People in the west are not ignorant to the poverty in large rapidly developing cities throughout the world, nor do they really care about ‘keeping india under their heel’. Post-colonial countries are not under the illusion that they have much power now, because its all determined by economics and china and india are massive economic power-houses that lead to large numbers of job losses in the west. With more travel national identity is really beginning to dissolve and people are moving to where there is work.

I think what makes Indians uncomfortable is that the image of poverty depicted in the film is not a fabrication – it is reality. The glass-sheeted modernity of modern, middle class India has to represent a maximum of 10% of the population.

Rough areas in Western cities are often depicted in American, British, French, Spanish movies etc. And you don’t see the public raising hell about it? The problem is that there is a major inferiority complex on the part of India at the moment – which is quite understandable given the relative youth of India as a modern nation-state.

I say good luck to India in its development. If it works hard, develops itself over time, and begins to fix its cultural defects such as hypocrisy (Example: I met a number of Indian males while I was at Grad School in the US who had had sex with juniors at elite boarding schools (Doon, St Pauls) but were completely against gay rights etc), secrecy, caste-based forced marriage and corruption, it too can enjoy the standard of living that 90% of ordinary Europeans, Americans and Australians enjoy.

The key to prosperity is transparency – politically, economically and SOCIALLY. It is this third social aspect of advancement that India has yet to master.

I live abroad and many Indians I know,including my spouse himself hate the movie for reasons like that of Srinivas & Bored Indian. Though giving away so many Oscars to a very mediocre film did seem sinister to me initially,the reactions of Indians really surprise me.As Particle says we are in self-denial to some extent.Forget the Oscar.Who cares,anyway?Does it award
the best work each year.Pretty contentious. For instance,A R Rahman’s music being awarded for this work seems a joke.That’s a man whose work has outdone the SM work several times over before. Does everyone here endorse Oscars as the best test for quality movie-making?

Can we consider the Oscars as less significant in our patriotic lifes and focus on our work on breaking a sweat for reducing the corruption,poverty,religious divide,state divide and casteism?While India still is a beautiful in my eyes,I will not wither at anyone’s portrayal of it,but that doesn’t mean I will sleep on that belief either.

In my opinion, this is a shameless projection on India of the western world’s own moral failure. Haven’t we all heard of mass child abusement in the catholic church? Of the Dutroux’s and Fritzl’s terror cellars? Of the mentality “those are not my children so why bother”?

SM suggest that India’s children are literaly willing to go through shit to get what they want. Well, it is us, western society, who does that, not literal because we have the power to stay “clean”.

Is the fun of seeing SM “watching monkeys” and afterwards going safely home in suburbia?

I don’t believe that inhibitants of India’s slums are child molestors. And if they are, they are no worst than we, after all, we created modern India. Or India has copied us, cuz they have no other option in world economics.

So when SM’s protagonist finally gets what he is after, is that worth 100 minutes of terror against children? No, and this is defenitely not what I call balance.

I know cruelty against children exists in this world. What I oppose to is that this problem is used in pop video clip style to be able to sell it to the unaware public. We recognize the fast images, digitally captured in blinding brilliant colors and livelyness. It’s our language telling a story that is thankfully not ours. WRONG, it is sadly our own story.

Underneath mister Danny Boyle’s fast cut piece of India lies colonialism and discrimination.