Art is one of the most important and integral part of every human being's life. There exists some sort of relationship that a person shares with art in his day to day life. Art has been defined as a set of "Several human endeavours such as storytelling, creative analysis and public participation." Since the dawn of human civilization, Humans have shown their interest and liking in art in some way or the other in the form of cave paintings and portable art like figurines and beads, ETC. One of the most popular forms of art depiction of the modern times is the movies.

"MOVIE" is defined as "a recording and display of continuously moving pictures with a narrative that viewers view on a TV or screen."

Particularly talking about India, the film industry at large that operates within the country plays a very significant role in shaping the lives of the Indian citizens. Indians from the very beginning have been keen in the functioning of this industry and religiously follow the existing film culture. Films have been a very entangled and overlapping aspect of the Indian culture. The influence that bollywood and other counterparts of the film industry have over the citizens is sometimes alarming and a subject of concern.

But before talking about the relationship that exists between the heinous crimes and the influence of movies on these criminals, we must focus on the history of the film industry in India and how it came into existence.

Hindi Cinema - A Brief History

The Hindi film industry located in Mumbai (previously Bombay) is referred to as Hindi cinema, often known as "Bollywood". The terms "Bombay" and "Hollywood" are the sources of the phrase "Bollywood". Hindi motion picture production and distribution are Bollywood's main priorities. The sector is a component of the larger Indian film industry, which also consists of various smaller sectors like The South Film Industry, operating in the southern region of the country, quite popularly referred to as 'Tollywood'.

Beginning in the 1930s, the Hindi-language film industry grew to become a massive cinematic universe. Following early attempts in the silent film genre, Himansu Rai's 1934 debut of 'Bombay Talkies' film studio sped up the development of Indian filmmaking. Over the years, Bollywood has created a number of iconic genres, such as the mythological film 'Jai Santoshi Maa' (1975), the historical epic 'Padmaavat' (2018), the immensely loved 'Sholay' (1975) which later turned out to become one of the most loved genre of bollywood films, and several mega hits like 'Brahmastra; Part One' (2022), which showcases amazing dance choreography as well as impressive picturization.[1].

The successful experimentation of the Hindi film industry during its early years contributed to the emergence of the "Golden era" of Indian cinema, which expanded over the timeless era of 1950s and 1960s. Legendary performers like Dilip Kumar, Raj Kapoor, Rajesh Khanna, and many others rose to fame during this time. According to Indian cinema history, their performances made an iconic contribution and left an exceptional impact on the genre.[2]

The modern era of the mid to the late 90s brought with it a wave of new faces as actors, including Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan, and Aamir Khan, popularly referred to as the 'Khans' of the film industry. These actors brought with them the "worship practice" of bollywood and the Hindi film world where the followers of these actors not only liked them but started worshiping them as divine figures. An important turning point was reached in 2008 when famous Music Producer and Composer A.R. Rahman won an Oscar for his work on the music to "Slumdog Millionaire".

The infamous Covid - 19 phase around the end of 2019 and the start of 2020 was a hard hit on the film industry as the whole world was shut down. But OTT platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, etc. emerged as the "knight in shining armour" for bollywood and other counterparts. Later on another milestone was achieved by the Indian Film universe when the song 'Naatu Naatu' from the film "RRR" became the first ever Indian Song to win the best original song in the 95th Academy Awards held on 13 March 2023.

Now that we are thorough with the history of Hindi film industry, we must now focus on the different aspects and effects it has on the cultural and social life of Indians.

Movies and Criminal Psychology - Negative Impacts

There exist several genres attached to the art form of movies like horror, fiction, romance, thriller, etc. But the one genre that is the most popular and widely loved by the majority is the Crime centric genre which generally depicts some criminal activity or any general misconduct being committed in the movie. It is widely known that a human mind generally focuses on and tries to imitate things that they see rather than things they read. This psychological behaviour of man convinces him to perform things shown in the movies that might result in some legal trouble.

The existence of crime thriller movies in the society is mainly for the purpose of representing the fact that arrogance and criminal activities result in legal liability but not all minds interpret these movies the same way. There have been several instances not only in India but around the world where people have been influenced by movies to commit heinous crimes.

