Why it does not make sense to make historical movies in India

We have seen it in Asoka. We have seen it in Rising-Mangal Pandey. We saw it happening all over again in Jodhaa Akbar. No doubt, Jodhaa Akbar was a well made movie, albeit a long length. But then historically themed movies never do the best business in India, barring Mughal-e-Azam of yesteryears.

Historical movies in India are always embroiled in some sort of controversy. It has been always said that negative publicity is good publicity but it ain’t that good when people pull the movie down from the theatres and do not allow it to release under any cost. The mindset with historical movies is that youngsters are plain bored with historical stories and the older members of the populace always find something odd and conflicting in the story.

While the younger generation hardly gives a damn, the older lots are generally the first ones to scream “history is distorted, facts are convoluted”. Since historical facts cannot be readily and comprehensively verified, it is juicy fodder for certain sections of the society to create a controversy and get some mileage. Youngsters will find a Dhoom (however inane it can be) always attractive to a Jodhaa Akbar, because the first one is about the present and the latter is well, history.