L'Inde fantome (E07) Bombay
Director: Louis Malle; Cinematographer: Étienne Becker
Duration: 00:49:31; Aspect Ratio: 1.370:1; Hue: 341.160; Saturation: 0.072; Lightness: 0.317; Volume: 0.162; Cuts per Minute: 13.286; Words per Minute: 40.444
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PHANTOM INDIA
Reflections on a Journey
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Wednesday, April 17.
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Bombay, the end of our journey.
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It's like being back in the West.
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Like Calcutta, Bombay is a port
built by the English for colonial needs.
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Today it's the economic capital,
the city of the future.
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In the suburbs here,
you feel you could be anywhere.
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Monotonous stretches
of low-rent apartments,
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like anywhere else
in the industrialized world.
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Impersonal construction sites
rise next to shantytowns
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crammed with people
from all over the country.
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You never get used to the poverty
in India, even after four months.
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Especially in the cities,
where it shows its most terrible face.
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But the villages of India,
behind their charm and beauty,
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often conceal even greater
economic distress.
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That's why many peasants,
deeply in debt or without land,
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leave their villages
and come here for work.
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Some leave family behind
and return home in a few years.
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Others bring wife and children,
severing ties with village life forever.
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Like all industrial metropolises,
Bombay has suburban trains
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that transport hordes
of commuters day and night,
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packed to overflowing.
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Many people sleep
and eat on the streets.
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There's no place for them,
because even in the shantytowns
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rents are high.
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Bombay no longer has rickshaws,
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but goods are still transported
by handcart,
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which are cheaper than trucks.
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For those living on the street,
often without employment,
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each day is a new battle.
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It takes endless ingenuity
just to survive.
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The numerous sidewalk vendors
are mostly southern Indians.
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Craftsmen punch holes in copper
stencils for printing patterns on cloth.
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One stencil is used for each color.
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Certain designs call
for a dozen stencils.
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These craftsmen are Muslims.
They fill an entire district,
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where they ply their traditional trades
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of goldsmith, potter,
decorative painter, musician.
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Islamic cultural influence
dates back to the Mongolian emperors,
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who ruled here before the English.
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It deeply marked the architecture,
painting and music of northern India,
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as well as many aspects of daily life:
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Cuisine, language, clothing
and agriculture.
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Under Mongolian rule, many
lower-caste Hindus converted to Islam.
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Near the Haji Ali mosque,
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this woman prepares
garlands of flowers for worshippers.
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When the English left in 1947,
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the Muslims, concentrated
in the northwest and northeast,
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separated from India
to form Pakistan.
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After a period of bloody turmoil,
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millions of Hindus and Sikhs
left Pakistan to seek refuge in India,
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while Muslims
fled in the opposite direction.
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Yet there are still
50 million Muslims in India today,
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making it, paradoxically,
the second-largest Muslim nation.
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Sometimes there are local conflicts
between religious communities,
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but in general, Muslims are accepted
with remarkable tolerance.
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The muezzin's call,
broadcast over a loudspeaker,
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summons the faithful to prayer.
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The Haji Ali mosque,
on an island 500 yards from the shore,
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is cut off from land at high tide.
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This ultramodern petrochemical factory
is located in Thane,
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a suburb of Bombay,
in a large industrial complex.
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On the other side of the bay stands
the country's first nuclear power plant.
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Every sailor in the world
knows Bombay's red-light district,
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just like in any European
or South American port.
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But for us,
fresh from the country's interior,
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this officially sanctioned prostitution
is staggering.
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Everywhere else in India,
prostitution is secret, invisible,
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like an embarrassing sore
one carefully conceals.
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In many cities,
it's practically nonexistent.
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The women are often very beautiful.
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Most are Telugu peasants
from Andhra Pradesh.
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An old man moves from room to room,
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purifying with incense.
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Prostitution may be accepted here,
but alcohol is not.
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It's a "dry" city,
like many regions of India,
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for reasons
more religious than social.
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The Bombay stock exchange displays
the same collective hysteria
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as Paris or Milan.
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Outwardly it's the same incomprehensible
frenzy and exaggerated gestures.
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These men playing
at frenzied capitalist games
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are still marked by tradition.
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Before making a trade,
many Bombay businessmen
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consult their astrologer
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to see whether omens are favorable
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and which astral period is best.
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Industrialist Pashabhai Patel
made a fortune in farm machinery.
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He's a delegate of the Swatantra,
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a party of large landholders
and capitalists,
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to the right of the Congress Party,
its current opponent.
