By Paromita Vohra
My dear white feminist sisters.
What is the reason you are still making such primitive ‘documentaries‘? Is your patriarchal society, with its belief in objectivity and poor re-enactments, as also editing out leading questions, stifling your expression?
Are you being forced by the backward thinking men in your families and society into making essentialist explanations about other societies to undermine feminist solidarity and political engagement? Are you being treated as cheap labour to make voyeurism that reaffirms the poor mindset of your society?
Tell me what I can do?I am filmmaker, a woman, and a feminist. So that means I mean all the simplistic things I’ve said about you in a very noble way. I feel really bad about this situation. I disagree with the ban on your film in India. I want to do something to help you make good, liberated films. Send me a sign. Or should I send you a Punjammy, “the loungewear trousers made with hope by women in India who have escaped human trafficking”, instead?
In solidarity,
Paromita
Paromita Vohra is a documentary filmmaker and writer whose work focuses on gender, desire, urban life and popular culture. She is currently working on a non-fiction book about love in contemporary India. More at www.parodevi.com and less @parodevi.
March 5, 2015 at 1:13 pm
I’m trying to learn. Can you tell me more about what this means? What are “essentialist arguments”? From an older white feminist in the U.S.
March 5, 2015 at 3:34 pm
cgnoland03 http://kafila.org/2013/05/23/capitalism-sexual-violence-and-sexism-kavita-krishnan/
Please to read and learn, about the work being done by Indian feminists. It is their voices and faces that need a global platform on women’s day, not that of a Rapist and of a film maker, who however well-meaning, knows very little about the complexities of the Indian reality…
March 5, 2015 at 4:28 pm
Paromita Vohra please watch the film !
March 5, 2015 at 4:37 pm
Paromita vohra please watch the film
I understand u too are a documentary film maker …independent thinker …am shocked at your open letter ….u have come out to be a very touchy individual …dont understand whats bothering u about the film …the film in no way glorifying the convicts and his lawyers …its showing us the mirror of our society ….are u just mad because this film has been made by a foreigner? Thats what pinching u ?
March 5, 2015 at 4:54 pm
This does not make any sense. What’s the problem with her being ‘white’ and ‘liberal’? Would the film be OK if a brown skinned Indian made it? Everything in the film and anything even “suggested” in the film is true and I as an Indian man confirm it. Been living in India for 23 years and our “collective culture” i.e mindset is really, really fucked up.
March 5, 2015 at 4:56 pm
Please don’t fall in the same essentialising trap you have disliked about this whole thing, by addressing one prototype of white woman please!
March 5, 2015 at 5:37 pm
I don’t get it. So is it the sole preserve of our ‘brown skinned’ sisters to defend our ‘Indian’ feminist ideals? How does one who has seen this documentary think it is racist or preachy? Sure if she has a different take on it and makes another documentary, we would gladly watch and debate. Sure we can go ahead and make a documentary of the ‘white skinned’ upper class western IMF head rape docu, that would legitametly even things out.
March 5, 2015 at 6:13 pm
The documentary is well made. I don’t understand the entire argument. Just because she is a British film maker hardly makes it rascist. Your article as off line as the governments stand to ban it. Thankfully half of India has watched it by now.
March 5, 2015 at 8:21 pm
Appalling someone could actually say this. Sorry state of affairs. Frankly discouraging and demoralizing.
Maybe Ms. Vora could make a better film on this subject, well she lost her chance. Tough luck.
So why not support the one which is only exposing the sickness that plagues India!!
March 6, 2015 at 5:03 am
Ahh first i lost my chance to make a film on the same subject, and get popular. Now, again, I lost my 2nd change to write somebody “negative” about the film and get it published and get popular!
(You know everybody is talking positive about the film, so to gain some attention I have to talk…?? you guessed it right) Anyways any of my film didn’t bring me that fame unfortunately, so lets take this shortcut. As they say “Sour Grapes”.
March 6, 2015 at 5:10 am
Don’t talk shit… where the hell were you… u bloody was here all the time what the fuck did u do??? ..so now shut the fuck up and u bloody don’t make any sense at all.. Don’t insult the term feminist by using it on urself….
March 6, 2015 at 8:48 am
confused sole. May god bless you and your ilk
March 6, 2015 at 9:04 am
How dare she make a documentary that better than mine.
March 6, 2015 at 9:19 am
kavita_krishnan Disturbed at references to “white” filmmakers.Why does skin colour matter?There were harsh truths in the #BBCdocumentary.
