I haven’t seen Leslee Udwin’s documentary “India’s Daughter”, which now finds mired in a controversy, but I had a chance
to see snippets of the documentary and meet Leslee at the TEDX talk last
weekend.
In her talk, Leslee precisely highlighted the
sensationalised part of her work. She shows the rapist Mukesh Singh saying without remorse: “You can’t clap with one hand – it takes two hands. A decent girl won't roam around at 9 o'clock at
night. A girl is far more responsible for rape than a boy. Boy and girl are not
equal. Housework and housekeeping is for girls, not roaming in discos and bars
at night doing wrong things, wearing wrong clothes. About 20% of girls are
good.”
She also spoke about how daunting it was to
make the documentary, the pain of parting from her young family for two years,
and, how at one point when things just didn’t go right, she almost felt like
giving up and return home, but her daughter (over phone) encouraged her to stay
by saying “ I and my generation of girls are relying on you”.
Leslee
spoke passionately about the issue of gender inequality, which she described as
“cancer” and myriad of other very serious issues related to it like patriarchy,
killing of girl child, honour killing, and acid attacks, trafficking. She said
gender equality was the only solution.
There is unmistakably no doubt about the fact
that Leslee stands for women’s right and equality, but what's problematic the way she went on to talk about her documentary.
Apart from the quote above, she also quoted the defence lawyer A. P Singh, who said, “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 “
Clearly abhorring and sickening statements,
but what do you expect a defence lawyer and a rape convict to say? There is no
denying that there is a problem with men think in India but it is a section of
the population not the entire country. Offenders, all over the world, tend not
to show remorse about their horrifying actions.
Leslee’s over emphasis on the two quotes
above to highlight her documentary coupled with excessive PR was another cause
why the documentary stands banned by the court of law in India. It undermined the fact that her purpose was
not entirely commercial. If it was being shown on NDTV and BBC, and that some
international papers were already taking about it what was the need of press conferences
and her obsession to get as many journalists as possible. This contributed in getting the attention of the home minister. Personally, I just
disliked her ruthless campaign – it looked as if she was hell bent in getting some
sort of mileage out of it.
The other issue is raking up the December 16,
2012 rape issue once again. For heaven’s sake leave the family of the victim
alone.
It
will also be wrong to assume that as if there was no concern about rape in
India before December 2012. I have closely analysed two national Indian
newspapers and Western newspapers to understand the narrative of rape going
backwards two years before the unfortunate rape took place on 16 December 2012.
If you look at the The Hindu and The Times of
India; there was already a momentum building up by activists and the Indian
media since 2010 to recognise that there is a problem of rape- 16 December 2012
was the last straw.
On the other hand, many Western media simply
went overboard in their reporting to vilify the “rape culture” in the country
comparing it with Sati and other practices (The Times). I felt Jason Burke’s epicarticle in The Guardian was the only
comprehensive piece that built up a picture to the problem for the foreign
audience.
I personally work with the Western media, and
I know that India is an open ground for journalists. Doing stories in India is
far easier than any country in the world. Here we get what we want. People let
us into their homes. Could Leslee have
made a similar documentary in her own country? Questions must also be asked how she got access- the fault also lies with the Indian authorites.
There have been many horrifying instances of
abuse in the world, like for example, an 80-year-old Austrian father man who wasaccused of locking up his daughters and raping them over a period of more than40 years a few years back. Could anyone interview him?
There is no denying that there is a problem
in India the way women are treated but it not in all states. What about the northeast
India? I support Leslee’s passion and
her campaign. Since I have not seen the documentary, I cannot comment much, but
if her documentary is about what she is highlighting, it is needless and not
very tasteful.
