Slumdog Millionaire – A Biased and Disturbing Anti-Hindu Movie

(CHAKRA) – The names Oscar and Slumdog Millionaire have become terms that go hand in hand, together-one and the same thing.  Danny Boyle’s, eight Oscar winning film, Slumdog Millionaire has become the number one form of media that has recently been associated with India.  Is this a good or bad thing?  Many people claim, the slums are a reality of India and must be exposed and the problems must be acknowledged by the rest of the world.  Others say this movie has brought negative light on India as a country and that many other developing nations face similar problems.  It is the latter opinion that we need to think more deeply about.

When a country is portrayed or looked upon negatively, it is the people of the targeted country that are the actual pinpoint of distasteful opinions.  In this case, the majority population of India—the Hindus are indirectly but evidently targeted time and time again throughout Slumdog Millionaire.  There are so many parts of the content of the movie that we need to question as viewers.

Most importantly, we need to look at some of the changes Boyle made from the book, originally written by Vikas Swarup and ask ourselves why he made those changes.  In Swarup’s book, the protagonist was named Ram Mohammed Thomas but in the movie, Boyle conveniently changed the name to Jamal Malik.  Why could the director not leave the name as it was?  Why did he not change the character to a Hindu or Christian one, but instead a Muslim one? There cannot be any other answer other than the fact that part of Boyle’s plan for the movie was to show a Muslim as a victim in India.  There are millions of Hindu’s living in slums in India as was shown by the depiction of Hindu mobs rampantly chasing and killing Muslim victims but if Boyle wanted to address the problems of slums in India, why was any given Hindu character repeatedly shown as the bad guy while the opposite was the case for the Muslim?

A second change that Boyle made is related to Jamal’s mother dying in the movie.  In Swarup’s book, the protagonist was an orphan but in the movie the mother is killed at the hands of Hindu, fanatical rioters.  Again, why this change?  I can understand that it may make the film a little more touching and hence the audience will feel more for Jamal, but why could it have not been any other way but rather, Hindu’s killing Muslims?  This is hardly the case in Indian slums, let alone in all of India!

Thirdly, during the game show, the second question Jamal is asked is related to which weapon Lord Rama (whom Hindus see as Maryada Puroshottam-the best among men) is popularly depicted with.  In Swarup’s book, the second question is not the above but instead asks about words written on a cross.  Again, why did Boyle change this content and why was it a question about Rama and the weapon he is holding?  It’s not just the question that should raise eyebrows, but when Jamal formidably knows the answer to the question, it is because of a flashback to the event in which his mother died.  He remembers seeing a little boy dressed up as Lord Rama WITH A WEAPON, appear out of nowhere, during the riot in which Hindus are killing Muslims.  Is this portrayed to hold any symbolism?—Hindus killing Muslims to Hindu God appearing with a weapon at the scene?  On a side note, an Indian based game show would never even ask such questions related to religion since they aspire to be as secular as possible—even more than need be, to the point where there is reverse racism towards the majority religious population of India.

Finally, another disturbing part of the movie was during the forced amputations of the slum kids in which they are forced to sing Surdas’s (a blind man deeply devoted to Lord Krishna) bhajans after their eyes are amputated.  Why was the singing of bhajans associated with such cruelties? Had the songs been related to Christianity or Islam would there not have been requests for editing or banning of the movie in India?  In addition, the police officer and the game show host, Anil Kapoor are both shown as Hindus wearing their red blessing strings on their wrists.  Anil Kapoor is portrayed not having enough faith in Jamal’s intelligence and almost mocking him every time he asks him a question.

The above and many more discreet but evident biases are presented throughout the movie that no one seems to notice.  People happily watch the movie and watch it even more once they realize it has reached the Oscars because of all the hype, but fail to question why the world thinks it is one of the best movies ever made. On what basis?  Should the world be entertained at the cost of Hindu integrity just because the average Hindu will not do anything about such biases but instead conveniently mark it down as one of their favourite movies on their My Space pages, blogs or Facebook profiles?  If the same was done for another religion, people of that religion would come together, unite and take a stand on such an issue but Hindus don’t seem to even notice or notice but not care enough to point out such biases.  The world may see the content of the movie as exotic and of the “other”—anything new and different is enjoyed by the mass but it is up to the targeted masses—Indians and Hindus in this case to clarify reality from falsehood.