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NEW
DELHI: Noting that the Indian film industry and especially
the Hindi film industry had shaped the psyche of post-Independence
India, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said today that ‘no
other institution has been as successful in achieving the
emotional integration of this vast and diverse land of ours
as our film industry has been.
‘It
is not official Hindi, or Government Hindi, that unites the
length and breadth of this country but in fact popular spoken
Hindi, as popularized by Hindi cinema. It is a unique language,
a mix of shudh (pure) Hindi, of spoken dialects like Bhojpuri
and Hyderabadi, and of spoken languages like Urdu and Marathi.
This unique mix of conversational Hindi from across the country,
popularized by the film industry, has become the thread that
weaves us all together’, Singh said.
Releasing
evergreen star Dev Anand’s autobiography ‘Romancing
with Life’ here, Singh paid a tribute to the Hindi film
industry and to its tallest leaders like Dev Anand for their
contribution to nation-building. Congress President Sonia
Gandhi and the evergreen hero were both present on the occasion.
Greeting the star filmmaker on his 84th birthday today, Singh
said Dev’s life is a tribute to the world of opportunity
and creativity that the Indian film industry has come to represent.
Many talented young men and women have been able to live their
dreams and earn their livelihood thanks to the creativity
and enterprise of filmmakers like Dev Anand. ‘I salute
their creativity, their enterprise, their compassion and,
above all, their patriotism, and for their contribution to
this great saga of creativity and enterprise’.
Noting that he was not a regular movie-goer and could not
claim to know much about recent trends in Indian cinema, Singh
said he was aware that the Indian film industry had made its
presence felt wherever he had gone. ‘From the islands
of the Pacific to those of the Atlantic, from the southernmost
tip of Africa to the icy deserts of Siberia, from the towns
of West Africa to the cities of East Asia, from the suburbs
of North America to villages across Asia - around the world,
across the globe, the sun never sets on Indian films. Hollywood
may have more money invested in it, it may be a bigger business,
but I am sure that more people across the world actually watch
Bollywood movies! More people laugh and shed tears, more people
sing and cheer watching an Indian film’ he said.
Observing
that Dev had come from a middle-class family that had to suffer
the holocaust of the partition, he said the actor-director
story was one of the ‘classic rags to riches life, where
those riches have been earned through dint of hard work and
dedication’.
He said Dev’s life mirrored India’s own progress.
When he began his career over sixty years ago, India was a
poor and backward colony. Today, it is among the world’s
front ranking nations. ‘We still have to win the war
against poverty, ignorance and disease. But, today, we can
say with a much greater degree of confidence and assurance
that we will indeed win this war. We have marched forth with
confidence in the past and we must continue to do so’.
He expressed the hope that popular creative artists would
continue to inspire the people and motivate them to work harder,
work together and work purposively.
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