India news channel in on-air protest against rape documentary ban

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/08/india-news-channel-banned-from-showing-gang-documentary

Version 0 of 1.

A news channel in India banned by the government from showing a controversial documentary about the fatal gang rape of a young woman in Delhi responded with a powerful hour-long on-air protest on Sunday night.

Leslee Udwin’s documentary India’s Daughter was due to be shown on the Indian news channel NDTV on International Women’s Day, but the screening was cancelled after the government in Delhi went to court to ban the film in India.

The ban forced tens of thousands of Indians to turn to the internet to see the film. And the response of viewers was overwhelmingly against the ban on the film about the horrific gang rape of a student in December 2012.

For the hour during which the film was due to air on Sunday night, NDTV instead displayed the title of the film in red and white against a black background, illuminated only by a traditional oil wicker lamp normally used in Hindu religious ceremonies.

The running text carried in a strapline below reproduced the reactions of well-known Indians to the film, and their disquiet at the government ban.

For a full hour, the tribute was telecast in total silence, except when the strapline repeated a statistic about rapes in India, against the muffled sound of a heartbeat: “One rape every 20 minutes.”

The text in the strapline began with the reaction of Madhu Trehan, founder of India Today news magazine. “Banning the film without seeing it was a mindless and extraordinary thing to do,” she said.

She recalled a speech by the prime minister, Narendra Modi, on India’s independence day, that exhorted parents to end discrimination against girls.

“Our PM attacked the social system in his speech,” said Trehan. “The film does the same. The BJP (Modi’s party) should have adopted it, translated it into regional (Indian) languages, and showed it all over the country.”

Though the prime minister often tweets and speaks on social issues, he has yet to speak out on the decision announced by his home minister to go to court and prevent Indians from seeing the film.

But in a statement on International Women’s Day, Modi said: “Our heads hang in shame when we hear of instances of crime against women. We must walk shoulder-to-shoulder to end all forms of discrimination or injustice against women.”

Modi said the government will set up “one-stop centres” to provide assistance, legal advice and psychological counselling to women who face violence or abuse.

But even as the home minister defended his action against India’s Daughter, a law student filed a public interest litigation in the Delhi high court asking for the ban on the film to be lifted.

Gul Panag, a Bollywood star who is also a political activist, asked: “Shouldn’t we confront the evil instead of wishing it away?”