March 6, 2015 at 10:27 am
It is one thing to not understand the tone of this letter. It is another thing to rage at Vohra because you have not understood the seething sarcasm in every well-chosen word of it.
March 6, 2015 at 11:42 am
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March 6, 2015 at 6:33 pm
UditiShane cgnoland03 Actually Kavita herself appears in the film…
March 6, 2015 at 9:35 pm
rnxaditya UditiShane cgnoland03 Kavita later realized (after appearing in the film and before it was released that Leslee Udwin may have made this documentary as a part of White People’s “civilizing mission” for India. Read her article : http://www.dailyo.in/politics/kavita-krishnan-nirbhaya-december-16-indias-daughter-leslee-udwin-mukesh-singh-bbc/story/1/2347.html
March 6, 2015 at 9:38 pm
Any Women Activist can not question Kavita Krishnana’s credentials. Read what her concerns are about the “Intent ” behind making this documentary which seems as a White People’s “civilizing mission ” for India: http://www.dailyo.in/politics/kavita-krishnan-nirbhaya-december-16-indias-daughter-leslee-udwin-mukesh-singh-bbc/story/1/2347.html
March 6, 2015 at 10:38 pm
SanaSaeed did you see it ?
March 6, 2015 at 10:47 pm
DeadHellonEarth Not yet
March 6, 2015 at 10:48 pm
SanaSaeed YouTube blocked it…maybe hard to find…but it’s interesting to say the least. “We are the monsters we create” HenaZuberi
March 7, 2015 at 12:13 pm
The film ‘India’s Daughter’ looks like capturing significant features of
moral policing and ‘consensual’ violence in India by men. No doubt it
might have been attempted in a very atypical way. The nuances here seem
to pause tough challenge to the way Indian radicals and leftists have
been seeing class and gender. It is not that the issue of rape is
directly correlated to problems of deprivation in general. Still, the
viewer might get a clue about recent escalation in the degree of
criminalization and lumpenisation of the polity as a whole.
So far I have not been able to watch the film in full .My comment is therefore based on viewing only the official trailer and on reading between the lines of lots of outrageous responses by women activists and intelligentsia in this country.
By the way,will anyone tell me more about ‘White feminism’ ?
To me, this piece looks to be just an addition to the typical modes of denial of universality (of gender violence ), in preference to identity politics
March 7, 2015 at 2:07 pm
kavita_krishnan thanks for this & for your piece pointing #whitewomansaviorcomplex. Happened at Oscars this yr too http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2015/2/and-the-oscar-goes-to–white-woman-savior-complex.html
March 7, 2015 at 2:13 pm
rafiazakaria Here’s my perspective on the whole “white woman” thing http://binashahblog.com/2015/03/07/should-white-women-make-documentaries-about-rape-in-india/ kavita_krishnan
March 7, 2015 at 2:15 pm
rafiazakaria kavita_krishnan read Bina Shah today ?
March 7, 2015 at 2:18 pm
BinaShah kavita_krishnan I disagree. it’s about how white women speak for all women, here’s my ajam piece on this http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2015/2/and-the-oscar-goes-to–white-woman-savior-complex.html
March 7, 2015 at 2:24 pm
rafiazakaria BinaShah kavita_krishnan ajam it’s ridiculous not to acknowledge as a WOC that the face of the LGBT movement is white males
March 7, 2015 at 2:24 pm
rafiazakaria BinaShah kavita_krishnan ajam naive not to admit that as a Latina who participated in many movements besides women’s rights
March 7, 2015 at 2:25 pm
rafiazakaria BinaShah kavita_krishnan ajam that men have sidestepped me &are misogynist including work in police brutality
March 7, 2015 at 2:26 pm
rafiazakaria BinaShah kavita_krishnan ajam were the women in the civil rights movement brushed aside? Yes.
March 7, 2015 at 2:27 pm
rafiazakaria BinaShah kavita_krishnan ajam LGBT men r now turning 2 antichoice rhetoric as they gain rights. Where does that leave us?
