<b>Mitali Saran:</b> The documentary wars

I intended to watch Leslie Udwin's film, India's Daughter, long before it became the docu-drama that launched a restraining order, a Parliamentary ruckus, a media war, and a thousand social media threads. The Government of India asked the whole world to comply with its restraining order, because when you live in la-la-land, anything is possible. I watched it after that, online, because we don't live in la-la-land, and because trying to suppress something in the information age is the best way to make sure that every sentient being from this galaxy to the next will a) become wildly interested in accessing it and b) definitely be able to access it.
 

Potted review: India's Daughter looks at sexual violence, and the movement against sexual violence, through the lens of the Nirbhaya gangrape case. It includes some interviews, some reconstruction, some footage of the protests, and an annoying musical score. It's no timeless work of art, but it's fine. Like every film it has some strengths and some weaknesses. In the normal course of events it would have been duly reviewed and discussed, added to the archives, and forgotten in three days. Instead, it has ruled airtime, column inches, and debate for two weeks. That's fine, because it deserves to be seen.

The film is not banned. There is only a stay order on broadcasting the interview with convicted rapist Mukesh Singh while case is sub judice. If the interview really does compromise his legal rights, then it should indeed be held until the appeal process is over, assuming that it proceeds at a reasonable pace. (Mr Singh does have rights, despite Lalitha Kumaramangalam, chairperson of the National Commission for Women (NWC), saying on national television: "What human rights does he have?" She also said that the film is "immoral" because rape victims and their families have to see it. Having her chair the NCW is a bit of a coup for patriarchy.)

Protecting Mr Singh's legal rights is the only solid ground on which to stay the film. Whether showing it actually does compromise his rights is a matter best left to lawyers to determine - probably not his lawyers, though, because with friends like those, now served notice by the Bar Council of India, who on death row needs enemies?

Why, then, does a perfectly defensible not-ban feel so much like an indefensible ban? Because the government line has much less to do with the law than with disliking the film's content. The government response was set by Venkaiah Naidu saying: "It is a conspiracy to defame India" and went on to BJP spokespeople like Shaina N C - whose feminist cred consists of wondering whether Mayawati is a "he" or a "she" - and Meenakshi Lekhi maintaining that the documentary sullies the image of India and affects tourism. One hopes that hoteliers across the land appreciate how not showing this film is standing heroically between them and financial ruin.

The response boils down to four basic points. First, how dare a foreigner make a film about us? (Why on earth not? And by the way, why aren't more of us making documentaries about us?) Second, there are more rapes in the West than in India. (Why is that relevant? Does it mean that ours are okay?) Third, the making of the film involved various legal and ethical violations. (That's a different discussion. Have it, by all means, but don't mix it up with the content of the film. The filmmaker seems to have gotten all the permissions she needed.) Fourth, how dare she suggest that all Indian men are rapists, and show the country in a bad light? (The film does not suggest that all Indian men are rapists. It suggests that India is a patriarchal society in which many women pay a terrible price, which is a bald fact.)

So we began with a thoroughly restrained (no pun intended) film focused on a sexual crime against an Indian woman, and ended up with a loud, emotional conversation focused on protecting the reputation of Indian men. Funny how that happens. How does that happen? Because the most normal, mainstream form of patriarchy is that men own the narrative. If someone else - say a bunch of women - start getting audible, they get smacked down until the narrative returns to normal programming. To say that a film about women insults men, is merely to stoke the guiding principle of patriarchy, which is powered by the notion of male honour. Diverting attention from preventing crimes against women to protecting the good name of Indian men is merely another manifestation of patriarchy.

Shooting the messenger doesn't help. We cannot, as a society, begin to address a problem until we acknowledge that it exists. Information is power. Even nasty, inconvenient information can empower us, if we let it.