India’s role comes of age

Indian actor Alia Bhatt’s maiden Hollywood project, Heart of Stone, created a lot of buzz when it was announced. Her fellow countrymen swelled with pride, and the trailer did not disappoint. In a pleasant surprise, Bhatt appears to play a negative character — gone are the days when Indians were seen as the awkward, ill-fitting nerds manning global BPOs or turning into engineers and doctors by the droves. Indians in Western media have evolved to present multifaceted personalities, and as being well-integrated into Western life and a globalised world.

This change could be attributed to a broader movement worldwide of Western societies accepting the historical burden of racism and colonialism, and minority communities rising in power. Even a few years ago, it would have been unimaginable for example, to see leaders of Indian descent heading some of the world’s most powerful nations, or a Naatu Naatu being reproduced on the Oscar stage, a Diljit Dosanjh headlining Coachella, or the likes of Priyanka Chopra Jonas leading one of Amazon US’ most ambitious productions to date (Citadel).

“I think George Floyd’s public execution and the social uprisings that followed, plus the MeToo movement played a large role in activating political consciousness, and that extended to South Asians who prior operated in competition and in silos,” says Indian-American director Tanuj Chopra, who ran the critically acclaimed second season of the Netflix series, Delhi Crime. “Something about the moment gave Brown people greater permission to be Brown.”

Arguably, though, the biggest contributor to Indians — and indeed Asians as a whole — becoming part of mainstream storytelling is the OTT tsunami. As the number of platforms keep growing and worldwide subscriptions increase, the amount of content being churned out is unprecedented. This has necessitated production companies, platforms and studios to constantly look for untold stories, especially from minority communities, which would grant them an edge.

“There is a definite increase in representation of all races, not just Indians, given the amount of content that’s being generated,” says UK-based Indian actor, Purab Kohli. At the same time, he adds, if we were to draw up a chart based on proportions vis a vis how much content is being created, there remains huge “scope for a larger percentage of Indian artists to be represented in both cast and crew.”

Among the earliest shows with an Indian-origin cast to have become popular out West were Goodness Gracious Me and The Kumars at No. 42, starring husband-wife duo Meera Syal and Sanjeev Bhaskar. Unfortunately, for a long time after, people of Indian origin were typecast as comic relief or tertiary characters in a story. The late Irrfan Khan turned the tide considerably, but the percentage of cast members or directors and producers of Indian descent to be taken seriously were few and far between.

Cut to the 2000s, where Kunal Nayyar became stupendously famous on The Big Bang Theory, but again as a nerdy Indian boy who can’t talk to women, date anyone, or wear colour coordinated clothing. Swap that with Nayyar more recently on shows like Apple TV’s Suspicion, and Netflix’s Criminal: UK, which earned him a BAFTA nomination. Even Bhaskar, who was commonly seen through the comic lens, bowled the world over with continuing his incredible portrayal of DI Sunny Khan on the critically acclaimed show, Unforgotten.

In the US, the situation is more volatile, and that Hollywood is struggling to keep up with the times from a diversity, equity and inclusion perspective, is clear with the ongoing strikes (at the time of writing, Bhatt refused to speak to Gulf News in solidarity). “Indian representation has increased because America is finally realising that Americans are not just white people,” says Sonali Sundararaj, an independent producer based in Los Angeles. “Plus, now, people of colour have started running mentorship programmes and opening doors for other minorities to make way for greater representation.”

All this has led to a spurt in the number of Indian-origin characters in Western storytelling. From Mindy Kaling’s hugely popular Never Have I Ever, which is about an Indian-American teenager trying to balance her Indian upbringing and Western expectations, to actors of Indian origin starring on critically acclaimed shows like Bridgerton (Charithra Chandran), and The Witcher (Anya Chalotra), to Indian actors like Ali Fazal (Kandahar, Death on the Nile), Jonas, and Bhatt making a strong mark.

This level of representation, however, doesn’t apply to crew. “You make incremental steps, scrap to make projects that reflect your world on screen, work your way up,” says Chopra. “I made enough things that got me into all the major directing labs in town but it was still hard to get hired and I didn’t see a ton of South Asians directing episodes out there [West]. However, in India, I was qualified to showrun and direct Delhi Crime 2, so clearly something is broken in the system for me.”

Sundararaj concurs. “One of the biggest things I have been fighting for in my own productions and in building my own teams is greater representation behind the camera,” she says. For example, one might see one South Asian writer in a writers’ room where there’s at least one Indian character, but this remains shockingly low.

So what can we expect going forth? It’s become clear that representing ethnic minorities onscreen is crucial to reflect the multicultural societies we live in. Think Beef on Netflix, or even Warrior, the acclaimed show on Max, based on Bruce Lee’s writings. To demonstrate, when Lee wrote the story of a Chinese martial arts expert and migrant to 1800s US, no one wanted to produce it because America didn’t want a Chinese actor leading a TV show. Over 30 years later, productions led entirely by an Asian cast isn’t uncommon anymore.

“People of Indian origin who live in the West, or those who belong to second or third generations of immigrants, still don’t see enough content where they’re represented,” says Kohli. Their choices are between traditional Bollywood and mainstream Western content that predominantly cater to white audiences. “But in the future [content evolution] is inevitable.”

It’s important to brace for a fight in the short term, though. As Western societies struggle within themselves to stabilise given the alarming rise of conservatism, rebellion through popular culture is becoming more and more distinct.

“The future is uncertain, unwritten and potentially beautiful,” says Chopra. “South Asian genre films, drama series, shows that include actors from both Hollywood and Bollywood, Bollywood directors doing Hollywood films, movies shot across continents, innovative indies by young diaspora filmmakers that tickle us in fresh authentic ways — it’s all there for us if we stay united, dream and demand it. We also have to stay vigilant against racist tropes, accents and exclusion; it’s a battle we’ll continue to fight, but I foresee much higher highs.”