Some of the examples are stated below:

1. The Shahrukh Khan Starrer "Darr" (1993)
   The movie 'Darr' staring actors Shahrukh Khan and Juhi Chwala affected Dipti Sarna, a Snapdeal employee, who was meticulously kidnapped. In 2016, this case gained national attention after Devendra, the primary culprit and kidnapper, claimed that he was inspired by Shah Rukh Khan's stalker role in the 1993 Bollywood film "Darr". Devendra devised a very complex scheme to kidnap the girl and then win her heart. SSP of Ghaziabad Dharmendra Singh claims that while a few of his associates assisted in the kidnapping, none of them were aware of his plans.[3]
    
2. Akshay Kumar' s "Special 26" (2013)
   Akshay kumar starrer movie 'Special 26' which went on the floor in the year 2013 is another example of a planned criminal offence inspired by the main plot of the movie. In this case, Robbers with guns who pretended to be CBI agents broke into a Hyderabad Muthoot Finance branch and took forty killos of gold with them. It was also said that one of them entered the building while posing as a traffic police and announced the arrival of CBI agents. Then, another person who was pretending to be a CBI officer claimed that they had come for a search operation as directed by the higher authorities. The approach seems to be somewhat similar to the storyline of the movie released in 2013 titled 'Special 26'.[4]
    
3. The Raj Kumar Hirani's venture "Munna Bhai M.B.B.S." (2003)
   Across the country, the enormously popular film 'Munna Bhai M.B.B.S.', starring Sanjay Dutt, and directed by Rajkumar Hirani, is said to have served as an inspiration for many additional criminal cases. In one of those cases, twelve imposters were prosecuted in 2016 for showing up in the Uttarakhand Ayurveda Pre-Medical Test with a narrative that remarkably resembled the film in question.[5]

The important aspect of movies and films as an art form is to familiarize people with the societal problems and challenges by means of visual representation. But the wrong interpretation that people take from these movies results in societal damage which is generally difficult to undo. It is also widely noticed that humans specifically perform those activities which they are generally expected not to.

This is exactly the reason as to why many movies and films start with a disclaimer stating that the characters and the storyline of the movie are fictitious. For this, we can't just blame the film industry as the film industry's motive is not to influence anyone to commit a crime but rather to create awareness regarding what not to do!

Conclusion
Though movies play a very significant and a very important role in shaping the conduct of man in the society but we cannot just simply ignore the negative impact it has on the behavioral pattern of the man. One of the best ways by which the influence of movies on the mindset of criminals can be reduced is by highly censoring the movie and displaying a warning with each heinous scene in the movie.

Secondly, the ending of these movies can be manipulated to show the defeat of the criminal to reflect the fact that heinous crimes generally result in legal penalty and punishments. Also, while watching movies as viewers, it is our responsibility to take movies only as a source of entertainment and not in literal sense. This means that instead of following the bad impact of the movies, we should only focus on the positive aspect and positive message depicted in the movie.

End Notes:

1. "Bollywood | History, Movies, Actors, Actresses, & Facts" (Encyclopedia Britannica, 8 April 2024), https://www.britannica.com/topic/Bollywood-film-industry-India accessed April 11, 2024
2. Testbook, "History of Indian Cinema: Check Brief History, Origin Details!" (Testbook, 27 September 2023) https://testbook.com/history-of/indian-cinema accessed April 11, 2024
3. "SRK's Darr Inspired 'psychopath' to Abduct Snapdeal Employee" (IBNLive.com 2016) https://www.news18.com/news/india/stranger-than-a-bollywood-plot-how-snapdeal-employee-dipti-sarna-was-abducted-1203450.html accessed April 12, 2024
4. Sakshi Khanna, "'Special 26' Heist: Robbers Pose as CBI Officials, Loot 40kg Gold" (CNN - News18, 28 December 2016) https://www.news18.com/news/india/robbers-posing-as-cbi-officials-loot-40kg-gold-in-hyderabad-1328624.html accessed April 12, 2024
5. Mahender Singh Manral, 'Police Uncover Entrance Scam 'Inspired by Munnabhai MBBS'' (The Indian Express, 12 February 2017) https://indianexpress.com/article/india/police-uncover-entrance-scam-inspired-by-munnabhai-mbbs-4520155/ accessed April 12, 2024