A film about men, religion and violence.
India's Daughter
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- Citation
- Cataloging
- Transcript
INDIA’S DAUGHTER is the powerful story of the 2012, brutal gang rape on a Delhi bus of a 23 year old medical student, who later died from her injuries. In 2012, it made international headlines and ignited protests by women in India and around the world. BAFTA winning filmmaker Leslee Udwin, herself a victim of rape, went to India inspired by the protests against sexual assault. With an all Indian crew, Udwin got exclusive, first time on camera interviews with the rapists and defense attorney, none of whom express remorse. The defense attorney goes even further, stating that “immodest” women deserve what happens to them. An impassioned plea for change, INDIA’S DAUGHTER pays tribute to a remarkable and inspiring young woman and explores the compelling human stories behind the incident and the political ramifications throughout India. But beyond India, the film lays bare the way in which societies and their patriarchal values have spawned such acts of violence globally.
Citation
Main credits
Udwin, Leslee (film director)
Udwin, Leslee (film producer)
Other credits
Editor, Anuradha Singh; original music by Krsna Solo; camera, Abhey Anand [and 7 others].
Distributor subjects
Global Feminism, Human Rights, Sexual Assault, South Asia/India, Violence Against WomenKeywords
WEBVTT
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(low tonal music and traffic driving and honking)
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- [Woman Narrator] On 16 December, 2012 at about 8:30 p.m.
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a 23 year old medical student was on her way home
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from a movie with a male friend.
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(traffic whirring)
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The couple boarded a private bus
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which claimed to be going their way.
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(tense, pulsing music)
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Her friend was badly beaten and she was dragged to the back
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where she was gang raped by six men
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as the bus drove round and round the highways.
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According to the latest government figures,
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a woman is raped in India every 20 minutes.
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But most rapes are unreported.
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This rape led to unprecedented protests
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erupting across India.
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The silence has been broken.
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(yelling and chanting together)
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- We want justice!
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We want justice!
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(yelling and screaming)
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(dramatic militant music)
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(woman humming a haunting melody)
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(low, sustained music)
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(flute music and jail door squeaking open and shut)
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(typing and pensive strings music)
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(traffic whirring by, honking and pensive music)
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(low, tense music and tiger roaring)
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(traffic driving and honking)
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(woman humming a haunting melody)
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- The rape was extremely brutal.
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And it\'s something very unusual to find that you
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not only raped the girl but you put an iron rod
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and take out her entrails.
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I mean, this is something I can\'t understand.
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What kind of human beings are these
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who do something like that?
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- The idea of a gang rape is to send a message,
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you are not to breach this boundary.
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This is a boundary between us and you to do with power.
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- Before this event, there was still a very,
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very strong culture of shame around rape.
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To be raped was deeply shaming.
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That to be raped was worse than to be dead, in fact.
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And so you would get politicians saying
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the most extraordinary things about rape victims.
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That it was better that a rape victim had died
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because had she lived she would just be a walking corpse.
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- [Man Narrator] A young woman was gang raped
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on a moving bus in Delhi last night.
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Not only was she raped, she was brutally beaten
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and thrown off the bus.
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It was the kind of brazen attack that explains why Delhi,
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our national capitol, has been called India\'s rape capitol.
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The accused started the argument with the boy
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when they asked him inside the bus, what he was doing
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with a girl at that time of the night.
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Since the couple retaliated and especially the girl
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fought back very hard, the men got even more angry
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and they thought they must teach her a lesson.
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- Happening to a young woman who represented a symbol
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of new aspiration sent shockwaves through the society.
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In the last 15 to 20 years, the economy has changed a lot
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in India and it\'s created opportunities for young women
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and single women to come and work.
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And it\'s raised expectations across a range of classes
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of young, single women of how they should be allowed
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to live their lives.
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- There are many gang rapes that take place in India
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and they\'ve been taking place over the years.
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But somehow this caught the imagination of people.
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For one thing, it happened in the capitol city.
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It happened in an evening out,
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which was not a late hour, 8:00.
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A young girl and boy were returning home from a movie.
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I mean it was most normal kind of behavior.
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(dramatic music)
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- I think our pain united all of us.
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And I think there wasn\'t one single woman, you know,
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on that day who didn\'t actually feel the pain
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that girl had gone through.
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So that I think is what brought us out on the streets.
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It was gut wrenching pain.
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- I painted a bunch of placards just saying,
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women take back your city.
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Nothing, not inciting violence or anything.
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And we\'re walking down to India Gate and we get accosted
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by a truck full of policemen saying, you can\'t go here.
