Yesterday, I formally sat down to watch the now-banned documentary India’s Daughter by Leslee Udwin. In the UK, India, Sweden and Denmark, this movie was to be screened on 8th to concur with the International Women’s Day. However, following its ban by the Indian government, its release date has been pushed to 11th night in Britain.
Honestly, those 59 minutes seemed wasted. A very mediocre package, albeit with real-world connections and implications. And, I was left with several questions, with or without answers, though: Why was it made more than two years after the incident? Why a white Briton (with or without BBC) had to make it? What specific purpose was served in reconstructing the sequence of events? How many viewers got a meaningful answer to the question, ‘Why do men rape’? (as this was the project with which Udwin had set out to make the film!)? Does the film throw a possibility of immediate harm to women? Is there any unusual or inspiring insight that it imparts? Does it engage the viewer compellingly on any imaginative or intellectual level?
Personally, I didn’t find the film moving or offering a wholesome understanding of actual people, events, & places as entirely present to the extent possible. However, with due regard to the personal trauma Udwin underwent once (she revealed during a recent NDTV panel hosted by Sonia Singh that she herself had been raped), the filmmaker may have succeeded to some extent in retelling this story to make sense of her own experience and her feelings around it — seeking to hear the unsayable, unknown and unheard in the entire process.
The movie monotonously dishes out facts after facts while forgetting that facts crave for analysis/interpretation as they never speak for themselves. To its credit, the movie however, does i) dare to present the jailhouse interview of one of the rapists and ii) records the repugnant, off-the-court statements of the two defence lawyers, whose bar council membership and licence to practice deserve to be suo moto revoked. Or better still, someone might actually be inspired to plan a sting-op to catch them in a weaker moment with some female and then document their family women on camera asking if they’d choose to set them on fire (in a farmhouse or wherever).
Likened to Streisand Effect, the Indian government’s oppressive reaction to the movie has stoked much interest in the film rather than quashing it. Reading the response of Danny Cohen, Director, BBC Television typed out to Joint Secretary of India’s I&B Ministry on 4th March, one couldn’t hold back a derisive, sourly snigger: ‘The purpose of including the interview with the perpetrator was to gain an insight into the mind-set of a rapist with a view to understanding the wider problem of rape… .” Evidently, the film gives inordinate screen time to one of the rape convicts Mukesh Singh and one is led to ask if the movie could be titled A Rapist Remembers. I don’t think insights come that way and it’s easy to see that Udwin didn’t really attempt to excavate the psychology of Singh and other perpetrators to understand them better.
There isn’t sufficient coverage on how this ghastly event kindled passions, public backlash and candle-lit vigils countrywide as people rallied around a single cause in a manner unheard/unimagined before.
The defence lawyers’ blather (critique of women etc.), for the most part, is hardly anything beyond the predictable or stereotypical. Though M.L. Sharma, one of the lawyers, later, hit back in an NDTV interview that Udwin had selectively shown his comments while his actual interview lasted 10 days. Whatever be the fact, the movie will have offered the lawyers an instruction on not shooting from the lip once the Bar Council takes them to task.
Actually, and quite unfortunately, instances of gender violence are quite pervasive globally during the entire lifecycle of a woman from pre-natal, infancy, childhood, adolescence, reproductive and old-age phases. On a lighter but truer note, the heyday of chastity belts was the not-so-remote Victorian era, when UK women donned these to protect themselves from workplace sexual assaults.
By choosing to exclusively foreground the voices of rapist Singh and his two defence lawyers and not including contrasting views from various strata of society, Udwin has unwisely tried to foster a cultural context to the problem of misogyny and rape — that our men are barbaric and lack culture. What else could be a truer reflection of the colonial mentality than attempting to reduce the culture of a billion plus nation to a faction of misogynists, savages and rapists? The movie appears to me an opportunity cornered by a colonial white voice to play fast and loose with Indian culture selectively picking threads to depict the rape story as she saw fit. Whoever said or felt India needed a noble, white rescuer to generate awareness about crimes against women?
So far the Udwin documentary has spawned over two dozen decent stories in global media. Here, I’d like to pick up the observations of Yvonne Roberts, the award-winning UK journalist for more than 30 years, made in the 1st March story in The Guardian: ‘What is writ very large in India’s Daughter, but camouflaged in other countries where equality is more strongly embedded in law, is the low value placed on females and the determination of some men, educated as well as the impoverished, to keep women padlocked to the past.”
First off, Udwin’s selective offering of opinions from a hardly-representative strata of Indian society betrays its worth in no uncertain terms, besides being questionable. Next, talking of ‘equality…more embedded in law, even in the UK, the criminal justice system remains skewed against women.
The English law on rape is gendered and the process of changing legislation is largely slow though initiated. A quick read-through of the 2013 PhD thesis of Olivia Smith submitted to the University of Bath, a top UK university offered me some lesser known facts about the English Criminal Justice System (CJS) and its operational efficiencies in cases of sexual violence. Titled ‘Court Responses to Rape and Sexual Assault: An Observation of Sexual Violence Trials’, it notes that reported conviction rates for rapes were disturbingly low in England and Wales (6% in 2006 and 7.6% in 2008) while acknowledging that these stats have been in the eye of debate.
