01-17-2009, 02:22 AM
<b>Slumdog Billionaire: Anti Hindu Anti Rama, the prejudice continuesâ</b>
Saurav Basu
Back in the good old days when Satyajit Ray often made the most
sublime neo-realistic cinema, one Ms. Nargis Dutt caustically charged
him with selling Indian poverty abroad. Yet, Satyajit Ray's films did
not feature Calcutta's slums but the villages of Bengal. There was an
undercurrent of poverty in his major films like Pather Panchali,
Aparajito and Pratidwandhi but there was human irony. No romanticizing
poverty yet ultimately a resounding affirmation of human dignity. Who
can forget the immortal scene in Aparajito where a guilt ridden Apu, a
poor Brahmana boy rejects his priestly duties towards his mother's
last rites and opts to pursue a modern education instead. Ray's father
was a Brahmo and he himself a recalcitrant Hindu, yet his cinema
encompassed everything that represented the best and the worst of
Indian civilization ethos.
Through the vicissitudes of times, India has emerged as a global
economy shedding both its Nehruvian rate of growth and the associated
stereotypes, although we are admittedly a third world country with sub
Saharan level hunger and human development indices. Yet, a share of
its misfortune may be attributed to being surrounded by two failed
states whose burdens of jihadi terrorism and poverty India has to
suffer. Even the slum is an artificial socio-political construct and
misrepresents Indian poverty. Indian slums have unpaid electricity
accounts yet even today thousands of Indian villages wait
electrification; slums have NGOs operating in vain while villages
still await their first permanent school buildings. Slums create and
sustain criminals yet millions of Indian villages represent a morally
and ethical superior way of life and hospitality. Slums in India are
infested by some over 30-40 million illegal Bangladeshi migrants who
constitute a sizable secular votebank.
But contemporary film making seems to have appreciated little of these
ground realities; instead we find a rehash of the old and improbable
rags to riches story in an ultra-regressive style. A magnificent
Mumbai slum, two Muslim brothers, a Hindu mob killing innocent Muslim
women, criminally amputated children singing Surdas's songs, Hindu
policemen torturing an innocent Muslim boy and a diabolic Hindu
game-show host who hands his Muslim contestant to his Hindu police
which hates the Amnesty international, and voila, you have all the
ingredients for a `secular' potboiler which is on the road to the
Oscars! You might argue that it's not realistic but only fantasy since
there is greater probability of winning the jackpot on a lottery
ticket without being abused by the police than winning the top prize
on a quiz show with 15 unique questions.
But then you can be kidding with the graphic depiction of blood
curdling anti Muslim riot in which a Hindu mob slays the children's
mother, the Indian policeman electrocuting the Muslim suspect or the
gory scene of the amputation of the street children by the mafia who
are then forced to sing Surdas's bhajans. The original book by Vikas
Swarup had the prime character as Ram Mohammad Thomas who was
conveniently transformed into a Muslim boy, Jamal Malik who lost his
mother to a Hindu mob to make it sound more "politically correct."
When was the last time in Indian History when an unprovoked Hindu
population took to violence? For the record the Mumbai riots were
incited by fanatical Muslim mobs in the face of the Baburi Masjid
demolition. Moreover, it beats me how the consequent Mumbai bomb
blasts triggered by local Muslim gangs be disassociated from the
Mumbai riots? And the much maligned Bombay Police recently lost
sixteen of its bravest men while defending the city's freedom of
speech and expression against Islamist zealots who wanted to
replicate in India, a 7th century Arabia.
More disturbingly, you have the depiction of the blue bodied Rama whom
Hindus consider as Maryada Puroshottam [the best among men]
threatening to terminate the existence of the innocent Muslim
children. To a question on the show which asked which weapons is Lord
Rama depicted with in popular iconography, Jamal Malik the protagonist
does not remember the grand Ram Lilas which happen across the country
or Ram Kathas on televisions. Instead, a Hindu kid immaculately
dressed up as Lord Rama stands in the middle of a slum in a
threatening pose. And one cannot miss the hatred being portrayed in
the face and looks of that young Hindu kid, younger than even
Jamaal.Even a 5 year old Hindu kid is a communal bigot and Rama is
responsible for all the communal crap. Muslims are seculars and
victims by definition. Not only this we have forcibly amputated
children singing Surdas's bhajan pining for a glimpse of illusory
Krishna? This insensitive jaundiced anti Hindu view is reminiscent of
Indian leftist cinema where Hindu male characters are black and
Muslims white! Remember, Mr and Mrs Iyer where a Hindu mob was
searching for circumcised dicks and didn't even spare a Jew in true
Nazi fashion! Never mind that in world history, Hindus are the only
people who don't carry an atom of anti-Semitism, but the director's
flight of `secularist' fancy won critical acclaim. Buddhadeb
Bhattacharya in his film Uttara shows a band of Hindu goons burning a
Christian church made in service of the lord's lepers and raping an
orphan girl in the process. Expectedly, this rather original gruesome
way of story-telling won him the national awards! In the Tamil hit,
Dasavathaaram, we find an anti-historical situation fantasizing
Shaivite intolerance against Vaishnavs where Ramanujam's disciple is
fighting Kulothunga Chola. Based on a solitary description of Chola
antagonism in Ramanujam's writings, we find the Chola fanatic stealing
the idol of Vishnu from Srirangam, ironically the same temple complex
which was plundered at least five times by Islamic armies. Similarly,
Kamal Hassan in his movie `Anbe Sivam', shows a pious Shiva devotee
injuring the hero who is rescued by a group of benevolent Christian
nuns. Previously, in the 70s when anti-Brahmana movement in Tamil Nadu
was at its peak, we had Brahmana priests routinely paraded as rascals
in Tamil movies.