March 7, 2015 at 2:27 pm
rafiazakaria BinaShah kavita_krishnan ajam so Patricia says, we support civil rights &LGBT (who the face of those movements r males)
March 7, 2015 at 2:28 pm
rafiazakaria BinaShah kavita_krishnan ajam will they support us too? Many times they wont
March 7, 2015 at 2:28 pm
rafiazakaria BinaShah kavita_krishnan ajam how many civil rights activists esp in old guard oppose women? So many sister
March 7, 2015 at 2:29 pm
Cisa_evie I get what you’re saying. I don’t think the white woman is the enemy. rafiazakaria kavita_krishnan ajam
March 7, 2015 at 2:29 pm
rafiazakaria BinaShah kavita_krishnan ajam same w Chicano movement in the 1970s. Led by misogynists. They included women as assistants
March 7, 2015 at 2:30 pm
rafiazakaria BinaShah kavita_krishnan doesn’t mean we don’t appreciate what they did for Mexican Americans as a whole
March 7, 2015 at 2:30 pm
rafiazakaria BinaShah kavita_krishnan ajam but Mexican men & MLK and Baptist preachers expected these women to be in their “place”
March 7, 2015 at 2:31 pm
rafiazakaria BinaShah kavita_krishnan ajam The uproar hs nothing 2 do w/ white feminists speaking 4 all.. sharmeenochinoy faced 1/2
March 7, 2015 at 2:31 pm
rafiazakaria BinaShah kavita_krishnan ajam that’s what she is touching on &bc I know my community &the history it’s 100% valid &true
March 7, 2015 at 2:32 pm
Cisa_evie Yep. That’s why intersectionality is a thing now, not back then. rafiazakaria kavita_krishnan ajam
March 7, 2015 at 2:32 pm
BinaShah rafiazakaria kavita_krishnan ajam thanks. She touched on something happening behind the scenes in any social justice group
March 7, 2015 at 2:33 pm
BinaShah rafiazakaria kavita_krishnan ajam def. Woc r still pushed aside 4 their efforts in LGBT &civil rights.
March 7, 2015 at 2:33 pm
BinaShah rafiazakaria kavita_krishnan ajam men have thanked me 4 organizing &then tried to take over take credit of effort black&brown
March 7, 2015 at 2:33 pm
rafiazakaria BinaShah kavita_krishnan ajam 2/2 criticism on her doc wch won an #Oscar ..all coz we dont want to face “reality” #ithurts
March 7, 2015 at 2:33 pm
BinaShah Cisa_evie kavita_krishnan ajam ha calling for a more robust feminist solidarity isn’t calling white women the enemy!
March 7, 2015 at 2:34 pm
BinaShah rafiazakaria kavita_krishnan ajam they still see us as secretaries no matter the color.
March 7, 2015 at 2:35 pm
AbdShako BinaShah kavita_krishnan ajam I face reality every time I write. Take a moment to read 😉 bowing out of this now.
March 7, 2015 at 2:35 pm
rafiazakaria BinaShah kavita_krishnan ajam as an organizer 4 many causes, as a Latina immigrant, teenage mom, I am w Patricia 100%.
March 7, 2015 at 2:48 pm
rafiazakaria BinaShah kavita_krishnan ajam I’m sure u do,guess it hurts more whn an outsider focuses on it. Silly being angry @ outsider
March 7, 2015 at 3:16 pm
“Tell me what I can do, send me sign…”.
Paromita,
Why not contact Leslie and start a discussion on how the both of you can reach out to leaders and the people in the international community to expand the current dialog on how to solve the problems of rape in the global community???
If you want to stay within the medium if film, one idea would be to have directors (Female and male, since some women dislike gender distinction) from the international community and create a film which is a mosaic of short films ( fiction/non fiction) directed by each of you that deal with the issue of rape. You could even create a film festival of short films. It would be a lot of work, but many people in the world would benefit. Here is a list of directors you could consider.
Samira Makhmalbaf ( Iran)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rakhshan_Bani-Etemad ( Iran)
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Marta_Rodriguez&action=edit&redlink=1http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rakhshan_Bani-Etemadhttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Marta_Rodriguez&action=edit&redlink=1 ( Columbia)
Mira Nair (India/USA)
Deepa Meetha (Canada)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sangeeta http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamim_Ara ( Pakistan)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ann_Hui ( Hong Kong)
Penda Diakité (Mali)
Iquo B. Essien (Nigeria)
Moufida Tlatli (Tunisia)
Jennifer Jordan (USA, fmr reporter at NPR)
D. Virginie Despentes (France)
Kanu Behl (India)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Souleymane_Ciss%C3%A9, (Mali)
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0003458/(USA)
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0637615/ (France)
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0411027/ (Japan)
Nouri Bouzid (Tunisia)
March 8, 2015 at 12:20 am
@rafiazakaria BinaShah kavita_krishnan ajam
March 8, 2015 at 12:20 am
@rafiazakaria BinaShah kavita_krishnan ajam dd
March 8, 2015 at 12:20 am
@rafiazakaria BinaShah kavita_krishnan ajam