My parents grew up in Delhi and the city is like a second home to us. In addition to my cultural roots and personal connection to the country, I also have a deep, personal interest in Indian society, traditions, and practices and always look forward to our bi-annual trip to visit my family and friends.
When I landed in Delhi’s international airport on December 18th 2012, though, I was greeted with riots in the streets. Women and men were uniting throughout the city as well as the entire country to demand an end to rape and violence against women.
Every 20 minutes, a woman is raped in India and most of these rapes go unheard and unreported. But a rape that occurred two days before my arrival on the night of December 16th hardly went unnoticed. Jyoti Singh, an ambitious 23-year-old medical student, was gang raped by 6 men on a bus. She was beaten, tortured, sexually assaulted, and mutilated with foreign objects. Presumed dead by these drunken men, she was thrown off the moving bus along with her male friend who accompanied her that night.
This happened at 9 pm. She was rushed to the hospital but the doctors did not know how to save her. Her injuries were worse than they had ever seen before and no one expected should would survive. She suffered for 10 days in a Delhi hospital before she was airlifted to Mount Elizabeth in Singapore. After several surgeries, she died on December 28th.
Four of the six men accused were sentenced to death by hanging for rape, unnatural sex, and murder. At the time of the attack, one of the men was only 17 years old and was sentenced to only three years in a juvenile center by the juvenile court. This “juvenile” was in fact the first man to rape Jyoti and the man who threw her off of a moving bus when she was presumed dead. The sixth rapist committed suicide in jail after receiving his sentence.
In March of 2015, two and a half years later, the BBC released a documentary called India’s Daughter. This documentary’s primary purpose is to raise awareness about Jyoti Singh and her case and call into question the mindset and mentality that exists in India surrounding women and sexual and nonsexual violence. Just after the BBC broadcasted the documentary, India banned it. Weeks later, the BBC requested Google remove the video from internet portals and YouTube. Now the documentary can only be viewed on the BBC’s website using a UK IP address.
The original ban in India was primarily due to the inappropriate inclusion of one of the rapist’s interviews and perspective on the attack. The incarcerated rapist first spoke about his perception of women’s roles in society, stating that, “A girl is far more responsible for rape than a boy is.” He then blamed Jyoti for this ‘incident’ because “a decent girl won’t roam around at 9 o’clock at night.”
As I watched this documentary, I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt and wondered if his view was possibly the result of a lack of education or growing up in a slum-like community. But then the two defense lawyers for the rapists, both highly educated, provided another “insight” on the proper behavior of women in India. MP Sharma commented, “in our society, we never allow our girls to come out of the house after 6:30, 7:30, 8:30 at night… unless it is with a family member.” Similarly, AP Singh the other lawyer, said, “if a woman or girl misbehaves in my household I will throw them out, pour gasoline on them and then set them on fire.”
This is what we’re up against. I am deeply saddened and honestly ashamed of the Indian government’s decision to ban the documentary. India is a democracy where the freedom of speech is a right, just like it is in the U.S. In India, millions of girls are uneducated. Don’t they deserve to know about the disgusting habits of some in their society?
Leslee Udwin, the documentary filmmaker, defended her film after it was banned. She said, “My integrity and my objective in making this film is totally honest. I myself have been raped. There is no shame for me; the shame is for the rapists. The film tries to show the disease is not the rapists, the disease is in society.”
This really struck me. Our global society is diseased. Women are abused and raped and stripped of all rights throughout the world. Censorship provides no hope in finding a cure. Banning documentaries that reveal the realities of sexual violence ensures the truth will never be heard and the problem will never be tackled.
It’s time to speak the stories of heinous acts committed against women throughout the world. As a part of a global community, we must share and unite to be the cure for this rampant and contagious disease.
