I rarely read the NYT and when I opened it more out of curiosity than anything else, what do I see splashed on the front page today yesterday?
Film Ignites the Wrath of Hindu Fundamentalists
India has made headlines as an emerging superpower, a land of high-tech multimillionaires and a vast new market for American goods. But there is another India too, and it is not just the one of villages and ox carts that has always been best known in the West.Lisa Ray plays a widow forced into prostitution in Deepa Mehta’s “Water,” about the degradation of Hindu widows in India in the 1930’s. The film has sparked protests.
This is the disturbing India of the Hindu widow, a woman traditionally shunned as bad luck and forced to live in destitution on the edge of society. Her husband’s death is considered her fault, and she has to shave her head, shun hot food and sweets and never remarry. In the pre-independence India of the 1930’s, the tradition applied even to child brides of 5 or 6 who had been betrothed for the future by their families but had never laid eyes on their husbands.
“Hindu Fundamentalists” indeed. I won’t go over the columnist’s irresponsible usage of terminology about a phenomenon she has not understood: I’ve done it elsewhere. So, first things first.
The columnist goes whatever her credentials, is absolutely unqualified to speak on a subject she knows so little about. She betrays her ignorance in these lines:
The sorrowful film is nonetheless a triumph of conscience over blind faith, and a powerful message about how much, and how little, has changed in India.
What blind faith is she talking about? About the prohibition on widow remarriage? And that it is always the “society’s” fault? And that by implication, Hindu society is–gosh!–sooooo primitive? Such cruelty! Barbarism! How about looking at it from the actual widow’s perspective. I’ll let S Gurumurthy speak. This is from an interview that Rediff carried about 6 years ago when Her Holiness Deepa Mehta was shooting the film in Benares. He says this about traditional Hindu widows:
I look at it from an entirely different point of view. I see a weak society and a sick mind combined together to produce something of this kind. Their first production showed that Indian women are sex starved and so they seek relief in lesbianism. How many Indian women do this?… I will tell you, Sarada mata, after becoming a widow, went to Brindavan and said that the Brindavan widows are an example and illustration to her. See how Sarada mata looks at them and how Deepa Mehta views these widows. It is the difference between Yudhishtira and Duryodhana.
In the Mahabharata, Krishna asks Duryodhana to find one good man and he also asks Yudhishtira to find one bad man. Both of them come back in the evening and report to Krishna. What happened was Yudhishitira could not find one bad man and Duryodhana could not find one good man. Yudhishtira saw at least one good trait in all men and Duryodhana saw at least one bad trait in every man he met.
Sarada mata saw goodness in 98 per cent of the widows and Deepa Mehta sees only the two per cent or five per cent who are fallen. And these women would be fallen in any case, whether they are widows or unmarried or married.
Every widow who is already hurt in life will feel humiliated if she sees this film. She may feel, she will also be looked at like that. Take for instance, a film on airhostesses. If the airhostess is portrayed as a woman having extra marital affairs in the film, will not honorable air hostesses feel hurt? Are you not hurting a particular segment?
THIS is the problem with coconuts–to borrow Richard Crasta’s delightful term for pseudo-westernized Indians like Mehta–who stoop to any antics to impress the White skin by painting their own culture black. Add to this a dash of their message of social reform and liberation and you have a hideous caricature that defies description. On the contrary, this actually aptly describes the likes of Deepa Mehta. Deepa Mehta is no social reformer or maker of meaningful cinema but a crass opportunist who is out to earn fast money by misrepresenting a culture she is ashamed to belong to. Unable to counter genuine criticism by people like Gurumurthy, she takes refuge in pompous statements like:
“I think it’s slightly naïve for me to think that films make a difference,” Ms. Mehta, the director, said in a telephone interview from Toronto…
I’m tempted to ask: then what do you make them for? To express your creativity by hurting people’s sensitivities? If Mehta is this fortright in taking up social causes, why doesn’t she focus on the plight of women under Islam? She’d be bombed out of her senses before she knows it’s happened to her. But denigrating Hinduism is she knows, both a tried and safe route to riches and international critical acclaim. The jury, bless them, who awarded her for the soft-porn film, Fire can only be compared to a jury of the blind who award the one-eyed person. Plus there’s also the ever-dependable ally for her in both the secular Indian media and the Hindu-hostile international media to lambast any criticism: blame it on the Hindu Fundamentalists.
