“We look at good cinema. It may happen that those films have also received generous response from the audience,” says Buddhadeb Dasgupta, chairman of the jury for feature films at the 54th National Film Awards, announced recently. Incidentally, as is common with popular film awards, box-office success has now emerged as the qualifying mark for National Awards too. “The nominations are selected by the Directorate of Film Festivals,” adds Dasgupta.

The honour for Best Director, bestowed on Bhandarkar this year and on Rahul Dholakia last year for Parzania, has earlier been won by masters like Satyajit Ray (for his last film Agantuk in1992) and Adoor Gopalakrishnan (for Mathilukal in 1990). The most treasured category of Best Actor shows a remarkable domination of Bollywood—Amitabh Bachchan (for Black in 2006), Saif Ali Khan (for Hum Tum in 2005) and Ajay Devgan (for The Legend of Bhagat Singh in 2003) were some of the winners.

“I am not aware of the statistics. The nominations are decided by the authority,” says Rajkumar Hirani, when asked to comment on the trend. The director’s last film Lage Raho Munnabhai has also bagged trophies for Best Lyrics, Best Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor, apart from the Best Popular Film Award (his first film Munnabhai MBBS won the same award in 2004). “The divide between mainstream and parallel movies is fast disappearing. Even popular Hindi films are addressing diverse subjects and realistic issues these days,” says Bhandarkar, a three-time winner.

Rani Mukerji was a close contender for the Best Actress Award in 2006, which she eventually lost to Sarika for the latter’s role in Parzania. When Raveena Tandon was conferred the Best Actress trophy in 2001 for Daman, it opened a floodgate of controversies—Macmohan, one of the jury members in the 48th edition of the award, had turned out to be Tandon’s uncle.

“It isn’t the fault of Hindi cinema that it is dominating the National Awards. It is just that the jury members have given in to the lure of Bollywood. Often the jury board comprises members from the Hindi film industry whose sensibilities are dominated by those of mainstream movies,” says Rituparno Ghosh, a multiple National Award-winner. “Eventually, the award ceremony will be telecast on Doordarshan and an audience, filled with the glitterati, can improve the TRPs.”

In the past, active members of various political parties have been part of the jury board; for instance actor Vyjayantimala, an active member of BJP, was part of the jury board in 2001 when the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) was in power. “Despite controversies, no steps have been taken to ensure unbiased results,” adds Ghosh.