All language subtitles for Phantom India - 04

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PHANTOM INDIA
Reflections on a Journey

You peasants, met at dawn
on a remote road in southern India,

your life flows imperceptibly

to a rhythm different from ours,

from the minutes and seconds
we consider so valuable.

At this point in our journey
we've almost found your rhythm.

It was very hot.

In the period before the monsoons,

activity is limited
to early and late in the day.

We left the main roads
and gave up all itinerary.

Our car became a vessel
that had cast off its moorings.

We went where the winds of chance
blew us, sleeping anywhere,

our only goal to lose ourselves
in the infinity of Indian villages.

We became vegetarians,
because no one eats meat here.

We lived almost as they did.

Europe was far away.
We received no mail or newspapers.

We'd spend entire days without filming,

as if it was no longer
what mattered.

Freed from my habitual anxiety
and dissatisfaction,

I lived in the present moment.

We wanted to experience things,
not understand them.

For instance, these priests officiating
on the beach near a temple

use gestures we don't understand,

but that no longer matters.

We may not understand these people,
but we're instinctively connected to them,

sharing their link with nature.

Letting ourselves go
in their presence,

we feel as if we've rediscovered
something we'd lost.

Nothing shocked me anymore,

for I'd accepted another
perspective on the world.

It's not about explaining
or dominating the world,

but being a part of it,
fitting into it.

Watching them perform
simple gestures as if they were rituals,

strange ideas came to mind.

If happiness is defined
as a sense of balance and bliss,

being in harmony with one's
surroundings, interior peace,

then these Indian peasants
are happier than us,

who've destroyed nature

and do battle with time in the absurd
pursuit of material well-being,

in the end sharing only
our loneliness.

"Man must lose himself in the universe
like an elephant in the forest,

a fish in the sea, a bird in the sky, "
says one of their texts.

At the source of the Cauvery,
the holy river of southern India,

a young priest performs
the dawn rituals.

There's something magical
in the precision of his gestures.

I came to accept everything
in unblinking observation.

One afternoon, we came upon
the unreal vision of this man

pushing a sewing machine
down a deserted road.

In France, this would be quite surreal.
Here, we watch without comment.

As if in a hallucinatory dream,

we journeyed beyond reason,

and I wondered if fate
didn't have a hand in it all.

Monday, April 9.

We arrive in Trivandrum,
capital of Kerala.

We came back to mail,
newspapers and problems.

Our short spell in the world
beyond time is over,

and yet, in the middle of the city,
another fantastic vision.

These bats have
a wingspan of three feet.

No one kills them
or shoos them away.

They're left peacefully in their trees
in the midst of this modern city.

Respect for life in all forms
is a constant in India.

It explains why so many Indians
are vegetarians,

and also why followers of certain sects
refuse to farm the land.

The plow moving through the soil
could kill worms and insects.

Tuesday, April 10.
We're still not awake.

On a roadside in Kerala,

these piles of railroad cars,

a rusty scrap heap
reaching to the sky,

seems as if it's always existed,
a part of the landscape,

like ruins of some ancient civilization.

The truth is much plainer. :

It's a freight train that derailed
on a bridge.

No one was killed,
but it caused serious damage.

Actually, our first impression
was correct.

Indian railroads are a vestige
of the colonial past,

of Kipling and Victorian England.

To consolidate
their economic and military control,

the English built
a vast railroad network

that remains the primary means
of transportation in India today.

Not much has changed
since they left.

The trains are slow
and sometimes antiquated,

managed by a huge bureaucracy,
a state unto itself.

Today, India's rail network
is twice as large as China's.

Wednesday, April 1 1.

Once again we stumble
upon the ghost of colonial England.

These young women work
in a tea plantation

at an altitude of 3,000 feet
in the mountains of Kerala.

This 1 2,000-acre plantation
belongs to an English company,

who operates it
along purely capitalistic lines.

The plantation's employees
live and eat here.

Their salaries are meager,

but they save every penny
for their dowry.

After a few years,

they return to their villages to marry.

Each worker has a long rod
that's laid on top of the bushes.

