Saturday, March 7, 2015

Lift the ban on India's Daughters. On the documentary too, of course.

"India's Daughter". A Documentary made by a sensitive and concerned film maker, who herself is a survivor of violence against women, Ms. Leslee Udwin, produced by the BBC and promoted in India by NDTV. The background of the documentary is the horrific gang rape of a bright and promising medical student in a moving bus, at an 'earthly' hour of 8 pm. Her male friend was also thrashed and immobilized while four animals and a juvenile took turns to rape her, while 'punishing' her for resisting. Apparently the punishment included biting, beating and violating her with an iron rod, which resulted in catastrophic injuries including the separation of a portion of her intestines, which a juvenile perpetrator pulled out and threw away. Chilling.

The documentary attempts to study the incident and understand as to what kind of criminality and social conditioning could create such despicable monsters in India, and the resulting status of women, and their safety in society. The film maker conducted a series of interviews with the accused and their lawyers, experts in criminal mentality and women's groups to present a balanced report on the macabre truth about the status of women in some regions of India. Instead of applauding the efforts of the film maker, the Government in an ill-considered move, decided to ban the documentary!

I'm really amazed how any sensible Government can ban a documentary as important as this one? I sincerely believe that the documentary is actually performing a great service to our nation, by exposing the disgusting underbelly of gender issues in India.

Well researched and immaculately presented, '‪#‎IndiasDaughter‬' must in fact, be made compulsory for every Indian to watch and introspect about. The status of women in the minds of the 'poor and marginalized' males is apparently not even worth feeling any guilt or remorse, after brutally gang raping her, physically assaulting and disfiguring her, and throwing her out of the bus naked on the street. The most poignantly shocking being the patriarchal and misogynistic views of the so-called educated Lawyers. It is simply shameful, and shatters the image I had about my country and it's people who are descended from a 5000 year old civilization. "So, where is this civilization that everyone speaks of? I wonder."

In any event, why is the Government making such a concerted and yet ham-handed attempt at preventing me from seeing this documentary? I cannot think of any conceivable reason for them to do so. In the form of an apt analogy, I am reminded of a story in which an incredibly stupid person refuses to get treated for a dog bite on his butt because he was embarrassed to show it to the doctor. Mr. Home Minister, the country will fall victim to this 'rabies' if we do not choose to wake up and start doing something by way of changing mindsets. Please stop this silly retrograde action and permit Ms. Leslee Udwin to hold a mirror to us, and show to us Indians our warts, as it were. We need to see them, and hang our heads in shame. Hopefully, it will help change the mindsets of millions of people who treat their daughters as less than equal, and do not have the basic parenting skills to teach their sons the difference between wright and wrong.

India always touts the fact that we have the youngest and most productive population in the world, and this Human Capital is verily treated as primary equity that will help take this nation to the top of the comity of nations. I shudder to think that untold millions of this 'human capital' would be possessing such a warped and retrograde outlook of life. Forget taking us ahead, they will condemn us to the medieval age if we do not root this virus out. 

I strongly urge everyone to see the documentary from wherever they can access it. We need to be shocked when faced with the truth. We need to introspect and change. If we do not, we have no hope of becoming a modern and developed country and an egalitarian society. As the Government has gone to the Courts seeking a ban, I still see a glimmer of hope, that the enlightened in the Judiciary will throw out the undemocratic ban, and set a positive precedent.

My heartfelt gratitude and appreciation to Ms. Udwin, @BBC and @NDTV for the documentary. @ArnabGoswami I really am a Big Fan, but you were horribly wrong on this one. If you ever read this, I hope you will be able to tell us "what the hell were you thinking, when you launched so silly a tirade against the making and telecast of this important study"...

12 comments:

  1. Hello Uncle,
    It is a very nice blog. You have raised a number of pertinent questions that need to be answered. I would like to share a few of my views here. But since the text I prepared runs into many paragraphs and there is a limit of 4096 characters for each comment, I am splitting my text into several comments. Kindly bear with me. I have numbered the paragraphs for convenience.

    Regards,
    Prashanth S Bharadwaj

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  2. 1. I would like to stress here that I have NOT watched the documentary. I have not been able to find a proper link which hosts the video. So, some of the facts which I quote here could be wrong. I have got these facts from several sites and am not sure about their authenticity, but it is on this basis that I put forward my argument. So, if anyone who has watched the documentary can confirm them, I would be really grateful.