“In retrospect,” Ms. Mehta said in a director’s statement that accompanies the release of the film, ” ‘Water’ reflected what was taking place in India in some form or other: the rise of Hindu fundamentalism and high intolerance for anything or anybody that viewed it with skepticism. Therefore, we were a soft and highly visible target.”
Right. You portray the majority of Hindu widows as sex-starved nymphets and when they protest, you label that intolerance. It is also interesting how Deepa Mehta traces the “inspiration” for this trash.
Ms. Mehta said she got the idea for “Water” a decade ago, when she was in Varanasi directing a one-hour television episode of “The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles” for George Lucas. One morning on the ghats she was horrified to see a widow scampering on all fours searching for her glasses. When the widow couldn’t find them, she sat down on her haunches to cry, completely ignored by the people around her.
“It wasn’t shock, but I felt totally ignorant,” said Ms. Mehta, whose father was a film distributor in the Indian city of Amritsar and graduated from the University of New Delhi. “Where the hell had I been?” Her own grandmother was a widow, but “she ruled the house,” Ms. Mehta said. “She was the matriarch.”
Now, that’s how classics are inspired! You take one rotten apple from a crate and then conclude that all apples in the crate are rotten. By the same reasoning, I can simply conclude based on Bill Clinton’s episode, that all American men are habitual philanderers and make a movie on the subject.
Lastly, there’s also something to be said about the reportage slant in the New York Times. For this is not the first time it has carried Hindu-bashing articles nor will it be the last. I suspect it hires trolls writers for this unstated purpose of India/Hindu-bashing: Pankaj Mishra comes to mind first followed by Somini Sengupta. And now, this item, which qualifies as a “news report” but that really is a veneer. In some places, the reporter takes open swipes at Hinduism:
This is the disturbing India of the Hindu widow, a woman traditionally shunned as bad luck and forced to live in destitution on the edge of society. Her husband’s death is considered her fault, and she has to shave her head, shun hot food and sweets and never remarry
The sorrowful film is nonetheless a triumph of conscience over blind faith, and a powerful message about how much, and how little, has changed in India.
Shakuntula, who begins to question a Hindu faith that subjects women who have lost husbands to such degrading lives, and Kalyani, a beautiful young widow who has been forced into prostitution by the head of the widow house.
Today there are about 33 million widows in India, according to the 2001 census, and many in the rural areas are still treated like the outcasts in the film.
So all these 33 million Indian widows are either sex-starved or are whores or both. Funny we in India never realized all this. It really took Deepa Mehta–and the West–to open our eyes to see this disturbing fact of Indian life. As to the condescending remark on “how little has changed in India,” we don’t need you to tell it, NYT. We’re pretty adept at managing our problems. Look instead at your own “changed, modern, progressive” society and try and spare some time for introspection before you embark on the next round of hedonism.
At a deeper level, this is exactly our problem: that we let people like Mehta and rags like NYT get away with such open denigration.
Tags: Indian Politics, International Politics, Media Watch, Pseudo Secularism Hall of Shame, Society & Culture
Regards Fire, Ramesh Rao has dissected the entire movie and shown how it is Anti Hindu.
The likes of Deepa Mehta have made a career of bashing Hinduism and India. Even Earth was a total misrepresentation of partition.
When somebody makes a movie like Gadar or Border which are pro- India and are not the ‘objective’ type we have the likes of Shabana and Shyam Benegal going to AMU conferences and saying how NDA had saffronised Bollywood. No word about the times when there was mob rule over Bollywood.
