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India is socialist in that the government tries to structure the economy,
and capitalist in that businesses are allowed to develop freely
within the government's framework.
Are we badly administered? Yes, we are.
Nothing can be done at this time.
You understand, in such a stratified society,
with such a small elite,
one has every reason to act in one's own interests.
And this is what is done."
What are the reasons behind the economic crisis?
"Mainly the failure of the monsoons in the last two years.
The drought caused poor harvests,
and since the economy is mainly agricultural, grain prices rose.
This was taken as a signal to curb investment, and that led to recession.
We've stepped up grain production.
We still need 15 million more tons a year, but we'll make it.
There's a new generation of capitalist farmers
who use modern methods and have investment capital.
They've been very successful.
But we can't expect this to happen all over the country.
There are so many peasants and so little arable land
that industrialization is necessary,
if only to absorb some of the excess rural population."
This beautiful young woman who speaks like a technocrat
is a living example of Westernized India.
But she only represents a microscopic minority.
An Indian friend told me of a village 35 miles from Bombay
where the people weren't even aware the English had left.
After two weeks in Bombay,
we wanted to immerse ourselves in traditional India one last time.
A few miles from the city, a small village called Vrajeshwari
was celebrating its annual temple festival.
This crowd swept up in religious fervor
is the image I'll keep of India.
Everywhere in the world, industrial civilization
shatters societies and erases tradition.
Our world is becoming the same everywhere.
But India resists, for its social and religious structures
are stronger and more vital than anywhere else.
In the temple courtyard, families from the entire region
have come to stay for several days.
We come upon a marriage procession.
We're leaving for Bombay, it's our last day of shooting,
and we think these will be our last images of India.
But India will prove us wrong yet again.
On our way back, we came across these salt flats.
In India, we discovered with wonder another way of being,
another way of living and seeing the world
that made us all feel nostalgic, like a secret forever lost.
But we felt all along it was a world living on borrowed time.
Here, where the population is greater than Africa and South America combined,
modern life increasingly takes the form of man exploiting his fellow man.
Translation by LYNN MASSEY for SUBTEXT SUBTITLING