Vivek Agnihotri says nepotism in Bollywood began ‘post-2000’

• Vivek Agnihotri said there was no nepotism in Bollywood prior to 2000.
• Many famous people were unknowns before they became well-known.
• Vivek Sethupadhyay has accused Bollywood celebrities of destroying careers of talented outsiders.

Vivek Agnihotri said nepotism didn’t exist in Bollywood prior to 2000. The director claimed that prior to 2000, the film industry was a different environment because the majority of celebrities, including Madhuri Dixit, Amitabh Bachchan, and Sridevi, were outsiders.

In a recent interview, Vivek Agnihotri discussed nepotism in Bollywood. The director, who frequently criticises celebrities like Karan Johar, has now claimed that there was no nepotism in the Hindi cinema industry until the year 2000.

He claimed that many famous people, like Sridevi, Amitabh Bachchan, and Jitendra, were unknowns before they became well-known. However, when their offspring started appearing in movies, Bollywood transformed into  ‘a very close-knit kind of a mafia’.

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According to Vivek, whose The Kashmir Files is one of the highest-grossing Hindi movies of 2022, Bollywood celebrities have issues with outsiders.

Prior to 2000, he claimed, the majority of successful performers, directors, writers, and producers were all outsiders; this is no longer the case.

“Bollywood used to be different. I think pre-2000, it was a different place because most of the people were outsiders. And then those stars, people who became big stars by 2000, their children then came and then slowly it became a very close-knit kind of a mafia, and they have some problems with outsiders. I don’t know why. And that’s why they are suffering also,” Vivek Agnihotri told.

According to Vivek, celebrities from Bollywood families “locked the doors for everyone else” after the year 2000. The director claimed that after this, these celebrities “started destroying careers of talented outsiders.” A doctor’s son becoming a doctor, according to Vivek, is “very natural.”

He continued by saying that there was nothing wrong with a priest’s son becoming a priest or a carpenter’s son or daughter becoming a carpenter. The director, however, claimed that Bollywood stars were encouraging incompetence because of the industry’s nepotistic ethos.

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“Here (in Bollywood) what happened post-2000 is that they closed the doors of this castle for everybody else. I don’t think there was nepotism before 2000, because if you look at the stars, Dharmendra was an outsider, Jitendra was an outsider, Rajesh Khanna, Vinod Khanna, Amitabh Bachchan, Govinda, Shatrughan Sinha were outsiders. You name anybody – all the actors, heroes, heroines – Madhuri Dixit, Sridevi – these are all outsiders. They are not coming from film families. But when these people became very successful, their children came, then directors’ children came, then the producers’ children came. I have no problems with that. Absolutely. My problem is when you push incompetence, if the world can see, even you know that this brother cannot even act, or say A for acting or D for direction,” Vivek said in the same interview.

The director also said that nepotism had led to a dearth of writers and lyricists “from the Hindi land” in Bollywood.

He described contemporary lyricists as “very urban and modern.” As a result, he continued, they were unable to interact with their surroundings.