Just about 15 years back, I was at the Empire Cinema in Leicester Square frantically trying to get past the PR execs manning the entrance. It was a special screening of Sholay- the all-time Bollywood Blockbuster.

I was at a festival of Indian cinema, sponsored by a once-famous Indian business house, who had taken all key Central London cinema halls to showcase Bollywood, as a way of announcing their presence in London.

This was the start of an era – a new kind of Indian identity was being shaped in the West.

Prior to this period, London didn’t care about the Indian gentry exclusively. It was already a melting pot of every global diaspora and it was New Britain – where Blair had redefined economic liberalism in a Socialist Labour framework. There was no need for the elitist Etonian accent as long as you spoke English in some form.

The Indian literati and by default the business and social elite, especially the ones who came from anglicized Indian institutions making their way to the globetrotting upper crust, had until then snubbed populist art forms including the Bollywood.

They identified more with global pop icons and idolised a different set of Hollywood movie and pop stars to ensure distinction from their ‘dehati’ countrymen. It made them look like the iconic Marlboro-man amongst the ‘bidi-smoking’ populace.

However, Bollywood became the flag-bearer for the Indian parade in this new Britain. The subsequent years saw many firsts – Ketan Mehta’s production of Mangal Pandey was largely funded by British institutions (I wonder why no one filed a case of sedition in British courts). Lagaan premiered in BFI and was even nominated for BAFTA’s.

There were more Indian films being shot in the UK than anywhere else other than Mumbai. The then Mayor of London – Ken Livingstone hosted an Indian festival for a full one year on the streets of London where Bollywood stars were invited on tax-payers' money to woo Londoners, and Indian street food tingled the English tongue.

Rachel Dwyer writing a book on Yash Chopra, and Shilpa Shetty winning the Big Boss UK- were signs of India’s growing soft power in the global north. Now was the time for millions of less privileged Indians to rise up. This populace, who were subdued due to the deprivation of anglicized make-over, was now witnessing the rise of their heroes, their music, their food, their ‘pop-culture’.

Another subtext to this was the beaming of 30 Indian TV channels on UK distribution platforms such as SKY and Virgin. Virgin even created a bundle of South Asian channels called ‘Asian Mela’. Indian soft power thrived as Pakistani audiences watched Star TV, and started referring to India as their cultural locus much to the chagrin of their military establishment.

Along came the audience amongst the Bangladeshis and Africans and twice displaced Indian diaspora such as Surinamese Indians in Holland or East Africans in UK. Indian soft power had been ascertained.

However, things changed in the last few years. On one hand, ISPR – a wing of the Pakistani army, systematically invested in movies and TV channels which were launched in the UK. On the other, the pandemic stung. A very cursory understanding of the economics of cinema releases heralds the signs of Bollywood’s wane in western theatres.

Hence, OTTs became the probable powerhouse. Bollywood releases which drew more Pakistani audiences in UK theatres, look like a thing of the past. OTT players now seemingly control the dissemination of Indian content.

Netflix with Sacred Games, and Delhi Crime (which also won the International Emmy Award for Best Drama Series), and Amazon Prime with Mirzapur, ensured the leadership of these major global players.

Family Man – Season 2, which has as much political subtext than entertainment, was lapped up by the diaspora over the weekend.

Platforms like Netflix and Amazon are aware of the Indian palette, along with the 20 million-strong diaspora, which is key to their success. Their cutting-edge content is redefining Bollywood now.

Maharani, on Sony Liv caught my attention as it explains the caste-based vote-bank backdrop of Indian politics, something which a lot of people in the West are interested in understanding.

If on one hand are these emerging fiction narratives, on the other are platforms like Hotstar who faces challenges of monetisation, as it propels forward with major Cricketing events like IPL and ICC World Cup.

Zee5 is trying hard to be the de facto Indian OTT player with a massive library. However, others such as Voot and Sony Liv have not yet made many marks. A TV network becoming an OTT player is not the same, as the umbilical cord has not yet been severed.

What Makes OTT Succeed? BIG-ness!

You cannot go micro in the OTT business. A show can be watched in Timbuktu as the subtitles ensure that the success of a series can ride cultural differences. Hence, Mirzapur was watched keenly in Mexico while Narcos was binge-watched by the Indians.

OTT is not just about wooing the diaspora. For it to succeed, the marketing has to go beyond, and target bigger mainstream audiences as ‘content can strike chords’ even with subtitles. Series made in different parts of the world, whether it be Fauda (made in Israel) or Money Heist (made in Spain) or Dark (made in Germany), seem to find global audiences.

OTT has a simple rule, either you go big or you become irrelevant. Indian OTT players have yet to understand this as the fragmented audience cannot subscribe to multiple players. Hence, it has been one over the other and one can only choose a few subscriptions.

The chances are that one will choose something that has global appeal and is able to make its offerings aspirational. Hence, it needs to be marketed to a bigger audience– seemingly a global audience and not just micro-marketing to a group of Indians or Pakistanis.

The chances of Indian OTT players making a global success depends on their ability to market the content beyond the diaspora. The challenge of piracy also looms large on Indian content.

Indian soft power is crucial not just to the Indian entertainment industry, but for a population that is literally one-fourth of humanity.

It is imperative that it has a voice and shares its own stories through its own mediums and the OTT platforms will be crucial for its revival.

*The author is Manish Tiwari, Founding Director, Here and Now 365