Kangana Ranaut is not wrong about Filmfare Awards

The protests that welled up from the popular awards after Kangana Ranaut—being Kangana Ranaut—took them on head-on, accusing them of malpractice and favouritism, seemed very feeble indeed.

Rising murmurs about malpractices at the awards have been heard since 1973 when Sohanlal Kanwar’s Beimaan won seven Filmfare awards in all the major categories, wangling the Best Picture award from Kamal Amrohi’s Pakeezah. Sohanlal Kanwar won the Best director award beating Kamal Amrohi for Pakeezah and Manoj Kumar for Shor. Evidently, some off-Shor drilling was undertaken.

When the Best Music award was given to Shankar-Jaikishan for Beimaan (do you remember a single song?) over Ghulam Mohammed for Pakeezah, R D Burman for Amar Prem and Laxmikant-Pyarelal for Shor, and when Mukesh won the Best Singer for Beimaan over Kishore Kumar for Chingari koi bhadke (Amar Prem) the brilliant character- actor Pran proved himself a man of character by turning down the award for Best Supporting Actor in Beimaan.

Jai bolo Beimaan ki, indeed!

The protest that Pran initiated in 1973 has now come to full fruition with Kangana questioning her nomination for Best Actress in Thalaivii when she has clearly boycotted the awards for years. Like Aamir Khan, Kangana never attends or accepts any Filmfare awards. So why are they using her names, if not to fudge figures in the balance sheets?

When I touched base with Kangana she insisted she will take legal action against the Filmfare awards. She says her motive is to start a debate on the procedure of selecting nominees and award winners and to bring about transparency in the process of giving the awards. I say, more power to Kangana Ranaut!

There was a time when much prestige and pride was attached to the Filmfare awards. For years, we have been hearing of the collapse of credibility in the procedure for nominees and winners. Several actors have spoken to me about how they were told to dance on stage as a condition for winning an award.

Some years ago one very popular actress was told beforehand she was getting the Best Actress award. But when she was about to reach the venue for the awards she was told it was being given to another actress.

The film industry’s most outspoken personality ever, Rishi Kapoor has gone on record to confess that he paid money to get his Filmfare award in 1974. Since then, the loud whispers about deviant winners and suspicious nominees have multiplied.

Let’s hope Kangana’s initiative would help start a movement to restore lost glory to the awards.

Subhash K Jha is a Patna-based film critic who has been writing about Bollywood for long enough to know the industry inside out. He tweets at @SubhashK_Jha.

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