She picks any leaves
higher than the rod.

The harvest continues year-round
as the leaves grow back.

The work is well-planned,
the yield excellent.

In the plantation's small factory,
the leaves are dried, sorted and cut.

The tea is then sent to a nearby port,
where it's shipped to England.

Thus the beauty of the landscape
and gestures

hides a particularly harsh form
of neocolonialism.

As often in India,
the scene can be seen in two ways.

It all depends on how you look.

Friday, April 1 2.

An artificial lake studded with
submerged trees, seemingly petrified.

We're in the forest
and wildlife sanctuary of Periyar.

There are millions of animals. :
deer, boar, buffalo, elephants.

We spent several days in this paradise.

It's a wonderful place for a vacation.

Except that it was all fake,
and we felt it.

It wasn't real nature,
but nature preserved.

Outside of sanctuaries like this one,

it's almost impossible to see
wild elephants in India today.

On our way to the coast,
we filmed other elephants,

but they're slaves.

They work in a lumberyard
next to a sawmill.

Many work sites like this exist
in southern India

where elephants are used for labor.

Intelligent, obedient
and very powerful,

they cost less
than a bulldozer or tractor.

Elephants have almost disappeared.

In India, like everywhere,
man's destroying the environment,

natural habitats and wildlife.

The modern world,
demographic pressure

and new means of transport

all reduce, day by day,
the area of virgin forest.

It's slashed and burned
for farming and industry.

Men, grown too numerous
and powerful,

push the animals back
further and further, into extinction.

The India of The Jungle Book,

a wildlife paradise for so long,

can't escape this trend.

Throughout our journey,

like nai: ve Europeans seeking
the stories of their childhood,

we'd hoped to see a tiger.

Reality's cruel joke. :
This is the only tiger we came across.

A well-behaved tiger
at the Mysore Zoo

who purrs as his keeper
treats him like a big kitty.

The truth is there are
almost no tigers left in India.

The last ones are killed
on a sort of safari

called a shikar here.

If you're very rich
and have some free time,

they'll organize beaters
across a large area

to statistically guarantee you
a tiger to kill.

They'll see to every detail,

including all amenities,
down to your cold drinks.

Two hundred people will join in
and flush the tiger out for you.

They'll even drug him
to make him easier prey.

Monday, April 16.

Near the city of Cochin, on the sea,

we discover a gorgeous landscape
of lagoons and canals.

Water, coconut palms
and an infinite number of islands

compose a fluid landscape
where water and earth blend.

A picture postcard of the tropics,

a movie set for a Conrad story,

a place tourists dream of,
as yet intact,

but which certainly won't remain
unexploited for long.

We heard them from far off.

They've set up under the trees by a
small temple on the edge of the lagoon.

His face is covered
with bright green makeup.

Dancer, singer and mime,
he tells a story from Indian mythology.

Time to come back to earth.

Kerala, which seems
a wonderful place to live,

is in reality severely overpopulated.

Population density is roughly
1,200 habitants per square mile,

a frightening statistic considering
that a great deal of Kerala

is practically uninhabited,
nonarable mountains.

Industry is practically nonexistent.

The port of Cochin,
sheltered by an island,

is a natural anchorage that has hosted
great navigators throughout history,

from the Sumerians
to the Portuguese.

Today it stagnates in the melancholy
atmosphere of a colonial trading post.

The anchorage of Cochin
is surrounded by huge nets,

like spiderwebs
suspended over the water.

They call them "Chinese nets"here.

Installed on permanent platforms,
they're plunged into the sea,

then pulled up using big suspended
rocks as counterweights.

Men raise and lower the nets
tirelessly throughout high tide.

It makes a beautiful postcard.

It will certainly draw tourists,
if any appear,

but the catch is meager,

and the few fish in the net
are fought over

by birds and fishermen.

Less archaic methods of fishing
are used in Kerala too.

The government makes a great effort
to promote open-sea trawl fishing.

It's more innovative than it seems,

because coastal fishermen seem
very reluctant to leave the shore.

Perhaps they aren't cut out
to be sailors.

