I/II. http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2015/mar/05/indias-daughter-review-this-film-does-what-the-politicians-should-be-doing
India's Daughter review - this film does what the politicians should be doing This documentary, which focuses on the assault of Jyoti Singh on a bus in Delhi in 2012, may not contain much that will surprise Indians, but its determination to shed light on the country's rape crisis should inspire change India's Daughter: Storyville: Candle-lit vigils were held throughout India to commemorate the death of Jyoti Singh after she was gang-raped on a bus in Delhi. Photograph: BBC/Assassin Films Sonia Faleiro Sonia Faleiro is the author of 13 Men Thursday 5 March 2015 08.22 GMT Last modified on Thursday 5 March 2015 10.01 GMT India's Daughter is director Leslee Udwin's stirring documentation of a crime that triggered what she has described as "an Arab Spring for gender equality" in India. The December 2012 Delhi bus gang rape resulted in the death of 23-year-old medical student Jyoti Singh at the hands of six men. The men threw Singh and her male friend out of the bus before gleefully divvying up the pair's belongings. One rapist got a pair of shoes, another scored a jacket. There was, however, an item that Singh had left behind which the men didn't want. So they wrapped the innards they had wrenched out of her in their frenzy of violence in a piece of cloth, and pitched it through the window. "They had no fear," Mukesh Singh, the driver of the bus and one of four men to be convicted for Jyoti's rape and murder, tells Udwin. India's Daughter: 'I made a film on rape in India. Men's brutal attitudes truly shocked me' The interview with Mukesh Singh, whose death sentence is currently in appeal, is a coup for Udwin, who is the first journalist ever allowed to talk to him, or any of the men. She will likely be the last. Yesterday the authorities banned the film in India after claiming that Udwin had failed to get the requisite permissions. Shortly afterwards the parliamentary affairs minister M Venkaiah Naidu described the film as "an international conspiracy". Naidu's allegation is bewildering, given that the film reveals little that is new either about the crime, or the mindset of the man convicted of it. Journalists have reported on the rape in detail. And surely it comes as no surprise that someone who participated in a gang-rape and is now on death row will place blame just about anywhere it might stick in the hope of a reprieve - the grinding poverty that he was born into, the overbearing nature of his older brother, who is believed to have masterminded the assault, even his victim. A whining Singh comes off as genuinely unconvinced that he should be in jail. "She should just be silent and allow the rape," says Singh, implying that if Jyoti had only done the right thing and let the men take from her what was theirs - her body - she would still be alive today. Delhi rape documentary-maker appeals to Narendra Modi over broadcast ban Read more In fact audiences, in India at least, are unlikely to flinch at anything Udwin has to show them. If she thinks that she is holding up a mirror, she should know that Indians have been looking into it for some time now and are as eager for reform as those outside India demanding it on their behalf. Even the statements of the two lawyers for the men, in which they describe women in terms as disparate as diamonds, food, and flowers - objects all, of course - before finally admitting that "in our culture there is no place for women" will sound familiar. But it is the dismaying familiarity of the views expressed by Singh and his lawyers - which are now mainstream in India, echoed by everyone from politicians to high school students - that makes this essential viewing. Some will argue that the unapologetic misogyny revealed in these interviews is a skewed representation of the Indian male mindset. But it is, in fact, widespread. Singh's interview also confirms that Indian jails restrain; they do not rehabilitate. It is obvious, given the views he expresses to Udwin, that were he to be released today he would walk the streets of Delhi still convinced of the lopsided inevitability of relationships between men and women: what men want, women must promptly give, even at the pain of death. Udwin has opted for a tight focus, but some viewers may wish that she had embraced a broader view of the rape crisis in India. The country's history of anti-rape agitation, for example. Indian women found their voice after the Delhi rape. Could this film help silence them again? Nilanjana S Roy Read more The protests that followed the death of Jyoti Singh may have been the largest against rape, but they were certainly not the first. Earlier high-profile crimes such as the 1972 Mathura custodial rape case also led to legal reform, and laid the groundwork for the development of the protest constituency that filled Delhi's political corridor from Rashtrapati Bhawan to India Gate that December, in what ultimately turned into a war zone of tear gas, lathi strikes, and police violence. But Udwin, like any good field reporter, doggedly