India: Deepa Mehta's latest feminist film disrupted

Deepa Mehta's latest feminist film disrupted

By Eva Cheng

Progressive Indian film-maker Deepa Mehta's latest production, Water, has been disrupted by violent attacks from Hindu fundamentalists in Varanasi, attacks supported by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government of Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous state.

The UP government refused to take any action during or after the February attacks by their fellow fundamentalists, making it physically impossible for the shooting of Water to continue.

Water is a sequel to Fire and Earth, which featured respectively lesbian relationships in the Indian subcontinent and the post-independence partition of India in the late 1940s.

Despite focusing on the oppression that Indian women suffered early last century, Water is set to provoke embarrassing comparison to the little-changed plight of many Indian women today.

Progressive film-makers, directors, intellectuals, poets, other cultural workers and left parties have risen to condemn the BJP state government, with many public protests. They warned that such attacks are part of the BJP agenda to "saffronise" India according to the dictates of Hindu fundamentalism, which has been spreading in such essential areas such as education and cultural life.

Asian Women Unite, a coalition of 12 Asian women's organisations in Britain and hundreds of individuals, in a February statement, said "We condemn the Indian government's failure to protect Deepa Mehta and others working with her on the film Water from the violence and intimidation of VHP and RSS-backed organisations".

Both VHP (Vishwa Hindu Parishad) and RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the National Volunteer Corps) are Hindu fundamentalist.

"As Asian women in Britain we face not only racism but domestic violence, dowry-related attacks, and forced marriages in the Hindu communities in this country, and therefore we find the stand of the Sangh Parivar organisations particularly galling and contradictory," the statement continued.

"Why should this oppression which we and our foremothers have faced be considered to be both enshrined as a part of the 'Indian culture' as well as kept a secret. And what are the moral values of those who condone sati and gang rapes. As for shame, it is this violent suppression of the freedom of expression which brings shame on India abroad."

Sati is the "obligation" of widows to burn themselves on their husband's funeral pyre; it is formally illegal in India but still widely practiced.

"We condemn the UP government and particularly the chief minister of UP who has neither prevented these attacks from taking place nor even condemned them, although the film script was passed for filming by the highest government authorities.

"This is a frightening reflection of the rise of fascist forces which are acting not only against women but against the democratic rights of everyone in India. We would like to express our solidarity with Deepa Mehta and others involved with the filming of Water," the statement concluded.

From GLW issue 397