‘ Slumdog Millionaire ‘-the film about a boy from India’s notorious slums who wins millions on a TV show has won an incredible eight Oscar awards and each one is fully deserved. The film was the subject of much debate in India because it presents a face of India that is far removed from the slick image that is being carefully marketed. The film presents India warts and all exposing the squalor and poverty in its teeming slums, the rampant brutality, the exploitation of its vulnerable women and children, the organized underworld and the corruption rampant in its political and official establishment. This is an image Indians do not want the world to see and nor do they want the world to focus on the fact that 80% of Indians live on less that two dollars a day. These realities do not go well in a country that is vying for world power status and spending billions on its military and nuclear programs.
In fact another film-”Delhi 6″- focuses on the distortions of India’s society by its rigid and exploitative caste system with the caste at the lower end being excluded and exploited in an inhuman manner. It cleverly highlights the fact that the ‘higher’ caste Hindus while publicly shunning contact are not above raping lower caste women. The film also starkly shows the madness of Hindu radicals and the brutalities to which Muslims are subjected in ’secular’ India.
More recently a top US official has publicly stated that the Indian ‘hawala’ system is funding terrorism. The ‘hawala’ system is the illegal transfer of money outside banking channels and this is controlled by India’s powerful underworld. This underworld has deep roots in India’s political and bureaucratic institutions and finances big budget India films.
The dramatic rise of Hindu extremism and its connection to terrorism has led to inroads within the military and other institutions. This extremism and its lack of tolerance was responsible for the massacre of Muslims in Gujerat under the patronage of the state and state institutions. The infamous Samjhota Express train burning was also their handiwork and serving Indian military were found involved. Rabid leaders and violent Hindu movements exist and flourish. Rabid and crazed Hindu mobs have burnt Christians alive and have even raped nuns in recent incidents. The involvement of the underworld is clearly there in the Mumbai terrorist attacks.
It is only a matter of time before indigenous Hindu terror moves abroad through its spreading tentacles. The world needs to take note of this monster in the making and its repercussions for regional and world peace. Commercial concerns should not outweigh security concerns as in the haste with which the US-India nuclear deal was concluded. Pakistan suspects an Indian hand in its destabilization through Afghanistan. BanglaDesh has similar concerns. India has been covertly supporting the LTTE in Sri Lanka. Such Indian manipulations will lead to asymmetric counter actions by the states being targeted by India with tragic consequence for the region and the world.
