‘India’s daughter’ – Why I question Leslee Udwin’s intentions and why I feel Govt did a right thing.

I have watched the documentary ( on BBC 4) and I have also watched the interview of Leslee Udwin on NDTV. After watching both, I believe that what Govt of India did was a right thing. The worse thing in this saga is the controversy created by media. Look at the headlines in the two leading news agencies in India – Times of India and NDTV. Same news, same day, how these channels are spinning the headlines. After watching and reading these news I felt really disgusted about the way these channels were sensationalising whole issue.

Whether you watch the documentary or not, either ways, you would come to the same conclusion that it was not done in right spirit and intentions were not  to ‘study of rape incidence’ but to create publicity gathering documentary with the aim of making money.

Lets take first scenarios where you have not watched the documentary, but have seen Leslee’s interview. You would realise that she has ‘managed’ to get the clearance through questionable means.

Example 1) The jail authorities had cleared the documentary for non commercial purpose. She managed to convince them that every documentary has a small commercial value (this is her own admission) hence they should add the word for the purpose of clarity. It is very clear from the way publicity is generated that she ‘managed’ to get this word in the revised letter hiding the real intention of generating huge profits (through big publicity). To get these ‘permissions’ she was working through local ‘agents’ to ‘deal’ with jail authorities,

Example 2) She was supposed to show entire footage to the jail authorities. She very cleverly showed the non essential part – the shooting of the surroundings etc of few hours (!) to the committee on first day, they got (predictably) bored and decided to see the real part – the interviews with the rapists – next day. That never happened. She avoided showing the interview by hiding behind the technicalities, because her real intentions were not clean.

Jail authorities have sent the letter that she had violated the permission given and she should not release the documentary. Her stand and approach (from the interview) has been very confrontationist. She is seen daring the Indian government to stop its screening by telling that there would be protests in the world. Her attitude smacks of arrogance coming out of ‘I am superior’ kind of traits.

She proclaims that the documentary was supposed to be her gift to India. My question is why she never thought of making a documentary on the similar subject closer her home town – Birmingham, UK. There are more heinous crimes against young girls being committed for last 15 years and the society is silent. Should she not be gifting a documentary to her hometown? Read the rot in the British society and the extent of problems they have “Call for national debate on Muslim sex grooming” 

Now lets consider you have seen the documentary and her interview too.

If this documentary was supposed to be study of society and problems of rape in Indian society, I did not come out with any new information or new angle than what has been extensively reported in the media, except for the interview of the rapist. Was there a need to re-state those incidences?

Was this documentary made to create sensation by giving platform to the rapist? The documentary ends up giving an impression that every rapist would start making the bucks ( media has reported that the rapist’s family was paid Rs.40,000/ – after intense negotiations) through such documentaries.

Why was the rapist shown in normal cloths than the jail cloths. As per the jail rule no inmate is allowed to use cloths other than those provided by the jail. Again, here, has she seemed to have ‘managed’ to work around the system through her local ‘agents’

Whether we agree or not, as per the Indian judicial norms the victim’s name is not supposed to be reported in rape cases. Why has she taken liberty with Indian law by stating the name so many times?

No wonder, if the jail authorities had seen the footage, they would have objected to it and it seems she wanted to hide these things from them.

Under these circumstances government has to take a stand to make sure that Indian laws and processes be followed and no one should be allowed to play with it. If there were shortcomings or system was compromised in the earlier time, it needs to be corrected.

Having said that, it is true that we have to get our act together, faster. We should have expedited the clearing of such case faster, we should have done much more with the ‘Nirbhaya fund’. I do not recommend only the laws to create safety of women – because in this statement it is assumed that women are weak and they need protection – I am of firm opinion that women have immense power – we as a society need to learn to respect them and accept their equal contribution in building society.