All language subtitles for Phantom India - 05

PHANTOM INDIA
Reflections on a Journey

“My name is Thomas Howard

I'm an American
with the Peace Corps.

I've come to India
as a specialist in agriculture-

I talk to the peasants-

I tell them, 'Instead of doing a crop
in the old method

why don't you try something new?”

There are hundreds like him."

young American Peace Corps
volunteers

living for two years in Indian villages-

The Communists accuse them
of spying for the CIA-

A//'s fair in war,
even if ifs not actually true-

Thomas Howard lives on his own
in a village of 800 inhabitants

in the mountainous region
of the state of Madras.

“The prob/em is convincing them t0 adopt
several new techniques at once.

For example,
when they use a new variety of grain,

the y must use a lot of fertilizer
and insecticide-

I have to be really careful,

because if I've convinced someone
to invest money in new methods

and it doesn't grow the way it should,
that's very bad for me- ”

The presence of Tom Howard
and his friends is largely symbolic.

There are barely 700 of them

and 560, 000 villages in India.

Everyone tells you, "The villages
are the real face of India- ”

ifs where 80% of the population lives,
a life unchanged for centuries-

One passes through these villages,
ignoring them,

or repeating one
of the countless trite remarks

about the Indian peasant's sluggishness,
fata/fsm, and refusal to change -

the usual cliches
expressed by foreign visitors.

At the start of our journey,
we stayed in a village in Haryana,

about 60 miles from Delhi.

It was a very cold January.

Maybe it was the climate, the landscape,
their clothing or the irrigation system,

but nothing really seemed
exotic to me-

The women covered their faces
when we approached,

as if in an Arabic country.

Islamic influence is so strong
in this part of north west India

that you'd think
you were in North Africa or Syria.

No farms or houses
stood ofi' on their own.

All the peasants lived in the village,

one of the most prosperous in the region,
despite appearances.

A village like any other.

Peasant life, with its repetitive tasks
and empty stretches of time,

wasn't exactly inspiring.

We tried t0 film in snatches

to avoid disturbing the natural order.

But every villager was aware
of our presence,

and this seeming naturalness
is a bit fake.

The women spend hours
each morning making chapat/j

a flat bread
of wheat, com, or millet

that is the basis
of the northern Indian diet.

ItS eaten with very spicy vegetables,

a lentil puree cal/ed dal,

milk, yogurt, and sometimes
butter and molasses.

These villagers are vegetarians.

We were often tempted
t0 direct them.

Very basic direction,

like trying to get this woman
not to look at the camera,

to act as if we weren't there-

The woman gets involved in her role.

She watches her child,
she watches herself

It becomes a kind of performance

in which she plays herself a spinner.

We quickly gave up trying
to organize or compose their reality.

Like this man and girl

cutting mustard leaves for fodder.

I don't direct them.

Between the watchful precision
of their gestures

and their awareness of being filmed,

they're being directed,
but by themselves.

At dayS end, the villagers
put on a performance for us,

a real one this time.

As a treat for us,

they dust ofi' instruments
that haven 't been used in years

and that need to be tuned.

They're having a great time
reconstructing this scene.

After this charming folkloric scene,

we left the village at nightfall

fol/owed, as always,
by a flock of kids and onlookers.

Over the f0//0 wing days,

the villagers gradually get used to us-

Within the villagers' daily routine

we 'd make discoveries.

Cow dung isn't for the birds.

Children gather it
like precious material,

and the women mix it with straw

to shape it into patties,
which are kneaded for a long time

before being placed against walls
or on the ground to dry.

There are almost
no forests in this region.

Wood is rare, and coal unknown.

Cow dung is the only fuel
available to the villagers,

an excellent fuel that bums slowly
and gives ofi' lots of heat

It isn't used as fertilizer,

which would be the best we y -
but that's not their custom-

Another traditional women S chore
is fetching water.

For this village of 2, 000 inhabitants,

there are about 20 wells.

But the women don't fill their buckets
where ver they please.

We quickly notice that the same women
always go t0 the same wells.

Each has her assigned well,

which she shares with other women
of the same caste.

For the first time,

we were seeing a physical manifestation
of the caste system.

For foreigners,

the caste system is incomprehensible,
and even invisible.

Ifs manifest in every gesture
of daily life,

yet we hardly ever see it.

Indians don't like to talk about it.
They feel no need to-

Everything rests on a tacit agreement.

