Getting home ‘India’s Daughter’

WrittenBy:Nirupama Sekhri
Date:
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Leslee Udwin’s documentary India’s Daughter is true to the genre in its fundamental essence: it documents the brutal attack and murder of plucky, unfortunate Jyoti Singh through conversations with the people involved – directly and indirectly – with the case.

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The film is “raw” in the way that Ms Udwin doesn’t push or delve into analyses or interpretations. In smooth, flowing narrative, the film informs us about what happened, who it happened to, why the perpetrators did what they did, individual, group and institutional reactions to it.

Given the emotionally-charged, volatile context in which the film was attempted, it was no mean task to achieve. Ms Udwin has handled the issue with remarkable care, compassion and sensitivity. She has been fair to everyone involved, dressing nothing up or down, allowing everyone to speak for themselves.

Only the hermetically insulated or cinematically challenged would be able read any moral equivocation in the film, or see Mukesh Singh (and his lawyers) being glorified or given a sympathetic, model-inspiring platform. His portrayal is nowhere like of Satan in Milton’s Paradise Lost, Alex in Clockwork Orange, Micky in Natural Born Killers, or Al Fayed in Unlawful Killing – the latter three films that have inspired calls for ban in some countries.

However, there is no doubt that it is a film made by a foreigner for a foreign audience: a foreigner, who was deeply moved by the tragedy and decided to document it. She has done it politely, respectfully, without making value judgements, without pretending to understand or comment on the role of our society and its government, also without compromising her standards of fairness and honesty.

The rallying calls from sections of legal practitioners, feminists, and above all, Parliament and media, to ban or postpone the film have done little to dent Ms Udwin or her film’s integrity or reputation. What it has done, however, is frightened India’s daughters and sons, mothers and fathers, friends and lovers. It has advised us, menacingly, to gag our thinking, interpreting, expressing and speaking out any ideas that might ruffle the feathers of our self-appointed censors. Because if we do, then our culturally classic “Do you know who I am?” syndrome will kick in. Sections of our media, joined by prominent human rights activists, will not merely argue – heatedly and passionately – about what they didn’t like in the film, but they will throw all their weight behind legal cases to be hurled against  us.

So in the aftermath of the war about the documentary, what we are left with is a ban and postponement – not on the film because we can watch it on various platforms – but on home-grown exploration and representation of who and what Jyoti Singh may mean to different people in different parts of her own country.

Edward Said wrote in his seminal work “Orientalism”: “From the beginning of Western speculation about the Orient, the one thing the orient could not do was to represent itself. Evidence of the Orient was credible only after it had passed through and been made firm by the refining fire of the Orientalist’s work.

The reason why a daughter of the West has made a film on India’s daughter is because Ms Udwin is trusted and supported by a publicly-funded media channel that is standing firmly behind her. They are not bowing to political and popular pressure from the India to withdraw her film. They have gone right ahead with their schedule as planned.

Chances are that Ms Udwin’s name-plate will not be ripped off the front of her house and stamped upon, like a demented monkey, by her local political representative. Baying packs of ruffians will not block her entry to her home. She will not be hounded and intimidated by death threats forcing her to go underground. The British Parliament will not pressure the BBC to take the film off its channel. All of which have been done to women seen as “deviant” in India, in some context or the other.

Ms Udwin’s freedom of speech and expression will be protected by not just her country’s laws, but upheld by her government. Her choice of subject and style of making the documentary may be critiqued and criticised, but it will be accepted as a legitimate expression by her people and her media.

It is cringe-worthy to hear Shobha De wanting to make the film “compulsory” watching in Indian schools. It is embarrassing to hear artistes and writers like Shabana Azmi and Chetan Bhagat gushing over the documentary. Especially the latter two, because Ms Azmi has been associated with socially relevant films and causes, and Mr Bhagat, well, he writes for the English reading masses of the country, yet, they react as if they were foreigners, like Ms Udwin, living on our land!

For all of us living in India, there is nothing insightful in the film. We see and meet people like in the film everyday – hard-working, aspiring young people like Jyoti Singh and her friend; proud parents from small-towns supporting their children to become upwardly mobile. We also hear stories from our household help, drivers, chowkidars about the all-to-easy access to alcohol, mindless, casual abuse and violence prevalent in our slums. Our TV channels blare regularly about the regressive ideas held by the rich, famous, powerful and powerless alike – in cities, towns and villages.

Aamir Khan’s Satyamev Jayate on rape offered a heart-breaking snap-shot study of the casual regularity of rapes, of old, young and little, that are dealt with chilling societal, political and legal apathy.

What we need is far more documentaries and films made on these issues – hard-hitting, provocative, emotionally pitched ones – by India’s daughters and sons – by feisty young people like Jyoti Singh.

But what this recent circus has done is to shut the door heavily and harshly to “native” voices rising. We are not ready to make the freedom of speech and expression a real, actual right yet. Let the West hold up a mirror to us. At least some of us will not hurl stones at it.

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