By Raakhee Suryaprakash
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| A still from "India's Daughter" |
I
watched the documentary India’s Daughter
on the December 2012 Delhi gang rape online on March 6, 2015. After nearly a
week’s “inadvertent publicity” and furore over the programme on various social
media platforms and hysterical TV debates on the topic, the Government of India
banned its scheduled telecast on the occasion of International Women’s Day. In
the run-up to the ban while the rapist’s (I refuse to dignify him by using his
name) interview made waves online a lot was written about the “white saviour” complex,
and the dangers of generalizing and the affront the misogynistic views of the
rapists and lawyers who defended them were when attributed to all Indian males.
While in my view the documentary had nothing new to offer, I feel the ban was
an overreaction and ensured the virality of the film. When I was watching it
the link was said to have 40.3K views/shares (that’s 40,300 to the
uninitiated). And that was just one platform, yet many were watching it and
searching for it – making for a huge audience for a documentary not as
effective as the other earlier BBC documentary: India
- A Dangerous Place to Be a Woman.
Yet
India’s Daughter should not be dismissed altogether. Yes it repeats the same
solutions to the patriarchy and misogyny problems it India. Yet they bear
repeating until something is done to curb the appalling frequency of violence
against women. Despite what the film-maker claims was India's "Arab
Spring" moment against rape not much has changed since the protests
following the December 2012 incident. Patriarchy and misogyny live on popping
up almost everywhere and nearly numbing and desensitizing one to the
consequences. The attitude of “blame the victim, shame the victim” continues
unchecked. Writer and member of parliament Javed Akhtar’s frustration was
obvious in his denunciation in parliament when he said that he has the heard
the “blame the victim” trope even in the Indian parliament – the same arena
which witnessed two MPs watching “rape porn” on a phone during parliament
session.
More than a reflection Indian of society as
claimed in the documentary’s promotional material, I’d liken the documentary – which
has as many detractors as supporters – to a dust in the eye of Indian society.
An irritant to our vision of the nation but just as dust in our eyes leads us
to wash it and attend to the problem to clear and improve our vision India’s Daughter and other documentaries
on violence against women will perhaps make responsible citizens re-look at the omnipresent
misogynistic norms. A non-white with or without the access to the same monetary
resources may not have the access filmmaker Leslee Udwin had. As another harsh truth
in India is “white worship” and “green chasing.” Hopefully this documentary
will breed other quests for improving the status of Indian women and ensuring
their safety.
The
Delhi Police head claiming that Delhi is a safe city – as safe as any city in
the developing world stuck with me. While I dispute the first part of his claim
I’d like to explore the second part’s corollary that when such a horrific
incident occurs in the national capital and it is claimed to be “as safe as
others” then all cities are unsafe for women. Take the Dominique Strauss-Kahn
cases in Paris and New York or the child abuse scandal resulting in the
Operation Bullfinch in Oxford and the other similar case in Rotherham, UK where
hundreds if not thousands of young people – many young girls – were abused. Or
the myriad reported and unreported instance of violence against women across
the both urban and rural India. You realize nowhere is safe. A woman is not
safe at home or outside – not in the urban setting neither in the rural. With
statistics proving that most rapists and perpetrators of crimes against victim
are known to the victim and in a significant portion of the cases the victim’s
partner or part of the extended family the insecurity becomes appallingly
ubiquitous.
Ingrid
Therwath of Courrier International was
spot on when she said in her article about the Dominique Strauss-Kahn trial
which was carried in the Hindu:
Ever
since the 2012 Delhi rape, rape stories in India have featured prominently in
the French press. Readers are often horrified by the levels of violence against
women in India and are quick to point the finger at the inequalities in Indian
society and at the caste system. The testimonies during the DSK trial in Paris
show that the rape culture also festers in a less conservative, less religious
society than India. What the two countries have in common and what enables this
rape culture is a deeply engrained patriarchal and heteronormative set-up. In
the Greek mythology, the Minotaur is trapped in a labyrinth. In our contemporary societies, Minotaurs
roam freely.
The
rapist’s defence lawyer claim that that our parliament is populated by
criminals, murderers and rapists whose crimes are not prosecuted in fast-track
courts. As a criminal defence lawyer, without impunity he endorses honour
killing and reiterating his controversial statement made when the death penalty
was announced to the rapists that he’d burn the girls in his family before his
family for premarital relations with the opposite sex. What’s equally
horrifying is that the violent juvenile who was believed to have instigated the
evisceration of the victim gets out at the end of the year – December 2015. The
lesson other potential juvenile rapists and even “the juvenile” may imbibe is
that you can get away with rape and murder! You could even find yourself being
interviewed on camera. There is information doing the rounds is that the rapist
got paid for doing the interview. Not only is the gang of rapists eating the
taxpayer’s money in jail for the past three years instead of being hung to
death immediately – one of them even gets paid to air his misogynistic
viewpoint. Perhaps the Nagaland mob’s jail break-in and lynching of the rapist
is the way to enforce the boundaries and respect for women.
The
jail psychiatrist’s view that there are men in jail who claim to have raped
nearly 200 times but were caught or punished for say 12 instances is a very worrying
fact as it shows that their actions have little or no consequence and the
violence escalates unchecked. The slow course Indian justice enables violence
against women. While Lakshman Rekhas
abound for women there are few boundaries enforced for men not just in India
but across the globe. In the context of
the ridiculously low number of sanctioned rape crisis centres perhaps it is
obvious that women’s safety has a low priority. Why weren’t they promoted as
creating new careers? Just as ‘Make in India’ is touted to generate jobs employing
professionals in the crises centres could create jobs while fulfilling a great
social need. Yet that PR fell between the cracks of Indian bureaucracy!