Take and Re-Take on India’s Daughter

BBC’s Documentary Re-visited

Thanks to vapid hysterics of Mr. Rajnath Singh and his totally ill-informed decision to ban the telecast of India’s Daughter, an unlikely protagonist has emerged on social media scene in India: Ms. Leslee Udwin who made the documentary. She has now become the undeserved darling of ever-swelling posts on the web, berating the Government of India and hailing her creative insights into the mind of a rapist.

Lest I am misunderstood, let me begin by saying that a movie like India’s Daughter needed to be made but I would have thought that someone like Prakash Jha could have done the job equally well, if not better. Unlike Arnab Goswami, I see no harm in interviewing a death-row convict and even promoting his select sound bytes to get eyeballs in this wretched competitive world of journalism. Journalists do funny things; the Radia tapes and the Essar emails have told us enough of their ethics.

Let us then come to the main issue: the interview of a death row convict who blames the rape victim for going out in the night inviting her rape and, then, death for resisting it. Let us not, for a minute, mislead ourselves into believing – notwithstanding the not-so-subtle propaganda of BBC, Leslee Udwin and now her many clones in India – that this shows us the mind-set of a rapist and will eventually help us in reforming the society. It will not. The documentary will disappear in the dustbin of history without bringing an iota of change. Nothing much has really changed since Draupadi was disrobed in public some 3000 years ago either here in India or in the so-called advanced western world. We have blinkers on our eyes and are sold on the myth of modernity; we ignore the chilling statistics of domestic violence, sexual assault or rape in UK or USA. A 2013 official report from the UK, jointly released by the Ministry of Justice, Office for National Statistics and Home Office reported that 4,00,000 women are sexually assaulted and 85,000 raped every year in England and Wales. That will make it 1095 sexual assaults and 230 rapes every day in a population 1/4th size of just one of our states (Uttar Pradesh). No, I am not making the point that London is more lecherous than Delhi but let us not make a spectacle out of a tragedy. Surely, we have all heard the aphorism: lies, damned lies and statistics.

Well, the Udwin film teaches us nothing new. So, why this hype? What Mukesh, the rapist, is shown as saying in the documentary, has already been said, almost in the same words, by so many well-known Indians. Remember Asaram Bapu, now a rape accused but then a spiritual guru to millions in this incredible India, laying equal blame on the girl for getting raped; ‘she should have called them brothers, begged for mercy, and she would have been spared’ Or, Mulayam Singh Yadav for his silly remark that ‘boys will be boys and should not be hanged for such indiscretions’ Strangely enough, even Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, the well-known proponent of Art of Living, wanted the rapists to be spared from the gallows. Many others in India expressed their depraved mind-sets, calling night walks, short skirts and boyfriends as rape triggers. But the prize for making the most inane statement must go to Mr Mohan Bhagwat, the RSS patriarch, who wanted women to be confined to the four walls of their own safe homes lest an evil eye falls on them.

I wonder what was Mr Rajnath Singh doing then when our senses were assaulted by voices dirtier and meaner than Mukesh Singh’s in this documentary. Why was there no call for a ban on this daily broadcast of insanity? Need we remind the BJP that it had slammed the Delhi Police for filing a case against a news channel which had aired the interview of the victim’s friend, dubbing it as an attack on press freedom. Of course, public memories are short and why even talk of double standards when it’s the norm. But, come on, Mr Rajnath Singh, India is too big and too sensible a civilization to be scared of one Udwin. Let her earn some eyeballs. You are only making her task easier.

But, there is, of course, some genuine wisdom in Udwin’s movie. I would have never known that we harbour such lawyers amidst us who can bring serious comic relief in an otherwise depressingly sullen discourse on gender issues. I think this documentary needs to be watched by every Indian for the theatre of the absurd, put out by our lawyers in defence of the rapists. I am ready to hang my head in shame, not just because of what Mukesh, the rapist, has said in this documentary but also, what the lawyers have uttered in his defence. Would the Bar Council of India please take note, suspend some licenses and let common sense prevail. I think our country really needs it right now!