[My comments on John Dayal's post at sl. no. III below: The assessment/charge that the subject film is ineptly made, or even worse, can hardly be any ground for banning it. If a "white woman" has failed to get at the essence of the issue, let the "brown women" make a dozen films on this issue with their respective diverse viewpoints.
The ruse of "judicial process" is just too funny. In umpteen number of (ongoing court) cases public campaigns - e.g. press conferences, demonstrations, (online) signature drives in favour of a particular position, are routinely carried out. Guess, quite a few of those asking for "postponement" have themselves participated, or even spearheaded, such campaigns.] I/IV. http://scroll.in/article/711425/India's-Daughter-must-be-telecast:-it-forces-us-to-admit-that-anti-women-attitudes-are-ubiquitous OPINION India's Daughter must be telecast: it forces us to admit that anti-women attitudes are ubiquitous This is a balanced documentary that has traversed tricky territory with sensitivity. Anna MM Vetticad Yesterday ยท 08:36 pm As the din rises over British filmmaker Leslee Udwin's documentary on the December 2012 Delhi gang-rape, this much needs to be pointed out: most critics of India's Daughter have not seen it. The film was scheduled to be premiered simultaneously in seven countries (including on BBC and India's NDTV 24x7) on March 8, which is celebrated as International Women's Day. The release in India, at least, has been stopped by the courts for now. In the run-up to the scheduled telecast, Udwin and her Indian co-producer, prominent journalist Dibang, held a preview of the film in Delhi on Tuesday evening. This is not an article on the investigation into whether the required legal permissions had been obtained and adhered to. This is an article about the content of a film that you may not get to see. The hour-long documentary deals with the fatal gang-rape of a 23-year-old physiotherapy intern in Delhi by six men on a moving bus on the night of December 16, 2012, and the subsequent protests across India that drew international attention. Through the voices of the many people involved in various ways in this real-life tragedy - the young lady's parents, her tutor, lawyers, activists and one of the convicted rapists - Udwin seeks to highlight the social mindsets that lead to rape and unabashed victim blaming. Interview with rapist Nothing makes this point more acutely than one unrepentant convicted rapist on death row criticising the dead woman. The element that distinguishes India's Daughter from the unrelenting media coverage this case has received is a lengthy interview it features with one of the rapists, Mukesh Singh, lodged in Delhi's high-security Tihar Jail. For those who have followed the case closely, Singh's claims of innocence will not be news. The revelation lies in the manner in which he supplements his denial of guilt with a stinging indictment of the victim's character and behaviour, claiming that she brought the attack upon herself. Singh's most chilling comment, though, is the one that throws light on how well-informed he is about the ongoing debate in India on capital punishment, especially for rapists. In words that seem borrowed from activists quoted in the media, Singh says that while rapists would earlier have let their victims off alive on the assumption that a woman would be too ashamed to report the matter to the police, the situation has changed. Rapists are now more likely to murder their victims, he claims. The purpose of India's Daughter would be served if Singh's interview compels us to examine our collective conscience for two reasons: first, to understand where our society has gone so wrong that a man such as this one emerged from our midst; and second, for the everydayness of Singh's views. Shockingly commonplace views The truth is that his beliefs about rape victims mirror the beliefs expressed by numerous ordinary men and women across India - and in varying degrees in the rest of the world; of politicians and other prominent figures (from spiritual guru Asaram Bapu, to Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar) who have derided rape victims in various ways. Two lawyers who appeared for the defence in this case also make extremely regressive remarks in the documentary. Lawyer AP Singh confirms to the filmmaker that he stands by this statement made in an earlier interview: "If my daughter or sister engaged in pre-marital activities and disgraced herself and allowed herself to lose face and character by doing such things, I would most certainly take this sort of sister or daughter to my farmhouse, and in front of my entire family, I would put petrol on her and set her alight." Defence lawyer ML Sharma contributes this: "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." It is these social prejudices that Indians were protesting at India Gate and other parts of the country in the winter of 2012-'13, and this is what we continue to protest. Some members of the public are burning with indignation at this blatant victim-blaming, many asking why Singh in particular was given a platform to air such opinions. Tone of concern These protestors would be well advised to watch the documentary in its entirety. Nowhere in the film has Udwin glorified these misogynists. In fact, the tone of her film is one of concern about the rampant trivialisation of women in society, its causes and possible solutions. It is also worth pointing out that while the documentary is on the side of women victims of rape, space has also been given to those who want credible solutions rather than mob justice. Former policeman and now social activist Amod Kanth, for instance, discusses the circumstances that breed juvenile criminals. He speaks in the context of the under-18-year-old in the December 2012 case. Another voice of