Regimes Of Power And Its Manifestations Through Stories And Culture |
Power manifests in three distinct ways: hard power, exercised through the machinery of state security, the police and the armed forces; control of information, through censorship and systems of dissemination; and the shaping of perception, the construction of narrative through the stories a state endorses and circulates.
In this piece, we shall focus on the third dimension of power, the manner in which storytelling, through cinema, television drama, literature and other artistic media, contributes to the production, projection and consolidation of power.
Those who understand cultural discourse will immediately recognise the notion of the grand narrative, often constructed upon the official story of the state, or upon a narrative that aligns with the purposes of any centre of power, local or global. For example, Pakistan’s grand narrative has historically been structured around the very idea of separation from Hindu nationalism, the Two-Nation Theory.
This compels Pakistan to adopt an Islamic hue and, consequently, to align itself with the broader Islamic world. The stories approved for school textbooks, as well as the films and literature supported or funded for national consumption, have therefore tended to align with this foundational idea.
Here, the word idea is crucial and deserves examination before we proceed further.
An idea is not a fixed entity; it evolves. Conceptions of the origin of life, of the world, and of humanity’s relationship with God have shifted across generations. It is therefore unlikely that the idea of a state would remain static indefinitely. It changes as circumstances and transitions demand. It evolves as new generations assume positions of authority.
It shifts more decisively when a generation adopts its own preferred lens through which to interpret history, assess present realities and imagine the future, when they begin to write their own stories. Documentary theorist Bill Nichols observed in his landmark 1983 essay, The Voice of Documentary (1983), that every generation redefines realism, the manner in which it perceives and represents reality.
An idea, then, is not static.
By implication, neither is the idea of the state. As it evolves, so too does the grand narrative once adopted and circulated. Stories that once consolidated power may expire; new ones take their place. In other words, when regimes of power shift or transform, the preferred narrative shifts with them. A state, or any centre of power, may even face a crisis if it resists this change, imposing outdated stories upon a generation that neither connects with them nor wishes to.
At times, regimes of power revert to an older idea that suddenly regains relevance.
Be it capitalist, socialist, Islamist, Zionist or Hindutva, every centre of power requires its own stories to establish authority, influence and legitimacy
Be it capitalist, socialist, Islamist, Zionist or Hindutva, every centre of power requires its own stories to establish authority, influence and legitimacy
The United States, for instance, has revived the long-buried Monroe Doctrine, sidelined aspects of its once-celebrated ‘free trade’ orthodoxy, and diluted the language of equity and equality, while entertaining ambitions of annexing Greenland and exerting dominance over neighbouring Cuba, Venezuela and even Canada in classical colonial fashion. Secretary Rubio’s recent speech at the Munich Security Conference reintroduced a religious dimension into transatlantic discourse, invoking shared Christian heritage more than once. Such language would not have been politically fashionable not long ago.
Be it capitalist, socialist, Islamist, Zionist or Hindutva, every centre of power requires its own stories to establish authority, influence and legitimacy.
The neo-global order that emerged at the start of the twentieth century propagated the principle of democracy. From this foundational idea branched multiple layers: free speech, personal liberty, liberalism, free markets, human rights, women’s rights and more. The global financial system that developed during the same period swiftly adopted, funded and capitalised upon the new medium of storytelling, cinema.
It was during this era that Hollywood was born. It became a vehicle for projecting Western, and specifically capitalist, values under the guise of glamourised storytelling. Over time, it promoted the American ideals of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as universal aspirations, alongside the English language as a global medium.
The James Bond film series, beginning with Dr No (1962), introduced villains drawn from communist or socialist backgrounds. Films were made to restore America's image as a superpower after the retreat from Vietnam. Rambo: First Blood (1982), featuring Sylvester Stallone as the American protagonist confronting Vietnamese adversaries, is one such example. The identity of the villain in Hollywood cinema has frequently shifted in parallel with America’s theatres of war: Soviets, Vietnamese, Koreans, Chinese, Afghans, Iranians and others.
It goes without saying that Hollywood is fundamentally a capitalist enterprise, and the stories it produces rarely betray the core interests and philosophical underpinnings of that system. Nor was it any different in Soviet cinema under Stalin, who replaced social realism with socialist realism, or in British cinema, which promoted Englishness through Merchant Ivory productions such as Howards End (1992) and A Room with a View (1985), and later projected British multiculturalism in films such as Bhaji on the Beach (1993).
Simultaneously, British television presented series such as Mind Your Language (1977–79) and Yes Minister (1980–84), promoting comparable reflections on society and governance. These are the stories a nation chooses to tell, through state patronage or otherwise, to promote its idea of state, society and culture.
As Hindu majoritarian politics strengthened in India following the rise of the far-right BJP under Narendra Modi, segments of Bollywood cinema became increasingly nationalist and Pakistan-centric. Film titles produced over the past decade reveal the narratives upon which the Indian nation is being reimagined as a Hindu nation-state.
Productions such as The Kashmir Files (2022) and The Kerala Story (2023) foreground themes of Hindu victimhood and religious conflict, while historical dramas like Tanhaji (2020) and Samrat Prithviraj (2022) revisit medieval conflicts through a lens that emphasises Hindu resistance against Muslim rulers. Security-driven films, including Uri: The Surgical Strike (2019) and Article 370 (2024) celebrate forceful state action in the name of national unity and sovereignty.
In Pakistan, the heroes and villains of pre-1971 cinema present a stark contrast to those that emerged afterwards. Post-1971 films and television dramas became markedly more Punjab-centric: Wehshi Jatt (1975), Maula Jatt (1979), Sher Khan (1981), Choorian (1998), and The Legend of Maula Jatt (2022).
Following Pakistan’s entry into the Afghan jihad, state television produced dramas such as Panah (1981), which glorified the Afghan struggle, and Akhri Chattan (1985), which promoted a pan-Islamic consciousness. As Pakistan enters a new era shaped by shifting global dynamics, it cannot remain tethered to those narratives. New realities demand new stories, and those stories will ultimately redefine what Pakistan means and what it stands for.
When power begins to reposition itself, it requires new stories. If it fails to generate them, new narratives will emerge regardless, despite censorship, despite control over production and circulation. Such stories will find their way into public consciousness and, in time, may unsettle or even dethrone the centre of power itself. That is the embedded irony in the relationship between power and storytelling: authority seeks to control narrative, yet stories ultimately reshape authority.