The letter below was first published on February 11, 2009, by the Indian Tribune, a weekly journal for thinking Indians.

To The Editor,

Recently, I watched the movie “Slumdog Millionaire”.  My heart sank when I was walking out of the theater.  Rubbish!  I yelled in my heart.  This is the worst Indian movie or movie about India I have ever watched.

The problem with this movie is not the problems presented in the movie.  Poverty, prostitution, killing, torture and other social ills are not the causes that made my heart sink.  All societies have dark sides.  Each nation has its own problems.  It is the prejudice, the bias, the heartless and the sick minded portrayal of this movie that make me cry out rubbish!

This movie is so disgusting because we cannot find a single good person in the whole movie! Even the young brothers in the movie are bad people who steal, deceive, kill and behave recklessly.  The only good person in the whole movie is the American tourist who gives a hundred-dollar bill to the boy.  There were several opportunities to present and praise good human nature.  For example, when the boy descended from the train roof to steal pancakes, the passengers in the train car could passionately give away the pancake.  Sadly, the passengers pulled the boy down so he fell off the roof!   For another example, when the movie was about to end, I thought the contest winning young man would use his new fortune to help homeless children or to do some charitable things.  But the movie ends not so.

I feel this movie is so despicable: it not only delivers a message that India is bad and all Indian people are bad, but also a message that there is no hope and no solution for India and Indian people.  No inspiration either.  At first I thought the movie was about someone from the social economic bottom who worked hard and overcame all adversities to achieve success and who could be a role model for others.  I was wrong.  The only pass for the Indian people hinted by the movie is looking for generous Western tourists who are willing to shell out hundred dollar bills and hoping to win TV contests.  I am sure this movie fits well to satisfy the Westerners who look down upon other peoples and want to keep their arrogance and feeling of superiority.  This two-hour long movie does for sure deeply implant in those Westerner viewers’ mind the negative image of India and Indian people.  It will be hardly erased by the next two decades of Indian people’s efforts in making progress and attaining achievements.

The real slumdogs, spiritually, are those who wrote the story and produced the movie.  This movie was produced by Rottenwood.