Add to that we have the legions of dilip dsouza and others screaming about freedom of expression when the terrible works of Anand Patwardhan and his like are banned or censored
Sorry for this no-content-comment, but articles like this make me hate freedom of speech. I suspects things of this sort would be taught in liberal arts departments in many western universities.
frog,
You’re right on the spot! Exactly! The Western media doesn’t have a clue about what goes on in India and rely on local scribes to give them info which they print it in a hurry with the attitude of “wash off my hands over this one.” No serious analysis, no research nothing.
or maker of meaningful cinema but a crass opportunist who is out to earn fast money by misrepresenting a culture she is ashamed to belong to. Unable to counter genuine criticism by people like Gurumurthy, she takes refuge in pompous statements [Hindu-Baiting New York Times
Actually I was wondering about the timing of the article. This came without any provocation.
The previous day 35 Hindus were murdered in Kashmir and NY Times had to cover it. Maybe they thought that they need to balance it immediately.
Is the author and the several commentators arguing that in 1930’s widows in Varanasi were not pushed into prostitution?
If so, they must show proof. The movie is not reflecting India today, it is reflecting a past that we have never owned upto.
Just because the many folks never saw a widow being ill-treated in their neighbourhood doesnt mean it doesnt happen. Go to Gujarat, Rajasthan etc and see how widows are treated worse than door mats in certain communities. And no it is not a economic thing, it is a social thing.
The first thing we as Indians should do is stop pointing fingers at other Indians and start taking responsibility for what is right or wrong.
Personally, I give a rats ass to what non-Indians believe at India. However, in my own eyes I would like to be respectable.
Bottomline: Friends look around and see if we should respect ourselves.
ullas, hindu women even then were far better off than the burkha clad muslim women of today. will your liberal-feminist-chest-thumping-bra-burning brigade of shabana and co have the guts to make a movie on plight of islamic women? for instance will deepa mehta have the guts to make a movie on imrana or that muslim women in orrissa who was asked by her community to stay away from her husband just because in his sleep he said talaq?
i bet, no. why? they will be burnt alive in public.
just because hindus try to reason with you all the time you take the liberty of such sermons.
mullahs do not argue. they issue fatwas and in most cases implement it.
most of the forums that i visit, the commentators are actually frustrated by the dual standards of the media in general. no one minds calling bajrang dal a communal org. but if the same media refuses to even acknowledge the extreme fundamentalism of iuml,madani etc, we have a problem.
how long will you keep the hindus from behaving like their islamic counterparts? already lot of hindus are seeing double standards of barkha dutt,rajdeep sardesai and co. in a way the media is pushing hindus to that stage i feel.
Ullas,
Here’re my responses.
>>Is the author and the several commentators arguing that in 1930’s widows in Varanasi were not pushed into prostitution?
Nope. Whatever gave you that impression? Please re-read my post carefully. Further, the forced prostitution is not something that afflicts widows only (1930s or today) ; lots of women take to forced prostitution throughout the world for various reasons including poverty. What “Water” does is depict this as something confined only to the Hindu widows of Varnasi and as if it is something that happens throughout Varanasi.
>>If so, they must show proof. The movie is not reflecting India today, it is reflecting a past that we have never owned upto.
Proof? What exactly do you have in mind? If anything, we have an entire generation and body of all sorts of “experts” dedicated to “owing up” the past you mention. Some are genuine and other ignoramuses like Deepa Mehta have made a career out of half-truths if not outright lies.
>>Just because the many folks never saw a widow being ill-treated in their neighbourhood doesnt mean it doesnt happen.
In exactly the same vein, just because many folks saw the poor plight of a few widows treated unjustly doesn’t mean all Hindu widows are treated like that.
>>And no it is not a economic thing, it is a social thing.
Before making such thumping statements it’d be good if you can provide some concrete evidence of this.
>>The first thing we as Indians should do is stop pointing fingers at other Indians and start taking responsibility for what is right or wrong.
Agree partly. But if the “other Indians” deliberately throw muck at you, disrespecting what you hold dear and sacred, it’s time to call their bluff. Ignoring or tolerating it in the name of being good/peaceful won’t stop them. You’ll be perceived as a weakling.
You decide which is better: to gain “respect” by being perceived as a weakling in which case I’d rather do without such respect or standing up to misrepresentation of your culture/country.
Thanks.
