A Documentary with a Mission: Revisiting Nisha Pahuja’s The World Before Her

On Amir Khan’s prominent show, Satyamev Jayate, well-known RTI (Right to Information Act)activist Shailesh Gandhi talked about India’s current political situation. Passionately, he told Khan “every person is responsible for the flaws of Indian democracy and the problems facing it.” Gandhi then discussed the responsibility that an individual has in transforming and changing India and its situation. Commenting on recent politics, he remarked, “Some say Narendra Modi will fix things. Some say Arvind Kejriwal will, other state Rahul Gandhi will. That’s the discussion. Nobody talks about what they will do. We say that we are in a democracy, but we are looking for a messiah. There will be no messiah.” In agreement, Khan responded “In a democracy all of us will have to work!”

As I watched the episode, I felt all kinds of emotions and immediately couldn’t help but agree with Gandhi’s words; as individuals, we need to play an important and more proactive role in bringing change to India. Ever since the Delhi Rape case happened in 2012, India’s treatment of women has placed the country in the forefront of national and international politics and media. As a result, arguably, there has been a surge of female-centric documentaries and films that have been released that engage with the politics of women’s rights and their position within India. As someone who was born and brought up in India but left the country when I was seven years old, I have always had to consider and struggle with my identity as an Indian woman who has lived in Malaysia, Singapore, United States, and now Canada. I still remember that I had to make a decision at a very tender age when I was 14 years old whether I wanted to assimilate into the Western culture or remain tied strongly to my roots. While I “work” (intellectually and emotionally) everyday to strike a balance between my “traditional” and “modern” worlds, it has not been an easy crisis to face growing up. As I was being educated in the Western realms, I would crave to have a social life with people who belonged to my culture, understood cultural nuances, music, and popular culture. Thus growing up my research has been on trying to understand the complexities and nuances of what it means to be a modern Indian woman in the current era.

I have been grappling with this particular problem (among others) since my high school days I wrote my first research paper on Indian women novelists such as Manju Kapur in 2006-7. When the Delhi rape case happened more than a year ago, suddenly these questions about an Indian woman’s identity became a major topic of discussion for national and international media. For me, Nisha Pahuja’s The World Before Her is a documentary that is more than just a “film”. It is a cultural product. It is a mission. It is the desire to bring a change in India especially with concerns to women’s rights.

 Although politically I do not identify as a “feminist”, my concerns remain with the future of India and as an Indian citizen, my heart sinks whenever I hear the rhetoric in international and national media that women are being abused, attacked, raped, and even murdered for being who they are. It does not matter whether they are of lower, middle, or upper class. The rhetoric suggests that our country is barbaric – that is uncivilized because it cannot respect women although it prides itself on worshiping goddesses or revering mothers. Therefore, as an Indian woman personally who is trying to figure out her own subjectivity in the so-called Modern India, the way women are treated is of major concern to me– perhaps it is a selfish desire, but the desire to understand the complexities and nuances of this issue are important for the future of my nation.

The award winning The World Before Her is a nuanced film, and it engages with different types of issues that concern women in India. It premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2012, and since then has been screened in more than 125 film festivals and has received 19 awards for its efforts to bring awareness of the situation of women’s situation in India. At the heart of the film is the question of female infanticide. It is a topic that Amir Khan too launched his show Satyamev Jayate with a couple of years back bringing the issue to the forefront. It is a reminder that we still need to tackle with female infanticide where we need to value the lives of girls in India. We need to allow them to become educated and independent citizens who are capable of making their own decisions. This was an issue sadly that has been brought up in much academic and non-academic literature since Katherine Mayo’s Mother India (1927) and Elizabeth Bumiller’s May You Be The Mother of A Hundred Sons: A Journey Among The Women of India (1991).

