Are the National Awards uniting Bollywood or dividing it?

The 63rd National Film Awards were announced today; while Amitabh Bachchan bagged the Best Actor accolade for his role in Piku, the Best Actress award went to Kangana Ranaut for Tanu Weds Manu Returns.

S.S. Rajamouli’s mammoth period production Baahubali was declared the Best Feature Film while Bajrangi Bhaijaan won the Best Popular Film award.

Tamil star Samuthirakani picked up the Best Supporting Actor award for Visaranaai, a thriller based on the novel Lock Up by M. Chandrakumar. Tanvi Azmi won the Best Supporting Actress award for Bajirao Mastani, while the film’s director, Sanjay Leela Bhansali, bagged the Best Director award.

The prestigious awards — announced by a jury set up by the Information and Broadcasting Ministry — are given away by the President. You can find a full list of winners here.

While Bajrangi Bhaijaan's director, Kabir Khan calls them "the only relevant awards left today in the country", not many share the same sentiment.

No recognition for regional cinema?

When the same commercial Hindi box-office hits that won big at Filmfare or Stardust end up also winning big at the National Awards, it hits a nerve. A platform that is meant to offer nationwide recognition for regional language films clearly fell short.

Director Gurvinder Singh, whose internationally acclaimed Punjabi film Chauthi Koot has been honoured with a National Film Award calls the awards a "complete farce."

"All the art films have been neglected this time. Overall, all the awards have gone to Bollywood," he says.

While Bollywood did hijack the bigger awards, even then, the National Awards are an annual reminder that Indian cinema is more than just Bollywood. If there are prizes given to gargantuan mainstream productions such as Bajirao Mastani, indie flicks like Masaan and Visaranai were also lauded and that is a step in the right direction.

New year, same winners

While there's no doubt about the fact that Kangana is an excellent actress, is it fair that she won the Best Actress award this year as well, after sweeping it up last year for Queen, making it her third NA in total?

Bhansali doesn't seem to think so wholeheartedly: “Kangana is an outstanding actress but deep in my heart, I wished Deepika or Priyanka had won. Deepika’s performance was splendid and Priyanka was fantastic too."

While we loved Deepika's heartwrenching performance in Bajirao, can we say that Ranaut didn't deserve her award? Not quite. Hey, weirder things have happened at the National Awards! Remember when Saif Ali Khan walked away with the Best Actor trophy for Hum Tum?

As with every single award, one can argue the choice of the winner in a few categories; maybe it's just time for all other players to step up their game and figure out what Kangana is doing because it seems to be working out for her!