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It\'s not allowed.
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They just decided that we\'re not gonna let
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these women question us anymore.
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It\'s not their place to do that.
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(metal grating on concrete)
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So we decided to challenge them.
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We decided, you know, we\'ve got civil rights.
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You can\'t just stop us from going anywhere.
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That\'s one of the freedoms that is
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granted to us constitutionally.
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And then things go ugly.
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They started pulling and dragging and shoving us into a van
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and saying, we\'re putting you in lock down.
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- My husband tells me I\'m stupid because I go and prostest,
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you know, without bothering about the consequences.
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But that day was a slap in my face.
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I really thought that if you\'re an educated woman
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and if you\'re courageous and you\'re outspoken
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you know, really what can the police do?
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It was a completely peaceful protest.
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And then within 20 minutes it turned into a war zone.
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(guns firing and yelling)
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(dramatic music)
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- They went out day after day protesting.
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It just showed that they wanted change.
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They believed that change would take place.
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It was the first time that young people had gone out
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to protest without a leader,
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without being called by any political party.
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And the media was all over the young people\'s protest.
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The day by day showed how they were protesting
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and I think that the government was then forced into
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setting up a committee to try and calm things down a bit.
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- The Verma Report was a special judicial committee
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charged by the government of India with canvassing all
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opinion about how the problem of rape could be dealt with.
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And 80,000 responses were sifted through
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by this group of ex-senior judges.
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It was a landmark report and was striking
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in it\'s extreme liberalism.
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It made a number of very fortant recommendations.
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For instance, that things must happen much faster
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in the Indian judicial system.
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The definition of sexual assaults needed to be broadened,
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that the language of modesty and shame needed to be removed
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from the Indian penial code.
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- This was not just about rape and an amendment
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to a criminal law.
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We three were very determined that we are not
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going to let down society.
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Offenses against women was a part of the story.
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The full story needed to be told.
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We felt that we would fail that fantastic civil society
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which gathered around at the gate with candles
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if we did not tell them the true story.
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- The constitution provides for equality.
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It hasn\'t happened because the men don\'t allow it to happen.
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And they feel that that\'s they\'re hold on women.
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And also it\'s because of the historical tradition, you know,
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of patriarchy which has been over the years
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embedded into men and into women.
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- There are a whole range of indicators
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that women are not well treated.
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Short of rape, there are high incidents of acid attacks,
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high incidents of domestic beatings.
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There is, of course, the extraordinary question
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of the sex ratio differential in India.
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I.e. the notion that there are missing women,
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demographically speaking.
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Which seems to reflect a number of things
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but possibly a pre-birth sex selection and feticide.
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- In Marish and Bombay once when they discovered
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that there were 10,000 fetuses that had been destroyed,
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9,999 were female fetuses.
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- The conversation to deal with inequality
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was overdue in India.
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Everyone was there out in the open, demanding justice,
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demanding accountability.
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And when you do demand accountability,
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establishments do feel highly threatened.
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(water rushing and yelling)
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They first thought that this is a movement which can
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be dispersed by use of tear gas shells, force pipes,
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but extraordinary were these protestors.
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- [Man Narrator] One week on since the protestors
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have come out on to the streets of India cities,
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the Prime Minister has broken his silence.
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- And the protests kept coming, kept escalating
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and escalating, not just in Delhi but also in Calcutta
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and Bangalore and Mumbai.
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This was something that was actually
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quite qualitatively different.
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I actually couldn\'t recall an event
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like this in India before.
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- This was, in my view, a very important
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and momentous expression of hope by civil society.
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- [Woman Narrator] Late last night, an ambulance took off
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for Singapore with the girl.
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She\'s at the Mount Elizabeth Hospital,
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one of the best hospitals in the world
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for trauma management and organ transplant.
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- We just, our only wish today is that she recovers
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and that she comes back to us.
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(sad strings and piano music)
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- [Male Narrator] Ram Singh, one of the accused in the
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gruesome December 16 gang rape of a 23 year old girl
00:46:36.900 --> 00:46:39.550
allegedly committed suicide in a special cell
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in Tihar Jail this morning.
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The incident took place in jail number three
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at about 5:45 a.m.
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- Nobody is a monster that he is excluded from society.
00:47:09.640 --> 00:47:13.553
After all, any society which has these rapists
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has to take responsibility for them.
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And this is the first thing which the feminist callers
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who came before the Verma Committee said that
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these are our people, these men our ours.
