– D.Parthasarathy
When the desire for critique overcomes the need for critique, what happens to social criticism? Quite clearly the motives for criticism differ according to ideological proclivities: conservatives and reformers, neo-liberals and liberals have very different rationale from feminist or Dalit critics. And when nationalism unites the postmodernist, the postcolonialist
and the Marxist, the fanatic / chauvinist and the liberal in a common critical perspective, social criticism becomes not just ironical but farcical as well. Just as several critics during the nationalist movement failed to understand that drain inspector’s reports exist because of a people’s unwillingness to clean up their drains themselves, self appointed spokespersons of the country continue to follow in Tilak’s quite facetious ‘nationalism and sovereignty before the imperative of social reform’ footsteps, when it comes to any criticism of the million things worth criticizing in Indian society. How else does one explain the fairly amazing consensus in the wide criticism of Slumdog Millionaire (hereafter SM) for its so called ’poverty pornography’ among celebrity authors like Salman Rushdie, NRI ‘leftist’ academics, sundry homegrown Gandhian and liberal scholars, and interlocutors for a ‘new’ India? Bourdieu’s use of Plato’s term doxosophers to refer to these “smallholders of cultural capital” (Bourdieu 1998: 7) is as apt as his censure of intellectuals and philosophers who engage “in vague debates of a political philosophy without technical content” (ibid 7). Whatever the democratic effects of the expansion of print and electronic media, and of the internet, they have certainly had the effects of privileging the “technicians of opinion who think themselves wise” (ibid 7), and whose “shared belief removes from discussion ideas which are perfectly worth discussing” (ibid 6).
Cultural capital and opportunity structures in the ‘old’ and ‘new’ economies
It has been quite fascinating and intriguing to read and listen to various criticisms of the film’s depiction of slums and ‘poverty’ in the city – and while one recognizes people’s right to comment on the film, much of the ‘negative portrayal’ and’ poverty porn’ comments have come from people who know little about Mumbai, have rarely if ever stepped into its slums, and never known what poverty means; views have also been expressed by those with greater familiarity of the city and its slums – but these seem to be more interested in pushing their own agendas rather than understand the issues in a more objective way, and in many ways, even those sympathetic to Mumbai’s slum dwellers seem reluctant to grant them greater agency. In addition to nationalism, defending one’s research / activism turf, and pushing one’s expertise on Mumbai / slums / India / Indian cinema, also seem to be underlying motives for entering the debate on SM. To take one example, for someone who has authored some of the best fiction on India, Salman Rushdie’s criticism belies the very ‘conceit’ that he ridicules, his statement about the film‘s “outrageous coincidences” gainsaying the very widespread use of coincidences – outrageous and otherwise – that characterize escapist Indian cinema and that partly helps explain its mass popularity. Escapist cinema encapsulates a politics of hope, hope in the impossible and the improbable, a belief in an utopian world where caste and class oppression can be successfully challenged, where social taboos (especially regarding romantic love) do not operate. Outrageous coincidences are accepted as normal, because they are less outrageous than the possibility of a different world for most cinema viewers.
The ‘outrageous coincidence’ and “combination of illogical happenings”2 vilification of the film also reveals a lack of awareness of what reality shows such as Who Wants to be a Millionaire and its various versions are about and are trying to do. We must remember that the way in which the quiz show has been conceptualised and created, it is quite unlike other snooty quiz shows such as BBC’s Master Mind or even The Weakest Link, it is aimed at those who may not necessarily have tertiary education, at home makers, at the working classes, and lower middle classes, at people who may have never had a chance to acquire knowledge of esoteric facts and trivia as part of their socialization processes. Questions in the Indian version are usually from Indian history, cricket, Indian languages and literature, cinema, and mythology3 – information that one acquires as part of growing up, going to school, – such that most people watching television at least in urban areas feel that they can answer the questions, and thereby enhances audience participation and viewership. The film picks up this ‘inclusive’ aspect of the capitalist media, and reverses it in a very clever way.One might think that the coincidence of the questions and the acquisition of the answers by
Jamal as part of his life experience is too fantastic, but that is exactly what the quiz show tries to do anyway. What the film also does is to question the kinds of knowledge and information we valorize on an everyday basis, and those we deride,disparage, or mock – which is what the caste system has been doing for centuries, but which also occurs in ‘modern’ western societies as well – wherever ascription is esteemed and privileged over achievement. Probably the best example from the film is the question on “what is written underneath the three lions in India’s national emblem”, where the police inspector questioning Jamal says sarcastically that even his “five year old daughter knows the answer to that”. Jamal not only responds to the sarcasm but gets back with a sardonic and mocking counter question which interrogates the basis on which we value certain kinds of information.
