[Reader-list] Slumdog: An Idiots' Guide to India

[Paul D. Miller]

I just thought I'd pass this on... See ya at the OScars, hah!
Paul

An Idiots' Guide to India

By Hirsh Sawhney 
Guardian (UK) 
February 21, 2009

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/feb/20/danny-boyle-india

     Slumdog Millionaire's implication that western
     values offer a way out of the slums is a dangerous
     myth

When India's call centres and booming economy began to
grab headlines, writers and filmmakers attempted to woo
western audiences with tales from the subcontinent.
Some of these works were nuanced and sophisticated,
like Richie Mehta's recent film Amal or Suketu Mehta's
bestselling book Maximum City. But many of them were
designed to cash in on the India craze and provide
digestible titbits about the country's culture and
history to western audiences - India for idiots, if you
will.

Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire, the runaway
favourite for the best picture Oscar tomorrow night, is
precisely one of these simplistic texts. It contains a
smattering of all the major Indian hot buttons: call
centres, religious riots, urban development, sex
workers, the Taj Mahal - and, of course, slums.

The film, which traces the life of Jamal Malik from the
devastatingly poor streets of Mumbai to his deliverance
on the TV game show Who Wants to be a Millionaire, has
elicited some furious reactions in India. Many have
pointed out that the slum children Boyle used as actors
weren't fairly compensated for their performances. A
group of protestors in the city of Patna burned Slumdog
posters and ransacked a theatre where the film was
being screened, claiming that film's depiction of slum
dwellers was a "violation of human rights." Some Indian
commentators insinuated that the movie has been
successful in the west because uses "poverty porn" to
"titillate foreign audiences".

At the other end of the spectrum, Slumdog's admirers
assert that those who whine about the film are guilty
of "patriotic indignation" and lack "genuine anger and
concern" about India's horrific poverty. Fans not only
find the film upbeat, colourful and entertaining, they
also applaud the fact that it sheds light on the state
of slums. The Indian romance novelist Shobhaa De
claimed that it has taken an outsider like Boyle "to go
fearlessly into 'No Man's Land' and hold up a mirror to
our sordid society."

Yes, Boyle deserves a pat on the back for diving into
Mumbai's entrails and drawing attention to its poverty.
But it's a mistake to label him original for shedding
light on India's underbelly. Before him, scores of
filmmakers - from the iconic Guru Dutt to today's Madhu
Bhandarkar - have decried inequity and portrayed India
honestly, warts and all. The legendary Raj Kapoor even
employed a mixture of fantasy and realism that pre-
dates Boyle's masala formula for cinematic success.

But it's also clear that Boyle's version of the third
world, complete with fetidness and depravity, is
particularly gratifying to our UK and US sensibilities.
Why? Because it grossly oversimplifies poverty and our
relationship with it.

After watching the film, viewers are left to infer that
slums are horrid, rancid places because of beggar
masters, Hindu zealots and Muslim gangs. Of course
these forces play their role in perpetuating misery.
But in reality, slums are an international problem
caused by an intricate set of entities: corrupt
government officials, gargantuan multinational
corporations and suspect IMF structural adjustment
programs.

Playing it safe, Boyle doesn't implicate any of these
entities. As a result, his movie does allow us to
believe that we have been responsible global citizens
by engaging with the intensity of third world slums. We
in the audience even feel genuine sympathy for
destitution. But at no point do we have to forsake the
delusion that abject poverty and inequity are strictly
foreign things for which we share no culpability.

In fact, far from spreading the blame for global
poverty, Boyle's film actually suggests that the west
is the solution to India's problems. Protagonist Jamal
only escapes his ceaseless cycle of squalor and crime
once he makes it into the orderly, democratic world of
a British call centre. This call centre, in turn,
delivers him to his fateful redemption on Millionaire.
The subtext is clear: things are really bad in urban
India but healthy servings of western values are just
what the doctor - and the Academy judges - ordered.

Of course, many relish this action-packed fairy tale.
It reinforces the notion that our policies and mindsets
are righteous and can rid the world of its troubles.
Stories that perpetuate this myth are especially
appealing right now. In the wake of a grave economic
collapse and a wretched, unending war, we have to begin
the painful process of questioning the integrity of our
way of life. A movie like Slumdog allows us to put that
off for a few more minutes. 
________

Hirsh Sawhney is a contributing editor at Brooklyn Rail
and Wasafiri Magazine. He has written for the TLS,
Financial Times, Time Out New York and Outlook.