On 16th December, 2012, 23 year old Jyoti Singh was
returning home with a friend after watching a movie. They hailed an off duty
bus where six men, including the driver, raped and assaulted Jyoti, leading to
her death on 29th December. As details of the inhuman attack came to light, the
whole nation came together to show solidarity with ‘Nirbhaya’ and protest the
pathetic state of women’s safety.
Leslee Udwin’s polemic documentary, India’s Daughter (2015),
has sparked an outrage within India and the diaspora community worldwide. The
act of the Delhi court banning the film from theatres, television and even
media channels such as YouTube, led the award-winning filmmaker to flee India,
appealing to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to lift the ban on the film.
The multiple voices that are interweaved together help to
build the narrative of the film, making the piece well-rounded. As a viewer, I
got to listen to the voices of not just the families of the victim (Jyoti
Singh) but also the rapists, their families, defence lawyers, police
commissioners, protestors, scholars, and the powerful women who hold strong
political positions within India as political leaders and activists. Udwin's
film has been accused of being a platform for allowing one of the convicted
rapists (Mukesh Singh) to speak, but I would argue that his voice is perhaps
one of the most essential to understand the varied "mentalities" that
exist in India, in the different social strata of the Indian society.
The film has also been criticized for being made by a
"foreign" filmmaker (a non-Indian), which reminds me of an early 19th
century controversy, which was a result of Katherine Mayo's polemic book Mother
India (1927). Mayo, who was an American
researcher and historian, made headlines for pointing out the ill-treatment of
Indian women and accused the weak sexuality of Indian males that leads to rape
and other social issues. The outrage led to the burning of her effigy and
eventually, the making of the Oscar-winning film, Mother India (1957), starring
Nargis who was portrayed as an all-encompassing ideology of the Indian woman,
holding characteristics and mannerisms such as modesty, self-sacrifice and a
good mother to name a few, which defined her as the woman to represent the
country.
Interestingly and along the same vein is Leslee Udwin's
India's Daughter (2015). Udwin's documentary also comes at a time when films
like Rang De Basanti (2006) - which illustrated a British woman coming to India
to explore her grandfather's roots in colonialism - engaged with a group of
Indian men to raise political conscientious. In an interview with NDTV, Udwin
confesses she is also a rape victim, establishing 'India's Daughter' as a
passion project close to her heart. Reportedly she made the film to explore the
current social issue of women in India, and in my opinion, made a successful
hour-long documentary which stood as a reminder of the importance of the 2012
rape case, which has become a seminal moment in Indian history.
Many in India question if her ethnicity affects her view of
the film - the "us vs them" mentality. If you read Facebook and
online article comments it's prevalent, but I would suggest that she is not
like Katherine Mayo, whose book made stereotypical and generalized assumptions
about the Indian culture and women. Udwin's film instead, shows the effects in
the aftermath of rape. There is a heart-wrenching moment in the film, when one
of the wives of the alleged rapists, Akshay Thakur, feels alone with a small
child living in a village in Bihar, crying and begging for the return of her
husband. As a woman it's hard not to sympathize with her, but then I found
myself thinking "well if your husband had not raped..." but this is
exactly the beauty of the film. While there are erudite voices that are
speaking to the rape situation in India, Udwin's film also showcases ambiguous
moments where the viewer is left with even more questions than answers about
the rape epidemic in India. There is another moment when one of the protestors,
Usha Saxena, mentions that her husband called her "stupid" for
joining in the protests, which is again a reminder that a woman's freedom in
India is still in question before and after she gets married.The irony is that
despite protests, rape continues to be a prevalent issue within India.
