The British Bard and Bollywood
by Aayushi A.
Chandos portrait of Shakespeare, attributed to John Taylor, c. 1600.
I knew Shakespeare’s stories long before I knew anything about him. They came to me packaged in the form of some of my parents’ favorite Bollywood movies instead of the dramatic literature I am now familiar with. Shakespearean adaptations have been popular in the Hindi film industry for decades and have introduced these stories to an audience of millions.
My grandparents do not know who Shakespeare is, but they could easily tell you the plot of some of his plays. Instead of Romeo and Juliet, they know Ram and Leela; instead of Othello, they are familiar with Omkara. These stories were British when they arrived in India, but were Indian by the time they left. What does it mean for a country that was once under British rule to adapt their colonizer’s stories as their own?
Less than a century ago, India was still one of the colonies that were part of the British Empire. Soon after the British first docked at the shores of the subcontinent at the end of the 16th century, they laid the foundations for the East India Company, a trade company that quickly transitioned into a kind of pseudo-government. In the next two centuries, the British Raj was established, with Queen Victoria being proclaimed the Empress of India in 1876.
East India House in Leadenhall Street, London as drawn by Thomas Hosmer Shepherd, c.1817.
As the East India Company gained a foothold in the country, so did its influence on Indian culture. British merchants that had moved to India brought with them their own stories and entertainment, which they far preferred over local ones. A significant marker of this cultural colonization was the building of the Calcutta Theatre around 1775, in what is now Kolkata, West Bengal. Plays like Hamlet and Richard III were performed—exclusively for British audiences in racially segregated theaters across the city. These plays were more than just simple entertainment; they were a political statement by the empire. Sponsored by colonial officials and dignitaries, these theaters perpetuated the “myth of English cultural refinement and superiority.” Even though the British were exporting their own culture to the Indian subcontinent, the Indian public was not allowed to partake in it.
As British rule in India became stronger, attempts were made to “civilize” the “barbaric” native Indian population by sharing Western thoughts and ideas. Formal education policies were codified, and after the passage of the Indian Educational Act in 1835, English was made the official language of instruction. Fluency marked one as a member of the sophisticated elite. Upper-class Indians jumped at the opportunity to be considered equals to their colonizers. They would study classic English literature, and were expected to be familiar with the English arts.
Production of Othello at the Star Theatre, Kolkata, 1919.
Under the guise of such policies, the British were able to wield their power and influence over the Indian population. They acclimatized upper-class Indians to Western and colonial sentiments while simultaneously demonizing local traditions and ideas, in hopes that these “better citizens” would pave the way for the rest of the native public.
Over the next few decades, the Indian elite was gradually granted permission to join the previously segregated theater audiences. With this newfound accessibility, students drew inspiration from the stages they watched, and began to mimic them at their own institutions. At the new Bengali theater, Bengali translations of some of the bard’s most famous plays were performed. However, these were not very popular among their local audience. It was only after these stories were “Indianized” that they began to take root in Indian art.
What does it mean to “Indianize” something? Jyotsna Singh, professor of English at Michigan State University, considers the term in the context of the multiplicity of the Indian identity. Thorough “Indianization” came from the diverse ways in which Shakespeare was redefined across the nation to suit regional sentiments, varying from period to period and different settings. Instead of remaining mere imitations of English productions, the plays were molded to become a part of local theater traditions. These interactions between Shakespeare and narrative forms of art extended to rural areas as well, allowing for a more elaborate incorporation of indigenous theatrical styles. In turn, playwrights learned about tragedy, theme, and characterization—notions of drama that are still integrated into various mediums of Indian art across regional languages.
Raja Harishchandra (1913)
With theater came drama and with drama came film. India’s first feature film, Dadasaheb Phalke’s silent Raja Harishchandra¸ was made in 1913. By the 1930s, Bollywood had become a thriving industry. One of the first “talkies” was a Hindi version of The Merchant of Venice—Savkari Pash in 1925. Many filmmakers drew and continue to draw inspiration from Shakespearean motifs and stories.
Some of Bollywood’s most popular adaptations of his plays include Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak (1988), Maqbool (2003), Omkara (2006), and Haider (2014). Along with retellings, many themes and devices Shakespeare often utilized in his writing, such as the mousetrap device and cross-dressing characters, have also been commonplace in Indian cinema. His dialogue has inspired a number of references in popular films as well.
However, only a fraction of these films actually give explicit credit to the bard. Gulzar’s Angoor was the first to do so in 1984 with a prescript at the beginning of the film. Bhardwaj was the first filmmaker to make a trilogy based on some of the playwright’s most popular tragedies. He did so by emphatically acknowledging his source and preserving “the conflicts he had in our own culture and society.” These varying degrees of acknowledgement from filmmakers begin to illustrate the (c)overt role of Shakespeare in Bollywood.
The usual absence of credit to Shakespeare indicates just how thoroughly his influence has permeated not only Indian cinema but also other narrative forms of art. The British had exported his work to India in the hopes of creating a universal Shakespeare through which they could strengthen their colonial power, but this exact universality is what betrayed them. In their attempt to showcase their culture as superior and exclusive, they had, in fact, shone a light on its plausible inclusivity.
Angoor (1982)
As inadvertent as it may have been, British colonialism contributed to globalization, creating a catalyst for social and cultural interaction. As the British tried to establish a global empire, they created a global bard, making Shakespeare’s stories accessible to new artistic contexts. In the words of Parthajit Baruah, a noted Indian film critic, “Shakespeare is Orientalized because Shakespeare has been carried across languages and cultures in a such [sic] way that his motifs have become universal—they no longer belong to the West in the present context.” Instead of Shakespeare’s works remaining a tool of colonialism, they became tools to enrich local art and culture. For once, the colonized were able to take from the colonizers—a reclamation of sorts. In removing his name from their works, Indian filmmakers not only refused to give power to the colonial ideas, but also reflected the far reach and influence of Shakespeare. Even in giving full credit, Bhardwaj does something similar, placing the oppressor in the oppressed world of his own will.
The steady relevance of Shakespeare’s stories in India complicates the colonial power dynamic. Is it just the dregs of colonialism or the universality of art? Is it both? Shakespeare is still being taught in Indian schools (I had to read Julius Caesar) and his works are still being adapted by the Hindi film industry. As someone who studied English literature, I am now very familiar with Shakespeare’s written works, but I will always have first known them as pieces of home. There’s no doubt that India lost much to colonialism, but in a way it is almost reassuring to still take ownership of our own creativity.