Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire, which has been getting accolades all over the world for spinning a rags-to-riches fable, has been criticised for the way it has depicted India’s poverty. However, one cannot blame Boyle for this since slums, rag pickers, filthy streets, abusive police, communal under-currents, child beggars etc have always been a part of India, and especially of Indian films. The only new thing about Slumdog Millionaire is its treatment of the subject and the high-tension drama of the film.

Based on Vikas Swarup’s novel Q&A, Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire looks at the life of slum-dwellers of Dharavi in Mumbai. The film, which is both shocking and endearing, shows an 18-years-old orphan Jamaal Malik (Dev Patel) trying his luck at a game show Who Wants to be a Millionaire? However, when he strikes a jackpot of Rs 20 million, he is arrested by the police on the charge of cheating.

Reacting to criticism, Boyle has said through his film he wanted to bring forth the resilience of the slum-dwellers, who live life to the hilt despite their circumstances. The murky underbelly exists and thrives even in the most developed countries of the world, he has said.

In its treatment of the subject, Slumdog Millionaire resembles Mira Nair’s Salaam Bombay (1988). Interestingly, Salaam Bombay was shot in Mumbai and enacted by the slum children themselves. In both these films, the children are deprived and are up against the cruel world. In Nair’s magnum opus, Nana Patekar, Raghuvir Yadav and Anita Kanwar provide the framework for what Nair describes "a celebration of the spirit of survival, dignity, strength and extravagance" of the children who are exploited and crushed by poverty.

Sudhir Mishra’s Dharavi (1991) combined commercial ingredients with a serious socio-political framework. It is the story of the residents of Dharavi in Mumbai, Asia’s largest slum, where gangsters and mafias thrive. Yadav (Om Puri) a taxi driver, who has come to Mumbai from a village in north India, lives there with his wife Kamud (Shabana Azmi) and their child. Yadav hopes to start a dyeing unit. For this, he borrows money from a local gangster. The gangster then exploits him and forces him to use his taxi for anti-social activities. His taxi is seized as part repayment of debt. In the crossfire between two rival gangs, his taxi gets burnt. Yadav has to, then, work for another taxi owner while all his earnings go to repay his debt. Meanwhile, the municipal authorities demolish his dyeing unit.

Rabindra Dharamraj’s chakra (1980) stands out on account of its stark realism. Amma (Smita Patil), her husband and son seek refuge in the anonymity of a Mumbai slum after Amma’s husband kills a pawnbroker.

The husband loses his life while stealing building material to construct a hut. Amma has two lovers — a pimp Lukka (Naseeruddin Shah) and a truck driver Anna (Kulbhushan Kharbanda) whose child she is expecting. Amma’s efforts that her son Benwa does not fall into the vicious circle of crime fail as Lukka draws him into the vortex. So when Lukka kills a chemist and hides in Amma’s hut, policemen arrest Lukka and Benwa and beat them up. In the scuffle, Amma suffers a miscarriage. Meanwhile, the builders arrive and flatten the entire area.

Far more credible was K. A. Abbas’s Shahar aur Sapna (1963), which took a humanist view of the people living on the pavements of Mumbai. The film told the story of Dilip Raj who arrives from a village in Punjab to find a job. Amazed at the city’s opulence, he soon realises that the main problem is to find a shelter. He settles down with his wife — surekha — in an unused water pipe where she gives birth to a child. The activities of the slumlords and thieves open the way for property developers and the builders.

The gangster of the slum, acting on behalf of the real-estate owners, evicts them and they have to move from one hovel to another, until the slum dwellers fight back to claim their rights. Despite a number of good films having been made on the subject, it is ironic that it takes a Danny Boyle Slumdog Millionaire to force open everyone’s eyes to tell the story of poverty in our country.

HOME