Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Is this really an Indian miracle?

Here in Australia, we have SBS, a free-to-air television channel that airs provocative documentaries and showcases very thought-provoking issues in the world of politics and a wide variety of subjects close to us. I like this channel immensely particularly because of the content of art movies aired ever so regularly.

One of the more regular shows on this channel is called "the cutting edge" and yesterday's edition showcased the boom in the Indian economy... which is now the topic of discussion on my latest post. The episode was titled "The Indian miracle?" and had former BBC Newsreader Krishnan Guru-Murthy, a second generation British-Indian traveling to parts of Mumbai, Delhi and the state of Punjab to present the two extremes of this so-called "economic boom" that India today is so obsessed with conveying in all forms of media to the world.

A few things left me really sad, and in fact at the end of the programme, I actually cried; and the two scenes that really left me in that state were the part where farmers in the rural areas were resorting to suicide, unable to pay their debts and leaving grieving and heartbroken family members. The second, was in fact the penultimate scene in the episode. It was the scene where a multi-storeyed building was being constructed and the workers there had set up tents because they had nowhere else to go... and they showed a woman speaking to the reporters saying "everyone wants to be like rich people, live in houses like these... but this tent is all that I can hope for... I can at least dream for something like this in my dreams; as it doesn't cost to dream now does it?".

I'm yet to recover from that sadness; and among many other things it brought to light so many anomalies that exist in our Indian culture today. I saw in shock and horror how people were narrating incidents where their application for a home was rejected on grounds that they were Muslim? When oh when did we learn to become so intolerant?

Last but not the least, I wish Krishnan hadn't presented this episode; I have great difficulty in accepting that he was the best person for the job; a second generation Indian who has seen nothing of this poverty and squalor cannot present any passion when delivering a cutting-edge documentary like this.

1 comment:

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