Kerala's farms don't produce enough
to meet the needs of the population.

Rice and grain must be imported
from other regions of India,

which causes
considerable political problems.

The trawlers bring in
a catch of high-quality shrimp

to be processed in this factory.

Sorted, packed in ice and packaged,

they're then shipped to Europe by air.

The workforce is exclusively feminine.

With the area's rampant
unemployment and overpopulation,

nothing is automated.

These young women working
shoulder to shoulder are Catholics.

Almost the entire Christian population
of India is concentrated in Kerala,

almost a quarter
of the state's population.

It's a very old community, dating
from when St. Thomas the Apostle

came to convert the Indians,
according to tradition.

Tuesday, April 1 7.
We return to the lagoons.

In these villages,
where little farming is done,

the peasants live off coconut palms.

Even the bark is used.

It's soaked for six months,

then beaten and separated
into fibers,

which the women untangle
and spin on primitive wheels.

It's not a first-rate raw material,

but it serves
for string and rough mats.

To take advantage of this archaic industry,
one of their main resources,

certain villages have joined
together in cooperatives,

a collective society
in embryonic form.

But here, like just about everywhere,

production is controlled
by the landowners and merchants,

who own the coconut palms
and to whom the peasants are indebted.

This tropical paradise
is also a hell on earth.

Nonetheless, these poor
and exploited peasants

are the most advanced in India,
and the best educated.

Kerala's literacy rate
is the highest in the country.

So it's hardly surprising that
they're also the most politically aware.

It's here, and in Bengal,

that the largest Communist parties
in India are found.

The prime minister of Kerala
is a Communist.

I had a lot of doubts
about the Indian Communists.

Throughout our journey,
I interviewed party leaders

on their true strength in the country,
their tactics,

their separation
into two large rival parties,

which, oddly, are called "Left
Communists"and "Right Communists. "

On this split, which occurred in 1966,

I questioned Namboodiripad,
prime minister of Kerala,

and a Left Communist.

"The split was caused by the issue
of our internal policies.

Some wanted to collaborate
with the Congress Party,

the party currently in power
in New Delhi.

We split with them. "

However, I'd heard that
Indian Communists

were divided into two camps. :
pro-Russian and pro-Chinese.

Jyoti Basu, general secretary of
the Right Communist Party in Bengal,

rejects this explanation.

"I don't think ideological differences

in the international
Communist movement

caused our split.

That explanation serves
as anti-Communist propaganda. "

Mrs. Gouri Thomas,
food minister in Kerala,

is a picturesque example of the split.

She's a Left Communist,

while her husband, T. V. Thomas,
a minister in the same government,

is a Right Communist.

Apparently it doesn't stop them
from forming a solid couple.

The Communists aren't the only ones
in power in Kerala.

Namboodiripad heads
a coalition of ministers

that includes Marxists
and non-Marxists.

So he often has to compromise.

"The various parties of the coalition
have agreed on a basic program

to try to solve the most
urgent problems of Kerala.

For the moment we've abandoned
the revolutionary objectives of our party. "

Mohammad Koya illustrates
the paradox of this coalition.

He belongs to the Muslim League,

which represents the Muslim minority
in the north of Kerala.

The League was previously allied
with the Congress Party.

Today, Koya is minister of education
in the Namboodiripad government,

but ideologically he shares
no common ground with the Communists.

After the 1967 elections,

nine of the 1 7 major states in India
were led by coalitions like this one.

The only thing uniting them is their
common enemy, the Congress Party,

which has dominated Indian politics
since independence,

the party of Gandhi and Nehru,

today weakened and divided,
but still very powerful.

These anti-Congress coalitions
are too eclectic

and have met with varying success.

They can contain both extreme
right-wing parties and Communists.

This is justified
by tactical considerations.

"We must take part in Parliament
and participate in elections,

but at the same time we must enlarge
our extra-parliamentary activities. "

Sunday, April 15.

A large Communist demonstration
in Trivandrum, Kerala's capital.

100,000 peasants, trucked
into the capital, gather in the rain

and parade
with impressive orderliness.

