What were some of the major global perceptions of India in 1947 that might shock people today?

 In 1947, the West didn’t view India as a future superpower. They saw a doomed experiment, with Winston Churchill famously declaring it was "no more a single country than the Equator."

The consensus in Western capitals was that the newly created state would quickly collapse under its own weight. The sheer diversity of the subcontinent—hundreds of princely states, multiple major religions, and dozens of distinct languages—convinced global observers that India would inevitably balkanize. They expected the region to fragment into dozens of warring nations, much like Europe or post-colonial Africa. The fact that India managed to integrate over 500 princely states and remain a unified republic was considered highly improbable.

The global reaction to India’s constitution was equally dismissive. When Indian leaders chose to implement universal adult franchise, Western journalists called it a "mad gamble." In 1947, India’s literacy rate hovered around 12%, and most of the population lived in extreme poverty. The prevailing belief in the West was that democracy required a wealthy, educated middle class. Foreign observers predicted that giving the vote to millions of impoverished peasants would result in chaos, mob rule, or a swift takeover by a military dictator.

Economically, India was viewed as a permanent charity case. The Bengal Famine of 1943 had killed an estimated three million people just four years prior, and the partition of the subcontinent severed crucial agricultural supply chains. Early demographic models predicted mass starvation, arguing that India could never produce enough food to support its rapidly growing population. The idea that India would eventually become a net exporter of agricultural goods, launch space missions, or grow into one of the world’s top economies was dismissed as science fiction.

Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964) and Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) sit together during a meeting of the All India Congress in Mumbai in July 1946. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Why is Bollywood often criticized despite its massive global popularity?

 Bollywood which was referred originally as Hindi cinema was widely appreciated for the kind of directors like Satyajit Ray, Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Bimal Roy and many others. Even Raj Kapoor was highly regarded for his international appeal despite his movies having an overtone of sexuality.

The Hindi cinema transitioned soon into “Bollywood” or Mumbai centred film making which brought in a lot of the current unwanted problems such as nepotism, underworld funding, skin shows and blatant plagiarism.

Until 1970s, there were good directors who gave the respect, the script deserves. Even though they would enrol a Rajesh Khanna or an Amitabh, the script will do the talking.

Common men across India who watch Hindi movies could relate to the angry young man Amitabh or the romantic Rishi Kapoor. And for the artistic Cinema lovers, there was always the parallel cinema and the likes of Smita Patil, Farooq Sheikh, Amol Palekar delivering wonderful movies such as Golmaal, Choti Si Baat.

Enter 1990s and the big fat Punjabi family based movies. It was tolerable for a few years. Maine Pyaar Kiya was a big hit for the songs and for getting out of the then cliched Amitabh movies.

The younger generation could relate to the romcoms and freshness. But this became a pattern. With more and more Punjabi families shifting to United Kingdom, Sikhs to Canada and later even other groups migrating to US, Bollywood found a big international audience market for consuming big fat Punjabi based movies.

Hum Aapke Hain Koun - another big fat Punjabi wedding based movie.

The selection of scripts were centred around big stars, big casting, songs and meaningless comedy.

DDLJ was a landmark film that showcased big fat Punjabi families and how it is ok to “Jee Lee Apni Zindagi”.

But with that, started the tiring series of movies that adapted the same style.

Pardes

Dil to Pagal Hai

Kuch Kuch Hota Hai

Hum Saath Saath Hain

Kal Ho Na Ho

Don’t mistake me, all the above movies were a hit. But the script was becoming tedious on the viewers. Many of the other state Hindi movie viewers could not relate to a rich guy living in US or UK but still longing for Indian values.

In between, Bollywood tried War movies like Border, Lakshya and LoC Kargil and provided some relief.

Then came what I call the “Unfaithful” genre. Starting with “Jism” and “Murder” about a dozen films came on extra marital affair. Emran Hashmi notoriously became popular for this genre.

The reason bollywood is criticised is for makign cliched movies. Sticking to a genre that sells once.

A wise old uncle told me an analogy, way back in 1999.

If there is one idly shop and it is popular, it will make good money. Then there will be 10 idly shops in the same place and neither will make good money. He applied this logic to IT recession but it is applicable to Bollywood scripts also.

There were some very good movies by directors like Neeraj Pandey and those are the saving grace for the Hindi movie lovers.

But, largely, Bollywood dug its own grave with Nepotism, directors like Karan Johar, poor cliched scripts and depending too much on skin show.

Student of the Year was the most ridiculous movie I have seen depicting how students would be in college.

So to summarize, Bollywood needs good scripts and good actors like Rajkumar Rao, Ayushman Khurana to become relevant and successful.

It needs to shed the nepotism kids and come up with strong story based performances.