Udwin's documentary, I would contend, breaks the much-needed
silence to encourage Indians - not just within India - but all around the world
to rethink the status of women's rights in the country because in many ways,
even today, women do represent the nation and its honour - an ideology that has
been present since 1947 when India became independent. Indian women over the
decades have been silenced in order to save the honour of the country, but by
banning the film, rape is being silenced again and again revealing the issues
that are inherent within India. During the course of the Partition, if women
were raped by the men of the other community, they were rejected from their
natal homes, committed suicides, or were forced to adapt the cultures and
customs of the men from other communities. Women's rights since then, have
definitely improved. Look at Jyoti's family - a father who passionately
supported her dreams and even put his ancestral land on collateral so that he
could fund his daughter's education. But at the same time, Jyoti who was out
with a man on a date was subsequently punished for being a modern woman.
Udwin's documentary reveals that Indian values and
traditions cannot be locked into a singular or monolithic understanding of the
culture. We live in a globalized world, where cultures and customs are
exchanged and adapted. This is at the heart of the documentary, making it
powerful and unforgettable, and perhaps the reason why it is banned. The fear
of bringing shame on the Motherland. I believe it's a reality which we cannot
escape. We should embrace this reality and work to bring changes to the society
in a way that preserves "traditions" but allows women to grow.
The documentary also speaks of the emotional and
psychological struggles that women face as they try to retain their traditional
values while trying to adapt to modern expectations. Jyoti Singh, the girl who
was brutally raped and murdered on December 12, 2012, is arguably the symbol of
the new women of India. Singh was born to a poor but modern family. Both her
parents chose to treat her with equality and helped her to pursue her dreams to
become a medical student so that she could financially support her family.
Dr. Maria Misra, a historian and scholar at the University
of Oxford, makes a salient point in Udwin's documentary. She remarks that Jyoti
Singh categorically belonged to a group of young, single women who represented
“symbols of new aspiration” as a result of the transforming economy. India's
transformation has created opportunities for young, single women to work and
raises expectations across a range of classes of young women about how they
should be allowed to live their lives. Due to shifting gender roles in India’s
economy, women now have more professional opportunities than before. Economic
changes also effect social and political changes inadvertently. And as a
result, there's a new bourgeoning cosmopolitan class of men and women who have
adopted western lifestyles. This phenomenon is not new, but more apparent with
the rise of social media.
Udwin’s documentary also showcases the voices of politically
powerful women such as Sheila Dikshit, former Chief Minister of India, British
scholar and historian Dr. Maria Misra, Kavita Krishnan, secretary of All India
Progressive Women’s Association, and Leila Seth, Former Chief Justice and
member of the Rape Review Committee. As a foil, we hear from Jyoti Singh’s
mother as well as the rapists’ mothers and wives, who continue to live in
economic disparity. By having these women speak together and offer their
comments, we're able to see how women in power are working to understand the
situation for young women in India today. By having the voices of the women who
are in a politically powerful situation contrasted with women who are living in
poverty, demonstrates the rich and complex culture of the country. Before we
can work to understand why sexual violence occurs predominantly against women,
we need to understand and accept the society's multi-layered diverse culture
which is interwoven with caste and class, playing a role in defining a woman's
position within the society. Jyoti Singh was the woman of today, aspiring to
reach higher goals to become part of the rising middle class in India.
Unfortunately for her, this also led her to be in a precarious position, making
her vulnerable to the lesser male.
To sum up, Udwin's documentary is a must watch. The film
sends the message that as young women aspire to become the "new"
women of the 21st century, their rights to live their lives the way they choose
is limited because of political, emotional, and psychological tensions that
continue to exist between the "traditional" and
"modern/cosmopolitan" India. The documentary also touches on the fact
that an Indian woman's role is already defined. Before they are born they
already viewed as sexual objects with limited rights and as well as voice.
Udwin's message throughout the documentary is that the society needs to understand
and accept that if a woman is free, independent, and open-minded, it does not
mean that is sexually available and she should not be silenced or punished by
rape. Jyoti Singh should be viewed as an example. As her father concludes at
the end of the film, 'as a girl who followed her dreams, stood up for her
rights, and is a model for young women who should protest and demand respect?'
Her actions that night were not morally reprehensible or a moral crime, she
should not have been punished. If a girl chooses to be striving to be better,
have the means to provide her family with economic and class mobility, so be
it, she can and she should.