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"We have 50 members
in a parliament of 450,
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but many Congress Party delegates
disagree with the current government.
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After coming elections, we hope to form
a right-wing majority with them.
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We're fighting for free enterprise.
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It's the only path
for our country's development.
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What's catastrophic
about government policy
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is the planned economy
it imposes on the country.
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Enormous sums are invested
in state-run industries,
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which all show huge deficits.
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Only one was profitable this year,
earning a 1% profit,
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while private business
earns as high as 20%.
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The Congress Party has been
drifting towards Russia,
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and that's one of the reasons
we oppose them.
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To us, the Congress Party is nothing
but Communism in disguise.
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I know there's more social justice
in the US than in the USSR,
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though some try
to convince me otherwise.
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India could make a big leap forward
if its policies were set right.
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We're on the threshold
of an industrial revolution.
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Twenty years from now, thanks
to our cheap and abundant labor force
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and our philosophical background,
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we can beat the West
just like the Japanese have."
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Gigantic fortunes are being made
in India today.
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For capitalists like Pashabhai Patel,
the future is bright.
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But there's another side to the coin:
A total lack of social laws,
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the over-exploited working masses,
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and unimaginable corruption
and fiscal fraud.
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The Parsi are the pioneers
of Indian capitalism.
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We attended a wedding of rich Parsi,
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celebrated according to the Mazdean
rite, founded by Zarathustra.
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India's few hundred thousand Parsi
are concentrated in Bombay.
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They came here from Persia
to escape Muslim persecution.
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The Parsi don't cremate their dead.
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They expose the bodies on raised
platforms called "towers of silence,"
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where they're devoured by vultures.
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These towers are found in gardens
in the middle of Bombay,
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and entry is strictly forbidden.
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This tiny community suddenly became
wealthy at the turn of the century,
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in the first wave of industrialization.
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The Tatas, a Parsi family,
founded India's first steelworks
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and today rules
a gigantic capitalist empire.
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Though at the vanguard
of modern India,
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the Parsi fiercely defend
their traditions and uniqueness.
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A Parsi who marries
outside the community
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is immediately ostracized.
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This yoga class in Bombay
might appear to carry on tradition,
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but it doesn't.
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Many of the students
are well-heeled Parsi,
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as foreign to the philosophy
of yoga as the French.
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Strangely enough, the wave of interest
in yoga in the West
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led to a somewhat spurious revival
in its country of origin.
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There's a new nostalgia
for the past.
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Bombay's bourgeois will discuss
the evils of consumerism with you.
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This yoga master, who asks his students
to "measure the immeasurable,"
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spends several months a year
in Switzerland,
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where he is Yehudi Menuhin's
private instructor.
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On a downtown street,
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a police instructor teaches a young
recruit the ritual of directing traffic.
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Indian soldiers fanatically perpetuate
the traditions of the British army.
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One day,
an especially spic-and-span officer,
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crop tucked under his arm
and mustache freshly waxed,
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told me nostalgically,
"We're the last of the true English.
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There are no more in England."
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The ultimate in Westernization:
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India today has
its own left-wing intellectuals.
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Vinayak Purohit lives in a beautiful
house filled with books and art.
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His wife is rich. He belongs to the SSP,
one of four Socialist parties.
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When we interviewed him, he'd just
finished writing a play on the revolution.
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"Don't think I'm exaggerating
when I say there are foreign powers
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who will stop at nothing
to destroy India's unity.
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India has the potential to be
a major power in this part of the world,
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so they seek to divide it."
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To him, whether it's China, America, or
England, everyone's out to get India.
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This socialist intellectual
pushes fervent patriotism
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to ridiculous extremes.
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He's obsessed
with the border of Pakistan.
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Pakistan is his pet peeve.
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"Giving up even a small part of India
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threatens the entire country.
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We must stop this policy
of appeasing the aggressor.
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What is Pakistan?
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A puppet country
invented by imperialist powers
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to set up their military bases
on the Indian border."
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This extreme nationalism
is found in many Indian politicians
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on both the right and left.
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They criticize the government
for its "weakness" towards Pakistan.
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In this modern textile mill
with Swiss machinery,
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the emphasis is on efficiency
and productivity.
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It's highly automated,
with relatively few workers.
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The management takes
full responsibility
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for training its workers.
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Unions don't exist.
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These workers, still attached
to the past by religion and caste,
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have no class consciousness as yet.
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Near Bombay, a brand-new factory
builds jeeps under American license.
