The Case of MD Entertainment

As with most Sindhi companies, MD was established by a father and son. And again, as with most Sindhi businesses, MD was a result of the split between the partners. In 2003 the founding partner of MultiVision Plus, Dhamoo Punjabi, together with his son, Manoj Punjabi, an employee in the same company, left MultiVision to start their own sinetron production business. A year earlier Manoj got married, and his social status obliged him to think of his own business, to make that step from being "in service" to becoming a boss. The split between the partners, Raam and Dhamoo, occurred at the peak of MultiVision success when the company produced 60–70 per cent of the total soap opera titles aired (Loven 2008:49). The split is difficult to explain from a "universal" economic point of view, as it contradicts the logic of continuous growth and consolidation of business. From the Sindhi perspective, however, such course of events is logical, even natural. For Sindhis the ability to run a company, no matter how small it might be at the beginning, bears most prestige.

The organisation of MD business was also done in line with the canons of Sindhi practices. In the interviews Manoj likes to emphasise that he started his company from zero:

I planned everything from the very beginning…The majority of people whom I hired were new to the field [of sinetron production] so MD Entertainment had to train them... So I did not take people who were available in the market. I created the market and this is much more difficult.103

It turned out, however, that Manoj did not invent anything new, as he claimed. Quite on the contrary, in terms of human capital he relied on the same sources and organisational structure that was already in place in MultiVision and other PHs owned by the Sindhis (Rapi Films, Soraya Intercine). For the executive positions he hired Sindhi community members, mostly his classmates from Gandhi Memorial School. For the creative team he invited professionals from India. He did give the whole structure some formal, or corporate, gloss, by assigning fancy titles to certain positions and making the

103 _{"Pemerintah Tidak Mendukung Film & Televisi," Sindo Weekly, last modified 13 March,}

2013, http://www.sindoweekly-magz.com/artikel/1/ii/7-13-maret-

recruitment process more professional. For example, instead of going to India himself, as Raam Punjabi or Raam Soraya did, Manoj put an expat Indian, a former Bollywood scriptwriter, in charge of hiring people from India. Although it is true that those Indian nationals who came to work for MD were new to Indonesia, they were no novices to soap opera production. On the contrary, they were seasoned professionals previously working for the biggest television productions in India, like Ekta Kapoor's Balaji Telefilms. MD did provide training for the newcomers, but, in the words of my respondents, it was "very superficial". The "trainees" were showered with simplistic images of the Indonesian audience, so the expatriate scriptwriters, directors, and editors had to find their own sources to understand the Indonesian audience, its preferences and dislikes.104 _{In sum, Manoj and Dhamoo organised the MD production process along}

ethnic and linguistic lines, which is a very common way of business organisation in Sindhi companies (to be discussed in detail in chapter Five).

But the case of MD is also important because it shows not only how Sindhi business practices are replicated generation after generation, and from one business to another; the case of MD is also a good illustration of how Sindhi entrepreneurs modify their businesses to fit local environments. If in terms of organisational structure MD was a typical Sindhi company, in business development it followed a route unusual for Sindhis. As MD grew, it started offering new products and services. MD built shooting studios and trick rooms, set up an animation studio and established its own television channel (MD channel). In comparison, MultiVision continued to expand its business in a "Sindhi way"—establishing similar businesses in different localities. Since the late 2000s MultiVision is not only a film distributor but also producer of local feature films and television programs in Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia and Laos.

Moreover, MultiVision continued to retain control of the whole business chain: from distribution to exhibition, investing in movie theatres across the archipelago as well as in some other countries in the region. Meanwhile, MD stayed focused on developing production facilities (TV Channel is not a major product offered by MD).

104 _{According to one of the MD scriptwriters from India, for him the best insight into the}

Indonesian reality were two travelogues written by V.S. Naipaul, the British writer of Indo- Trinidadian descent: "Among the Believers: An Islamic Journey" (1981) and "Beyond Belief: Islamic Excursions among the Converted Peoples" (1998).

MD also differs from other PHs owned by the Sindhis, as Manoj has adopted the rhetoric of nationalism, promoting his company as national first and only then as global: the company promo video states that MD is "Indonesia's first integrated global media and entertainment company". The video features major figures of Indonesian political, religious and social elites praising Manoj for his contribution to national media

industries.105 Habibie, the former president of Indonesia, called Manoj the "Indonesian newest icon" who "is representing all of us, who has the honour and also the

responsibility to carry the flag". Unlike in the 1960s–1990s the expression of nationalist sentiments is not the necessary prerequisite of success in contemporary Indonesia. For example, Sunil Samtani, the owner of Rapi Films, another prominent player in the

sinetron (and film) industry, does not find it necessary to appeal to the nationalist sentiments: "My [Indonesian] passport is just a formality. We are Indians. Our relationship with Indonesians is business-oriented."106

3. Conclusion

This chapter explored how cultural differences (seen as ethnic differences) featured at the industry level, shaping the relations among the major players in the media production market: private television stations, PHs and the state. I argued that business practices of Sindhis, their actions as ethnic community members, have had a marked influence on the development of the commercial television industry. In other words, the Indonesian television industry was shaped by several cultural/economic practices, rooted in various historical experiences. At the same time, while the industry was transformed in accordance with the desires and sentiments of Sindhi entrepreneurs, Sindhi businessmen also adjusted their business strategies as well as their identities to the local environment.

105 _{The persons featuring in the MD promo video (2012) included Habibie, the former president}

of Indonesia, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, then Indonesian president (2004–2014), Dr Ishadi SK (head of Trans TV), Prof Dr. H.M. Din Syamsuddin, (Chairman of Muhammadiyah, one of the two main religious organisations in Indonesia), and Oesman Sapta (industrialist, leader of one of political parties, PPN, Partai Persatuan Nasional,).

106 _{"Sindhi Kinds of Indonesian Entertainment," Pallavi Aiyar, The Hindu, last modified 24}

Aug. 2013, http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/sindhi-kings-of-indonesian- entertainment/article5052949.ece?css=print (last accessed 2 Sept. 2013).

The presence of autonomous sinetron productions, which owners kept a certain distance from the state, its political and economic elites, created more space and freedom for experiment with media content. Introduction of sinetron Ramadhan as a mainstream cultural product was the major outcome of the relative autonomy of

sinetron production. At the same time, the desire to protect the sinetron niche from newcomers and the sense of "corporacy" shared by the Sindhi producers constrained industry development by limiting competition in the market.

I also showed that the major players in the industry interpreted differences in business practices as well as power relations in racial terms. The major reshuffling in the industry was seen through the prism of racial tensions. Moreover, the absence of Indian Indonesians on the national screen was the result of ethnic/community

sentiments of Indonesian Sindhis as well as the imagined sentiments of the Indonesian audience about home and nation, the local and the foreign. Television management continued reproducing the discourse of foreignness of Indian, Chinese, Arab or Dutch Indonesians. The next chapter will focus on how ethnicity features within the

production culture of individual PHs. I will discuss the PHs' social hierarchy, which is formed and maintained by the "racialized ways of seeing, thinking, talking and framing claims" (Brubaker 2004:168).