sanity comes from Justice (retired) Leila Seth who was on the three-member Justice Verma Committee constituted after the gangrape to recommend amendments to Indian laws relating to sexual violence against women. Seth speaks in the documentary about the need for education to improve attitudes towards women. Udwin has also been careful not to indulge in the condescending finger-pointing towards India that has marked a considerable part of the Western media's coverage of India's anti-rape protests. She ends India's Daughter with worldwide statistics highlighting violence against women, from Australia to the US. In all these respects then, this is a balanced documentary that has traversed tricky territory with sensitivity. India's Daughter comes across for the most part as an offer of solidarity, not a sermon to India, and a tribute to those who took to the streets to protest against the December 2012 Delhi gang-rape. However, there are a couple of jarring notes that merit mention. First is the film's title. For a person whose good intentions shine through both her documentary and her media interactions, it is surprising that Udwin chose a title that in effect furthers mindsets that seek to restrict "our mothers, sisters and daughters" in the guise of offering protection from violence; that view women only in terms of their relationships with men and not as individuals. The really troublesome aspect of India's Daughter, though, is the inclusion of Oxford historian Maria Misra as an India expert. Misra is so obviously an outsider viewing India's anti-rape movement from a distance, she sticks out as an oddity. Nothing emphasises this more than the stray factual errors in her quotes (for instance, she describes the Verma Committee members as all being former judges, which is not the case). Would a documentary on First World events be allowed to get away with a lackadaisical attitude towards even the smallest of facts? Moving storytelling These criticisms notwithstanding, India's Daughter still needs to be seen in India. Though much of what is said in the film is familiar ground for us, the power of Udwin's storytelling lies in the fact that she still manages to move those of us who know this case in minute detail. Rapist Mukesh Singh's matter-of-fact drone is like a bucket of ice-cold water being thrown on our heads on a winter's day. This is a film worth seeing for the revulsion he invites as he describes what was done to a hapless woman and her male companion on that December night; for the unashamed hatred towards women displayed by those defence lawyers; for the sobriety of those activists who have been fighting unrelentingly for women's rights for years and refuse to be sidetracked by populist demands; and for the constant reminder of the bravery of those citizens who took to the streets to say "enough is enough" - "and showed the world the way", as Udwin puts it. Journalism makes cynics of many of us. Yet it is hard not to be touched once again by the liberalism of that father and mother who did not allow their own strained circumstances to become an excuse to hold their daughter back. When they speak of their girl with pride even now, when they relive her tragedy for our sakes, when the mother slams those who blame women for rape, when the father reminds us that his murdered daughter's name means "light ... a light that I wish will dispel whatever darkness there is in this world", it is hard not to be reduced to tears. I confess I was. The writer is on Twitter as @annavetticad. We welcome your comments at [email protected]. II/IV. http://www.dailyo.in/politics/kavita-krishnan-nirbhaya-december-16-indias-daughter-leslee-udwin-mukesh-singh-bbc/story/1/2347.html Nirbhaya film: Solidarity is what we want, not a civilising mission Hailing Indian women as "India's daughters" is something India's patriarchs have always done. POLITICS | Long-form | 03-03-2015 Kavita Krishnan KAVITA KRISHNAN I am beset with a growing sense of unease at the global publicity campaign surrounding the release of a film by Leslee Udwin called India's Daughter. The film's subject is the December 16, 2012 Delhi gang rape and the movement that followed it. The film is to be released on March 8, and we can discuss it after we have seen it. But I would like to flag some concerns about the "Daughters of India" campaign that is due to be launched in the wake of the film, and about the response to the film in India. Two articles about the film in the Guardian of March 1, 2015 ("UK director gets star backing for 'daughters of India' campaign", and "India's Daughter: 'I made a film on rape in India. Men's brutal attitudes truly shocked me") tell us something about this campaign. First, the campaign's name is intriguing. Why refer to India's girls and women as "daughters"? Anyone who was paying attention to the movement that flooded India's streets after December 16, would have noticed the anger of the women protesters against being identified as "daughters", "mothers", "sisters" instead of as individual women in their own right. One of the most important things about that campaign was the rejection of patriarchal protectionism that offered "daughters" protection but only by denying daughters freedom. Since then, we have also seen political campaigns (in Muzaffarnagar, for instance, and also the "love jihad" bogey) unleashing hatred and violence against the minority community in the name of "saving daughters". Hailing Indian women as "India's daughters" is something India's patriarchs including Indian government's and the most anti-feminist forces in India have always done. Why does a global campaign against gender violence do the same? Moreover, why should a global campaign against gender violence be called "Daughters of India"? Though the articles do cite statistics of gender violence from other countries too