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. 

Stepping On Blurred Lines of Reality and Fiction: Anubhav Sinha's Gulaab Gang (2014)

          When I was 11 years old and living in Singapore, my good friend Manoganya introduced me to Jim Henson's fantastical movie, The Labyrinth (1986), starring the popular singer of the 80s David Bowie and with him was the young Jennifer Connelley who recently was part of The Winter's Tale (2014) and A Beautiful Mind (2001). While the entire movie is cute and unforgettable with muppet-like characters, it is the journey of Sarah who is in search of her brother, Toby, who has been stolen by Jareth (David Bowie), the king of the goblins. Towards the end of the film, Jareth is frustrated with the cat-and-mouse chase with Sarah. He blames Sarah for being the cause of the conflict as she had been the one who had initially been frustrated with her brother and had asked Jareth to take the baby away. While he continues to psychologically manipulate and play with Sarah's mind trying to gnaw at her weaknesses, Sarah realizes that she has always had the power within her to overpower and overcome his tactics that are attempts to weaken her strong and resilient spirit. At the end of the scene, Sarah cries, "you have no power over me!" 
            Sarah had the power all along to combat such negativity and control from Jareth. The film ends with Jareth falling into the abyss and Sarah rescuing her younger brother. Why is this story important to understanding the mission of Gulaab Gang (2014) or Nishtha Jain's documentary Gulaabi Gang (2014), one might ask? This anecdote reveals the power struggle that continues to exist between the subjectivity of the marginalized peoples and oppressive systems that attempt to control them and overpower them through verbal and physical tactics. Sarah breaks the psychological control by empowering herself and not allowing Jareth's meaningless words to overpower her own subjectivity. 

          As a disclaimer though, I do want to say two very crucial points that I wish to reiterate whenever I write about violence, patriarchy, and bio-politics. First and foremost, I want to emphasize the idea that not every man is a Jareth in the Indian context. Surprisingly, I have encountered more men who are sympathetic and empathetic to the cause and are against any or all types of oppression. They are gracious and are filled with respect for all marginalized communities and genders. Secondly, I want to reiterate that I am not a "feminist." My political concerns span across gender, caste, class, religion, and other realms and my ultimate goal is to understand why India is the way that it is, how can we improve its conditions and lives of the oppressed and marginalized communities, and what does being an "Indian" mean for women like me who have lived outside of India for majority of their lives but continue to live, breathe, and intellectualize India daily and everyday. 
           Although unfortunately recent news reports have said that Madhuri Dixit-Juhi Chawla starrer Gulaab Gang (2014) bombed the box office, I would suggest that the film is still a must watch. Perhaps, even should be watched alongside Nishtha Jain's documentary on the Gulaab Gang (2014) that took five years to make. Both these films have been the avenues that have placed Sampat Pal Devi and her Gulaab Gang on the international map. The members live in the rural parts of Uttar Pradesh, a region known to have an oppressive and misogynistic culture and sometimes physically fight for their rights against the issues of dowry, domestic abuse, and political corruption.

 I am reminded here of an interview I was watching on Bollywood Boulevard the other day when Dixit said that the film focuses on the lives of women who live in the 75% India - the poor India - and how they overcome various systems of oppression. Unfortunately I have been unsuccessful in locating the clip online, Dixit has realized the struggle that India as a nation is facing. There are two "Indias" that co-exist - The "Old" India and the "New" India. The former that is kept alive by centuries old traditions, while the new one striving to be cosmopolitan and modern in the 21st century. Both worlds trying to reconcile their differences and attempting to find a "middle ground" if one exists. At the heart of this struggle, recent films and documentary such as Gulaab Gang (2014) have emerged to strongly argue that "No, India is not dangerous for women. Here are examples of women who do fight back verbally or physically and repeat Sarah's words to their oppressors - YOU HAVE NO POWER OVER ME!" 
                  While I will not divulge Anubhav Sinha's Gulaab Gang (2014), I will urge those who are indeed concerned with the cause to at least watch the movie once (and then watch Nishtha Jain's documentary). Both these renditions of the real Gulaab Gang offer us the realities that we sometimes overlook and erase from our cosmopolitan memories. The women who live in rural areas do not have access to education, are privy to child marriages (even Sampat Pal herself), and are readily abused or even have acid thrown on them if they refuse advances. Gulaab Gang was formed to protect women from such oppression and dedicated to the cause. Had both Sinha and Jain worked together or even released the two films side-by-side, we as audiences could have seen that the intention both filmmakers had was the same - to show that women in India were fighting back by uniting and literally taking arms to fight oppression. Instead, there are countless articles that show that both sides are immersed in a controversy days before the release of Sinha's film. Perhaps, their controversy serves a reminder that there is a need - a desperate need - for a united India. Without unity, there is no space for progress of any kind if people are too busy trying to find differences in one another. Although one film was a commercial enterprise set to release on the eve of International Woman's day, the other was a labour of love that took five years to make and was an attempt to capture the reality of the Gulaab Gang through Jain's perspective. I do have to say though that Chawla's performance as the corrupt, shrewd, and power-hungry performance should not be missed! 

            The other issue that I found alarming was that the film did not do well at the box office was because there was no male lead in the film. Why is this an issue when no one questions Hollywood films such as Meryl Streep's The Iron Lady (2011), which was a biopic on Margaret Thatcher? The silver screen was dominated by Madhuri Dixit and Juhi Chawla who are both strong and empowered women in their lives and are working to promote the causes that support the empowerment of young women and girls through their means. There is no reason why this film should not work. Perhaps, people are turned off by violence but do not the same people watch films that are action-based and maybe even more violent that the realities illustrated in Sinha's film or Jain's documentary. I believe that this is a realities that many people are aware of and witness in their daily lives and thus have been desensitized to them. Many also perhaps do not want to watch the horrific realities that exist in the poor India where conditions remain the same as they might have been two hundred years ago and it is a reminder that India still needs to work to bring change in the lives of the poor and forgotten! 

Images & Sources: hindustantimes.com, india.blog.nytimes.com, nytimes.com, firstpost.com, and gallery.oneindia.in

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