Closer Home

Screened on the third day of the Festival, Mark Tulley’s Face of India centered around the lifestyle that the ordinary people in India live, with a focus on the social infrastructure provided by the government to provide them with services and how much of these services are they really benefitting from. It is a look at the intensely bureaucratic system that the government offices in India are a victim of even today and seeks to find answers from various individuals working within them or in organisations related to or affected by them.

Face of India opens with a view of the condition in which the government offices are kept and maintained today, including a clip of an entire room full of land deeds contested by different owners. The sheer magnitude of the task at hand is displayed and the officer who also serves as our guide informs us that there aren’t enough resources to convert these files into a digital format and/or sort through them. Admitting that such antiquated methods of dealing with social and legal issues gives birth to corruption — its very easy for anybody to destroy or tamper with documents that have been there since time immemorial — the officer adds that it can be limited. Also, at times, the salaries of government officials are so meager that they have to rely on bribes just to make ends meet.

We are also taken into the villages and shown how an ordinary Dalit (literal meaning: broken) — a lower caste Hindu — lives his life. Reflecting the sheer poverty and lack of support they expect from the government also because they are poor — they hold no illusions regarding their place in the country and are fully aware that rights and privileges can be bought — we also see that they have been given political importance and that they constitute a significant place in Indian politics because of their sheer number.

Going from extreme poverty we are taken to the residence of Maharaja Amarinder Singh, from the royal Sikh family when they used to rule over Amritsar. We are shown how, unlike other Indian princes, Amarinder has managed to adapt to the current socio-political system and has chosen to assume power via politics (he is popular candidate amongst the Sikh community). He gives us an insight on his life and how he grew up and he differences that were predominant between the ruling class and the majority of the Indian population and so on.

An interesting point of view was presented by Laboni Jane, a health-care individual in India working in an NGO which directs its services towards mothers and children. Despite being a first-class graduate in Economics from a prestigious Indian university, Laboni has chosen to work for the welfare of the people. We see her take a two-hour journey to work — she is lucky if she finds a seat to sit on — and deal with the scores of mothers and children who come to the NGO premises seeking refuge from whatever ailment afflicts them.

We see her go out into the villages and talk to the people there, stressing that it is just as important to listen to them as it is to educate them, since you learn both ways. At the end of it, when questioned about the Indian government’s lack of effectiveness in implementing adequate health care, she defends the government and says that she considers her NGO as an enhancement of what it is trying to do for the people.

Despite covering issues predominant in India, one of the reasons why the screening of these documentaries was important was because they, to a larger extent, reflect upon similar issues predominant at home, in Pakistan.

First Published:
Images
August 19, 2007