The fateful night of December 16, 2012 when a 23-year-old woman was not just gang-raped but had her private parts mutilated, sent a shock wave across India. Every Indian felt that they had lost a close one that day. So shocking was the news that people took to the streets, to raise a voice and protest in a manner that had never been witnessed before.
Fast forward to March 2015 when BBC decided to release a document on the incident, which the producer Leslee Udwin said was inspired by the protest in Delhi. With their eyes and ears open, every Indian was eagerly waiting for the documentary to be released when Mukesh, one of the convicts statement made it to the headlines: “Women should remain inside their houses... Her resistance provoked the men to rape her.”
The news made the convict a celebrity overnight, and soon the news that money was paid to Mukesh by the BBC producer resulted in banning the documentary from being aired in India. The question remains: Was the ban worth it?
The video begins with the interviews of the victim’s parents, her tuition teacher and defence lawyers. The documentary takes the audience through a gamut of emotions, and then some disturbing statements from the defence lawyers. Their statements were no less than pointing fingers at the victim’s character. Albeit, the reality is that the victim’s parents were aware of the fact that she had gone out with a male friend that fateful night.
A country marred with honour killings, and where the number of rape cases reported are touching the ceiling, a report or a documentary that shows rape as an inherent possibility in India had to be stopped from being aired. Fair enough!
Towards the end of the documentary, excerpts of family members evoke sympathy towards the convicts. It is not hard to see why these men had committed such a heinous crime because to them — violating a woman was not something new. This leaves the audience thinkin whether this is how an average Indian thinks and behaves? Fortunately no.
Though the impetuous decision to ban this video has only served to sensationalise it because had it not been banned and had Mukesh’s comments not made it to the headlines, the documentary would have gone unnoticed. The situation is further exacerbated by the news that the Supreme Court has not heard the case for over a year. While banning the documentary remains a debatable issue, but delaying justice in this case is denying justice to every woman who has ever been violated.
— The reader is an Indian corporate trainer based in Abu Dhabi