I completely agree that we do not need a NYT or Deepa Mehta to instigate a social reform in th country.
Most in the white world have an extremely narrow view of the east.Like a horse with blinkers on.And it’s a fact that people like Deepa Mehta do nothing to change it.
The stigma attached to women’s remarriage and widowhood cannot be overstated and in many places women have to live with the ignominy of polygamy, in quite a number of cases contrary to their wishes.However to paint a picture of that being the norm in the country cannot be justified even under the aegis of freedom of speech.
Regarding the issue of Hindu customs alone being painted as primitive and regressive I agree with Sandeep that no portrayal of ills plaguing the Islamic women would be devoid of a serious backlash.Political and otherwise.
Hindus…. Well they can be lampooned.And who better to do it than Hindus itself.Not just their customs and traditions that can be parodied… even their mythology.
Recently some students, I heard staged a modern Ramayana.Complete with Hanuman wearing goggles and Lakshmana mouthing tapori language.Maybe it provided a few laughs but do we have to be derivative in our thinking.Can not the great epics be spared and we learn to draw a line somewhere?Check out the Band of Boys video “Nain kataari akhiyan” and you’ll know what I am talking.
Ullas
Perhaps you can answer my question. Look at the 2 actresses of Deepa Mehta’s Fire - Nandita Das and Shabana Azmi. When Hindus protested against using the names Radha and Sita for the 2 lesbians, all our worthies were screaming freedom of speech and expression.
Now let us look at the reactions of these 2 worthies to 2 different films:
Nandita Das participated in one of the Indo Pak peace process event. There she condemned Border and LOC stating that making such movies was unhealthy.
When many muslim organisations were protesting Gadar - Ek Prem Katha, Shabana Azmi also joined in the chorus condemning the movie.
What was the fault of the 2 movies? Only that they showed Pakistan in bad light and
maybe preached some patriotism.
So if these worhties care so much about Pak sentiments, why be so disrespectful against Hindu sentiments?
I completely agree that we do not need a NYT or Deepa Mehta to instigate a social reform in th country.
Most in the white world have an extremely narrow view of the east.Like a horse with blinkers on.And it’s a fact that people like Deepa Mehta do nothing to change it.
The stigma attached to women’s remarriage and widowhood cannot be overstated and in many places women have to live with the ignominy of polygamy, in quite a number of cases contrary to their wishes.However to paint a picture of that being the norm in the country cannot be justified even under the aegis of freedom of speech.
Regarding the issue of Hindu customs alone being painted as primitive and regressive I agree with Sandeep that no portrayal of ills plaguing the Islamic women would be devoid of a serious backlash.Political and otherwise.
Hindus…. Well they can be lampooned.And who better to do it than Hindus themselves.Not just their customs and traditions that can be parodied… even their mythology.
Recently some students, I heard staged a modern Ramayana.Complete with Hanuman wearing goggles and Lakshmana mouthing tapori language.Maybe it provided a few laughs but do we have to be derivative in our thinking.Can not the great epics be spared and we learn to draw a line somewhere?Check out the Band of Boys video “Nain kataari akhiyan” and you’ll know what I am talking.
[...] Amardeep at Sepia Mutiny is flummoxed over blatant cultural ignorance while reviewing movies. Sandeep, on the other hand, takes an extreme viewpoint and blasts the NYT for trying whip up religious sentiments [hat tip: JK] [...]
Indian Security forces and the militants. Sadly innocent people are caught in the cross fire.” This has provoked a pseudo-patriot to threaten he would report it to Flickr as offensive. But everybody knows that its just a blow in the air. A blogger,Sandeep got angry when he saw a review on Deepa Mehta’s movie WATER. It is a fact that movie reviewers in the USA took the chance to depict the whole movie is about the current India and India is still a land of un-civilized people. It would be quite acceptable if he
Sandeep,
You may want to respond to this
http://jocalling.blogspot.com/2006/05/about-pseudo-patriotism.html
Agree with you completely on Deepa Mehta’s movie making. I challenge her honesty by pointing out the banno rani song from 1947earth.(the song is shown in the backdrop of a marriage celebration with a 6yr old bride and 66 year old groom, bah!)
