INDIA'S DAUGHTER: OPEN LETTER TO THE GOVERNMENT

Dear Government,

India’s Daughter, I considered myself one too and so did half the nation living under one government, hoping for the same damn thing since ages- our rights and our freedom! My freedom! Come to think of it, it’s strange that in our world we ask for our freedom, ask for our rights to be given to us, for justice to be done. Why ask? Why beg? Is this what it all is? The modern, independent woman must bow down and succumb to the pressures of the male dominated society and beg that justice be done to her? Does that give you a sense of power?

I am a woman and I live in India. And yes I am afraid, afraid all the time that I am a woman, afraid that I live in a land that through actions, time and again have proved being a woman gives you no right, no freedom. Up until now, I like many others believed that someday there will be better security, better hope, better future and if nothing more at least equality of man and woman. But I was foolish and so are you if you think better of the future.

I’m sure now that I have accepted that and am willing to close my eyes to you, the fascist government, infringing on my right and upholding the very thought that man and woman of the modern world have tried to fight, the mindset of a woman being the lowly one, the less deserving one, the world is going to be a better place. Isn’t that all you want, the men in power who are sitting on your high chairs (surprisingly with the votes of man and woman alike)? You want us to turn a blind eye to all that threatens us, turn a blind eye to the hurt and the wounds on our body and walk away from it all, like nothing happened. But dear government, we have been quiet too long and you can ban all that you want, but you will never be able to ban and stop the fire that is ignited within.

India’s Daughter reflects the mentality of not just the rapists or the so called ‘educated’ lawyer, it reflects the mentality of the society that we live in. The men that we women may be brushing shoulders against in buses and trains and it shows just how unsafe we are! Ban it, to give us a false notion of security but trust me dear ones, on those high chairs we did not need a documentary to tell us this society is full of misogynistic ideas and men who are equal to stray dogs running on the roads. We did not need a lawyer to point out the fucked up state of our nation. We knew it all along, it’s just reality hitting the entire nation at once.  

It sickens me to see what this great country has come to and I feel ashamed that I live under this sort of a government that had a bad past, no doubt but shows us a bleak future as well. It saddens me that Nirbhaya could be anybody, even me. What are you afraid of? Being questioned? Are you afraid that may be now a woman will come to her full power and say No! Is that what I see? Fear of the masses coming together for a woman? Is that against this country’s values and principles? The blind folded Lady of Justice in your courts has taken an all new meaning. You have tarnished the belief that I had in you.

You can ban the film for fear of your power be shaken, but if these atrocities require a nude protest to stop, if you require a protest with women all over to come together with their honour and chastity unhidden to send out a message that it never is in our clothes or our moves and that consent belongs to us, then that sort of a protest is not too far away.

In all glory I would like to say, do not proscribe the film, proscribe me! I am the fault, I am a woman! And I am a happy fault, a strong one, a powerful one, and I don’t need your permission to speak, to question, to exist!

Yours Faithfully

India’s Daughter