More disturbing to me are the findings of a 2015 research commissioned by The Telegraph and authored by Louise Whitfield which state that one-third of females in colleges and universities across the UK (including Oxford!) have experienced sexual abuse or sexual assaults and higher education institutions have refused to investigate such cases while 43% of female students didn’t even report the ordeal. On a serious note, leading UK universities would have rather provided Udwin active sites to document the dismal plight of female students in 21st century, who are victims of sexual assaults and coercion within campuses and are left to suffer silently!
Alternately, Udwin would’ve been better off, if she had chosen to film the horrible management of rape cases by police and penal authorities in India or anywhere else in the world. This movie hardly offers an effective approach to prevent instances of sexual violence or empower women against them.
Related Information:
You say that the video was a waste of an hour? This article of yours is the biggest waste of time. I don’t think you have actually seen old fasioned Indian families, especially the ones in villages. Otherwise, you would know that many of those men are indeed sexest, and definitely lack culture. The video did a great job of displaying the disturbing mindset which India still carries along with it. People wanting a ban on this video are only doing so in order to avoid this truth about the Indian mindset. Frankly speaking, people like you are no better.
Exactly, sweep it all under the rug, the exact mindset that caused this tragedy in the first place.
Yes, you may find some families of the type you mention. But I see more families in India that are now educating their girls, such families exist in many villages in states such as Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Gujarath and Orissa.
Any bank I visit in any of the Southern states has nearly 40% female employees. Many of the older women are in fact managers of their branches.
I am an optimist here. Horrid cases of rapes in India do shock us. But equally shocking should be the abuse of over 3,000 English girls in Rotherham, Rochdale and Oxford for over Fifteen years, even as their Police and Council officials watched, doing nothing.
“3,000 English girls in Rotherham, Rochdale and Oxford for over Fifteen years”
What are you talking about?
This is exactly what Mr Joshi implied, A disturbing mindset of few arrogant cut out of reality and a complete bastard does not portray a Indian mindset. Possible ban on the film is because the case is a under-trail and i would so wish instead of hanging they get to spend the rest of their life in jail getting abused and repenting.This film does speak aloud of few really not worth being a human let alone be a part of society and so called Indian culture, but certainly this is not a truth about Indian mindset
Excellent column. I like Sri Sanjay Joshi’s comment that the documementary should be named “A Rapist Remembers”.
In the aftermath of the Nirbhaya incident, we had many discussions and did cover the theme of women’s safety and dignity, the negativity in male attitudes and so on.
From Western bloggers reactions in such UK papers as “The Guardian” I also agree with Sri Joshi, that this documentary is an exercise in branding the whole of Indian society as ‘anti-women’ and suffering from ‘old religious values’.
May be as Niti Central’sSankrant Sanu says, it is also part of converting Indian women to Christianity, by defaming traditional Indian values and selling ‘new values’.
Give all Indians the choice to watch it if they want to. They should have that right.
Wow. You asked why a white Briton had to make the film and that question alone speaks volumes. Add in the question of why two years later and you start to see why. Because India has not comes to terms with the true nature of the position of women in its society. If India had then this film would have been made in India by an Indian much closer to the time of the actual incident. I am shocked that you can’t seem to grasp the ridiculousness of your comments. Oh and FYI, facts do not scream out for analysis and interpretation. They stand on their own without opinion. That’s why they are called facts.
You’re article would’ve been far more authentic, if instead of just criticizing Udwin’s attempts to reconstruct the story you would’ve bothered to at least offer ways in which she could’ve done things differently. At the same time, every feeble attempt you did make at doing the same was incredibly hollow and ignorant.
“Udwin didn’t really attempt to excavate the psychology of Singh and other perpetrators to understand them better.”
Well sorry to break your bubble buddy, but that’s just not her job! It’s not her job to excavate the psychology of anybody – that would be the responsibility of a psychologist or a psychiatrist, not that of a journalist. As a journalist, she is responsible to deliver the impartial version of the story – and that is exactly what she did. That is what BBC always does. If she went any further to excavate anything else, there would be truck load of comments questioning her professionalism.
“Udwin has unwisely tried to foster a cultural context to the problem of misogyny and rape — that our men are barbaric and lack culture.”
Well, was she wrong in making such a conclusion if at all? Besides, there were plenty of men who had ample screen time that were far from barbaric, the tutor, the inspector, the jail psychiatrist, the judges, the crowds of college students and most importantly the father of the girl! So how can you possibly suggest that Udwin tried to depict Indian men as barbaric and lacking culture??
“Though M.L. Sharma, one of the lawyers, later, hit back in an NDTV interview that Udwin had selectively shown his comments while his actual interview lasted 10 days”
He said, and I quot:e “You are talking about man and woman as friends. Sorry, that doesn’t have any place in our society. We have the best culture. In our culture, there is no place for a woman.” Why don’t you try to tell me how anyone could utter these words in an out-of-context manner. Some culture of hypocrisy that would be!