What on earth has child marriage in hindu religion to do with a movie which claimed to be a portrayal of a parsi’s view on partiton. Deepa is a bloody opportunist, keen on white skin accolades!
Kudos. You have expressed the rage I felt after reading the articles and her callous interviews.
Before pointing fingers at others and how little others have changes, NY should clean up its own backyard!
Harish
A smalll nugget of information to add regards the marriage. The bride’s family was shown as converted to Christianity and yet were having a wedding Hindu style.
It’s okay guyz… everyone knows Deepa Mehta is cracked in the head. It’s the sort of lunatic thing she would do. Consider this.. making a movie about wat happened in 1930’s. Well who cares in 2006? I should think 90 per cent of India’s population was not even born at that time. At a time when India is going through a revolution, the economy is doing well, there is a general feel- good factor among the public this sort of a movie is the desperate attempt of a nut who realizes tat if India continues to change for the better, her source of income and fame will stop. And to all the Westerners who go on about the problems of Hinduism, tell them about the Catholic priests who are in the news every day for some sort of sexual abuse. And to Deepa Mehta, if u r really the rights activist you claim to be why don’t you make a movie on these Catholic priests??
It is amusing to see the anger shown against newyork times article. Where are these people when Dalits are brutally abused, maimed,raped and murderd. Where is the outrage when dalit women are raped almost on daily basis, and where is the outrage when people are treated worse than animals just beacuse they belong to a lower caste. This has gone on for thousands of years and will continue till the last Hindu lives on this earth. It is typical to get angry at any body who points out the
reality of defective religion. Yes I am a Dalit and i know what I am writting.
raj
[...] This time it’s a journalist, not a novelist. Reviewing (shallow) Water made by the self-scourging Deepa Mehta. I had covered the likes of Mehta earlier. So this review is not worth writing about. And he makes all the usual noises about the backwardness of widow-related traditions, and other blah-blahs. [...]
[...] Vir Sanghvi and his entire charmed circle of elite friends and reviewers are not spokesmen on India and Indian culture. Sanghvi and his cohorts know zilch about what makes Water such a despicable piece of scum. Vir Sanghvi’s fine-cocktail-sipping circle of intellectuals can never understand what values the miserable excuse for a film seeks to negate, and the distorted message it conveys about Hinduism. For the record, nobody has said anything about it being “anti-Indian.” [...]
This is in response to KOEL cuckooing all over the place about economic revolutions and feel-good-factors…..who cares in 2006 it seems! You should know that as of 2007, women numbering in millions in the states of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh are forced to carry human excreta on their heads and dispose it off in exchange for 6 rotis a day and Rs.30 a month. Sadly the feel-good is limited to privileged people like you who can write in english and use words like economic revolution in the first place. And because you don’t care in 2006, even in 2007 the condition of women has failed to improve. To say nothing of the fact that the condition of widows in Benaras continues to be as bad as it ever was. These are realities…and there is nothing feel-good about them. Go check it out for yourself sometime on a trip to Benaras if you get time away from revolutionizing the economy or pretending to do so.
ok fine anaconda….if a poor backward and ignorant india is wat pleases u and hindus are a bunch of pathetic people so be it…I am not wasting time arguing about it….wat u think makes no difference to me
Dearest Koel,
At what point in my comment do you get the feeling that a poor backward and ignorant india pleases me??? I see that you can write but not comprehend. I am appalled by your level of indifference to the status-quo. And it makes me feel sad for the country that lets you reside here and protects you by sacrificing those who care on the borders. Its as if you have clsed your eyes to all that is happening around here and gone into deep slumber…..sweet dreams then!
Lots of love and best wishes,
Anaconda
What a delusional bunch of whiny cry babies. How dare the New York times carry a good review for the hated Deepa Mehta. Oh how we hate free speech! Doesn’t that bitch Deepa know that widows in India in 1930s were treated like goddesses! Widows in rural areas in India today are treated like queens. We don’t kill female fetuses. Our male to female ratio is the highest in the world in fact! How dare anyone ever! ever! ever! ever! show our culture in a bad light! We are going to stomp our feet and cry!