including England and Wales and Denmark, it does seem that the focus of the campaign is India. Does it seek to convey the impression that "India's daughters" are in need of a rescue mission? The Guardian stories do in fact convey the "white saviour" impression rather strongly. One of the articles says "India's Daughter, a powerful, brave and heart-wrenching documentary made by Leslee Udwin, provokes grief and anger but also pity for the ignorance". In its title, one of the articles quotes Leslee Udwin saying, "I made a film on rape in India. Men's brutal attitudes truly shocked me". Referring to the film's interviews of convicted rapists and their defenders justifying rape (more on these later), actress Meryl Streep, one of those backing the campaign, is quoted as saying that the film "forces a look at the mindset that must be made to know it has no place in the civilised world". One article describes "Nirbhaya" as "speaking excellent English". What comes through, then, is a sense of India as a place of ignorance and brutality towards women, that inspires both shock and pity, but also call for a rap on the knuckles from the "civilised world" for its "brutal attitudes". Nirbhaya, described patronisingly as a speaker of "excellent English" is marked approvingly as a good subject for the global rescue mission. I have encountered such attitudes a lot from many interlocutors (journalists, media and researchers too). Every time, I have taken great care in framing my responses. In public talks abroad, I tend to open the discussion with remarks about "How not to talk about rape in India". I have tried to convey that while we in India are in fact engaged in confronting the violence and discrimination against women here, it does not help for people in other countries to imagine that such brutality is India's "cultural" problem; that India's "backwardness" is the problem; or that gender violence is "worse out there in India". I have tried to point out that rating gender violence as "worse and better" in this or that part of the world does not help very much. I point out that in India, too, it is tempting to tell ourselves that women in "Muslim countries" or the Muslim community are "worse off" than Hindu women. Likewise, it is reassuring for someone in the UK or the US or France to feel pity and horror at the gender violence and brutal attitudes in India. Doing so, however, helps prevent one from recognising the "brutal attitudes" that abound in our own comfort zone, our own "culture". For each of us, whether we are in India or any other country, the most important, useful - and tough - thing to do is to recognise the "brutal attitudes" that have achieved normalcy in our own culture. To feel shocked by those attitudes when they are far away, located in the exotic other, is easy; to recognise and confront them in our own comfort zone, is much harder. I point out that in fact, like the movement in India, there has been a global upsurge in movements against victim-blaming - the slutwalk protests, for instance, that began in Canada. Politicians in many countries - not only India - have faced protests and anger for their victim-blaming and rape culture remarks. In response to questions about "what can we do to help", I suggest solidarity with each others' campaigns and protests and sharing of experiences, rather than "aid". There is much we can learn from struggles in each of our countries, but we will find it much harder to learn, if we imagine ourselves in the role of "rescuers". Above all, it is crucial for people in the UK or US and so on to recognise the ways in which their own country's government and corporations collude in gender violence in India today. Actions in solidarity with movements in India, would help expose and resist those ties of collusion. It is absolutely true that movements in India have often been inspired by outrage against acts of horrific brutality: Not only the December 16 gang-rape, but the rape and murder of Thangjam Manorama in Manipur and the Khairlanji massacre for instance. But in each of those movements, there have been determined attempts to highlight the structural nature of such violence, rather than talking only in terms of brutal patriarchal "mindsets". The structures of caste, gender, class and the state; of the global economy; all collude in creating and perpetuating gender violence. What has grabbed attention in India and globally about the film are the interviews with Mukesh Singh, convicted for the December 16 rape-murder, and his lawyer ML Sharma. (Incidentally, the Guardian story does not even get the name of the jail in which the rape convict is lodged right; it refers to Tihar jail as "Tahir jail". I cite this, not to indulge in nitpicking, but to suggest gently that telling an Indian story calls for familiarity with India's minute details.) The words of Mukesh Singh are, to me, very interesting - not because they are uniquely brutal but because they are so familiar. It is almost as though he is performing the words that he has heard Asaram say. Even the phrase "it takes two hands to clap" and the suggestion that the rapists would have left the victim alone had she not fought back, are almost word for word what Asaram notoriously said about the December 16 rape. Mukesh Singh's and Sharma's words are instances of rape culture - rape culture that is widespread, in India and all over the globe. But the stories that focus on Singh's and Sharma's interviews are framed to take away from that realisation. Instead, the responses they invoke are about how these men are brutes, animals, vile beasts and so on. Our efforts during the December 2012 movement and since were to widen the frame away from just a few "beasts" and towards the more systemic rape culture and denial of autonomy to women in homes, schools, by the state machinery, by the