Even the story of how Jamal gets to know that Benjamin Franklin’s picture is on a US hundred dollar bill is not as far-fetched or unlikely as it is stated5. For decades, during the period of restrictions on rupee convertibility, when there was a flourishing hawala racket,people living on the streets and in slums were more likely to be familiar with foreign currency than most middle class educated people. The fact that learning can occur outside of the formal system, that learning is also a life long process which depends on who you are, what your family background is, where you come from, also comes out in the scene where
Jamal first becomes a tourist guide by accident, and he mixes up the two legendary stories of how the Taj Mahal and its equally (?) iconic namesake hotel in Mumbai got built. The film generates and contributes to a larger discourse on the kinds of cultural capital that are recognized, usable and valorized in the ‘old’ and ‘new’ economy, and the implications of these for a society where status and ascription have always been more important than achievement, and where formal credentialized cultural capital has been more valued than other forms of cultural capital and learning.
The fundamental point that emerges from the film, and which is worth stressing is that the new service based economy provides opportunities for acquiring new skills, both credentialized and non-credentialized kinds, it offers greater opportunities to individuals who acquire skills from not so elite formal institutions as well as from a range of training institutes that have mushroomed in the streets and slums of Mumbai – from computer and IT to English speaking classes, from animation to accountancy and airhostess schools. Economic changes have brought in social transformations where upward mobility is not dependent only on
access to social networks, social background, and formal, government recognized credentials. The approach towards knowledge and learning is gradually changing, and it is from slums that this change is being generated and spread. The less educated, the socially marginalized, those who have been discriminated against – all these are able to find new economic opportunities and jobs, as new kinds of skills and assets are being valued in and for themselves, and sometimes given importance over formal learning. These include street smartness, an intimate knowledge of consumer behaviour and consumer profiles, familiarity
with specific trade markets, an ability and willingness to transform one’s physical personality and psychological being6, hands on skills, ability to speak the language of the customer, and ability to identify new opportunities. The malls and big retail stores, call centres, Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) and other outsourcing firms, pizza, ice-cream, and coffee parlours, pubs and discos, small and big software firms, service providers and agents for big MNCs – all these are increasingly being staffed by people from the lower end of the job market – the foot soldiers of capitalism, who are able to move up quickly because they are willing to acquire new skills, because the new economy firms provide greater opportunities for in-house training7, and also because the emergence of training facilities in slums, staffed by less and unqualified trainers considerably brings down the costs of training in the informal education sector. The journey of Jamal from a public toilet in the slum to the final item dance8 in VT station is also a description of India’s economic transformation, and while there is much to criticise about the nature and extent of this change, we must accept that it is slowly but inevitably leading to changes in the opportunity structure – and it is the components and ingredients of this transformation that is shown in the film – the changing cityscape, the call centre employment and workplace, the popularity of reality TV, the easy camaraderie between unequals at the workplace, the ease with which a ‘slumdog’ acquires the ability to speak English and talk back to a police inspector and a quiz show host as an equal – these are aspects of transformation that are difficult to ignore, except for those who only see poverty
and violence in the film.