pursues this one case from start to present, unable to tear herself away even for a minute. Her intimate focus allows for a more affecting narrative. Jyoti Singh's parents emerge as superheroes, radiating courage and strength. Her father Badri Singh, then an airport loader, comes across as exactly the sort of modern, forward-thinking, male feminist that India would be so lucky to have many millions more of. And her mother, Asha, who says of Jyoti's birth "we celebrated like she was a boy", was surely the propeller that allowed her daughter's soaring ambitions to take flight. Udwin skilfully contrasts the light in Singh's young life with the darkness that engulfed the lives of her rapists. The Singhs were poor, but they cared for their children fiercely. Jyoti, their only daughter, grew up well-adjusted and focused, but also deeply empathetic. One of her friends recalls that after the police picked up a street urchin for snatching her purse, Singh, rather than berating the boy, took him aside and asked him what made him do it. Because I want what you have, he said - shoes, jeans, a hamburger. Singh, recalled her friend, promptly took the boy shopping and bought him everything on his wish list. Her only stipulation was that he not steal again. The word "happy" repeatedly comes up in reference to Jyoti. She was happy, said Asha Singh. She had only six months of her internship left, recalled Badri Singh. "Happiness was a few steps ahead." In contrast, the six men who would take Singh's life appear never to have encountered happiness. The juvenile left his home in a village in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh when he was just 11 years old and didn't return. His mother thought him dead. The others were familiar with poverty and violence. In turn, they were violent towards others. "There is nothing good about him," Singh says of one his co-conspirators. Of another he admits: "He was capable of anything." A psychiatrist in Delhi's Tihar Jail, where Singh is lodged, tells Udwin that he knows of rapists who have committed as many as 200 rapes before they are ever caught. Two hundred rapes that they remember, that is. Given Singh's own statements it isn't a stretch to say that had the men got away with raping and killing Jyoti, they would have raped and killed again. Or, that neither Singh's mindset nor even the manner of the rape, during which an iron rod was inserted into Jyoti, was, as the court declared in its judgment, truly "the rarest of the rare". As recently as February this year, a woman was gang-raped by nine men in Rohtak, Haryana for over three hours. The men violated her with bricks and asbestos sheets. Sticks, stones and condoms were found stuffed in her private parts. India's Daughter doesn't malign India, but Naidu's statement about a "conspiracy" does demonstrate, with an acute lack of self-awareness, what lies at the heart of the nation's rape crisis. Naidu isn't implying that rape is shameful; but that talking about rape is shameful because it draws attention to the fact that it happens at all. This fear is exactly what prevents rape victims from filing police complaints, and, as a result, emboldens rapists to strike again and again. In fact, Udwin has done what India's politicians should rightfully be doing: investigating rape cases thoroughly and discussing them openly. While eloquently expressing his love for his daughter, Badri Singh tells Udwin: "I wish that whatever darkness there is in the world should be dispelled by this light." The Indian government has thwarted his wishes. By banning this documentary it has deprived the Singhs of the opportunity to share the story of their daughter widely within India. In attempting to push a conversation about rape back into the closet, it has stigmatised the subject further. It has done more damage to India's reputation, and, far worse, the fight against rape, than any film ever could. II. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Govt-serves-legal-notice-to-BBC-for-airing-Nirbhaya-film-Indias-Daughter-Cong-BJP-spar/articleshow/46468604.cms Govt serves legal notice to BBC for airing Nirbhaya film 'India's Daughter'; Cong, BJP spar TNN | Mar 5, 2015, 06.04 PM IST RELATED VIDEOS Govt mulls action against BBC ...Might die fighting but won't a...After ban in India, BBC 4 tele...Freida Pinto to co-produce doc...'Entire Nirbhaya documentary a...'Nirbhaya documentary will be ... RELATED Govt mulls action against BBC for airing banned Nirbhaya documentaryMight die fighting but won't achieve justice, says Nirbhaya's motherAfter ban in India, BBC 4 telecasts Nirbhaya documentary in UKFreida Pinto to co-produce documentary based on 'Nirbhaya' case'Entire Nirbhaya documentary against programming code of I&B ministry' Dad upset over daughter's name being made publicYouTube removes Nirbhaya documentary: ReportsDelhi rape convict's remarks 'unspeakable': UN NEW DELHI: An upset government on Thursday served a legal notice to BBC after the channel ignored its advice and broadcast the controversial interview of Delhi gang-rape convict even as it asked video sharing website YouTube to remove the