Thanks to Andy Crouch for this story:

Le Monde Diplo (English), a heady French journal of international affairs and culture, has published a profile of reading in Malayalam, one of the major languages of South India.

While India at large has a literacy rate of 65%, in Kerala State it approaches 100%. And the people actually read—and write. LMD quotes from an experimental novel finding it (surprise, surprise) akin to a great French novel of the 20th century.

Author of the article Mridula Koshy looks at the Malayalam scene in light of the English Language juggernaut (a loan-word from India, by the way), finding the literary scene in Indian regional languages very much alive and kicking:

When Rushdie claims that “the true Indian literature of the past 50 years has been made in the language the British left behind”, it is worth asking what he means by “true”. An Indian novel in English might do well to sell 5,000 copies, but each week magazines churn out – in the best Charles Dickens tradition – serialised novels and short stories by the score in regional languages. India reads, but it reads overwhelmingly in Indian languages.

All of which betrays a bit of a simplification: India has a billion people. It is the amalgamation (originally by force) of many kingdoms and civilizations. Several of the regional languages, if their own countries, would be considered major languages in their own right: There are more Bangla speakers than French, according to the Ethnologue; there are 35 million Malayalam speakers, ranking the language far above most European languages.

So, while it's great that languages of 35 million are doing well, a question is: what is a regional language? A linguistics professor of mine once quipped that the difference between a dialect and a language is the presence of a national army. In that case, Indian languages may be forever doomed to being footnotes, while Danish, for instance, spoken by 5 Million, gets greater attention.

The world's second-biggest country has begun its elections. And India will be attempting to show the world how democracy is done.

In fact, giving hundreds of millions of citizens the chance to vote, in 17 languages, may be the most  sophisticated logistical operation in the world. Anyway, here's a clip from Al Jazeera English, which emphasizes the security logistics. I'd love to see one of those multilingual ballots I've always heard about, though.

A society in which the quality of education or health care one receives depends on one’s ability to pay is not a society worth protecting.

One of my favorite public intellectuals, and one with a razor-sharp sword, has just begun a blog, and his second entry—a riff on Slumdog Millionaire—is a reminder of Vinoth Ramachandra’s unique intelligence: well-read, well-aware, well-articulated, and unapologetically Asian Christian.

Ramachandra, who I've had the privilege to meet in the buildup to his landmark address at Urbana 2000, is a Sri Lankan leader in the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students, is IFES Secretary for Dialogue and Social Engagement.

Here he looks at the dominant theme of this year’s Academy Award winning Best Picture (previously reviewed here): growing wealth discrepancy in India.

The Oscar-winning film Slumdog Millionaire movingly depicts the casual brutality that haunts the lives of the urban poor. India’s social elites regard the latter as a national embarrassment, while depending on them for their daily chores, building their houses and keeping their work spaces clean.

…

Two million university and college graduates emerge every year from a country in which two out of three women are illiterate. The obvious question that arises is: what will these graduates do for these women and other forgotten poor? The answer, as in most other nations, is: not much.

But it’s not just an Indian problem, Ramachandra continues: many countries have similar situations. And Christians can’t be callous about the problem: "Gross social inequality," he says, "is an affront to the God of justice."

Of course we can argue about how to get there, but preserving a system that generates such inequality is, Ramachandra says, not a valid consideration.

A society in which the quality of education or health care one receives depends on one’s ability to pay is not a society worth protecting. In this regard, the US and UK are little different from India and far worse than continental Europe.

I suppose that is logically true, but impossible to work out with simple policy changes. Because the society that created neo-liberal economics is, for instance, but one branch of the same society that also generated the modern ecology movement. And where one stops and the other begins are hard to tell.

Any ideas out there? I’d love to hear if any changes are afoot in leading business schools, etc.

Dev Patel and Freida Pinto in Slumdog Millionaire (image courtesy of Fox Searchlight Pictures)

“Bombay had become Mumbai,” Jamal Malik—a suspiciously high-scoring contestant on an Indian game show—explains to the interrogating police officer. It is the abbreviated history of his times, a young adult’s eye-witness summary of his city’s transformation from slumbering giant to world-class metropolis. Flashing back to a view atop a soaring construction site, we see another character sweep his hand across a landscape crowded with high-rises, and pointing out to Jamal (Dev Patel) that “this was once our slum,” now at the center of the world.

Jamal has been arrested on suspicion of fraud: he’s already won 10 million rupees—how could a slumdog know this much? Question by question, Jamal and the police officer review Jamal’s answers. Why did he know that one? Well, there’s a story … Jamal can account for all his knowledge with over-the-top life stories, topped by one more: he’s not even on the show for the money, which is relatively unimportant to him. He went on TV in the even longer-odds hope (“destiny,” he calls it) of finding his lost love, his fellow street child, now young woman Latika.

Scorning unimaginable wealth for love is offensive—even incomprehensible—to a city, as Salman Rushdie once described New York, boiling in money. Jamal must be a fraud. But he’s also a hero to the crowds across the country, huddled around televisions to see if he can pull off the final answer, worth 20 million rupees.

But Jamal is looking for a bigger prize. For all its flashy colors and seedy urban scenes—complete with gangsters, guns, heavy traffic, dancers, Muslim-Hindu rioting, incredible wealth and incredible poverty—Slumdog Millionaire is a love story, and a fairly simple one at that.

If Jamal’s quest for his beloved is a bit incredible, it hardly feels that way, next to the incredible world depicted here. As with The Lord of the Rings movies, the scenery is a full character here, a stunning backdrop made just a little fantastic with the director’s touch. At times a hip-hop video, at times surreal dream sequence—this is magical realism.

“You wanted to see the real India,” the young Jamal says to two distraught American tourists he has just guided into a slum—“this is it.”

Or is it? A catalogue of director Danny Boyle’s candidates for the real India, from sleek call centers to rough police stations, densely crowded streets, true poverty, false beggars, cricket matches and show business, Slumdog Millionaire may be a 21st century orientalist imagining of the real India: fantastically alive and full-sensual, exotic and a little intimidating to Western tastes.

At the same time, and for the same sensual reason, the love story’s power lies in its modesty. Hollywood’s bludgeon would have left nothing unsaid or unseen, leaving us with steamy disenchantment. We Westerners have everything, and taste everything—and we have no affection. Slumdog Jamal, on the other hand, has nothing but a deeper love than we’ve ever known.

The kind of patient, long-lasting love shown in this film is too precious to spill out all over the screen. Roman poet Ovid’s story of Apollo’s pursuit of the nymph Daphne lends itself to the aesthetic here:

He praises all he sees, and for the rest
Believes the beauties yet unseen are best.

Slumdog Millionaire does not hesitate to show us an astonishing India, but disturbs Western senses with something truly exotic: beauty left unseen. The film concludes with the gentlest embrace I ever remember seeing on screen, and a slight sense of shame at my world, which has seen everything and found no beauty.