If SM appears to minimize “the capabilities and basic humanity of those it claims to speak for” (Sengupta 2008) , it is because critics from the left, right and centre in India rarely if ever look with any degree of sympathy on the semi-feudal ascriptive social structure and its implications for the opportunity structure. Quite apart from the racist undertones of criticism
regarding the impossibility of Jamal “emerg(ing) from his ravaged life with a dewy complexion and upper class accent” (ibid.), such disparagement displays an ignorance of changes taking place across urban India which affects the rich and the middle class as much as the poor. The emergence of low cost English speaking classes and beauty salons (for men as well) in slums, and availability of cheap cosmetics, gels, creams, all of which considerably enhance the possibility of better paid jobs with better working conditions than working as maids or construction labour – this means that young people from slums, school drop outs,are equally if not more likely to have better complexions, hair styles, dress sense, and accents than middle class individuals9. Teaching and researching on sociological issues at IIT Bombay, it is not quite unsurprising to find that young people from the slums in Powai working in call centres, malls, and cafes in the area speak better English and look more ‘cool’ than the students of this elite institution. Perhaps it is the several years of closed door coaching and absence of any normal socialization that gives IIT students their sallow complexions and unkempt looks. Specimens of the ‘great unwashed masses’ are more likely to be found in greater number in the IITs than in slums. Caste endogamy, the fact that most men and women in India get spouses arranged for them means that they do not need to impress through facial and body makeovers, which is usually reserved for the engagement, wedding, and reception ceremonies. Not to mention that the guarantee and putative value of an IIT stamp both hides and covers for poor English language skills with or without an ‘upper class accent“. On the other hand acquisition of these forms of cultural capital which are now quite inexpensive offers a ticket not only to Bollywood, and now Hollywood, but to more mundane but decent jobs, where particularly Muslim and lower caste men and women are treated with greater dignity, and have greater opportunities for learning new skills, and hence for upward mobility.
Capitalism, Western Values, and Dignity in / of labour
The usual criticism of the expansion of jobs in the new service sector including in call centres, BPOs, outsourcing involving semi-skilled work, malls, cafes, etc., is that these workplaces are “alienating, exploitative”, white-colalr sweatshops” (Proyect 2008), where Indians are made to work as cybercoolies and worse. But then which job in the world apart from that of the academic scholar is not alienating and exploitative? Isn’t there a difference between a coolie and a cybercoolie? For workers at the lower end of the wage structure, one must understand the quite enormous change in their opportunity structures ushered in by
economic changes, changes that not withstanding other adverse effects, are significant for their implications for the transformation of a largely feudal, status, family, and caste based economy promoted by the state as well as monopoly capital in India. Other common responses to the new jobs are that they are a part of the expansion of consumerism, or that they represent in many ways the imposition or onslaught of western values. One critic described the film as “a phony poseur that has been made only to mock India for the viewing pleasure of the First World” (Chaudhuri 2008)10. One might as well suggest that Americans
elected George Bush twice as president for the mocking pleasure of the rest of the world. The use of vague ‘western values’ and ‘western culture’ arguments betrays first of all a lack of capacity for rigour in criticism. What does ‘western values’ mean in the first place? Are we talking of western institutions or western values? Which western values are we disparaging? Human dignity? Workers rights? Democracy and its attendant institutions, practices and values? It would be foolish to deny that cultural differences exist across national and regional boundaries, and that institutions, practices, and values neither travel
easily, nor should we blindly export these, expecting them to work in the same way to achieve the same or different goals 11. Every bad empiricist knows that, despite the antipathy that post modernists have for empiricists, and sharing the abhorrence for cultural universalism. But in using the western values argument, it is at least essential that you outline what exactly it is that you are criticizing. Perhaps the two most outstanding achievements of western societies have been to secure and promote the dignity of human labour and the spread of democratic institutions – both have occurred less as a result of capitalism and the
market, and more through workers and trade union struggles, and popular mass movements12. Surely critics are not arguing that we should dispense with these as they spring from western values? Just as in the name of a partisan objectivity, social scientists in India have for decades ignored the scholarly contribution of Ambedkar while valorizing those of Gandhi, Nehru, and Tagore, so too are critics now ignoring the perspectives, outpourings and positions of those who may have a different standpoint on the western values argument. Dalit and Muslim bloggers13 either do not seem to bothered by the western values aspect, even welcome it in some instances, or have a completely different take on it. In justifying their need to speak,elite critics seem not to have noticed that the subaltern can not only speak14, but also sing,dance, and perform. The subaltern can think for herself, and usually thinks in quite different ways from their spokespersons, but they still need to be ignored or how can else can ‘we’build careers out of speaking for ’them’? The role of an intellectual in a hierarchical society needs much clarification, but speaking for the subaltern ought not to involve appropriation and / or marginalization of voices, which is what is happening with critical debates on indigineity and western values.
The Changing Fortunes of Slums: State, Community, or Market?
