Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom Was Banned In India – For Obvious Reasons

It is impossible to watch “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” today and not be stunned by its fear-mongering depiction of Indian people, though if you’re aware of the two films that inspired it, you at least know how Spielberg got here.

The screenplay by Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz (“Raiders of the Lost Ark” wanted no part of this movie) hurtles the adventuring archaeologist into an Indian village robbed of its children. They’ve been kidnapped and forced into hard labor by a Thuggee cult that’s seized power in a nearby palace. The Thuggee project elegance and hospitality, but we soon learn that they’re carrying out gruesome ritualized sacrifices in the bowels of the sprawling estate. They’re literally rip-your-beating-heart-out-of-your-chest bad guys.

Spielberg is clearly riffing on Howard Hawks’ 1939 classic “Gunga Din,” wherein three British soldiers are taught a lesson in bravery from their water-carrying Indian companion. In that film, the Thuggee are oppressive villains who must be eradicated by the civilizing force of the British army — and when Cary Grant, the greatest movie star of all time, is on the side of the British, your rooting interest is guaranteed.

But Spielberg is also drawing from Terence Fisher’s “The Stranglers of Bombay,” a Hammer-produced horror-adventure that depicts the Thuggee in all their (alleged) vicious glory. There is torture, dismemberment, and an epilogue featuring a quote from the very real Major General William Sleeman, who justifies the Britsh empire’s colonial conquest by saying “If we have nothing else for India, we have done this one good thing.”

“Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” might possess the exuberance of “Gunga Din,” but it’s imbued with the nastiness of “The Stranglers of Bombay.” And this, unsurprisingly, did not play well in India.

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