Egypt tunes in to Indian TV drama, films

Bollywood films and Indian television drama have recently become a daily dear guest for Egyptian audiences, who find great similarities between both cultures.

Pulling the rug out from under the Turkish drama, which stayed for the past years on the top of the audiences' preferences, Indian series have succeeded in attracting Egyptians with interesting topics, rich production and performances.

This has encouraged many Egyptian satellite channels to bring different Indian series to replace the Turkish dramas, which many people abandoned for different reasons, including political ones.

Egyptian-Turkish bilateral relations have soured dramatically after the ouster of Islamist ex-president Mohamed Morsi in 2013 by the army, following massive protests against his rule.

Since then, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who was one of the allies of Morsi’s Brotherhood group, has made many remarks that criticise the country and its current regime. His remarks were condemned by Egypt on many occasions.

In response, many satellite channels that used to air Turkish series decided to reduce the number of those shows and resorted to Indian drama.

The step was risky at first, as there already was a great turnout on Turkish series, while the Indian ones were still new for people, said critics. However, these channels and some activists launched campaigns calling people to boycott the Turkish drama to show their objection against the hostile situation of the Turkish president Erdogan towards Egypt’s internal policies.

Immediately, Bollywood and Indian TV drama succeeded in attracting the Egyptian audience, not only because of the political situation but also because of their stories that suit the Egyptian society’s measures, according to the critics.

Among the successful TV series admired by the audiences are historical drama “Jodhaa Akbar”, “Geet – Hui Sabse Parayi”, the romantic-drama “Punar Vivah” and a few comedy shows, which have all been dubbed in Arabic.

“Indian drama appeals to Egyptian audiences as it presents all kinds of arts like dancing, singing, comedy and others. And also because Indian actors are popular in Egypt and the Arab countries,” said critic Khaireya el-Beshlawy.

“I think people like the Indian series because their culture is close to the Egyptian culture,” she opined.

Critic Magda Moris said Indian dramas came late to Egypt, but the Egyptian audiences are already familiar to Indian culture as Indian films have witnessed a great turnout during the 1980s and during the end of the last century.

“The positive thing is that India is currently working on spreading its culture in Egypt by organising cultural events that engage Egyptians and make them know more about this great country,” said Moris.

The Indian Embassy in Cairo last April organised the third edition of the mega cultural festival “India by the Nile” which was inaugurated by legendary superstar Amitabh Bachchan and featured various cultural activities.