By the way Sandeep the right wingers on sites like LGF that you link to-Yeah they hate muslims too! But they would string your brown ass up tree as well. Just a word of warning-the enemy of my enemy is not my friend.
But “Indian Patriot”…all of your statements about our widows and foetuses and ratios are true! Have you not read Gurumurthy yet??
Indian Patriot,
Tch tch! I’d rather if you argued with some facts on the table. Please return.
“Tch tch! I’d rather if you argued with some facts on the table. Please return.”
- I hope Indian Patriot forgives this “troll” for answering in his stead…but I have some experiences to share.
a. I grew up in a huge family that was supported by two women. My own grandmother had died. One was a widow…in the olde’ custom. Head shaven and draped in white. Living out of one room. Taking care of kids and such like.
The other lady was rumoured to have been my grandfather’s concubine. She was not married but lived with us. She was…a sort of “help all” kind of lady. I remember…very sweet and dynamic.
Both have since passed away..its been over 15 years now.
Come a newer generation. Aunt was widowed. Being my uncle’s wife..inherited quite a sum. Son is a minor. The larger family is very unhappy however. She is not invited to any family occation. The visitations she does get is from folks who know that she is kind of “lose” with her money. Constantly hear of her being….”that widow”…”inheritor of all that money”….”what does she want all that money for??!” In short, if this lady were poor…she would have been on the streets.
All in all….I have not seen a widow getting married in my extended family ever. And..rest assured, the family itself is highly educated and known. Upper middle class to extremely rich.
Sandeep, not certain what you mean when you ask for facts. Do you want facts that tell us “these are the realities”? That such brutalities occur at all?
Please help us with clarity.
In the meanwhile, I found this piece that may answer Sandeep’s question.
http://www.infochangeindia.org/fetaures8.jsp
If after this….one is asked to tolerate Gurumurthy’s “Swadeshi” chest thumping….THAT would be a bit much.
You ask me to argue with facts. You have no facts and no arguments!
Your main complaints are 1) that the NYT has given a good review to a movie by Deepa Mehta.
2)Deepa Mehta is an opportunist who wants to show India (by that you mean Hindus) in a bad light in order to gain accolades from white skinned westerners.
3)Muslims are much worse than Hindus and she would not dare show such stuff about them otherwise she would be killed or worse.
4) The media is biased and liberal/communist and is always anti Hindu.
You statement about widow remarriage makes no sense.
Of couse it is society which prohibited widows from remarrying. And if that prohibition was not cruel than what is? And yes that society was the Hindu society. And that makes them barbarians w.r.t widow remarriange (and caste system too) by the way. And what exactly are we supposed to see from the widow’s perspective?
You ask why Deepa Mehta does not show the plight of muslim women?
Why should she? Is it obligatory to show the plight of muslim women whenever one makes a movie about Hindu women? Is she supposed to write in bold letters on screen “The life of widows in India was/is bad, but hey, muslim women in burka are so much worse off so every thing is fine and dandy”
I will concede you two points, one, if she made a movie about muslim women she would be in very hot water, but all that means is that muslim extremists are more brutal than hindu extremists. There, are you happy now? Second, the names of the two main characters (Radha and Seeta)in Fire was an unnecessary provocation to Hindus. But I would not go out and cause a riot over it!
Lastly, your biggest problem is that you think that every one is out to get Hindus ie the NYT has an anti-Hindu slant or “Hindu bashes” or the international media is anti-Hindu.
The same sort of stuff was written when Satyajit Ray made movies depicting India’s poverty, or when any filmaker made a movie criticizing any aspect of hindu India society. They were criticized for showing India in a “bad light”. Is no one ever supposed to show any thing bad about India? Maybe only govt propoganda films should be shown abroad? Maybe Indians should only be potrayed in movies happy, dancing around trees, or as super tecno-geniuses out saving the world.
Your web site is a mirror of right wing US web sites which say pretty much the same stuff as you, except they use the word Christian instead of Hindu. All are virulently anti muslim. And all paranoid.