The demonstration
has two contradictory aims. :

on one hand, to support
Namboodiripad and his government -

it's practically an official parade,
supported by the government -

but on the other hand, slogans
demand real agricultural reform.

But revolutionary action isn't
currently on the government's agenda,

and only the Communists support it.

The contradictions go even further. :

Prime Minister Namboodiripad
tries by every means

to attract new industry to Kerala.

To calm nervous capitalists,
he must guarantee social stability.

But Communist Party leader
Namboodiripad can't fight

the strikes and union actions.

"I don't think
we can achieve our goals

in the framework
of parliamentary democracy.

The day will come when village
peasants must organize themselves

and collaborate
with the urban proletariat.

This communal action
is the only way things will change. "

Gopal speaks in the future tense.

But when I see thousands of peasants
demonstrating in perfect ranks,

I tell myself the great day
is drawing near.

A Maoist-style revolution
seems inevitable,

but I know that Kerala is an exception.

In general, the Indian peasant class
is barely politicized.

However, there are farmers'revolts
on a local scale.

One of these, in 1967
in Naxalbari in northern Bengal,

caused quite a stir
among Left Communists.

"It was really a big peasant movement,
no doubt,

but we feel this movement was
sidetracked by certain of our comrades,

who now call themselves Naxalites.

We threw them out of the party

because we consider them
to be adventurers,

smooth talkers who don't truly
represent the peasant population.

They would have led
our movement into disaster. "

His words remind me of something.

Indian Communists have their leftists
too, and they judge them severely.

"You see, the Naxalbari movement
could succeed

as long as it limited itself
to equal redistribution of land

and remained a movement
against landowners.

Unfortunately, the leaders
tried to stage an armed insurrection

to seize power.

But in only part of a district,
on a purely local level,

it's impossible to take power,
even with weapons. "

So even though Gopal
is a peasant leader,

he doesn't believe a Maoist-style
insurrection would ever work.

Mrs. Ranjekar, councilwoman
in Bombay, is just as categorical.

'At this time, the Indian people don't feel
armed insurrection is the solution.

They have faith in parliamentary
democracy, and we must respect that.

The peasants aren't ready
for an armed uprising.

It would lead to violent repression.

The party would be outlawed.
It wouldn't solve anything.

There's a big difference
between India and China.

At the time of the Chinese revolution,
China was chiefly agricultural.

It had no industry or railroads,

and the police couldn't intervene
in the countryside.

In India today, industry and railroads
are highly developed.

Each country
has different characteristics,

and it's impossible to predict
the form India's revolution will take. "

Mrs. Ranjekar's statements
surprise me.

To hear that India
is highly industrialized,

when I know that four-fifths
of the population live in villages,

leads me to believe
that the orthodox Communists

don't really want a peasant revolution.

Since my departure, a third Communist
party has been created in India.

This one is openly supported
by the Chinese,

whose radio brands the Namboodiripad
and Basu camps "imperialist lackeys. "

This third party, born from the split
provoked by the Naxalbari uprising,

is in favor of an immediate
armed uprising.

What happened in Vietnam
can happen in India.

Of course we stopped
and followed the elephant.

Dressed in ceremonial regalia,

it was the holy elephant of a nearby
temple celebrating its annual festival.

He goes from house to house,
where he's worshipped and then fed.

Here where almost everyone is hungry,
each house prepared a bucket of grain.

I'm told this is a Communist village,

but the temple festival
isn't celebrated any less fervently.

I remember an announcement
I saw in a newspaper in Calcutta. :

"Due to the festival
for the goddess Saraswati,

meetings of the Left Communist Party

are postponed until next week. "

It's easy to see why Indian Communists
never attack religion here head-on.

I found the festival sad-
a subjective impression, to be sure.

After encountering
so many contradictions in India,

all else seemed trivial to me.

The elephant returns to the temple,
where the entire village waits.

Young girls wait
along the path to the temple,

their faces covered with rice powder.

They're waiting for a minister
who promised to attend. A Communist.

He's late.

Village girls with your fixed stares,
what are you really waiting for?

I still don't understand.

Translation by LYNN MASSEY
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