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It was meant to produce 25 a day -
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nothing for a country like India -
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but it was reduced to 17
after army budget cuts.
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India has insufficient cars.
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It produced only
60,000 cars and trucks last year.
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To obtain a car for private use,
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you must be on a waiting list
for seven to 10 years.
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The May Day parade of Left Communists
only drew a few hundred people,
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despite all the party's efforts
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after suffering a crushing defeat
in local elections.
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Communists don't play as important
a role in India as we'd expect,
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because they're divided,
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they hesitate between reform
and revolution,
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and their ideology is antithetical
to traditional Indian thought.
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Many of them, formed in the ranks
of the English Communist Party
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following strictly Marxist ideology,
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seem to be waiting for the complete
industrialization of the country to act.
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What they lack is a Mao Tse-tung,
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someone to adapt
Marxism and Leninism
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to the specific conditions in India.
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Days earlier we'd filmed
these same musicians and dancers
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at a Congress Party demonstration,
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where the parade
was over a mile long.
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The Congress Party
is very powerful in Bombay.
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The Congress Party, despite recent
defeats, still dominates politics.
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It may be its own worst enemy.
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It's currently caught in a violent
power struggle between factions
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that began after Nehru's death.
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Nehru supported
a democratic socialist regime,
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a happy medium between
planned economy and private property.
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His daughter, Indira Gandhi,
currently prime minister,
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has trouble following
this political agenda.
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Many of her party's leaders
declare themselves right-wing
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and represent the interests
of the new classes of rich peasants,
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retailers and manufacturers.
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A new political force celebrates
its victory in local elections:
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Shiv Sena,
an extreme right-wing movement
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serving purely local interests.
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It expresses native Bombay residents'
desire to defend themselves
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against the invasion
by immigrants from southern India,
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who are both despised and feared.
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Shiv Sena is a mass movement
and claims 500,000 members.
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Its slogans are racist and xenophobic.
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This man, Bal Thackery,
is Shiv Sena's founder.
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A former cartoon artist,
he's a remarkable orator,
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mixing cynical humor and demagogy.
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In this speech, he attacks Bombay's
Muslim community for the first time
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in violent terms.
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"If Muslims aren't happy,
let them go to Pakistan.
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We gave them their own country.
Let them go and leave us alone."
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I interviewed him the next day.
He eagerly defended his cause.
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"People living in a particular state
must get a preference.
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I see nothing wrong with that.
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If people from here can't find jobs
or housing, where can they go?"
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Thackery favors a strong government.
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"Ruling with a firm hand
doesn't mean dictatorship.
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I'm not talking about dictatorship,
just keeping the people in line.
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We need order in this country.
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Yes, I'm anti-Communist.
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If Communists took power tomorrow,
I'd be the first to fight them.
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I'm not hunting for power.
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These people should have preference.
Their rights should be respected.
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I'm fighting for justice, nothing else.
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Physical violence
was there before us.
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It would be wrong to attribute
it to Shiv Sena.
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There might have been
individual actions here and there,
![](/GZG/96p2124.98.jpg)
but don't blame
our organization for that."
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Despite what Thackery says,
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new immigrants crammed
into shantytowns like this
![](/GZG/96p2144.82.jpg)
are victims of systematic violence
from Shiv Sena activists.
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These southern Indians are Catholics
![](/GZG/96p2155.82.jpg)
from the state of Madras.
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They don't speak the same language
as the other inhabitants.
![](/GZG/96p2160.26.jpg)
They're marginalized, unorganized,
undefended, nonvoters.
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The reasons for these conflicts
are essentially economic.
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We spoke with Rajani Desai,
an economist with an Oxford degree.
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She's optimistic
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and speaks of her country
with a kind of scientific detachment.
![](/GZG/96p2217.5.jpg)
"There is American influence,
certainly,
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but it's limited.
![](/GZG/96p2221.78.jpg)
Foreign businesses here
don't directly influence Indian politics.
![](/GZG/96p2225.82.jpg)
They pressure
their governments to do it.
![](/GZG/96p2228.7.jpg)
Our weakness isn't that they're here,
but that we need them here.
![](/GZG/96p2233.22.jpg)
We need their raw materials
and technology.
![](/GZG/96p2236.38.jpg)
So they can impose their terms.
![](/GZG/96p2245.7.jpg)
India is socialist in that the government
tries to structure the economy,
![](/GZG/96p2250.14.jpg)
and capitalist in that businesses
are allowed to develop freely
![](/GZG/96p2253.34.jpg)
within the government's framework.