From childhood on, women always
draw water from the same well.

To them, caste divisions
are like natural law.

They're a reflex,
not a conscious choice.

The caste system was ofiicial/y
abolished by the /ndian constitution,

but laws can't erase
a tradition dating back millennia.

When the government
digs wells in a village,

it digs 10
where two would sufi7ce -

to accommodate the caste system-

Guidebooks explain
that there are four castes in India."

Brahmans, the priests,

K shatriyas, the warriors,

Vaisyas, peasants and merchants,

and at the bottom,
Sudras, who serve the others.

Outside the system are
the outcastes, the Untouchables.

This simplistic division
bears no relation to reality.

From one region to the next, castes
divide and multiply almost to infinity.

Each village has a hierarchy
thatS both strict and fluid,

in which everyone has a role,
including the Untouchables,

who are also divided
into distinct groups

and are as necessary to the balance
of the whole as the Brahmans-

In this village
there are over 20 castes.

After our first contact
with the caste system,

we saw villagers difierent/y

We imagined the place
each held in the hierarchy,

but how to know for sure?

To our questions,
the few villagers who spoke English

gave vague answers
or changed the subject'.

The words in themselves
don't mean anything.

“Pariah, ” “Untouchable, ” and “caste”

are words invented by Europeans

that don't exist
in Indian languages-

Reality is more comp/ex
than terms used to describe it.

One day, passing some houses
set apart from the rest,

the sarpanch, the village leader
who interpreted for us,

said nonchalantly
“Those are the Backward Classes. ”

Its the expression often used in India
to designate the Untouchables.

In newspapers
and political speeches,

the preferred term is har/jah,
which means “child of God. ”

The term was coined by Gandhi

to show his intention
of giving equal rights to everyone.

The har/jan don't seem any difierent
from other villagers.

The leader of the village seems
to have a good relationship with them,

a slightly paternal one that implies
everyone knows their place,

reminiscent, perhaps, of relations
between blacks and whites

in small towns in the American South.

Sometimes there are articles
in Indian newspapers like-"

“l-lar/jan Stoned t0 Death in Village
for Wearing Sandals. ”

In certain regions, the Untouchables
are obliged to go barefoot

Or, "In a Small Town in Andhra Pradesh,

Young Har/jan Tied Up
and Burned Alive. ”

Why? He was suspected
of stealing two copper pitchers.

For the scandal to be exposed,

a policeman or civil servant
had to break the /aw of silence-

I notice that the countless
Untouchable children

never set foot in the village school,

even though the government
has passed laws

promoting education for har/jan.

Do the y really want them
to take advantage of it?

I was told that peasants of the inferior
classes were against change

more than anyone else,

that they would refuse
agricultural reform

if it altered the traditional hierarchy,

and that thus, regressive thinking
and lack of education

made the systems worst victims
its staunchest defenders.

I'm told this courtyard, quite near
the neighborhood of the Untouchables,

is the home of an upper-caste family.

What makes this house
and these women difiereht?

M/e begin to understand that there are
in visible - or almost in visible - lines

separating neighborhoods,
houses and people.

These lines exist in people's minds,
not in the material world.

It seems like an everyday scene.

The village leader smokes the hookah
with friends in front of his house.

The hookah is the Indian water pipe.

Smoke from very pungent tobacco
is passed through a reservoir of water.

The mouthpiece passes
from hand to banal,

but not from mouth to mouth-

The smoker places his closed fist
between the mouthpiece and his lips-

Once again, caste taboos intervene.

Touching oneS lips to a mouthpiece
after someone of a lower caste

would be a source of great impurity.

One doesn't smoke the hookah
with just anyone.

These villagers are in the same caste,
or in castes close to their own-

/t may seem anecdotal,
but it touches the heart of the prob/em.

The caste system is based above all
on ideas of purity and impurity

of religious origin.

In a small town near our village,

this public bath
is always filled with bathers.

I ask if the bathers
belong t0 difierent castes.

As usual, I get evasive answers-

Theres been a definite loosening
of taboos, especially in the cities,

but for many Indians,
the essential questions remain-"

With whom do you do this or that
activity? Whom can you marry?

With whom can you
bathe, eat or smoke?

/h the West, the basic unit
of society is the individual.

In India, individual people don't matter.

Ifs their relationship that matters-

One isn't pure or impure. One is
more or less pure than someone else.