caste system, by communal violence. Reflecting on the interviews, I think about other instances where terrible acts of brutality have been justified by their perpetrators, almost boastfully, for an audience. Babu Bajrangi, boasting on camera of how he raped and killed a pregnant woman during the Gujarat 2002 pogrom of Muslims, came to mind. Bajrangi also boasted of how "Narendrabhai" (now India's PM) would ensure that he and other perpetrators would walk free. Bajrangi, convicted for his part in the brutal massacre, got bail for a week last month to attend a wedding. American Sniper also came to mind: A man who wrote proudly of having enjoyed committing acts of unspeakable brutality during the US war on Iraq, has been immortalised now as a Hollywood hero. Do these instances invoke in us the sense of outrage to "civilised" sensibilities that the interview with Mukesh Singh does? One question that feminist activists in India are asking is, how was the filmmaker allowed access to convicts inside jail? Indian jail authorities otherwise prevent most human rights campaigners in India from speaking to, let alone filming, prisoners in Indian jails. Custodial torture and killings are therefore very hard to document. What was the impulse that led Tihar jail authorities to allow Udwin to interview Mukesh Singh? Could it be the same impulse that let them allow Ram Singh to be killed in the same jail? I am concerned at seeing responses on social media to the interviews, vilifying "Indian men" as brutes. If solidarity with Indian struggles against misogyny and violence are overshadowed by racist profiling of Indian men, it is most disturbing. Leslee Udwin is quoted as saying that she sought to "amplify" the voices that said "enough is enough" during India's "Arab Spring" moment against rape. That is a laudable objective. But the danger is that what gets disproportionately amplified instead, is the voice and image of the "Indian man" with the "brutal mindset". Also, it is a matter of concern when the voices of the Indian movements for gender equality, cannot themselves decide or control what they wish to amplify globally; instead, the gaze of a single filmmaker (however well-meaning) and a bunch of "stars" decides what gets global amplification and what does not. We are told, for instance, by the news stories that "the Maharashtra education ministry is deploying 1,89,000 volunteers to work on the campaign in schools, including those in Mumbai, reaching more than 20 million pupils, while 8,000 community youth leaders will take the campaign to rural areas." Have Indian women's movement groups had any role in preparing this educational material and the campaign in general? Why has the Maharashtra Government needed a "global campaign" to undertake gender-sensitisation education, while it and other governments in India remain impervious to the efforts and demands by movements in India for the same? Why has this global campaign failed to speak to activists in the Indian women's movement, in fashioning its understanding, its strategy, and its emphases? III/IV. John Dayal's post on his FB timeline: Salil Tripathi writes after seeing the India's Daughter documentary: I've now seen the film, India's Daughter. If you are Indian, or know India well, and have followed the debates around rape over the years, it doesn't tell you anything you didn't know. It has been sensationalised by the film-makers and badly advertised as though the "scoop" of the interview with Mukesh trumps everything, it shows how poorly the accused have been represented - the two defence lawyers are caricatures. For context, the film interviews Maria Misra, an Oxford academic, often - they could have done a lot better using any of India's great feminists instead. Despite her best efforts, and despite her Indian-sounding name, she comes across as an outsider "mansplaining" India to the West. But it fails to show the larger context of rape in India - how it cuts across class/caste barriers; how it is a saga that goes back to the Mathura case, nor does it talk about other glaring rape cases like the one of Priyanka Bhotmange (Khailranji case), or further back, the Sanjay-Geeta Chopra (Billa-Ranga) case), or the armed forces or the politicians, nor even Asaram - to show truly how widespread the issue is. I read in articles that at the end of the film "global" statistics would be shown. They weren't, in the version shown in London - if you were a Martian you'd think this is a big problem in India, and not elsewhere, and this is the single-most important case in India. That said, the film should not be banned. I don't know if it would influence judges and their verdict. But I do know it perpetuates for viewers abroad that Indians are helpless and hapless and need external assistance (what Kavita Krishnan calls the "White Saviour" problem); it also shows the exceptional character and bravery of Jyoti Singh's parents, a point which Nilanjana Roy made today; the utter destitution of the families of the four men and the juvenile; and in India, it threatens to sharpen demands for instant justice and executions, because the accused in the film, and the two lawyers, are poster-boys of callousness on one hand, and retrograde views on the other. But do remember - what is it that the accused has said that has not been said by khap panchayat leaders, by politicians, by police officers, and by our elders? IV. Kavita Krishnan's comment: Salil Tripathi I agree with your assessment, thanks for saying it so well. I too am not for a ban, just for a postponement pending judicial process. Not sure what you feel about that. I too am sharing your note. -- Peace Is Doable -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send an email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/greenyouth. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