documentary as it is "very sensitive". "Yes we had informed all channels that the documentary must not be released. But BBC has broadcast it in London. (Now) whatever action we have to take, the home ministry will go ahead and do that," home minister Rajnath Singh told reporters here earlier when asked about the airing of the programme on Wednesday night. "..We had requested BBC not to telecast the documentary but BBC said that it's an independent organization and will go ahead with the telecast," he added, READ ALSO: BBC ignores ban, telecasts Nirbhaya documentary 'India's Daughter' Asked what the government could do, Singh said, "I would not like to make any comment at this moment. All I can say is that whatever is required, will be done. If conditions have been violated, if they have been violated, there will be appropriate action," PTI reported. To another query, the minister said, "You keep watching, I have talked to the I&B ministry and have also written to the external affairs ministry. Proceedings are taking place." Meanwhile, communications and IT ministry told Youtube that the issue is "very sensitive" and it should review its position on the matter, and remove it from the website. When contacted, a YouTube spokesperson said: "While we believe that access to information is the foundation of a free society and that services like YouTube help people express themselves and share different points of view, we continue to remove content that is illegal or violates our community guidelines, once notified." READ ALSO: YouTube removes Nirbhaya documentary: TV reports BBC aired the documentary, containing the controversial interview of a convict in the December 16,2012 gang rape despite a Delhi court prohibiting it. READ ALSO: Nirbhaya revisited, but not this way, please BBC on Thursday conveyed to the government that it has no plans to telecast the film in India in compliance with the directive. Asked as to who was to blame for allowing shooting of the documentary, the home minister said, "there has been no failure on the part of the government." He maintained that the permission "was not given in our tenure." Singh, who gave a detailed statement on the issue on Wednesday, said, "I have said this in the Parliament also that we'll be removing all the provisions under which this permission has been given, so that a mistake like this doesn't happen in the future." He said, "If violation has been done, then the responsibility can surely be fixed to someone and if the responsibility is fixed the action will also happen." The home minister's statement came when asked whether the government was contemplating legal action against the British media giant for defying the ban. Officials had said that home ministry is also planning legal action against British filmmaker Leslee Udwin for allegedly violating stipulated permission conditions. READ ALSO: Delhi rape convict's remarks 'unspeakable': UN on Nirbhaya documentary Delhi rape victim's father objects to daughter's name being made public Read all reactions, developments as they unfolded Mixed reactions to BBC move to air gang-rape convict interview The decision by BBC to broadcast the controversial interview of one of the December 16, 2012, gang-rape convicts despite the restraining order against its screening has evoked mixed reactions among political parties. While BJP has been critical of the UK national broadcaster's decision to go ahead with the telecast of the interview shot inside Tihar jail here, Congress said it supported BBC's move and was shocked by the ban imposed on it by the government in the country. "I think BBC, by choosing to advance telecast this film, has lost its moral (standing) and credibility in the country. The government has already decided to initiate legal action against people who have violated the rules and norms. "Appropriate legal action will follow. The government will take all necessary measures to ensure that this film doesn't get telecast further," said BJP spokesperson GVL Narasimha Rao. Further, criticising the broadcast of the banned interview, which was shot by filmmaker Leslee Udwin and BBC, BJP MP Meenakshi Lekhi said, "Somewhere this is an attempt to dent the image of India." However, senior Congress leader Priya Dutt supported the broadcast of the interview, saying the documentary did not defend, but exposed the mindset of the rapist. "I am very shocked at the decision to ban the video. Rapes happen every single day and this has to be exposed. The documentary didn't defend the rape, it in fact showed the mindset of the rapist. The rapist has not been given a platform. "I feel terrible for the parents (of the gang-rape victim) who are going through trial once again. Justice delayed is justice denied. This is the story which needs to be told," Dutt said. The documentary includes an interview conducted by Udwin and BBC of Singh, the driver of the bus in which the 23-year- old paramedical student was brutally gang raped by six men on December 16, 2012. Mukesh has made derogatory statements against women in the documentary. (Inputs from PTI) -- 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.
