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Anand Giridharadas IDRC Photo: tecklesphoto.com

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“The subtle but core truth of [Slumdog Millionaire] – the idea that destiny can be made by effort and pluck and diligence – captured pitch perfectly, in my view, the ethos of the new India,” says Anand Giridharadas, one of the youngest foreign correspondents in the history of the International Herald Tribune (the global edition of The New York Times).

During a public presentation at IDRC on April 2, 2009, Giridharadas discussed how the recent Oscar-winning movie, Slumdog Millionaire, has become a metaphor for hope in India.

“There is a new belief in India that life is coming under human control…[the film] reflected this spirit that you see across small-town and village India.”

According to Giridharadas, the film also revealed an India where grinding poverty is imagined away by elites; and an India whose internal development and global influence will be shaped by its gaping inequalities.

“Contrasts are going to make India the most important laboratory for the next great wave of innovation – which is the innovation of how to bring 3 billion people who are not really part of the modern, comfortable world, into that world.”

Giridharadas, an American-born writer based in Mumbai, India, has written on India’s economic and social transformation, Bollywood, mergers and acquisitions, terrorism, outsourcing, US-India relations, poverty, and democracy.

The event was the eighth instalment in IDRC’s year-long series, The India Lectures, which marks the 25^th anniversary of the opening of IDRC’s South Asia regional office in New Delhi. As part of the series, IDRC has also hosted journalist M.J. Akbar, distinguished sinologist Alka Acharya, and leading economist Isher Ahluwalia, among others.

IDRC has supported research for development in India since its founding, nearly 40 years ago.

The opinions expressed here reflect those of the speaker alone, and not necessarily those of the International Development Research Centre.

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