INDIA’S DAUGHTER

Leslee Udwin’s documentary for BBC about the Nirbhaya rape case gives us some ugly truths. As expected, Udwin makes no pretence of trying to put any of them in perspective. For hers is that familiar offering of the great Indian underbelly; and it’s meant to cater to that same clientele which so gleefully lapped up ‘The White Tiger’ and ‘Slumdog Millionaire’. Interestingly, it’s not a difficult recipe to whip-up.
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Toss into the pan some outrageously remorseless statements by an accused rapist(mind you, all diligence must be exercised to peel those statements clean of any perspective or context. Leave no trace of the interviewer’s questions in the narrative.) Now allow the statements to cook on a slow fire. Stew till the remorselessness starts to give-off an odour of absurdity. Then once you sniff that sweet smell, throw in the mainstay flavours: the exalted views of two particularly erudite lawyers. Add to this some cherry-picked segments from the policemen-conversations (ensuring that all frivolous bits are retained even as the swiftness of nabbing the criminals is lightly glossed over.) Throw in some youth-protest clippings that have been neutered to reek of farce. Finally, garnish with some slum-shots and serve hot.
 
So, does Udwin’s take call for outright rejection? I don’t think so. Her adoption of the Animal-Planet methodology (using the behaviour of a dozen specimens to draw inferences about a whole species) does not legitimise our use of selective vision. The fact that hers isn’t a complete picture does not imply that we in turn ignore the parts that are pertinent.
If anything, we need to look at that picture with extra care. We need to be wary of the incendiary undercurrents that run-through it. In particular, we need to be wary of the brushstrokes that touch-up the interviewed rapist. Because by escalating the rapist’s remorselessness to a degree that is absurd, the painter tacitly seeks to exonerate him. ‘Such a system will produce such people’ she almost tells us, sending freewill for a toss.
I’m reminded of the real-life kidnapping and murder of Bobby Franks - an incident that spawned two Hollywood movies (‘Rope’ by Hitchcock, and ‘Compulsion’ starring Orson Welles).In an endeavour to prove that they were above the everyday morals meant for ordinary humans(an endeavour inspired by Nietzsche’s Ubermensch), two teenagers in Illinois kidnapped and murdered a 14 year old acquaintance. This is how their lawyer, Clarence Darrow, defended the murderer in court. ‘...Is Dickey Loeb to blame because out of the infinite forces that conspired to form him, the infinite forces that were at work producing him ages before he was born, that because out of these infinite combinations he was born without that something? If he was, then there should be a new definition for justice. Is he to blame for what he did not have and never had? Is he to blame that his machine is imperfect? Who is to blame? I do not know. I know that somewhere in the past that entered into him something missed. It may be defective nerves. It may be a defective heart or liver. It may be defective endocrine glands. I know it is something...’
 
Sounds absurd? It shouldn’t. Darrow’s ‘something’, after all, is not much different from Udwin’s ‘something’.