vijay Anand also entered Bollywood as writer/director in Navketan banner film in 1957, later he became actor also. All the brothers proved that they have talent and survived for decades. But none of their children succeeded in Bollywood. Dev launched his son Suneil Anand with big fanfare in early 80s , he acted in 2 films and faded away.
Friends rest of the article , I will cover in my next weekend blog
Waiting for your views/feed backs/comments.
Anil Malik
Mumbai, India
26th June 2020.
R. N. Mungale.
There is certainly nepotism in Bollywood.