`Islamic' sensitivities have extracted book bans from both British and
Congress governments. Girja Kumar in his "Book on Trial" has
reproduced dozens of cases where Hindu books critical of Islam or the
Prophet were banned, and the authors faced arrest or were killed.
Salman Rushdie's flight and Taslima Nasrin's plight is well known.
Lajja almost faced a ban because she had exposed the genocide against
Hindus in Bangladesh. Movies on the state of Kashmiri pundits, victims
of Islamic genocide against Hindus of Bangladeshis, the Hindu victims
of the North East against Christian separatism and also the historical
crimes by the armies of Islam and inquisitory Christianity are taboo
in a `secular country' They cannot see the light of the day because
they are inimical to communal harmony and hurt minority sentiments.
This ostentatious display of anti Hindu sentiment is of course lost on
the jingoists or those ABCDs who go gaga over such pernicious cinema.
Sincere critics questioning the dumb plot where a slum boy grows up
into a sophisticated leftist JNU product with a flawless English
accent are censured by appealing to the authority of the Golden globe
awards. They keenly forget the film was precisely designed for that,
appeal to the racial sensitivities of those who really matter!
Therefore, even the liberation of Jamal is not through any indigenous
worth, but through an internationally funded poverty alleviation game
show [Kaun Banega Crorepati recedes into its international avatar, Who
wants to become a millionaire].
Saurav Basu
Back in the good old days when Satyajit Ray often made the most
sublime neo-realistic cinema, one Ms. Nargis Dutt caustically charged
him with selling Indian poverty abroad. Yet, Satyajit Ray's films did
not feature Calcutta's slums but the villages of Bengal. There was an
undercurrent of poverty in his major films like Pather Panchali,
Aparajito and Pratidwandhi but there was human irony. No romanticizing
poverty yet ultimately a resounding affirmation of human dignity. Who
can forget the immortal scene in Aparajito where a guilt ridden Apu, a
poor Brahmana boy rejects his priestly duties towards his mother's
last rites and opts to pursue a modern education instead. Ray's father
was a Brahmo and he himself a recalcitrant Hindu, yet his cinema
encompassed everything that represented the best and the worst of
Indian civilization ethos.
Through the vicissitudes of times, India has emerged as a global
economy shedding both its Nehruvian rate of growth and the associated
stereotypes, although we are admittedly a third world country with sub
Saharan level hunger and human development indices. Yet, a share of
its misfortune may be attributed to being surrounded by two failed
states whose burdens of jihadi terrorism and poverty India has to
suffer. Even the slum is an artificial socio-political construct and
misrepresents Indian poverty. Indian slums have unpaid electricity
accounts yet even today thousands of Indian villages wait
electrification; slums have NGOs operating in vain while villages
still await their first permanent school buildings. Slums create and
sustain criminals yet millions of Indian villages represent a morally
and ethical superior way of life and hospitality. Slums in India are
infested by some over 30-40 million illegal Bangladeshi migrants who
constitute a sizable secular votebank.
But contemporary film making seems to have appreciated little of these
ground realities; instead we find a rehash of the old and improbable
rags to riches story in an ultra-regressive style. A magnificent
Mumbai slum, two Muslim brothers, a Hindu mob killing innocent Muslim
women, criminally amputated children singing Surdas's songs, Hindu
policemen torturing an innocent Muslim boy and a diabolic Hindu
game-show host who hands his Muslim contestant to his Hindu police
which hates the Amnesty international, and voila, you have all the
ingredients for a `secular' potboiler which is on the road to the
Oscars! You might argue that it's not realistic but only fantasy since
there is greater probability of winning the jackpot on a lottery
ticket without being abused by the police than winning the top prize
on a quiz show with 15 unique questions.
