It
was horrific crime that shocked the world and inspired unprecedented demonstrations
all over India. In its wisdom, the government sprang into action, banning a BBC
documentary featuring an interview with one of the convicted rapist-murderers. However,
in the digital age, they will never cram the genie back into the bottle. The
attitudes expressed by Murkesh Singh and the two appalling lawyers who
represented the unrepentant predators are indeed incendiary, precisely because
they are so widely held. However, Leslee Udwin also pays tribute to Jyoti
Singh, the medical student with so much to offer her country, so cruelly
prevented from fulfilling her promise. Viewers will share the outrage expressed
by the New Delhi protestors after watching Udwin’s India’s Daughter (promo here), which airs this Monday on PBS, as part
of the current season of Independent Lens.
Jyoti
Singh came from humble means, but through hard work and family sacrifice, she
had successfully completed medical school. With her internship starting soon,
Singh decided to enjoy an evening at the movies with a male friend (widely reported
to be Ang Lee’s Life of Pi, which hardly
seems to deserve such tangential infamy). For five men and one juvenile
whose name remains undisclosed, this constituted immodest behavior and
therefore gave them license to gang-rape and brutalize her. Along with her
battered companion, Singh was left for dead by the side of the road.
To
their initial credit, the New Delhi cops swept up the rapist-killers pretty
quickly. That would be Murkesh Singh, his brother Ram Singh, Vinay Sharma,
Pawan Gupta, Akshay Thakur, and the juvenile six months too young to be tried
as an adult. However, when it became clear the authorities and media just didn’t
get the seriousness of the situation or the pervasiveness of the underlying
misogyny, tens of thousands took to the streets and took the blows of the
police batons that followed.
It
is hard to say which is more damning, the dissembling of Murkesh Singh or the chauvinist
ramblings of attorneys ML Sharma and A.P. Singh. Evidently, both counselors now
stand to lose their licenses, because you can be disbarred in India for making
extremely stupid public comments (perhaps the one enlightened aspect of the
Indian legal system worth replicating internationally).
Udwin’s
interview subjects cogently explain the subsequently legal reforms instituted as
a result of the 2012 New Delhi attack, as well as the widespread skepticism
regarding their implementation. Frankly, the film is remarkably comprehensive,
considering it clocks in just shy of an hour. Yet, despite the controversial
honesty of the comments made by the convicted killer and the two defense
attorneys, it is the raw, inconsolable grief of Jyoti Singh’s parents that will
truly cut viewers off at the knees.
