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0Cilacap Regent Tatto Suwarto gives a batik scarf to Indian TV star Ankhita Sharma in February this year at an event organized by TV station ANTV to promote a new TV series. (Antara/Sumarwoto)
Indonesia has seen a steady rise in the number of K-pop fans over the past 20 years, especially among the middle to upper classes. However, members of the country’s middle to lower classes who live in small towns still have a passion for Indian pop culture
While Hallyu (Korean Wave) fans plan on making the trip to South Korea at least once in their lives, Indonesian fans of Indian TV series are visited by their favorite stars in their hometowns. Since 2015, Indian TV stars have spent months or even years touring Indonesia’s small towns like Cilacap in Central Java for “meet and greet” moments with thousands of enthusiastic fans.
In February, 2020, TV station ANTV brought stars from the popular Indian series Swabhimaan to Cilacap. Ankhita Sharma, Sangeita Chauhan, Samridh Bawa and Sahil Uppal were greeted enthusiastically by fans at Cilacap Square.
Beyond Cilacap, the stars were also paraded around four other small towns where Indian film and television is immensely popular: Serang in Banten, West Bandung and
Garut regencies in West Java and Bandar Lampung in Lampung.
Dozens of stars visited Indonesia in September including cast members from the TV series Mahabharata, including Shaheer Sheikh.
Sheikh has returned to Indonesia several times over the years, including for Ramadan four times, and enjoys eating rendang (beef slow-cooked in coconut milk and spices) and ayam kremes (fried chicken). He also understands and speaks simple Indonesian and was even reported to be in a relationship with Indonesian dangdut singer Ayu Ting Ting, which became fodder for the gossip-mill of Indonesia’s entertainment world.
Indians on TV
Research from Nielsen Media Indonesia has found that Indonesian viewers of Indian television are predominantly found in small town and are in lower income brackets.
“Indian programs have their own market, which is dominated by people in the middle lower class and aged 35 or older,” Hellen Katherina, executive director of research institute Nielsen Media Indonesia, told the Post.
According to Hellen, Indian series were well received by Indonesian viewers because of the many cultural similarities, such as strong family bonds, extreme wealth gaps between the rich and poor and a touch of religious values.
The popularity of Indian TV series even helped a TV station turn its financial fortunes around. ANTV, a private television station owned by the Bakrie conglomerate family, was the most watched television station in Indonesia in June 2014.
Anindya Bakrie, in his personal blog, said that Mahabarata and Mahadewa, two popular Indian series based on mythology, had helped the company survive.
Besides TV series, which can run as long as 1,500 episodes, Indian cinema has an avid fan base, albeit a bit different from those who watch TV series.
Indian film fans
According to history website historia.id, an Indian movie was first screened in an Indonesian cinema in 1948. Indian cinema later reached its heyday in Indonesia in the 1980s and 1990s, and was especially popular among members of the lower class.
Kuch Kuch Hota Hai in 1998 was a game changer for Indian movies in Indonesia; the movie expanded the fan base to a younger audience at a time when Indian films were mostly watched by members of the older generation. Popular romantic movies propelled Shahrukh Khan to stardom.
Indonesian actor Muhammad Khan even dedicated his Citra Award, the most prestigious cinematic award in Indonesia, to Shahrukh Khan. Born Nurdiyanto in the coastal town of Jepara in Central Java, the Indonesian actor changed his stage name to Muhammad Khan in honor of Shahrukh Khan, whom he had adored since he was 10 years old.
When she was younger, news presenter Isabella Fawzi kept her love of Indian movies a secret.
When she was a child, she loved to watch reruns of Kutch Kutch Hota Hai. “At that time, Chiki [Isabella’s little sister] and I listened to nu metal, Brit pop… so I was ashamed that I enjoyed watching Indian movies,” she said, laughing.
Her love for Indian pop culture is in some ways tied to her family roots. “One of my great grandparents came from Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh India. His name is Oppa Siraj’ul Haque,” she told the Post. Isabella is the eldest daughter of actress and politician Marissa Haque. She said the older she grew, the more she became grateful for having some Indian blood.
“I love the histories of ancient Indian kingdoms, traditional Indian clothes and accessories and the beauty of Indian women. I feel related to them, somehow,” she said.
“They have character, and they are really proud of their culture. That is what’s good about them and often makes me feel envious.”
Rural and poor
Author Mahfud Ikhwan, who is also an Indian cinema enthusiast, said Isabella, as a young middle-upper class personality who loves Indian pop culture, was an anomaly.
“City kids [who love Indian cinema] from the middle class, especially those who are rich, are exceptions,” he told the Post.
Despite coming from a vastly different background to Isabella, Mahfud’s shares her love for Indian cinema. Hailing from the coastal town of Lamongan, East Java, he has loved Indian cinema since he was a child.
“Indian cinema matched our situation at that time: poor, isolated, many of us were left behind by our parents who had to work far away, [a situation] that created a kind of communal melancholy that fit the [imagery of] Indian movies,” he said.
Indian movies, according to Mahfud, were entertaining, created a sense of escapism and provided an illusion of the kinds of material things the viewers did not possess in their real lives. “Melodrama and spectacle are the determining features of Indian cinema, especially Bollywood.”
He said he believed the demographic of Indian cinema lovers intersected with those who loved dangdut music.
“We are far removed from exposure to mainstream pop culture,” he said. “Indian film fans are scattered along the coast, from Aceh to at least Manado.”
Mahfud, however, does not watch Indian TV series as he said the quality was not as good as Indian movies. Indian TV series are more like Indonesian sinetron or Latin
American telenovelas, especially when it comes to protracted plot lines.
As Indian cinema is mostly popular among people in small towns and from the lower classes, it is often not included in intellectual discussions on pop culture, despite being widely loved.
Mahfud, an award winning fiction writer, published in 2017 two semimemoirs focusing on his take on Indian cinema, Aku dan Film India Melawan Dunia: Buku I and Buku II (Me and Indian Movies Against the World: Volume I and Volume II).
Feeling that Indian cinema was often systematically ignored, Mahfud also founded in 2018 an Indian cinema lovers’ club, which meets each month for a screening and discussion in Yogyakarta.
The members of this club include young intellectuals such as university students, artists, filmmakers, teachers, subtitle translators and writers.
“I put Indian movies on the same pedestal as movies from other industries, that’s why I write reviews on Indian movies,” he said. “I want people to watch Indian movies like they watch other movies, not to consider them differently.”
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