Bollywood denounces 'India's girl' documentary ban

Bollywood stars these days are quite active on micro blogging sites and social media in order to convey their happiness, dissent, anger or protest at ongoing events. Most recently, the movie stars registered their protests in the form of tweeting on their Twitter accounts against the ban on a documentary titled ‘India’s girl’.

India’s girl focuses on the tragic 2012 Delhi gang rape case of 23 year old Jyoti Singh. After returning home late night with a male companion, Jyoti was subjected to a gang rape involving six individuals. She was raped on the bus and then along  with her friend, assaulted and dumped off the vehicle. The incident sparked international outcry and outrage, resulting in the arrests of the six accomplices. Whilst one of the culprits died in police custody, which was suspected as suicide, the remarks by central accused Mukesh Singh and a defense lawyer AP Singh infuriated the public.

Bollywood celebrities, namely Boman Iran, Genelia D’Souza, Aditya Rao Hydari, Vir Das and Anurag Basu reacted to the ban.

Boman Irani tweeted his disappointed and stated that the nation should be embarrassed of the truth, rather than the fact that the documentary was made in the first place.

Documentaries are stories of truth! We should be embarrassed of the truth rather than the fact that the documentary got made#IndiasDaughter

— Boman Irani (@bomanirani) March 5, 2015

Ritesh Dehsmukh’s wife, Genelia Deshmukh took it upon herself to tweet the link of the documentary and urge all to watch it.

Pls watch “India’s daughter” https://t.co/wdLs4ec2b1 .. We need to understand and eradicate the evil within us n around us — Genelia Deshmukh (@geneliad) March 5, 2015

Kabir Bedi couldn’t comprehend the ban and questioned the government’s decision despite the film doing only good towards the society in exposing such inhumane characters.

Interviewing rapists is as old as journalism itself. And when their own words reveal them as monsters what’s the problem? #IndiasDaughter

— KABIR BEDI (@iKabirBedi) March 5, 2015

Indian government reacted furiously to the ban and threatened to take action against BBC for airing the documentary. The documentary was screened in England on Wednesday and viewed by an estimated 300,000 people. These comments in the documentary by the rapist Mukesh Singh were the cause of all hue and outcry:-

“A girl is far more responsible for rape than a boy”. He further added, “A decent girl won’t roam around at 9 o’clock at night. Housework and housekeeping is for girls, not roaming in discos and bars at night doing wrong things, wearing wrong clothes.”

Made by British filmmaker Leslie Udwin, the documentary was supposed to be airing in UK, Canada, Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden and India itself to mark International Women’s Day on Sunday. Yet the Indian government has obtained a court ordere and banned the film to be shown in India.