In the framework of Europalia India, a
string of institutions including my Alma Mater, the Katholieke Universiteit
Leuven, hosts a series of exhibitions, performances, films showings,
conferences and lectures. Last Tuesday and Wednesday, Tehelka editor Tarun Tejpal was to speak in Brussels and Leuven, but he didn't show up, being detained in a sex scandal. The next day, on Thursday 21 November 2013, the speaker in Leuven was Vikas Swarup,
philosopher-psychologist by diploma and diplomat by profession, but best known
as the writer of the novel Q&A. This
book was first published in Dutch translation in 2004, well before the English
original came out. Unfortunately, I had (or made) no time to read his novel,
until I saw its filmed version, Oscar-winning Slumdog Millionaire directed by Danny Boyle.
The Accidental Apprentice
He mainly talked about two more recent
novels, for which he also has film contracts now. The Accidental Appentice is about a talented girl forced to work as
a salesgirl, who gets a surprising offer from a rich businessman: he wants her
to become the CEO of his empire, on condition that she can pass the seven tests
of life. Like Q&A, it is a fast-paced social thriller, but this time about
the lower middle class rather than the real poor.
To a question about forced marriage,
involved in one of the tests, he clarifies that unlike arranged marriage,
really forced marriages are relatively rare in India. Either way, love does not
enjoy much respect. The institution of arranged marriage goes hand in hand with
the caste system: if you let youngsters choose for themselves, their hormones
or their emotions will rarely dictate a choice of partner from among the same
caste. But as modernization spreads, such customs as having your partner chosen
by your parents are gradually falling by the wayside. But then, in a country of
1,2 billion, there are still cases, as there are of child labour and other
abuses.
Corruption? Yes, corruption exists. But in
2005, a very far-reaching law was passed, the Right to Information Act. Every
law or decree and every government contract or contract bidding has to be
published on the internet. You can go to court if you see information according
to which you should be given the contract.
Involuntary donations of organs? The donor
can only be a family member, according to the law. But there is a loophole: the
altruist donor, the friend of the family, and it is surprising how fast an
altruist donor can appear once money is involved. So, the main problem is
commercialized voluntary donation, though a few cases of involuntary donation
cannot be ruled out.
In the book, one character, Nirmala Behn,
is inspired by Anna Hazare, a Gandhian crusader. He sat on a fast for the
Lokpal (ombudsman) Bill and gathered a lot of popular support. But many people
considered it blackmail of an elected legislative body by an unelected activist.
People supported his cause, not his
methods. If you die by fasting unto death, you are, in fact, contravening the
anti-suicide law. We have to take the anti-corruption cause to the level where
it can really make a difference. Therefore, Hazare’s companion Arvind Kejriwal
floated his own political party.
Reality shows and abuse of young women who
want to be stars?. Reality TV has taken over India. Everyone fancies himself as
a superstar. In my hometown of Allahabad, 2 teenage girls from a village wanted
me to introduce them to Danny Boyle. What are your credentials? In the past,
fame was a by-product of talent, now fame is sought for its own sake. Singers
go up in price once they have appeared on television. Yes,O reality shows are
more influential than in Europe. India is a nation of wannabes.
The Six Suspects
Another novel is called The Six Suspects. Viki Rai, son of the UP
Chief Minister, is a criminal. He drives six people to death in an accident, but
when the case goes on trial, his father buys off the witnesses. A second crime
goes on trial, but the only witness dies before the court can hear testimony.
In a third trial, the case drags on for 7 years, the witnesses renege, and Viki
is let off again. (It goes without saying that real-life politics offers ample
precedent for these mistrials.) He celebrates the acquittal in a big way. At
midnight the lights briefly go out, and when they switch on again, Viki is found to have been
shot.
Six people turn out to have a gun on them
and are treated as suspects. Four of them are regular Indians, though with a
peculiar individual story. One of them has Indian citizenship, but is a freshly
arrived tribal from the Andaman islands – from the Stone Age to the modern
world with its disco parties and its guns. And one is a traveller from Texas (where
nearly everyone has a gun), a disappointed collector of a mail-order bride, for
whom the photograph of an actress was used, the same one who happens to be one
of his fellow suspects. So, a promising plot.
Slumdog Millionaire
Well, anyway, what followed was question
time. I asked Vikas Swarup whether he was disappointed or otherwise not so
happy with the changes Danny Boyle had made while turning the novel Q&A
into the movie Slumdog Millionaire. He acknowledged that changes had been made.
Upon signing the contract, the representative of the movie crew had promised
him that “the soul of the novel” would be respected, a sure way of saying that
its body would be distorted. But he took this as normal and fairly
insignificant. In reality, the changes were highly consequential and
significant for Boyle’s agenda and perhaps for what western audiences have come
to expect from a film located in India.
He explained how he had named the
protagonist Ram Mohammed Thomas, representing every street kid in India, while
Boyle had changed this into Jamal Malik, a fully Muslim name. He communalized
the plot, with Jamal’s mother being killed by Hindu communal rioters and a Rama
impersonation presiding over the violence. Boyle turned the protagonist into a
poor hapless Muslim and the Hindus into the bad guys. In this context, blinding
a child-beggar to make him earn more by singing a Hindu religious song (a
practice of which even the missionary sister Jeanne Devos says she has never
come across an actual case during decades of social work in Mumbai), and of
course not a Muslim song, adds to the image of Hinduism as gruesome. Briefly,
he turned an innocent story into an anti-Hindu story.
The fact that the writer, as a somewhat
secularized Hindu, representative for dozens or even hundreds of millions of
similar Hindus, fails to see the hostile intention and
the very partisan effect of this manipulation, says a lot about the silly and
ultimately suicidal mentality prevalent among Hindus. Only a community of
sleepwalkers could willingly come to the humiliating situation of the Hindus in
India and the flood of anti-Hindu slander in the media.
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