“Udwin’s selective offering of opinions from a hardly-representative strata of Indian society betrays its worth in no uncertain terms, besides being questionable.”
Sure enough it was selective. It had to be. But in my opinion, this was perhaps the mildest edition of the entire reel particularly because, if she wanted to she could include the rapist’s account of how he raped a 5-year old. But she didn’t – and if tainting India’s and Indian men’s image was her purpose, she would’ve included it. So obviously, this forces me to question the credulity of your arguments.
Before you point fingers at Udwin’s story telling style, take at look at yours. It’s riddled with hypocrisies and half-truths.
It’s ridiculous for Sanjay to suggest that this documentary somehow makes all of India and Indian men look bad. She interviews at least three men that have positive views of women…the father, the male tutor, the Indian man that runs the NGO. Also, did Sanjay not see the massive amounts of people, men included, rallying for Jyoti and all women during the protests in the film?
I agree with you that it would be impossible to take out of context what the lawyers or the defendants meant to say unless they literally said…”I don’t believe that”…cut quote…”You are talking about man and woman as friends. Sorry, that doesn’t have any place in our society. We have the best culture. In our culture, there is no place for a woman.”
“This movie hardly offers an effective approach to prevent instances of sexual violence or empower women against them.”
That wasn’t the point of the documentary. It was an investigation into why they did what they did. And she effectively answered the question.
Because Indian society considers women to be second class citizens.
You want to talk of equality?
Begin with the law books – specifically the raising of legal age of adulthood for women to that of men. If in the eyes of the law, women are not treated as equals to men, then how do expect the people to do the same?
Following this should be, separation of religion from state. Religion gets too much spotlight in legislation and judicial verdicts in this “secular democracy”.
And since unlike UK, rape in India is almost always accompanied by severe body mutilation. Hence, amend punishment for rape to that of “attempted murder” if the aberration of skin cause by intercourse is required to undergo reconstruction surgery.
Perhaps this what India should be doing since death penalty is not always a feasible option.
These rapists were given the death penalty by hanging because according to the judge, “this is the rarest of cases”. Except that it isn’t. It is one of many. And if everything remains just as it is – all these efforts to combat the crisis are going to be futile and the results are going to invariably remain the same.
To put things in perspective for all: I totally oppose the ban on the movie as much as I shun the extreme abomination of an act perpetrated on Nirbhaya by the scums of society vanguarded by a wretch called Mukesh. However, on the same note, I underscore the pointlessness of the whole movie-making project, as indicated by the title of my piece.
It looks like some of the commenters here are oblivious of the real aim behind Udwin’s movie-making project for this or that reason. See we mustn’t forget the overarching objective of Mrs Leslie in making this Documentary: seeking to understand why men rape and unveiling the sick mentality behind gender stereotyping. This is now all too well known given her so many interviews after movie’s advance release and its ban. She recently clarified this in ET while rebutting the charge of disproportionate time given to Mukesh in her movie saying “no amount of time thus spent can be disproportinate.” So, for those even with a grain of wisdom left, it won’t be a task to see her actually trespassing into the precincts of psychology and/or psychiatry; something which she shouldn’t have done for obvious reasons. Scores of empirical studies are available where psychologists have tried to typify rapists and identify various motivations behind such deviant behaviours. So, pretty strange that Leslie let herself sink into some grand illusion of discovering hitherto unknown motivations behind a rape. Admittedly, no revelation of that sort happened or would ever come forth from anybody’s endeavour. Which is what forces anyone to ask: Was she looking for some bizarre insight/answer(s) which could explain her own violation uniquely? In which case too, the movie shouldn’t have been made as a self-fulfilling prophecy around such a tragic incident in India that
generations should never ever again witness.
Did you even watch the film? She isn’t delving into the psychology of the rapists at all. She points the camera at them and their lawyers whom I remind you didn’t rape anyone yet still hold the views of their clients in regard to women. Where do you see her getting into the psychiatry of these people? She lets their words speak for themselves. The only time psychiatry comes into the conversation is the women who says that rape is often about control which underscores exactly what the rapists and lawyers mean when they say things like “women shouldn’t be out after certain hours” or the one who said he would burn his own daughter.
She shows a positive side of India as well when she shows the women like the judge who is in a position of power and the mass demonstrations that included men and women. Does India have a problem? Yes. It has a large portion of it’s population that believes like the rapist and the lawyers who believe that women are property, second class citizens, and open to the abuse of men.
MyChair aka Homi, It seems your comments have now degenerated into a senile drivel and your squinted vision is such that its not even willing to believe what the filmmaker herself set out to accomplish by making this movie. Stalking and balking is all you rejoice in, at best, maybe.
I’m pretty sure the community manager here will notice your pointless whinges for what they are worth and steps in. Hasta la vista.
For others who follow the discussion really, here’s where you can do a reality check on Director’s stance: “Government repeating erroneous information about ‘India’s Daughter’ without fact-check: Leslee Udwin” (Recent ET Story).
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