Not all criticisms of Slumdog Millionaire are negative. If one engages with views that depict slum dwellers in Mumbai in a more positive light, it is evident that popular perceptions and scholarly perspectives alike fail to understand the nature, scale, and magnitude of changes -especially economic changes and changes in the opportunity structure – that are occurring in Mumbai and its slums – and that are captured and brought to life on screen by Boyle and his team in quite perceptive ways. This has been quite clearly missed out by critics – whatever their standpoint, and there is a pattern here deriving from ideological influences (Marxist,liberal, Gandhian, secular), all of which are quite indifferent in addressing issues arising from status based discrimination and exclusion.
There is a gradual but fairly rapid change that is occurring in India cities – change influenced by the expansion of the new economy – particularly the service sector, but also the growth of retail, recreation, entertainment, and food sectors. Films based in Mumbai’s slums, chawls, and ganglands are fairly common, but where SM differs is that unlike classic films like
Deewar where the elder brother joins the mafia and the younger one the police15, here the younger one gets a job in a call centre, not a great job, but a job which has a higher status for his (lack of) qualifications, a job where he is treated better by other employees, and has scope for acquiring skills – learning to operate a computer for example, or learning to speak in
English, a greater awareness of how things work in the economy, in his firm, learning to look smart.
Before expanding on this, let me very briefly outline two perspectives current in the debate about SM among scholars and activists in / of Mumbai itself. Countering criticism of the negative portrayal of Mumbai’s slums and of poverty, some local urban activists have pointed out that people living in slums are not really poor (Echanove and Srivastava 2009). Here one
must also understand that the popular connection between slums and poverty is not generally accepted by scholars; slums are an indication of sub-standard housing, lack of amenities, and insufficient security of tenure, not necessarily of poverty – as any social science definition of slums will show. Several studies clearly show that while poverty is a major issue, the majority of slum dwellers in Mumbai do not fall in the category of the absolutely poor. Slums in Mumbai as anywhere else – are looked upon by the non-slum population as the ‘other’, and this otherness can be categorized on the basis of religion or minority status, ethnicity, regional origin, security of tenure, poverty, unsanitary conditions etc16. In Mumbai however the poverty of slum dwellers is only relative. Slums exist because of urban mis-governance problems, infrastructure problems, and a lack of affordable housing. Some estimates reveal that a large proportion of government employees including municipal workers and the police force live in slums. A very large proportion are closer to middle and lower middle class in terms of income, they file income tax returns, families send their children to school, younger people speak English, increasingly work in the formal economy, and involve in productive activities with global linkages. The problems are less of income poverty and more of discrimination, prejudice, lack of access to public amenities, and of mis-governance in general.
The smaller proportion that are poor in absolute terms whether measured in terms of income, nutrition, or other human development indicators – their condition can be clearly traced as much to bias and discrimination17 as to structural factors and labour standards. The activists and researchers who reject the poverty aspect of slums point to the quite dynamic economy of
the slums – a vibrant and large recycling economy, production for the informal sector, and production for international markets. Other activists / scholars, while acknowledging this argue that this approach represents a copout. Valorizing the survival abilities of the slum dwellers, they contend, allows the state to escape its responsibilities towards slum dwellers who are also citizens and have a stake and right to the city and to the city’s finances and to benefit from urban planning (Krishnan 2009). While acknowledging the significance of both these points of view, both have limitations, and we need to go beyond the community and the state to understand how people in the slums are making use of market forces to create new opportunities for themselves; indeed we need to understand how exclusionary social structures are being transformed with the expansion of the new economy, of the penetration of global capital, and how new opportunity structures are evolving. Whatever Boyle’s film suggests, the issue of whether the “west is the solution to India’s problems” (Sahwney 2009) is something that is to be determined empirically and democratically, not through vacuous criticism.
