India’s elite aren’t wild about ‘Slumdog’ image

Perhaps you’ve already heard enough about “Slumdog Millionaire,” a hit film that seems to have become, unexpectedly, a new metaphor for India. Jamal Malik, an illiterate Muslim slum dweller in predominantly Hindu Mumbai, becomes a crorepathi (millionaire times ten) after getting all the questions right on the Indian version of “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?” Arousing suspicion, he is arrested by the local police and harshly interrogated. How did he know the answers? Through hard-earned experiences at the margins of society, it turns out, and in the course of telling his gritty tale through a series of flashbacks, Jamal not only reveals the secrets of his improbable success, but he also shows how, ironically, India’s tremendous advances in recent times have not bridged some of its historic class and social divisions.

This rags-to-raja saga is up for 10 Oscars on Sunday and is doing astonishingly well at the box office. Since the days of “Gandhi” and “A Passage to India,” both released a generation ago, no other film about India has garnered as many Academy Award nominations or, indeed, generated as much interest. And given the way things have turned out so far for this scrappy underdog —- which cost $15 million, as opposed to $150 million for “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” the other top Oscar contender —- nothing should come as a surprise.

Loud protests, even by slum dwellers, have greeted “Slumdog,” however, and Indian audiences are not rushing to see it. There is considerable uneasiness among the well-off over this depiction of India, which after all has been touted as a fast-rising world power. The film perpetuates outdated stereotypes about India, say some, who even refer to it as “slum voyeurism” or “poverty porn.” Remember “City of Joy,” set in the slums of Calcutta, and Oscar nominee “Salaam Bombay!”? Those films came out about 15 and 20 years ago, respectively, just when India, having rejected socialism and stagnation, began to enthusiastically embrace liberalization, privatization and globalization.

My reaction was quite different when I saw it at a packed Regal theater in Atlanta. I was delighted, not disappointed —- as if we all had set off on an exhilarating, whirlwind ride through India, where I had grown up years ago. Sure, there are Indians who carp that it’s a “foreign” view, with a lopsided emphasis on the seamier side, but as one reviewer here points out, “Slumdog” is a “work by an outsider who’s clearly connected with the place.” Besides, while one may quibble over certain details, the film is very much a collaborative effort, giving the sensory experience an authentic depth.

Fusing talents and sensibilities across cultures, “Slumdog” razzle-dazzles like few other recent films, inventively capturing a colorfully vibrant India that appears to have, from an American perspective, a dizzyingly schizophrenic personality. Heartbreaking poverty co-exists with spectacular riches, and the 21st century’s chaotic modernity is never far from the traditional rhythms of earlier centuries. And these glimpses of India also tell us, I think, why there has been such a complicated reaction there, although the story is for the most part a crowd-pleaser with a suitably Bollywoodish ending that warms the heart.

It’s true that India has made great progress —- something that won’t be readily apparent to those who rely on feature films for their impressions. For instance, the number of middle class Indians (generously defined) exceeds 250 million. However, what remains equally undeniable is that the separation between the haves and have-nots is as daunting as ever. Despite having more haves now because of economic changes, the number of have-nots has also risen because of population growth. As P. Sainath, a distinguished Indian journalist who focuses on rural affairs, recently noted at an Emory lecture, 836 million people in India live on less than 50 cents a day while 51 billionaires own what’s equivalent to 31 percent of the GDP. Not since independence in 1947 has there been such a wide gulf.

Objecting to the movie’s title, a few slum dwellers in Mumbai held up placards that read: “I am not a dog!” The meaning of “slumdog” didn’t travel well, obviously, but in light of India’s cruelly uneven progress over the past 15 to 20 years, their anger seems justified.

So, how would our quiz contestant respond to this question: “Does ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ show the real India?”

“Yes, it does,” Jamal would say, at least before he became a crorepathi. “But it’s not the India the elite are comfortable with or anxious for the world to see.”

> Murali Kamma is the managing editor of Khabar, a monthly magazine for Indian readers published in Norcross.