"India's Daughter" aired yesterday on BBC UK - earlier than the original telecast date of March 6th since the Indian Government is trying to ban the telecast not only in India, but also in the rest of the world.

I am an Indian girl. I live in by most accounts a relatively safe city. But every friend of mine and even me on occasion have had my behind grabbed in a public space, leached at and ridiculous things said to. We are taught from a very early age to look at the ground while walking and not particularly make eye contact with any man. All of this is true and I believe it only gets worse by degrees. I have no problem in believing that only 10% of the rapes in India even get reported because “the victim is treated like the perpetrator of a crime”.

There are many households and places in India where women are treated on par with men but there's no denying that there exists a disparity in their position in a patriarchal social order in a country like ours. But concealing the truth by banning the film does not help anyone!! Why blame west for our own problems. If someone from a different country is highlighting problems of our country, why cant we agree that a problem exists. After all if we do not acknowledge that there is a problem, how else do we intend on finding a solution to the problem. We all know how our women are treated in our society. Yes, India is culturally strong but INDIAN MEN ARE NOT. Even well educated Indian males  have and choose to exhibit a superior attitude and treat women unequally.

So it does not matter about whether a person is rich or poor, educated or illiterate, it is a fact and the dark reality. The fact also remains that parents and the entire society has to realise that it is the reality, only then can we take steps to combat this mindset. Our Indian culture usually puts the onus of safety on the woman (and not on the society), we expect her to dress decently(instead of expecting men to show self-restraint), expect her to not go out in the night (instead of making it safe for her to do so), or expect her to fulfil gender roles like being a housewife(instead of letting her choose what she wants to do with the one life she’s going to have), but we will immediately to this very statement have a hundred people up in arms saying that “our Indian Culture” does not endorse violence against women.

This documentary is not some international conspiracy, and BBC is definitely not attempting to malign India, it's government and its people. Since the person who made this documentary is not Indian, is it ok for us to issue gag orders since they have "dared" to make a documentary about something which is an accurate portrayal of the mindset of a lot of men in this country.


So that leaves us with the question - Should people outside of our country be gagged from voicing opinions about the issues in India?  and doesn’t the Indian government banning the telecast of this documentary give people the impression that India is trying to hide something?