Given Jamal’s lack of education, it is the new economy that not only provides an opportunity to earn a decent living, but also helps him acquire new skills – improve his English picked up during his childhood and during his tourist guide days in Agra, learn to operate a computer, give polish to his street smartness, and so on. Beyond just depicting the opportunities opened
up by the new economy – something that is completely missed out in other films located in Mumbai’s slums and chawls, and in the gangster films, and contrary to views regarding its delivery of “a disempowering narrative about the poor” (Sengupta, op.cit), the film opens up new areas for discussion, issues that need urgent exploration, pertaining to the ways in which different types of individuals and groups across rural and urban India today relate to economic and social transformations. Quite clearly, euphoric discourses about a shining India are as misleading as the bleak outlooks projected by pessimistic scholars, activists, and journalists. If some at least of Dalit intellectuals in this country see hope in the current transformations, these need to be understood and explored empirically rather than being dismissed off hand. It is important here that we also elide the stereotypical views current which valorize the role of one or a combination of community, market, and the state in development paths out of poverty and disempowerment. Both during the so called ‘socialist’ mixed economy phase, as well as the current deregulated phase, the feudal elite have colluded with urban monopoly capital and a section of the bureaucracy and political class to deny economic and political agency to the vast masses of this country. Social and political movements have had only incremental gains often being co-opted or rendered ineffective through suppression. Under such conditions, and with civil society and public institutions dominated by an upper caste elite, it is but natural that “there are no internal resources, …
none capable of constructive voice or action”, and hence sections of the population do embrace in creative ways “solutions (that) arrive externally” (Sengupta, op.cit.).
The objection to ‘external solutions’ goes beyond the western values criticism to an opposition to the right of ‘outsiders’ to exercise judgement, a questionable objection at any time, but specifically when criticisms are on target, and internal resources for remedy do not exist. This can be quite dangerous as we have seen in the case of the descendants of Tilak who object to both outside and local human rights activists for taking issues of violence and genocide against Muslims and Dalits to international forums. The acolytes of the Sangh Parivar have been among the more vocal ones in disparaging Slumdog Millionaire – the kind of disparagement and condemnation that is not new but goes back to the films of Satyajit Ray and India’s art house realist, parallel cinema – a criticism against showing India in poor light. Scholarly critics however differentiate between Indian realist cinema and those made by foreign ones, a distinction that ostensibly distinguishes the sensibilities of Indian and foreign film makers, or even the right of domestic versus outsiders to comment on native situations, but in reality shares with the fanatics / chauvinists a fear of, and objections to criticism from outsiders, especially popular criticism as opposed to ‘critiques’ by well read scholars. The crux of the issue is that realist cinema and documentaries dealing with horrific violence and abuse in India are seen only by a select few in the western world, while Slumdog is being seen by a (supposedly cinematically illiterate, undistinguished) mass audience – a distinction that Hindutva fanatics and caste sympathizers are too ignorant to understand. Scholarly critics on the other hand must accept and adapt to the idea that mass judgements are one of the risks or externalities of democracy.
Caste and the Division of Labour(ers)
Ambedkar’s insight about caste being a ‘division of labourers’ has rarely received the sociological significance that it deserves. It would be easy especially from a Marxist / progressive perspective to dismiss the significance and magnitude of the changes wrought by economic transformations especially in the service sector, easy to dismiss such arguments as overemphasizing a trivial development. Terms like consumerism have become such common terms of abuse, that progressives as much as conservatives and reactionaries routinely deride and ridicule consumption promoted by ’western values’ as unhealthy and ruinous in itself for
individuals and society. This has also meant that the service sector growth has usually been criticised in terms of the level and type of employment it generates rather than its social consequences. The social ramifications of employment and the changing opportunity structure outlined above are still incipient and on a lesser scale18, but it would be a mistake to ignore its larger implications not just for the inherent possibilities for equalizing prospects and chances for individuals with diverse social backgrounds19, but also for an enhanced understanding of affirmative action and cultural capital issues.
The widespread tendency among critics of SM to overlook the film’s portrayal of the city’s transformation and its new opportunities, and to focus solely on its depiction of poverty and squalor, is of a type with the failure / refusal of some of our best social scientists to understand the necessity of reservations as an affirmative action policy. Some of our more celebrated sociologists advocate the strengthening, and enhancing the availability and quality of school education as a better alternative to the policy of reservations – a viewpoint unthinkingly parroted by anti-reservationists. Important as this is as a policy issue, the suggestion completely misses the point regarding caste based discrimination and hierarchy and appropriate policies for redress. First, such a position fails to account for persisting discriminatory practices in the perpetuation of inequality by explaining inequities purely as a feature of cultural capital deficits. Secondly, and more important from the perspective of this paper, by positing formally acquired education and skills as deserving of greater rewards,such arguments tend to condone, justify, even valorize a division of labour that has little to do with the value of a job for society, the value of a skill in the marketplace. The status and value of a skill, of an occupation depends on who does it rather than the job determining the status of the person performing it. An upper caste individual who drives a car will still look down upon his / her own driver who may do it as a profession, even if the driver has exercised his employee stock options and is rich enough to own a car. In the traditional caste based agrarian economy, as well as the modern upper caste dominated capitalist economy,
dirtying one’s hands by doing manual labour doesn’t bring indignity to the upper castes, just as the lower castes can never aspire to a higher status by performing jobs requiring higher skills, and carrying higher economic rewards. The division of labourers determines the division of labour, not the other way round. In a society where caste and status are so central,
the distinction made between the new and the old economy is not all bourgeois obfuscation,since in a situation where the transition to a modern economy during and after colonial rule took place largely under the auspices of the upper castes (including the dominant peasant castes), the division of labourers can only be shattered by a transformation that is disruptive
of dominant norms and values20.
