Redemption really came in the final segment of the show when Aamir Khan interviewed two remarkable rape survivors.
In the two hours that it took to telecast the first episode of Star Plus’ second season of Satyamev Jayate, over five women and girls would have reported rape somewhere in India. In a country where a woman is raped every 22 minutes, over five women would have lived out what Aamir Khan outlined as the ordeal of a rape survivor. Somewhere a girl or woman would have been telling police the details of how she had been raped and by whom; she would be preparing to submit to the humiliation of a medical examination as described in the show though, of course, there would have been no way of her knowing just then that her fight for justice would take her through a long legal battle that could take decades.
Despite the cynics and naysayers, I found Khan’s show gripping and emotional. It doesn’t matter that he’s being paid a big fat fee. It doesn’t matter that the research is being conducted by someone else. It doesn’t even matter that on occasion I found his raised eyebrows, that sharp intake of breath to express shock, the manufactured expression of bewildered amazement plain grating. When the subject of your programme is so intense, the minimalist actor-anchor, who has talked about rape and sexual abuse in the previous season, would have done well to remember that less is usually plenty. These are stories that are so gripping and so horrific, that no embellishments are needed, ever.
Khan pretty much stuck to the map that every rape survivor travels after she is raped: The police, the hospitals and all-important medical, the legal system and, finally, social ostracism and attitudes. Nothing he revealed was new, even if it remains particularly shameful. Yes, we know police are apathetic and a Tehelka sting revealed some pretty godawful attitudes to women who had been raped. Yes, we know the legal system is tortuous with its constant adjournments. And, yet, these women fight.
Then there were areas that the producers simply steered clear of. Are we really not ready to talk about marital rape or rape by armed forces in conflict areas? What about the fact that in 98% of the 24,923 rape cases registered last year in India, the offenders were known to their victims; 393 involved parents or close relatives according to data analysed by the website India Spend, which in percentage terms is up 47% in just one year (click here to read the full report). Perhaps the producers decided that incest was too stomach-churning for Sunday morning viewing on a family channel.
Some claims generated controversy even as they were made. For instance, do medical textbooks in India really ask doctors to look at rape survivors with suspicion when they come to be examined? I’m not sure, but if that is claim is correct, it deserves further probe.
And some things I just didn’t get. Dial a number to join Satyamev Jayate’s fight against rape? Err, how? How does a call, and a missed call at that, on a toll-free number change social attitudes? Perhaps I’ve missed a vital point, but the more pressing message would have been: Ok, guys, we have a tough new law on rape, on paper at least, now what are you going to do about changing your attitudes?
You cannot ‘fight rape’ without first demolishing a patriarchal system that raises entitled men and submissive daughters. You cannot talk about rape without talking about the skewed sex ratio caused by the selective abortion of female fetuses (most prevalent in our richest states like Haryana and Punjab). Perhaps these questions are too complex and too layered for a ratings-driven television show. But they are the truth.
And, yet, for all its faults, I have to salute episode 1, season 2, Satyamev Jayate. Given that it is made for mass consumption, that it avoids a lot of inconvenient contours and that it really uncovers no new ground, just talking about a rape survivor’s ordeal is a huge step forward for consciousness-raising. In a country where we can reel off rape statistics faster than we can literacy rates, this is not a small achievement. What Khan really did for those two hours was to put us in the shoes of rape survivors. What happens to these women and girls after the screaming headlines (and not every rape even becomes a headline)?
For me as a viewer, redemption really came in the final segment of the show. After detailing police apathy, medical negligence and judicial tardiness, Khan interviews two remarkable women: Urmila Singh Bharti, a dalit from Madhya Pradesh and Suzette Jordan who discarded the anonymity of being known as the ‘Park Street rape victim’ to reclaim her identity as a living, breathing woman.
What courage, what spirit does it take for a woman to continue to fight for justice, knowing that the system is so loaded against you? These are real women, says Khan, they are not some ‘zinda lash’ (I wonder if recalling Sushma Swaraj’s unfortunate choice of words to describe the physiotherapy student who was gang-raped and killed in December 2012 was deliberate).
For two hours on national television, Aamir Khan and the producers of Satyamev Jayate did a remarkable thing. They brought the ‘r’ word right into our drawing rooms. As fathers and daughters and mothers and sons watched across the nation, I can only hope that the conversation continued well after the show.