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 8th.
The film will be released in India on April 25th 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.