 While yes the documentary speaks of the polemic Durga Vahini camps, I don’t think the intention of the filmmakers is to vilify such camps but to show the two sides of India – the so-called “old” India and the “new” India – and to suggest that both these schools of thoughts are similar and different in their own way. Both of them have a vision for India. Both camps – the Durga Vahini and the Miss Femina India camp – shape a woman’s subjectivity towards certain ideals. Both their ideologies are not wrong in any way, however, they are symbolic of the two extreme ideologies that are currently present and are at odds with each other in India. It is the India that women are born into. However, one must realize that before even women can experience this dilemma – they need to be alive. For me, this is the ultimate concern. 

Nisha Pahuja, FarzanaShammi, and Mariam Zaidi have launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise awareness of the very issue that concerns my own research – to bring the issue of the violence against women to the front and centre of India and Indian politics. The campaign was launched on International Women’s Day on March 8^th. The film will be released in India on April 25^th this year. The campaign has the goal of reaching $50,000 CAD. In less than 20 days to go, the campaign has raised almost $25, 000 CAD. With the money raised, the funds will be used for 4 causes: screenings at educational institutes, speciality and theatrical screenings in six cities, online release after the National elections have taken place in May, and screenings where the rates of female infanticide/feticide are high. To support the campaign, Anurag Kashyap, Nandita Das, Shimit Amin, Neeru Bajwa, Lisa Ray, and Deepa Mehta are playing important roles in the campaign. Anurag Kashyap will present the film a month before its release.

I write this blog urging readers and visitors who are concerned with the current situation of women in India to see the documentary and film in India as well as contribute to this cause. The Kickstarter campaign website is easily accessible and once you make a pledge; you inadvertently become part of an important movement that is concerned with the issue that has brought India into the international map. Any amount you donate and in whatever currency works towards bringing awareness about female infanticide and the other issues that the film highlights. The link to learn further about the campaign is: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/411325600/the-world-before-her-india-campaign.

 I want to thank Nisha Pahuja and Farzana Shammi for being so readily available and informative about the campaign. To conclude, as Gandhi mentioned in his interview with Amir Khan on Satyamev Jayate – we all have a role to play to contribute to the future of India – as individuals we need to play our parts. By participating and becoming a part of this campaign, this is exactly what you will be doing – you will become a part of a change!

Image source: d2nh4f9cbhlobh.cloudfront.net and the world before her facebook page. 

© Nidhi Shrivastava 2014 This content is subject to copyrights. Please ask for my permission before using this content for any purpose. 

The "Good" Men and the "Not so Good" Men of India: Conflicting Views on an Impending Issue

                                                                  Rapists in Delhi 

Today I came across an article published in the New York Times titled "The Good Men of India" in the Op-ed section of the widely-read newspaper. The author, Lavanya Sankaran ,offered a rosy picture of the men of India defending their subjectivity in the backlash men have received in India which has become magnified in the international media as THE country where women are the most vulnerable and unsafe! Arguments have been made that the perpetrators of the Delhi rape case and other rapists should be sentenced to death or castrated according to the Gang Rape law case under section 376 (G) that was instated in 2012 after the horrific Delhi Rape case took place stunning men and women around the world! I also could not but find the glaring contradictions between NY times article and Times of India, which spoke the alleged gang rape of a 30-year-old woman in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh.  

                                                               Image courtesy: wsj.net 

Sankaran's analysis of the men in India she encounters on her flight to Bangalore highlights the changes in the power dynamics of the airplane where men are air stewards while a woman pilot controls the plane - stereo-typically found to be the reversal of gender roles in the airline industry profession. She argues and suggests that there is an "alternate male reality" where men are the "kindest in the world." Now, I don't have any issues with the claims she makes here. India, as a country, is a complex potpourri where people's subjectivity is shaped by various elements including class and economic status, religious, and caste status. She was observing the behavior of upper-class business men who supposedly did not "grumble" when toys and children were creating chaos in the airplane space. 

I also found it interesting that the NY times had chosen a clip from Ranbir Kapoor's Wake Up Sid to represent the "Indian Common Man" but when you google the "common Indian man" a very diverse set of images show up! You cannot but question her essentialist analysis of the "COMMON" Indian man! 