This is where certain sectors of the new economy have made a difference. On the one hand the upper echelons of the new economy in finance and software are staffed by a caste / class which despite its pub crawling, hip-hop fancying, and on / off line dating proclivities still believes strongly in jati endogamy, and a traditional distribution of roles and statuses based on caste, religion, ethnicity, and gender. On the other hand the new economy has also ushered in other changes for those lower in the caste and class hierarchy. The new economy is different because for the first time it offers the less formally qualified a chance at better jobs, jobs with greater dignity, jobs with chances for skill upgrading and mobility, jobs where one can lose or are even required to lose one’s ascribed identity21. Where the modernity of software and finance professionals is ambiguous and suspect, the workers in the call centres and BPOs, the agents of financial outsourcing firms, the service workers in the malls, cafes, pubs, gaming and pool parlours, and multiplexes, these are less circumspect about which caste or ethnicity they marry into, for whom neither virginity nor the divorced status of their possible partners is taboo, and whose partaking of the pleasures of the world are far less exploitative than those of the rich and the middle class; the organization structure in these
sectors are quite different, less hierarchical, ranks reflecting roles rather than social status, a greater interaction between individuals at different ranks that even morphs into romantic and friendship relations. The formally credentialized professionals may have more cultural capital but this is not a guarantee of any form of cosmopolitanism, nor of the rejection of the gratuitous weight given to status and hierarchy. Lower level new economy workers may not contribute to a radical transformation of the world, but surely lounging, hanging out, flirting, dating, smoking and drinking after office hours are better than spewing venom at minority groups, and fulminating against lower castes and sundry other targets of hatred during work
hours on chat rooms, internet forums, and discussion lists?
If activists and scholars with an intimate knowledge of Mumbai’s slums do not think it worthwhile to comment on the proliferation of informal education and training, on the numerous English speaking schools and IT classes in Dharavi and other slums, in middle and working class neighbourhoods, the contribution of dance schools to television reality shows and back up dancers for the numerous bollywood events, on institutes equipping young men and women with a variety of skills, it is largely because of a quite hegemonic discourse which privileges formal educational institutions; a discourse that very narrowly defines issues of quality, the assurance of quality and its assessment; a discourse that ridicules any talk of a social role in the definition and assessment of quality; a discourse that evades and shuns discussion of institutional reforms to enhance student performance and learning, blindly accepts certain imported institutional practices, and blames performance problems solely on ‘poor student abilities’. Such a discourse is very much part of the division of labourers enterprise, regardless of the progressive and modernist credentials of its proponents.
Not being a documentary film, SM does not comment on Jamal’s route to acquiring an ‘upperclass accent’ and a ‘dewy complexion’, but thousands of young men and women in Mumbai’s slums have found their routes to dignified labour and have begun to realize their aspirations of a life beyond the slum, lives beyond what has been ascribed for them. Dance schools and cricket maidans across Mumbai are more visible spaces of alternatives routes to fame and mobility without the backing of formal educational credentials. A much greater number go through informal, and semi-formal, small and tiny education and training places that promise a life to young people that their parents could never aspire for – promise of greater dignity, income, and mobility, but also a glimpse of a life where status is less important, and status can even be achieved, respect can actually be earned through one’s achievements. These are issues which are ‘perfectly worth debating’ and studying, and will be, but for the efforts of our doxosophers to steer clear of such themes.
