Author: Uswah e Fatima
Abstract
Colonial India had a flourishing film industry with Bombay, Lahore, and Calcutta as its cultural and film centers, and artists collaborating across the sub-continent. However, the 1947 Partition of the Indian subcontinent led to the creation of the nation-states of India and Pakistan and the subsequent emergence of independent film industries of the respective countries. This paper investigates the emergence of Lahore as a film center after Partition and analyzes its shifting relationship with the Bombay film industry. It examines the migration patterns of artists in the two countries to understand how the shift in their career trajectories after Partition shaped the growth of the two cinemas. The Partition was followed by an extensive process of nation-building and identity formation, which required Pakistan to culturally distinguish itself from India, and emphasize its Muslim identity. This paper studies the nascent Pakistani film industry as a site of post-Partition anxieties. It analyzes how, in the early years of its existence, the Pakistani film industry struggled with trying to resuscitate itself after the material loss of the Partition, while simultaneously building a distinct socio-cultural identity through its films, to move away from the shadow of the Indian film industry. This discourse is present within contemporary Pakistani cinema as well. Despite this, the Lahore industry has seen a continued connection to Bombay through the creative collaboration of artists and the public consumption of Bollywood films in Pakistan. This paper emphasizes how Lahore and Bombay have existed as film centers in a single history and remain interconnected in various ways.
Keywords:
Bollywood, Lollywood, Partition, Migration, South Asian History, Cinema History