On the roof of the baths, we found
a charming little outdoor school.

The children are learning to count
in Hindi and English-

Schoolmasters are often
of the Brahman caste,

as teaching is one
of their traditional roles-

How can we expect them
to attack the caste system

when they occupy its highest rung?

One of the kids asked
in faltering English if I was American-

My negative response troubled him,
and he asked,

“Then what caste do you belong to?”

Wisdom from the mouths of babes.

This child already knows that castes
are barriers between people,

and for him, nationalities
are no doubt just foreign castes.

Every day we spent in the village,

we saw this blind camel

circling tirelessly from dawn til/ dusk,

dragging a mil/stone behind him
t0 mix the cement.

Finally we filmed him

as a heavy-handed symbol
of Indian society.

An Indian of the caste system is caught
in a web of rights and responsibilities,

absolutely unaware of the concept
of individual freedom

that we value so highly.

His destiny is laid out from birth,
with almost no possibility for free will

But there is a reward."

Living interdependently,
in relation to everyone else,

he S part of a whole,
shielded from solitude.

Day after day, we saw the same teams
take turns at this well.

The precise division of labor
is a direct corollary of the caste system.

This man is a water carrier
and nothing else.

Its his dharma, his duty,
his place in the hierarchy.

In the past, when villages
formed a closed economic system,

the 20 or 30 castes
of the community were linked

by an elaborate and codified
exchange of services.

Priest, peasant',
barber, water carrier."

Each carried out
his hereditary function,

and in exchange
received goods and services.

An idyllic vision
of agricultural communism

where everyone's needs are met,

which, even if it did once exist,
is lost to the villagers today.

These water carriers
are no longer linked to the community

but to the landowners
who pay their salary.

Today, the division of labor looks
more like one person exploiting another.

A few hundred yards from the village,

these men and women
live in huts in a clearing.

Originally from a mountain tribe,

they came down t0 the plains
in search of work.

They live in quarantine.

We never once saw them
enter the village.

These are the real outcastes.
Without a place in the system,

their lot is worse
than that of the Untouchables-

At the nearby river,

the village clothes washers
attack the washing

with an energy that makes up
for the lack of soap.

Washing laundry
is a particularly impure task

and is therefore reserved for
the lowest ranks of the Untouchables,

cal/ed dhobi.

By giving this task to the dhobi,
upper-caste housewives avoid defile-meat.

Dhobi are found all over India.

Here, on the riverbed in Madras,

hundreds of dhobi wash
the dirty laundry of the entire city.

They're remarkably organized.

Men, women and children
all share the work.

The laundry is collected,
washed, dried ironed

and returned to the client
the same day.

The historical origin of the castes
is generally attributed

to the traditional divisions
among the Aryan people -

priests, warriors and farmers -

also found in the ancient civilizations
of Greece, Rome and Germany.

Ifs said the Aryans, after invading
India over 3, 000 years ago,

integrated the local population
into the hierarchy

by placing them at the bottom.

But recent discoveries show that castes
existed in the first /ndian civilizations,

before the arrival of the Aryans.

In the modem city of Bombay,

washers are cooped up
in this enormous washhouse

with cement stalls and running water.

Modernization hasn 't changed
essential facts."

it's still the dhobi caste,
and they alone,

in charge of this impure task.

In front of the Red For!' in Delhi}

d yers dry long pieces
of multicolored cloth

that will become turbans.

In the cities, the craftsmens castes

resemble the craft guilds
of medieval Christian Europe.

One wonders how castes survive
in modem India.

In 1853, Karl Marx prophesied

that railroad construction would alter
the division of labor in India

and, at the same time,
destroy the caste system.

It seems Marx was wrong.

Railroads have long
crisscrossed the country,

yet the castes are still here,

even if they don't oficial/J/ exist.

For example, castes play
a decisive role in elections,

which completely negates
the concept of democracy.

Almost everyone votes
according to caste.

Candidates, regardless of party,

represent, above all else,
a caste or alliance of castes,

and the political arena,
all ideology aside,

is nothing but a power struggle
between rival castes.

The caste system has even survived
pro/etarianization.

The southern Indians crammed
into this shantytown in Bombay

haven 't lost their roots.

They regroup according to family,
native village or region.

In cities, caste solidarity
also plays a part at work.

Certain government administrations
only admit members

of a certain caste.