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  3. 2. Firstly, I am a firm believer in the concept of freedom of expression and I feel that any documentary/film for that matter should not be banned. India is a vibrant democracy with a very active civil society and youth population. So, the people can watch it and give their opinions. Instead of banning it, there could have been an elaborate debate on the positives and negatives of this documentary. Moreover, in this digital age, banning something on the internet would be completely foolish because as soon as something is banned on one website, its replica will crop up in a dozen more websites like a multi-headed hydra monster!!!

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  4. 3. However, I think I understand the motive behind the government's intention to ban it. Every year, hundreds of such documentaries on various social issues such as rape, tribal rights, poverty, education, female infanticide are released, and most of them are aimed at a foreign audience. Such documentaries tend to show India in poor light. We openly accept that we have many problems and are trying to tackle them. But it doesn't help that other countries keep pointing to our failures and criticizing us.

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  5. 4. In addition to this, these countries (especially USA and UK) use these documentaries as evidences in their Senate sub-committees and Parliamentary committees to chastise India, without offering India any opportunity for defending itself. They use this as a tool to deny India any foreign funding and indirectly pressuring India to amend its laws. This is a violation of India's sovereignty. The UN chief was also very dismissive of India, after the documentary was released.

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  6. 5. Recently, the Union Home Ministry ordered airport authorities to off-load a Greenpeace activist Priya Pillai and prevented her from going to the UK. The reason being, she was going there to provide testimony to a UK parliamentary committee on how India is violating tribal rights by acquiring their land for mining purposes without suitable R&R. The banning of the documentary can be seen in this light. (Again I repeat, banning is not the solution and I do not support the government's decision).

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  7. 6. Now, let me come to the documentary itself. I have a number of issues to raise here. Firstly, the name "India's Daughter". I disagree with both the words. Why India? Leslee Udwin during an interview said that she wanted to hold up a mirror to the society we are living in and how women are treated in it. Noble intentions indeed. But is India the only country where rapes happen? According to a 2012 report on violence against women, globally India ranks 94th, the USA ranks 20th, UK ranks 34th (not sure about this) and Sweden ranks 4th, in violence (including rape) against women. Why didn't Ms. Udwin highlight the plight of women in these countries? Why is India being branded as the "rape capital" of the world and being projected as an unsafe place for women? Surely its not as bad as USA or UK. Or didn't BBC have the guts to make a documentary on their own country?

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  8. 7. Secondly, the word "daughter". This is the same patriarchal misogynistic attitude of seeing women either as a mother, sister, wife or daughter that needs to be curbed. Surely, Ms. Udwin, being a survivor of violence herself can go beyond these stereotyped definitions of women. A woman is a woman and is as much eligible to a right to dignity as any other person and cannot be denied if she doesn't fall into any of the above categories.

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  9. 8. I also came to know that the documentary reveals the name of Nirbhaya. This is totally unacceptable. Under Indian laws, it is forbidden to reveal the name of the rape victim without the express consent of the victim, or in case of death of the rape victim, the consent of the parents. It is possible that during the conversation with the victim's parents, her name might have cropped up. But the father requested them not to reveal his daughter's name. Now that they have, he is proceeding with legal action against BBC and Ms. Udwin. Who gave BBC the permission to reveal the victim's name? Would they so callously disregard the laws of their own country as they flouted those of India?

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  10. 9. There have also been theories floating around that the perpetrator Mukesh Singh was bribed to give false statements, to give statements that he was unrepentant about the crime. I am not sure how true this is, but if it is proven, it is truly a shame. If it isn't true, he definitely deserves the harshest punishment under Indian law.

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  11. 10. I sincerely appreciate the efforts of Ms. Udwin to bring to light the events that unfolded on that fateful day, the trauma that the parents must have gone through and also exposing the patriarchal mindset of many Indians. Such mindset must be changed and boys right from a young age must be taught to treat girls with respect. But I do not support the negative branding of India. India is one of the most vibrant democracies and its media and civil society have more freedom than those in USA or UK. But I feel that such freedom must not be misused to show India in poor light.

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  12. 11. Looking forward to your views on this uncle. And again I repeat I have not watched the documentary. If anyone can confirm the facts and I stand corrected, I will take back my comments.

    Regards,
    Prashanth S Bharadwaj

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