                                                       Wake up Sid (2009) via NYtimes.com 
She writes: 

Let me introduce the Common Indian Male, a category that deserves taxonomic recognition: committed, concerned, cautious; intellectually curious, linguistically witty; socially gregarious, endearingly awkward; quick to laugh, slow to anger. Frequently spotted in domestic circles, traveling in a family herd. He has been sighted in sari shops and handbag stores, engaged in debating his spouse’s selection with the sons and daughters who trail behind. There is, apparently, no domestic decision that is not worthy of his involvement.  

Yes, the Indian men are the way she describes them but I am deeply troubled by her decision to use the term "the common Indian Male" that too with capital letters. Who is the "Common Indian Male"? This definition needs to be investigated before we can make any argument. I am in agreement with her defense of the Indian men and appreciate her voice in this important discussion but we cannot overlook universalized assumptions that excuse the inaction that has taken place since the Delhi Rape case happened in 2012 and blackened the name of India with titles like "Shame Capital" forever! I myself responded defending the Indian men in a previous blog but also realize that it is not a rosy picture Sankaran claims in her article. 

                                              Troubling notices during Delhi Rape case protests 

She also points out: 

But when it is at its best, the results, in women’s lives, speak for themselves. If the image of the Indian female as victim is true, so, too, is its converse: the Indian woman who coexists as a strong survivor, as conqueror, as worshiped goddess made flesh. Indian women have served as prime minister and president. They head banks and large corporations. They are formidable politicians, religious heads, cultural icons, judges, athletes and even godmothers of crime.

I am in accordance with her argument here! I do agree that Indian women are not just victims but many occupy a position of power within the Indian government, large corporations, and so on but we cannot by any means. However, have we thought about the "Common Indian woman"'s subjectivity? Have we questioned her position with the social spheres she interacts in? What type of sacrifices does she have to make in order to be in the position of power if she is in one? Herein lies the rub....

I belong to an upper middle class family in India. I was born in India and with my family migrated to Malaysia when I was 7 years old. After which we lived in Singapore for 7 years, and finally migrated to the United States in February 2001 and am pursuing a PhD. in Canada. 

Despite living in so many countries, I held on to the conventional Indian values and was raised in a semi-liberal household where we - both my brother and I - were raised to have a modern outlook on life but retain our "traditional" Indian values. I struggled throughout my childhood, teens, and early 20s to define my subjectivity. How could I find a balance between the conflicting modern ideologies we learned in school and our traditional values we were raised with? 

I observed many things growing up and continue to do so: 

• In many traditional Indian households, women cannot pray in the religious temple if she is menstruating (yet she is viewed as a Goddess)! I found this a deeply problematic practice and somewhat hypocritical but you have to respect the wishes of friends and elders who strongly believe in it. Its hard to engage in an analytic and "objective" analysis of the practice without hurting the feelings of those who believe in it so you have to let go of the irritation. 
• Wearing clothes that are body-tight and otherwise show cleavage becomes a cause of worry for people quite quickly. Women are raised to be more modest but there seems to be no control of how men perceive you and this problem I would like to highlight is universal and everywhere not regionally or geographically-specific. All Indian men are again I want to repeat are not out to "get some" and I cannot overemphasize this point. 
• There is no discussion of intimacy and sex within an Indian household (in my observation and do not want to generalize). I hope to change this practice in my own home one day. I would like my son or daughter to be aware of everything so that he/she accepts this as a normal human practice. Hence, there is no knowledge that is passed on to the young girls and women about safe contraception and safe sexual practices. Instead, abstinence is encouraged to prevent any early teen pregnancy or STDs but if you look at films like Dev D (2009) and Luv Ka The End (2011) both highlight a culture in cities like Mumbai and Delhi where young women choose to engage in pre-marital sex without being aware of safe sexual practices. They end up having unhygienic abortions and can be subject to fatal infections! There is an emphasis on honour, purity, and chastity within households lest its forgotten that a person's characterization and purity stems from actions not because they have or have not been sexually active or not. 
• Aamir Khan's Satyamev Jayate highlighted important issues that we cannot overlook. We keep on bringing these issues to our forums but do not take steps to further understand why its happening and why India has become the posterchild for rape cases? 

