ABSTRACT
Historically, the Indian film industry has been located within the domain of India’s unorganised, or informal, economy. The reasons for this are manifold, from its emergence in the late colonial period to the economic and cultural prerogatives which guided successive post-independence governments. The term ‘unorganised’, of course, is somewhat misleading, given the great complexity of the informal economy in India, which continues to dwarf the state-owned and corporate concerns that are generally referred to as the ‘organised’ sector (see Harriss-White 2003). Given the considerable co-ordination required by cinema as an industrial massmedium, it is perhaps more suitable to use the term ‘disorganised’, implying a dispersal of organisation, rather than a lack of it. In that sense, the Indian film industry is most obviously ‘disorganised’ when compared with the paradigm of formally integrated capital interests and operating procedures set by the film industry of the United States. In Hollywood, just a handful of players control the entire product chain from production through to worldwide exhibition via various media formats, as well as a range of ancillary products. By contrast, the disorganised industry in India has instead been characterised by the dispersal of working capital and assets amongst large numbers of small, independent operators who, despite their common interest in the successful exploitation of cinematic culture, lack formal association with each other.