That's why, in modern India,
instead of disappearing,

castes are becoming rigid,
autonomous blocks

that are no longer interdependent,
but rivals and competitors.

The hierarchy remains,

but stripped
of its traditional frame work,

its become a plain and simple form
of economic oppression.

We came across this funeral
in the streets of Madras.

The musicians play Marlborough.

The flower-covered corpse is carried
t0 the place where it will be burned.

I see no sufiering or tears,
nor even sadness.

To us, for whom death is so tragic,

this aspect of Hinduism is stunning.

The bonfire is prepared.

The older brother will perform
the ritual, assisted by a priest

Balls of rice are held to the mouth
and forehead of the deceased

Death is not an end,
nor even a separation.

One lives and dies
and is then reborn,

over and over
in an unbroken chain.

Each life is judged,

and the next life
constitutes the verdict

/f you ire born an Untouchable,
ifs your fault,

because in a previous life
you proved yourself unworthy.

You can imagine
the social efiicienc y of the system.

No penalty is permanent',

unlike the heaven and hell
of the Christians,

where residence is eternal.

Hindus are given
a suspended sentence,

as if books were kept
on their conduct

from one birth to the next.

This ceremony of propitiation takes
place in the days f0//owing the death.

The deceased still lingers
near the earth,

so the last ties t0 the body
left behind must be severed.

The deceased s closest relatives
contact him,

assure him that hes still
respected by the living,

and ask him to enter
the specially prepared balls of rice-

The ofierings include flowers, urine,

cow dung, fire and dirt.

When itS finished, the rice balls
are fed t0 a cow, the sacred animal.

The priest invokes
gods and demons in alternation,

transferring the sacred thread
from one shoulder t0 the other.

Now liberated the soul of the deceased
can reihcamate in another body

or disappear forever,

because the supreme goal
is to one day not be reborn,

but to dissolve into the Absolute
once and for all,

to merge with the cosmic void.

M/haz' can the concepts we treasure
mean to an Indian believer,

concepts like progress, individual
freedom, a higher living standard?

They 're taught
to live and act without desire,

to disregard material reality,

to accept the way things are
as divine judgment.

The caste system is
a logical extension of this worldview.

Modernizing Indian farmers

is not a matter
of fertilizers and irrigation.

It's a matter of changing
what's in their heads-

They'd have t0 see
the world difierent/y

The villagers don't want us to leave

without filming their traditional sport,

a mixture of Red Rover
and Greco-Roman wrestling.

There are two teams,

and each player
in tum attacks his opponents.

But no one knows the rules,
or they've been forgotten.

The game quickly degenerates
into a huge wrestling match,

to the great joy of the spectators-

Maybe some hope can be found
in this forgetting of rules,

a sign and symbol
of rejection of the past.

The panchayat is a son'
of town council,

an elected assembly whose leader
is the sarpanch, the village leader.

In principle,
its composed of six members.

Today, our villages panchayat
has gathered for a special session,

because a villager
has lodged a complaint.

A government ofiicia/ from
a neighboring village will handle the case.

At first, / was very impressed.

I was seeing Athenian-style
direct democracy in action.

There was a large crowd.
The witnesses gave testimony in turn.

The discussion was
open and lively.

I 'd heard each panohayat must include
an Untouchable and a woman-

M/hen I ask to see them, I in? told
the y're absent from today/s meeting.

First surprise.

Second surprise." We finally
/earn the reason for the investigation.

The sarpanch, the village leader,

the dignified old man
who accompanied us everywhere,

is accused of embezzling
2, 000 rupees

of go vernment money
allotted to the village.

I learned the outcome
from a disgruntled villager."

The investigation was unable
to reach a conclusion,

and the case was closed.

The government ofiicia/ was
a close friend of the village leader,

who is an important landowner.

I gradually realize that beneath
its democratic appearance,

the panchayat is just a tool
of the rich peasantry.

There aren 't
any large holdings of land.

In the region,
ifs exceptional to own 30 acres,

but the wealth y peasants, who almost
always belong to the same caste,

are often moneylenders.

The entire village is indebted to them,

which allows them
to monopolize production.

They stockpile grain
t0 later manipulate prices.

These sh y/ocks with political clout

seem to prove Marx right."

Castes tum into social classes.

But one must be wary
of simplistic analyses,

for India's complexity will continue
to amaze for a long time to come-

Translation by LYNN MASSEY
for SUBTEXT SUBTITLING