Where Would Danny Boyle Be Without The Slums Of Mumbai!

By S. Hewage

(February 27, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) When I was a professor of sociology in a western Canadian university in the early 1990’s where a large number of professors were still of British origin, one senior colleague of mine during a lunch conversation forcefully lamented that “we lost India.” Somewhat puzzled by the old man’s remark, I sarcastically asked “to whom?” a question he just ignored.

It seems that the British are still longing for their lost colonial glory, the prestige, the wealth, the power, and above all, the right to claim ownership for more than one-fifth of the world’s population. That is what they miss the most when a Brit says “we lost India.” India was and is a hierarchical society, and so is the old and new Britain with its aristocracy, and class-conscious society. India was more than a colony with an abundance of raw materials, including a source of cheap labor utilized for colonial expansion in the 18th and 19th centuries. It was the symbol of power over others where Englishmen enjoyed the uppermost positions among millions of natives. It was cheap Indian labor, along with British capital, which built the overseas wealth of Britain. As the African slaves were the source of labor in the British colonies in America and the Caribbean, Indian indentured laborers were used in other places in Asia where they had large
plantation industries.

After 60 years of independence from Britain, entrepreneurial Englishmen still keep coming to India looking for their fortunes! As far as the English gentlemen are concerned, the fortune is hidden in the miseries of the millions of impoverished Indians, as it was in the days of the British Raj. The success of the British filmmaker Danny Boyle, whose latest film “Slumdog Millionaire” is a case in point. In the age of globalization, a British filmmaker making a film in India about slums in Mumbai is not the issue here. Many foreigners make films in many parts of the world covering various issues from their own point of view for global consumption.

However, my point is that Danny Boyle owes a little more to India and to those who provided the “raw materials” for his film than the mere publicity for the grinding poverty in the slums of Mumbai which the film has generated after winning many movie awards cumulating in 8 Academy awards. As it stands now, we hear that some of the children who acted in the film are being provided housing by the Indian government in recognition of their work. In my opinion, Danny Boyle owes these children much more. After all, it is the children’s own everyday reality that provided Boyle with the material for his award-winning film.

In this regard, Danny Boyle should at least use some of his earnings from the film to create a charitable fund to help these destitute children living in the slums of India. He could easily set up an organization dedicated to promoting education and providing medical care for these children. That way, his financial gain and his reputation as an award-winning filmmaker is not exclusively his own to enjoy. Moreover, in this way, we as the audience watching this film in theatres may not feel so guilty that all our money is going only to strengthen the bank account of Mr. Boyle and his family. This may also set the precedent for future filmmakers who want to produce movies about poverty, natural and man-made disasters around the world, for the consumption of curious western audiences.

-Sri Lanka Guardian