But then you can be kidding with the graphic depiction of blood
curdling anti Muslim riot in which a Hindu mob slays the children's
mother, the Indian policeman electrocuting the Muslim suspect or the
gory scene of the amputation of the street children by the mafia who
are then forced to sing Surdas's bhajans. The original book by Vikas
Swarup had the prime character as Ram Mohammad Thomas who was
conveniently transformed into a Muslim boy, Jamal Malik who lost his
mother to a Hindu mob to make it sound more "politically correct."
When was the last time in Indian History when an unprovoked Hindu
population took to violence? For the record the Mumbai riots were
incited by fanatical Muslim mobs in the face of the Baburi Masjid
demolition. Moreover, it beats me how the consequent Mumbai bomb
blasts triggered by local Muslim gangs be disassociated from the
Mumbai riots? And the much maligned Bombay Police recently lost
sixteen of its bravest men while defending the city's freedom of
speech and expression against Islamist zealots who wanted to
replicate in India, a 7th century Arabia.
More disturbingly, you have the depiction of the blue bodied Rama whom
Hindus consider as Maryada Puroshottam [the best among men]
threatening to terminate the existence of the innocent Muslim
children. To a question on the show which asked which weapons is Lord
Rama depicted with in popular iconography, Jamal Malik the protagonist
does not remember the grand Ram Lilas which happen across the country
or Ram Kathas on televisions. Instead, a Hindu kid immaculately
dressed up as Lord Rama stands in the middle of a slum in a
threatening pose. And one cannot miss the hatred being portrayed in
the face and looks of that young Hindu kid, younger than even
Jamaal.Even a 5 year old Hindu kid is a communal bigot and Rama is
responsible for all the communal crap. Muslims are seculars and
victims by definition. Not only this we have forcibly amputated
children singing Surdas's bhajan pining for a glimpse of illusory
Krishna? This insensitive jaundiced anti Hindu view is reminiscent of
Indian leftist cinema where Hindu male characters are black and
Muslims white! Remember, Mr and Mrs Iyer where a Hindu mob was
searching for circumcised dicks and didn't even spare a Jew in true
Nazi fashion! Never mind that in world history, Hindus are the only
people who don't carry an atom of anti-Semitism, but the director's
flight of `secularist' fancy won critical acclaim. Buddhadeb
Bhattacharya in his film Uttara shows a band of Hindu goons burning a
Christian church made in service of the lord's lepers and raping an
orphan girl in the process. Expectedly, this rather original gruesome
way of story-telling won him the national awards! In the Tamil hit,
Dasavathaaram, we find an anti-historical situation fantasizing
Shaivite intolerance against Vaishnavs where Ramanujam's disciple is
fighting Kulothunga Chola. Based on a solitary description of Chola
antagonism in Ramanujam's writings, we find the Chola fanatic stealing
the idol of Vishnu from Srirangam, ironically the same temple complex
which was plundered at least five times by Islamic armies. Similarly,
Kamal Hassan in his movie `Anbe Sivam', shows a pious Shiva devotee
injuring the hero who is rescued by a group of benevolent Christian
nuns. Previously, in the 70s when anti-Brahmana movement in Tamil Nadu
was at its peak, we had Brahmana priests routinely paraded as rascals
in Tamil movies.
`Islamic' sensitivities have extracted book bans from both British and
Congress governments. Girja Kumar in his "Book on Trial" has
reproduced dozens of cases where Hindu books critical of Islam or the
Prophet were banned, and the authors faced arrest or were killed.
Salman Rushdie's flight and Taslima Nasrin's plight is well known.
Lajja almost faced a ban because she had exposed the genocide against
Hindus in Bangladesh. Movies on the state of Kashmiri pundits, victims
of Islamic genocide against Hindus of Bangladeshis, the Hindu victims
of the North East against Christian separatism and also the historical
crimes by the armies of Islam and inquisitory Christianity are taboo
in a `secular country' They cannot see the light of the day because
they are inimical to communal harmony and hurt minority sentiments.
This ostentatious display of anti Hindu sentiment is of course lost on
the jingoists or those ABCDs who go gaga over such pernicious cinema.
Sincere critics questioning the dumb plot where a slum boy grows up
into a sophisticated leftist JNU product with a flawless English
accent are censured by appealing to the authority of the Golden globe
awards. They keenly forget the film was precisely designed for that,
appeal to the racial sensitivities of those who really matter!
Therefore, even the liberation of Jamal is not through any indigenous
worth, but through an internationally funded poverty alleviation game
show [Kaun Banega Crorepati recedes into its international avatar, Who
wants to become a millionaire].