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1 This paper evolved out of a short presentation at the Panel Discussion on Slumdog Millionaire,
organized by the South Asian Studies Programme of the National University of Singapore. I wish to
thank the other panelsists – Chua Beng Huat, Anjali Gera Ray and Tania Roy as well as other
participants for raising issues which stimulated further reflection on the original presentation. I also
thank Gyanesh Kudaisiya and Rahul Mukherjee for the invitation to be a panelist and for encouraging
me to write up my views on Slumdog Millionaire and its critics.
2 Arindam Chaudhuri’s description in an article which sees the film as part of a western conspiracy to
“hit back at the growing might of India”. (Chaudhuri, 2009)
3 On average Muslim and other non-Hindu Indians know as much or as little about Hindu mythology
14
as Hindus. The fact that Jamal acquires the answers to both ‘Hindu’ questions (Rama and Surdas) in
terrifying ways reveals frightening changes in India society that Boyle seems to have grasped and
most Indians haven’t.
4 Jamal’s ask the inspector if he knows who stole Constable Varma’s bicycle outside Dadar station,
which as Jamal states “everyone in Juhu knows, even five year olds”, and the price of Bhelpuri at
Jeevan’s stall on Chowpatty beach.
5 Sengupta, 2008 argues that a beggar child “will unlikely ever chance upon a $100 bill”.
6 Something that Dalits and other lower castes are both compelled and willing to do, and the majority
of the Brahmins and other twice born are still loath to do.
7 In the film, how Jamal acquired the answer to the “Cambridge Circus is in which city?” question
touches upon this.
8 The burgeoning demand for back up dancers and the popularity of reality dance shows has led to a
mushrooming of film dance schools and troupes, many located in slums and chawls.
9 Concerns regarding quality notwithstanding, for those who seek education in the slums there is a
functioning municipal school system including night schools in Mumbai, which despite considerable
constraints produce fairly good results.
10 That the Hindi dubbed version of SM ran more successfully than the original version seems to have
been missed by these critics. Newspapers also reported that the English version of the film had the
third highest weekend gross for a western film in India (before it won the Oscars).
11 For a criticism along these lines see Parthasarathy, 2004.
12 This is the reason for the duplicity in labour standards of the same MNCs in the west and in other
countries.
13 See for instance the detailed posting by ‘Saint’ on
http://www.upliftthem.blogspot.com/2009/02/slumdog-millionaire-sabotagery-of.html
Another blogger (Ebrahim Kabir) wonders why “Indians who have never actually loved films or write
on cinema hate this movie. Even critics or general audience. Normal perceptions are misguided here,
every third Indian movies here has the theme of Slumdog yet people are not bothered by it”.
http://www.stopbenlyons.com/2009/02/slumdog-reality.html
14 The reference here is to Spivak’s famous article “Can the Subaltern Speak, 1988.
15 The ease with which Shashi Kapoor in Deewar grows up in a slum, becomes a police officer, and
gets accepted as the prospective son in law of a police commissioner is not usually seen as
‘outrageous’ incongruous or ‘illogical’ by critics.
16 For a more detailed discussion see Parthasarathy, forthcoming
17 See for instance, Chowdary and Parthasarathy, forthcoming.
18 See Samaddar 2009 for a very current and wide-ranging study of the “persistence of what is called
degraded labour, unorganized labour, un-clarified labour process, whose existence defeats the loud
claims of globalisation, reforms, trickle-down growth, all round development of society, wealth of
nations, etc. (p.33)
19 This would hold notwithstanding the large presence of ‘backward’ agrarian and mercantile capital
in the service sector. Regardless of the provincial and non-modern character of this form of capital,
its owners have little control over the kind of social transformations being ushered in.
20 It is interesting that Samaddar’s (2009) very insightful article on “various forms of labour in the
new economy” focuses on “social separations or divisions (of work and property, labour and wealth,
producer and the product, etc)”, but not on social separations or divisions of labourers, of people,
despite identifying the greater vulnerability of “socially backward and minority communities within
the unorganized sector”. (p.34)
21 Those who bemoan the cultural loss of identity suffered by call centre employees who acquire new
names, accents, and fictitious locations, fail to understand that millions of people will be only too
happy to lose their present identities which automatically locate them at the receiving end of an
iniquitous and discriminatory social structure.
Professor D.Parthasarathy teaches at the Department of Humanities and Social
Sciences, IIT Bombay.
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