Historically, Hindi films have been distributed to some parts of Africa, largely by Lebanese businessmen. "Mother India" (1957), for example, continued to be played in Nigeria decades after its release. Indian movies have also gained ground so as to alter the style of Hausa fashions, songs have also been copied by Hausa singers and stories have influenced the writings of Nigerian novelists. Stickers of Indian films and stars decorate taxis and buses in Northern Nigeria, while posters of Indian films adorn the walls of tailor shops and mechanics' garages in the country. Unlike in युरोप and North America where Indian films largely cater to the expatriate Indian market yearning to keep in touch with their homeland, in West Africa, as in many other parts of the world, such movies rose in popularity despite the lack of a significant Indian audience, where movies are about an alien culture, based on a religion wholly different, and, for the most part, a language that is unintelligble to the viewers. One such explanation for this lied in the similarities between the two cultures. Other similarities include wearing turbans; the presence of animals in markets; porters carrying large bundles, chewing sugar cane; youths riding Bajaj motor scooters; wedding celebrations, and so forth. With the strict Muslim culture, Indian movies were said to show "respect" toward women, where Hollywood movies were seen to have "no shame". In Indian movies women were modestly dressed, men and women rarely kiss, and there is no nudity, thus Indian movies are said to "have culture" that Hollywood films lack. The latter choice was a failure because "they don't base themselves on the problems of the people," where the former is based socialist values and on the reality of developing countries emerging from years of colonialism. Indian movies also allowed for a new youth culture to follow without such ideological baggage as "becoming western."

Bollywood is also popular among Somalis and the Somali diaspora, where the emerging Islamic Courts Union found a bete noire. Chad and Ethiopia have also shown an interest in the movies.

Several Bollywood personalities have avenued to the continent for both shooting movies and off-camera projects. The film "Padmashree Laloo Prasad Yadav" (2005) was one of many movies shot in South Africa. "Dil Jo Bhi Kahey" (2005) was shot almost entirely in Mauritius, which has a large ethnically Indian population.

Ominously, however, the popularity of old Bollywood versus a new, changing Bollywood seems to be diminishing the popularity on the continent. The changing style of Bollywood has begun to question such an acceptance. The new era features more sexually explicit and violent films. Nigerian viewers, for example, commented that older films of the 1950s and 1960s had culture to the newer, more westernized picturizations. The old days of India avidly "advocating decolonization ... and India's policy was wholly influenced by his missionary zeal to end racial domination and discrimination in the African territories" were replaced by newer realities. The emergence of Nollywood, Africa's local movie industry has also contributed to the declining popularity of Bollywood films. A greater globalised world worked in tandem with the sexualisation of Indian films so as to become more like American films, thus negating the preferred values of an old Bollywood and diminishing Indian soft power.

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