Indian Parliament has banned India’s Daughter, a new documentary about the brutal beating, gang rape and death of Jyoti Singh in 2012, and is requesting other countries to do the same. In response, England’s BBC4 television station has moved up their debut of the film from Sunday to Wednesday and Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland, Norway and Canada will air it as well.
This week, Kirron Kher, a parliamentary member and former actress, delivered a riveting speech against the flawed mindset that she feels underlies the prevalence of extreme sexual violence in her country—the fundamental disrespect of women. Others joined her push to change the culture and air the India’s Daughter, but they were a minority, according to New Delhi TV. Meanwhile, evidence supporting their claims is just a click away: Mukesh Singh, one of the men present during Singh’s attack, which ultimately killed her two days after the assault, said things that are almost unbelievable even in the pantheon of victim blaming.
In the BBC interview, though, as reported by the Telegraph, Mukesh said the beating was her fault, for fighting back: “When being raped, she shouldn’t fight back. She should just be silent and allow the rape. Then they’d have dropped her off after ‘doing her’, and only hit the boy. …
“You can’t clap with one hand – it takes two hands. A decent girl won’t roam around at 9 o’clock at night. A girl is far more responsible for rape than a boy. Boy and girl are not equal. Housework and housekeeping is for girls, not roaming in discos and bars at night doing wrong things, wearing wrong clothes. About 20 per cent of girls are good.”
YO.
Meanwhile, according to the Guardian, India’s Daughter creator Leslee Udwin has left India for fear of being arrested.
“I’m very frightened what’s going to happen next — I predict the whole world will point fingers at India now,” Udwin said. “It’s a tragedy — you’re shooting yourself in the foot.”
Indian politicians like parliamentary affairs minister M Venkaiah Naidu think the documentary is an “international conspiracy to defame India” rather than an in-depth look at a gross and disgusting problem that’s so widespread women took to the streets to protest. Dudes like Naidu are worried about the wrong things, namely themselves, and need to be called out on it or the culture they perpetuate will never change.
Contact the author at hillary@jezebel.com.