How Bahubali (The Conclusion) Reincarnated Indian Cinema In Nigeria

By Mubarak Khan

For more than six decades, before the advent of Nigerian film industry, Indian films had fans following in Nigeria. Its outlandish scenes, love, family drama and sometimes magical and surreal themes and weird characters never bothered Nigerians, and they were enthralled by its simple entertainment and riveting love songs.

There are hundred movies, as far years, that gained popularity, and still are in people’s mind, it may not be true, but certainly you can’t detach Nigerians from Indian films.

Sitting and watching Bahubali 2 took my mind back to the great movies I enjoyed as a child, and I am sure, Nigerians can easily relate to, especially if you have the penchant of watching Bollywood films.

Bollywood, India’s huge film industry, not only has the Indian public in its grip, but in recent decades has spread out to Europe, Britain and North America, where a large Indian diaspora has long settled.

But the fascination for Bollywood movies which typically feature handsome heroes, beautiful damsels, set designs, endless musical numbers, improbable plots and happy/tragic endings has also stretched out to a non-Indian audience in parts of the globe.

One unlikely place where Bollywood has long enjoyed immense popularity is the West African nation of Nigeria, particularly in the Islamic-dominated north of the country which does not have any significant Indian immigrant community whatsoever.

According to the High Commission of India in Nigeria, only about 35,000 Indians live in the country of 180 million, primarily in Lagos.

Indian cinema entered the Nigerian market more than 50 years ago when Lebanese businessmen (a merchant class across West Africa) decided to try something new and import Bollywood films, instead of the far more expensive American movies for distribution in the country.

Bollywood films and its related culture and memorabilia are plastered all over northern Nigeria with film posters and stickers adorning building walls, taxis, shops, garages and buses.

Indian movies storyline on arranged marriages, caste barriers, and the importance of morality, honour, family name, and religion were all topics central to Bollywood and to African societies, and then the struggle against colonialism; the poor, the exploited and the oppressed as central characters; and mythology have gained wider support and popularity in Nigeria; European and American cinemas are completely ignored, strongly resonated on the African continent. Bollywood offered a model of cultural resistance and a path between tradition and modernity.

In Kano state, the largest city in northern Nigeria, Indian films are showing virtually every night in cinemas and remain among the most popular of TV programs. But later things turned around due to Bollywood westernization and using modern unwanted technologies.

While Indian and Hausa culture may differ in some respects, there are some similarities which appear to bind Nigerians to Bollywood, both are deeply conservative societies where women are restricted in their movements; in both, poverty and social inequality are widespread, in both, the young are seeking to remove the yoke of their parents’ strict rules of conduct and behaviour; the using of turban; traditional rulers; mother’s care and love; women using veil and many other related inter-cultural similarities made northern settlement bind themselves with Indian culture; many can also speak Hindi language because of the highly understanding Bollywood films.

Films like Mother India (1957), Sholay (1975), Nagin (1976), Dharam Veer (1977, Amar Akhbar Anthony (1977), The Great Gambler (1979), The Burning Train (1980), Disco Dancer (1982), Yeh Vaadah Raha (1982), Maine Pyar Kiya (1989), Hum Apke Hain Kaun (1994), Raja Hindustani (1996), Kuch Kuch Hota (1998), Kaho Na Pyaat Hai (2000) Kabhi Khushi Khabhi Gham (2001), Ghajini (2008), Three Idiots (2009) My Name Is Khan (2010), Khiladi and Dhoom franchise are all popular in northern Nigeria – It is hardly to meet someone who has no clue about these movies.

Brian Larkin, an anthropologist who has studied Hausas' love for Bollywood, wrote in a research paper: “Hausa fans of Indian movies argue that Indian culture is ‘just like’ Hausa culture. Instead of focusing on the differences between the two societies, when they watch Indian movies what they see are similarities, especially when compared with American or English movies.”

But now as Bollywood morality has loosened and standards have relaxed (reflecting the rapidly urbanizing Indian society itself), some Nigerians long for the old-fashioned values espoused by Indian cinema of the 1960s and before.

When we were young then, the Indian films we used to see were based on their tradition, but now Indian films are just like American films. They go to discos, join gangs, club, they'll do anything in a hotel and they play rough in romantic scenes where before you could never see things like that.

The battle on who will rule the box office also contributed a lot to the decline of Indian films popularity in Nigeria. Before 90s, cinema goers did not care how film is performing at BO, or what critics are saying about it. All they wanted was good storyline, melodious music, inspiring lyrics and actors’ performance.

In recent years, people are beginning to completely lose hope on the good of Indian films, because there are films that lack social message. Even if there is, cinema goers are not enjoying it the way they were enjoying films before.

I am not deepening my article into the history of Indian Cinema in Nigeria, but the revolution that took place on 28^th of April, 2017, after the release of SS Rajmouli’s magnum opus, Bahubali (The Conclusion), starring Prabha, Rana Daggubati, Anushka Sharma, Tamanna Bhatia, Ramya Krishnan and others.

Bahubali (The Conclusion) is the type of films that northern Nigeria want see because of its cultural background, set design, rulership and love between Kings and Queens. It is the kind of stories our people read in ancient books.

The film got tittle of ‘Everywhere You Go’. It became talk of the town; people everywhere are willing to watch it; those that have the penchant of Indian movies and those who did not.

Almost everybody was pleased to watch Prabhas and Anushka Shetty on the screen. To have such a heavy and grand chemistry must have been difficult but they somehow managed to pull it off. Evidently, romance is not Rajamouli’s forte. The only time the films gets low and seemed a bit dragged is the sequence where the Hero and Heroine of the film falls in love. The plot of the film is interesting and satisfying with no stones left unturned. All the vows, all the promises made by the characters in the film were fulfilled.

S.S Rajamouli has indeed created history and has set benchmarks for all other film makers which are definitely not easy to break. To put down the experience of watching this film in words is nearly impossible, but by and large, the movie has reincarnated Indian Cinema in Nigeria.