BBC Rape Film Widely Seen as Hypocrisy

The BBC production India’s Daughter has been generally seen in the country as “a fake film” (to quote Nirbhaya’s male friend who was with her that fateful night and suffered a fearful beating).

"The documentary is unbalanced as the victim's viewpoint is missing,” Avanindra Pandey told IBN Live. “The facts are hidden and the content is fake.”

Supporting the government’s decision to ban the film, he said “the documentary is far from truth."

As with almost every Indian who has watched the film, he found the jailhouse interview with the rapist offensive.

"A controversy was created unnecessarily and was sensationalized,” he told IBN. “The documentary made fun of emotions and questioned the law and order situation in our country."

Leslee Udwin, the movie’s director has dodged that charge in numerous interviews.

For instance, in answer to a specific question about that by The Hindu she complimented Prime Minister Modi and then added, “All I wanted was to say to the world is that India led by example, now follow India’s lead. This was the point of my film and campaign.”

She has also sought to pass herself off as the “world-renowned” winner of “a British Oscar” and thus presumably beyond question.

In the same grand vein she has pushed the rather maniacal notion that by banning her film India “committed international suicide.”

Indian feminists have generally not taken too kindly to the “White woman’s burden of rape in India” and even usually conservative voices have noted the hypocrisy of the whole exercise.

One retired diplomat circulated reports from the British Press that on average there were about 35 rapes a week in London taxi cabs.

What the BBC Rape Movie is Really About

Our agony aunts in the media and politics beating their breasts about the BBC documentary on Nirbhaya are getting worked up about all the wrong issues.

The movie is not about the terrible attitudes of Indian men, having us “look in the mirror” as a society, or the BBC trying to “understand rape.”

It is just another example of Brits raping India.

They've been doing it for so long its probably second nature (for other examples see here and here), and it is accomplished now with such consummate control over Indian proxies and poodles that if it were the obedience trials at a dog show one would be inclined to give up a round of applause.

As the British rape other nations with "interests" in mind (overview), the Nirbhaya documentary has aim and purpose.

It is meant to keep control of Brand India, a long-standing effort that began early in the colonial era.

During colonial times they controlled India's global image with distorted "histories," talk of Thugee, Sati and Bengali Babus.

Now they do it with suborned novelists (the "Indian" Booker Prize winners), movies (most recently, Slumdog Millionaire and Midnight's Children), and "journalists" (see here).

The fact that in all the earnest baying on television no one even hints at any of these aspects shows just how deeply India is still afflicted by the corruption and lack of character that made colonial rule possible.

The problem, of course, is not just in the media.

Our Home Minister’s claim that he was not aware a British journalist had interviewed a high security prisoner in Tihar jail is alarming.

Did our intelligence agencies report nothing?

If not, that is an even greater cause for worry.

The BJP government can shuffle a good bit of blame onto those in the UPA government who gave permission for the Tihar jail interview (Chidambaram?), but with the BBC journalist coming and going numerous times to New Delhi, and with an Indian co-producer, the project was surely no secret.

The question that needs answering is why so many people kept the lid on this scandal so long. 

Someone in Delhi should make another documentary on who knew what was happening and when.

I would be glad to contribute to the research and script.