Islamabad, Oct 04, (Asia Free Press): In a recent survey conducted by Gallup and Gilani Pakistan, four out of five Pakistanis have not watched Indian films in the past year.
The survey, based on nationally representative sample of adult men and women from across the four provinces of Pakistan, claims that “just 21 per cent of respondents said yes to the question whether they have watched Indian films in the past one year.”
Interestingly, Bollywood had decent viewers in Pakistan despite the two countries have fought four wars.
However, in the past three years due to the diplomatic tussle, the relations between Pakistani artists and Bollywood has been bitter.
After the Balakot strikes in 2019, India imposed a ban on showing Pakistani content in cinemas, and this followed the ban by the All India Cine Workers Association (AICWA) on Pakistan based actors and artists working in Bollywood. In response to this, the Pakistan government too imposed a ban on screening of all Indian films post August 5, 2019, the day when India unilaterally diluted Jammu and Kashmir’s special status.
In October 2019, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan also directed the state broadcaster, PTV, to screen the Turkish show ‘Dirilis Ertugrul’. The series began running in April 2020 and became a huge hit in the country. It is being screened there for the third time – it was earlier broadcasted by the Hum Sitaray channel in 2015 and has been available on Netflix since 2019 – but for the first time has appeared on public television.
“Turkish-made series, which earned praise for its focus on historical figures from the Muslim world are becoming role models for Pakistani youths,” Saira Jan, Post Doctorate fellow in Media science said, adding, “Knowing about the Islamic history and resistance against crusader is far better than watching a communal vulgarity of Bollywood.”