                                       Aamir Khan's Sataymev Jayate episode "Is Love A Crime" 

Monisha rajesh concludes, "Ultimately the conversation must continue. Since the Delhi gang rape the discussion over each newly reported rape has subsided faster and faster with social media moving swiftly on to lamenting the fall in the rupee or arguing over India’s foreign film entry to the Oscars, while the everyday rapes, acid attacks, domestic abuse and violence continue quietly in the background." 

                                                            Image courtesy: rutgers.edu 

True to the statement Rajesh has concluded, the discussions may continue but its important to understand the complexities and nuances of the "common Indian men and women" in India. Leela Fernandes (2006) 's India's New Middle Class offers a comprehensive analysis of the middle class Indian since the 1990's and I highly recommend this book to understand the politics of the "New" India. 

                                                  post-Mumbai Rape case protest 
I myself am still trying to understand the socio-economic, political, and literary implications of the recent discussions of rape cases in India. There is no right or wrong answer to this problem since it is laced with lots of complex issues and mind you, I have not even engaged in class/caste politics and rape of Dalit women. Furthermore, rape of men does take place. Aitraaz (2004) was a powerful representation of this issue but again, we just assume that women are victims. These are the issues I am grappling with as I read these news articles and further engage in these discussions. 

Images and Source: stream.aljazeera.com,  nytimes.com timesofindia.com, amazon.com, cdn.asiancorrespondent.com, wsj.net, and newstatement.com
© Nidhi Shrivastava 2014 This content is subject to copyrights. Please ask for my permission before using this content for any purpose. 

Is India A Dangerous Country For Women? - A Response to CNN's iReport: India - A Story You Never Wanted To Hear

I came across an iReport published on CNN entitled "India: A Story You Never Wanted To Hear" while I was perusing through my daily Facebook rounds and immediately I was drawn to the title - the story of this young undergraduate student had everything - a young woman drawn to the exotic and oriental Indian culture choosing to study abroad and learn the rich history that India has. However, what was disheartening and hurtful in her experience was that she proclaimed about her experience in India as being traumatic so much so that she had begun to show signs of PTSD and had to remove herself from her social settings to recover from the harassment, eve-teasing, and the bitter and nightmarish experiences she had had in India. She was not quite specific where her experiences had happened but she did indicate that as a foreigner, she was harassed by the shopkeepers who wouldn't stop haggling, the men who wouldn't stop jeering and passing sexual advances. This story adds more fuel to the fire of the already shamed India - a country that is assumed in the mainstream media as being chaotic, lawless, and furthermore a nation that continues to be immersed in patriarchal systems that demeans and oppresses a woman's subjectivity and her person hood  The same country, which worships goddesses and mothers simultaneously will treat women like sexual objects ready to obey every command. 

I want to begin by stating my position and my stake in the woman question of India. Needless to say, as a scholar I am made to question everything and everything  but also over the course of the past four years I have read and read scholars who have written extensively on the subject - from Partha Chatterjee to Leela Fernandes to Ania Loomba to of course Gayatri Spivak and the list continues. I am also careful because I do not want to universalize the experiences of women or belittle in any way, shape, or form the experiences of this young girl - instead I see her experience as a counter to my own. Furthermore, I respect her views though I am not wholeheartedly in accordance with what she has written but I can relate to many of her experiences. However, as an Indian and American woman myself, I feel like I have a stake in her article and what is being said about my country and it did emotionally hurt me. So here is my opinion about the article and a response to her claims and experiences: 


