Slumdog's lasting legacy for India

There is nothing like a movie to instill passion, pride and protests in India.

Slumdog Millionaire, which swept the Oscars this week, did this and more.

For many, the uplifting drama showcased a gritty India through the always successful Tinseltown formula of rushing an underdog through two hours of challenges and betrayals for him to emerge as the hero of the day.

For others, especially those within India, the movie was nothing more than fast-moving poverty porn – another Western production to highlight India’s adversities while ignoring its triumphs.

These paradoxical views are reflected in the commercial success of the film outside the sub-continent and in its uninspired showing at the Indian box-office, which took in more money from a low-budget Hindi horror movie that opened the same day.

India loves international adulation. Its moment in cinematic history was enshrined when the cast and crew of Slumdog Millionaire walked away with eight bald-headed golden statues in a night of riches at the Academy Awards.

From the slums of Mumbai and Bangalore to the clubs in Delhi and the homes of the vast, global Indian diaspora, the cheers of of “Jai Ho” erupted on India’s day at the Oscars.

But there was resentment as well because the movie brought with it a critical scrutiny of an India that is plagued by dismal poverty, social segregation, a pronounced lack of basic facilities and religious strife.

India loves other people’s praises but it resents outside criticism with an inflamed passion.

Leading the pack of naysayers was Bollywood bigwig Amitabh Bachchan, whose assessment of the movie struck a populist chord in the world’s biggest democracy, which is currently readying itself for a heated election.

“If Slumdog Millionaire projects India as [a] third-world, dirty, underbelly developing nation and causes pain and disgust among nationalists and patriots, let it be known that a murky underbelly exists and thrives even in the most developed nations,” said the country’s most recognizable figure.

Other Indian notables described the film as “a laundry list of India’s miseries,” “a white man’s imagined India” and a movie that “piles impossibility on impossibility.”

Love it or hate it, Slumdog Millionaire is a passage to today’s booming India that is brimming with a ‘can-do anything’ attitude.

The real life stories behind the scenes provide a vivid reflection of India’s ambitions in an increasing globalised world.

One such story belongs to maestro A.R. Rahman, the Chennai-based composer of the Slumdog soundtrack.

While many of his stature have emigrated to reach for the stars, Rahman, the Mozart of Madras, did not change the colour of his passport to make his mark on the global stage, providing a much needed plug to stop India’s brain drain.

An Indian commentator described Rahman as an inspiration to “many of the scientists and engineers who work for General Electric or Microsoft in Bangalore, or for the employees of a clutch of ambitious homegrown pharmaceutical companies with global ambition.”

This year’s best movie has wounded and swollen India’s national ego at the same time.

The portrayals of courage, innovation and resilience of the have-nots are plentiful in this movie.

So are the portrayals of corruption and chaos by those who have in India.

Slumdog’s lasting legacy for India, however, will not be in what it showed on screen.

It will be in the story’s moral that Indian pride is better Indian prejudice.