00:48:17.733 --> 00:48:20.020
- If you come from a family where things like this
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are seen by those who are growing up, they tend to
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look at it very differently \'cause they\'re aware.
00:48:28.030 --> 00:48:31.130
My sister was given less milk than I am.
00:48:31.130 --> 00:48:33.529
I\'m given a whole glass of milk because everybody thinks
00:48:33.529 --> 00:48:37.560
in the family thinks I\'m the boy and I must get more energy.
00:48:37.560 --> 00:48:40.430
And my sister\'s just given a little bit of milk.
00:48:40.430 --> 00:48:42.440
Or she eats last of all.
00:48:42.440 --> 00:48:46.560
Now these are societies practices which somehow
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get embedded in the mind.
00:48:47.990 --> 00:48:50.720
So many of our people grow up thinking that
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a girl is less important than a boy is.
00:48:54.045 --> 00:48:56.700
And because she\'s less important you can do
00:48:56.700 --> 00:48:58.190
what you like with her.
00:48:59.167 --> 00:49:01.834
(pensive music)
00:49:05.354 --> 00:49:07.650
- [Woman Narrator] The verdict from the Juvenile Justice
00:49:07.650 --> 00:49:09.970
Board was delivered a short while ago on the
00:49:09.970 --> 00:49:13.090
juvenile charged with the gang rape of India\'s daughter.
00:49:13.090 --> 00:49:16.250
This young boy who was 17 years and six months at the time
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of the crime has been given the maximum sentence allowed
00:49:18.990 --> 00:49:22.970
for a juvenile, that is a person who is under 18 years.
00:49:22.970 --> 00:49:25.642
He will serve just three years in a special home.
00:49:25.642 --> 00:49:29.725
(reporters all talking together)
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- [Woman Narrator] At 2:30 this afternoon
00:52:55.114 --> 00:52:55.947
unemployed Mukesh Singh,
00:52:55.947 --> 00:52:57.750
bus cleaner Akshay Thakur,
00:52:57.750 --> 00:52:59.550
gym instructor Vinay Sharma
00:52:59.550 --> 00:53:01.570
and friut seller Pawan Gupta
00:53:01.570 --> 00:53:03.080
were sentenced to death.
00:53:04.290 --> 00:53:07.590
The court declared this to be the rarest of rare cases
00:53:07.590 --> 00:53:10.810
that warranted the death penalty and stated that
00:53:10.810 --> 00:53:13.820
gruesome crimes against women have become rampant.
00:53:15.344 --> 00:53:19.047
Defense lawyer, A. P. Singh, has reacted to the sentencing
00:53:19.047 --> 00:53:22.590
in a way that has exposed the mentality that is
00:53:22.590 --> 00:53:24.760
perhaps the biggest hurdle in the fight
00:53:24.760 --> 00:53:28.260
for giving women the respect they deserve.
00:53:49.777 --> 00:53:53.777
(people talking simultaneously)
00:55:12.091 --> 00:55:14.758
(pensive music)
00:56:35.231 --> 00:56:38.480
- The only way you can change things is education
00:56:38.480 --> 00:56:43.480
because education gives a girl self-importance,
00:56:44.260 --> 00:56:47.617
self-worth and it also teaches young men
00:56:47.617 --> 00:56:50.050
the value of the woman.
00:56:50.050 --> 00:56:52.770
- Her death has made a huge difference.
00:56:52.770 --> 00:56:57.660
I think that, first of all, it has really brought home
00:56:57.660 --> 00:57:02.030
the issue of the problems of the way women are perceived,
00:57:02.030 --> 00:57:05.990
young and independent women are perceived in Indian society.
00:57:05.990 --> 00:57:09.700
It\'s opening up a debate in India that I think hasn\'t been
00:57:09.700 --> 00:57:13.057
held publicly and widely about exactly what
00:57:13.057 --> 00:57:17.230
the relationship between men and women should be.
00:57:17.230 --> 00:57:18.920
- These things will change.
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It\'s only \'cause of how hard we push.
00:57:21.170 --> 00:57:23.890
And I think that if the young people are going to push,
00:57:23.890 --> 00:57:25.616
we\'re going to get it.
00:57:25.616 --> 00:57:29.783
(woman humming a haunting melody)
00:59:22.268 --> 00:59:25.518
(somber strings music)
01:00:47.916 --> 01:00:52.916
(reflective piano, flute and orchestra music)
Distributor: Women Make Movies
Length: 62 minutes
Date: 2015
Genre: Expository
Language: English; Hindi / English subtitles
Closed Captioning: Available
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