Danny Boyle enrages the real ‘slumdogs’

Danny Boyle may well be the talk of the town in Hollywood, but in some quarters of India, where his Oscar-nominated film Slumdog Millionaire is set, he is fast becoming something of a hate figure. The latest reason? The use of the term 'slumdog' in the movie's title, which protest groups claim is humiliating to slum-dwellers.

In Patna, the capital of the eastern state of Bihar, posters for the movie have been torn down and shredded while hundreds of people have demonstrated outside cinemas showing the film, since it opened on Friday. Police have been ordered to guard cinemas in the city after protesters said they would continue to demonstrate until the title is changed.

"Referring to people living in slums as dogs is a violation of human rights," said the leader of the protests, Tateshwar Vishwakarma. "We will burn Danny Boyle's effigies in 56 slums here," he added in an interview with the Indo-Asian News Service.

Vishwakarma, who is the general secretary of a slum-dwellers’ rights group, has filed a complaint against the film, which will be heard in a Patna court on February 5. The move follows  a protest last week in Mumbai, where the film is set. There slum-dwellers set up camp outside the home of Anil Kapoor, the actor who plays the quizmaster in Slumdog. As a result, a Mumbai magistrate ordered a police investigation into a complaint that the film promotes hatred of slum dwellers.

While Boyle, who also directed the seminal Trainspotting, has not commented on the rumpus, Simon Beaufoy, who wrote the screenplay, appears alarmed by the offence that has been caused. "I just made up the word," he said. "I liked the idea. I didn't mean to offend anyone." Kapoor takes the matter in his stride. "Children from the slums are actually called much worse names," he said.

This row follows accusations, reported earlier this week, that the film’s child stars – all amateurs from the slums - have not been well enough rewarded for their roles part in a film that looks set to take $100m at the box office after winning four Golden Globes and being nominated for 10 Oscars. The charge is vehemently denied by Danny Boyle and his producer Christian Colson.

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