![](/GZG/96p2262.02.jpg)
Are we badly administered?
Yes, we are.
![](/GZG/96p2265.18.jpg)
Nothing can be done at this time.
![](/GZG/96p2267.5.jpg)
You understand,
in such a stratified society,
![](/GZG/96p2269.82.jpg)
with such a small elite,
![](/GZG/96p2271.94.jpg)
one has every reason to act
in one's own interests.
![](/GZG/96p2276.22.jpg)
And this is what is done."
![](/GZG/96p2297.02.jpg)
What are the reasons
behind the economic crisis?
![](/GZG/96p2299.1.jpg)
"Mainly the failure of the monsoons
in the last two years.
![](/GZG/96p2302.3.jpg)
The drought caused poor harvests,
![](/GZG/96p2304.66.jpg)
and since the economy is mainly
agricultural, grain prices rose.
![](/GZG/96p2308.82.jpg)
This was taken as a signal to curb
investment, and that led to recession.
![](/GZG/96p2333.02.jpg)
We've stepped up grain production.
![](/GZG/96p2335.74.jpg)
We still need 15 million more tons
a year, but we'll make it.
![](/GZG/96p2346.46.jpg)
There's a new generation
of capitalist farmers
![](/GZG/96p2349.26.jpg)
who use modern methods
and have investment capital.
![](/GZG/96p2352.9.jpg)
They've been very successful.
![](/GZG/96p2362.9.jpg)
But we can't expect this to happen
all over the country.
![](/GZG/96p2365.98.jpg)
There are so many peasants
and so little arable land
![](/GZG/96p2369.22.jpg)
that industrialization is necessary,
![](/GZG/96p2371.66.jpg)
if only to absorb
some of the excess rural population."
![](/GZG/96p2384.06.jpg)
This beautiful young woman
who speaks like a technocrat
![](/GZG/96p2386.42.jpg)
is a living example
of Westernized India.
![](/GZG/96p2396.86.jpg)
But she only represents
a microscopic minority.
![](/GZG/96p2399.58.jpg)
An Indian friend told me of a village
35 miles from Bombay
![](/GZG/96p2403.66.jpg)
where the people weren't even aware
the English had left.
![](/GZG/96p2436.58.jpg)
After two weeks in Bombay,
![](/GZG/96p2438.58.jpg)
we wanted to immerse ourselves
in traditional India one last time.
![](/GZG/96p2441.58.jpg)
A few miles from the city,
a small village called Vrajeshwari
![](/GZG/96p2445.5.jpg)
was celebrating
its annual temple festival.
![](/GZG/96p2543.42.jpg)
This crowd swept up
in religious fervor
![](/GZG/96p2546.66.jpg)
is the image I'll keep of India.
![](/GZG/96p2549.26.jpg)
Everywhere in the world,
industrial civilization
![](/GZG/96p2551.78.jpg)
shatters societies
and erases tradition.
![](/GZG/96p2554.78.jpg)
Our world is becoming
the same everywhere.
![](/GZG/96p2556.86.jpg)
But India resists,
for its social and religious structures
![](/GZG/96p2559.82.jpg)
are stronger and more vital
than anywhere else.
![](/GZG/96p2572.5.jpg)
In the temple courtyard,
families from the entire region
![](/GZG/96p2575.34.jpg)
have come to stay for several days.
![](/GZG/96p2763.5.jpg)
We come upon a marriage procession.
![](/GZG/96p2765.66.jpg)
We're leaving for Bombay,
it's our last day of shooting,
![](/GZG/96p2768.22.jpg)
and we think these will be
our last images of India.
![](/GZG/96p2772.5.jpg)
But India will prove us wrong
yet again.
![](/GZG/96p2775.46.jpg)
On our way back,
we came across these salt flats.
![](/GZG/96p2873.98.jpg)
In India, we discovered with wonder
another way of being,
![](/GZG/96p2877.34.jpg)
another way of living
and seeing the world
![](/GZG/96p2879.62.jpg)
that made us all feel nostalgic,
like a secret forever lost.
![](/GZG/96p2887.66.jpg)
But we felt all along it was
a world living on borrowed time.
![](/GZG/96p2891.66.jpg)
Here, where the population is greater
than Africa and South America combined,
![](/GZG/96p2895.94.jpg)
modern life increasingly takes the form
of man exploiting his fellow man.
![](/GZG/96p2968.96.jpg)
Translation by LYNN MASSEY
for SUBTEXT SUBTITLING
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