Rape and eve-teasing culture is a universal phenomenon and not regionally-specific. While not comparable to her experience, I also experienced eve-teasing and even felt violated when a random guy at an Australian bar in London, England just went by after briefly hitting on my hips like as if it was a normal and everyday occurrence. Because I belong to a culture that practices a don't-ask-don't-tell policy, I am going to use the word - intimacy is rarely discussed in home settings. It is assumed that as a young woman, you will wait until the right time with the right guy after you are married and will lead a honorable life without the danger of pre-marital pregnancy and single motherhood that will isolate and ostracize you from the society. To this day, I continue to respect the wishes of my parents and am proud of my values. At the same time, due to my extensive study, I have also realized that I may not apply the same rules to my son or daughter. Thus in my opinion, what she experienced was a product of popular culture and racial profiling- in essence- men and women alike assumed quite wrongfully that if you belong to the west, you are sexually easy and available and if you are alone, you are DEFINITELY there to have "fun." However, I want to add that it is not limited to "western" girls alone but women who belong to various classes are also equally subjected when need be - again this Eve teasing is more regionally specific! 

 Indian men are not out to get "some" - they are not violent brutes out to attack any woman they see - perhaps the ones she experienced who may fall into such a category are products of a popular culture that encouraged eve-teasing with films in the 1980s and 90s, which revolved around the heroes singing songs around the streets trying to draw the attention of the woman they are attracted to. There is more to the story than what has been told thus far in the media. 

Jason Burke has written a meaningful article that paints the life stories of the men who were involved in the rape case. Although the four men have been sentenced to death, there needs to be more work that needs to be done to resolve the issue. I am not wholly convinced by the abused goddess campaign though I am grateful for their effort to make a relevant point about the vulnerability of women in India. Growing up, I read a very problematic book called Elizabeth Bumiller's May You Be The Mother of A Hundred Sons. This was one of the most jarring non-fiction accounts I have read of a woman's experience in India. In a very superficial manner, the author examines the struggles that Indian women face and she highlights all types of issue starting from 18-year-old Raj Kanvar's sati-like death in 1987, which prompted her to write the book and continues on to discuss female infanticide all over India. In the Indian society, yes, many types women are revered as goddesses and mothers but it only limits their agency and the way they are perceived in India. Their roles are somewhat limited and if a woman does choose to become independent and self-reliant, she is viewed as the "other" and an outsider to this day. Although the woman involved in the Delhi rape case was shaping her own career path but because she was out "late" in the night, she provoked the danger and was severely and violently raped almost as a punishment - as if she had committed a crime! The change however will not come from stopping women from freely roaming the streets in India, it will come from educating children both boys and girls to treat each other with respect and dignity, by encouraging girls to become self-defensive and learn the tricks and trades to make the right decisions and choices. Without this basic step to educate children, change will not be imminent any time soon but unfortunately, will only prolong and further worsen the situation in India. This is only the tip of the iceberg but to me, it is the starting point where education system should be radically changed and have curriculum that is designed around sex education from a young age, and open discussion in households will make a radical difference in the ways children are raised. If India is now becoming more stable economically, then perhaps it should invest in development projects (if it hasn't already!) on providing free education, providing sex education, creating educational programs that are free for women and men for self-defense, and so on. The attitude is at the heart of the situation which needs to change and it only comes from within! 

Eight months later, at the conclusion of the trial of her killers, it is difficult to argue that J's ordeal and death has made much difference in India, at least so far: the rapes and sexual assaults that are now highlighted daily by the Indian media act simply as a reminder of how widespread violence to women is in the country.

Clearly, there is more work that needs to be done. When this article came out, I was ready to post an angered and frustrated response although I understood and could relate to the experience this woman had experienced in my home country but before I could, Mumbai rape case took place leaving me puzzled and confused. There is a lot of work that needs to be done in India to eradicate this environment for women and others who feel marginalized in the society. However, that being said, it is not always the case based on the part of class you belong to but this article does bring us food for thought! I also want to make a note that these are just starting points towards a larger depth of study. 

Images & Source: ibntimes.com, ireport.cnn.com, blogspot.com,  thehindu.com, wallstreetjournal, and huffingtonpost.com
video: youtube 

© Nidhi Shrivastava 2014 This content is subject to copyrights. Please ask for my permission before using this content for any purpose.