Anurag Kashyap Explains His Stand – On Rape, Feminism, His Short Film and more
Some important points in Kashyap’s interview. His discussion on rape is very nuanced and interesting. I learnt a lot from it. And his claim that films just tell stories and we interpret them the way we like is something all viewers ought to remember.
Dear All,
When I am not making movies – which is thankfully rarely – my favourite pastime is to get fundamentally quoted without the context. Blame the lack of space in newspapers today with all those advertisements accounting for most of it. It helps to keep our conversation going, you see. And it has happened again. My whole conversation has been reduced to one line that’s being knocked around, “rape is a bad accident says anurag kashyap”
Fun though it is, I think it’s time I speak for myself and not let some out-of-context quote in a paper, or an edited version of a half-an-hour conversation do the talking.
Sitting here in Karlovy Vary I have been inundated with texts and mails about an interview of mine, that has of course, as always, been completely misread. It does not help that a long conversation has been reduced to a paragraph…
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Posted on July 8, 2014, in Arts. Bookmark the permalink. 13 Comments.
ramblinginthecity 
What do you say on the fact that majority of rapes are false cases or live-in relationships gone wrong. I do not get this you want to be modern like the west and have a live-in and when the man wants to move on cry “rape”. This is not to belittle the trauma that a women who is subject to this crime goes through BUT it is for a start to address the fact that when a man is falsely accused of RAPE it is in fact he who is RAPED and no one is talking about this.
Yes I agree. That’s what Anurag brings up. That there are many facets to the issue
Great post, great share, thanks! Reblogging… all the best!
I started reading this article with a lot of hope and somewhere along the middle came up against a mind not at all formed, infact ill informed and frankly inadequate. If this is the shining example of the Indian man, I am so disappointed.
I think there are already strong lobbies of feminists who completely understand and agree and advocate the issue of demystifying the act of rape as nothing but a very high level of personal violation. A burglary is a violation, and it often creates the same emotions of vulnerability and paranoia in a person as a rape victim, though in different degrees. As long back as Soraiya the poet had said – if my daughter gets raped, I will tell her to go take a bath and all is good. As a mother of a daughter, I know I will teach her to survive a rape rather than die protecting her ‘honour’, which of course does not reside between her legs. Most self thinking women know that and agree upon, and such talks are VERY common in feminist circles the world over, so AK feeling all emancipated and giving women some lessons on honour is frankly downright pukey.
Secondly comes his branding of ‘feminists’. Christ – this from a thinking film maker? I urge him to look up the word feminist in the dictionary and then explain how any rationalist, logical human being can not be a feminist – he is just pandering to his image of a brand of foaming at the mouth women who he considers are feminists. Yet every day I meet perfectly sane, cool, calm men and women who are self proclaimed feminists, because feminism has always only wanted women to have equal rights as men. Go figure who in their right minds cannot ask for this much.
Infact his entire article reeks of the reason why unlike feminists not being able to engage in sane discussion on gender and gender rights, its actually large sections of Indian men, who cannot engage in such a conversations because of their misconceptions, clouded judgements, bias and simply an ability to lecture women on subjects which effect them more. Rape and sexual violence, statistically effect us 90% times more than men, yet heterosexual men have no problems telling us how we should perceive such a problem.
As for Hemant Suri’s blatantly false figures – most rapes are live in relationships gone bad? Whats the source of THAT data? Last year alone there were 35,000 rapes ‘reported’ in India – which according to conservative estimates would be about 10% of the total figure. 65% of those rapes happened to minors. Living in relations, is it?
Sorry Mukta for that rant.
Welcome the rant mono! I found kashyaps post interesting esp the first bit thoug it got convoluted and vague later.
Dear Monolita please go to NCRB data and see. It was a wrong word that I used “most” in place “many”. Then also see the acquittal rate. Most cases do not stand up to Judicial scrutiny. I reiterate my stand most rapes case in India are false for the simple reason that in most true cases it is simply not reported. Again a majority of rapes are done by people known to the victim. What can explain such bestiality I do not know. Please see if you can find online today’s HT where a woman raped b her boyfriend says that she filed false cases against men for rape on his instigation.
Second to your statement “As a mother of a daughter, I know I will teach her to survive a rape rather than die protecting her ‘honour’, which of course does not reside between her legs”, I will just add to also teach her an ounce of prevention in such cases is worth a tonne of cure.
And finally to my statement T”his is not to belittle the trauma that a women who is subject to this crime goes through BUT it is for a start to address the fact that when a man is falsely accused of RAPE it is in fact he who is RAPED and no one is talking about this”. I see you have commented nothing. Knowing you I do not think this is something you can be blasé or indifferent about.
A postscript this guy (who ever he is) does not have in mind [I think] the dictionary meaning of feminist when he is doing what he is doing. To the dictionary meaning I would ideally like a caveat equitable instead of equal. (I also confess this meaning was a pleasant surprise). Though in my case it is unequal as I only employ women in my office and never as eye candy.
Keep writing though sometimes it does sound like a rant (as was mine), we are all entitled to the same sometimes.
Warm Regards
Hemant
Hemant my dear, I am familiar with the NCRB data, and also the reason why I said what I said – the acquittal rate is the reverse of conviction rate, and when you say most cases dont stand up to judicial scrutiny, i will say most cases dont reach conviction because of systemic biases and huge rape culture.
I am not sure you know, but for the past 5 years now, this is the precise work I do – volunteer on ground with rape victims. Its core fieldwork – not armchair activism, and it brings me in contact, and in intense contact with victims, especially minor victims again and again. Thus, my understanding is not that of just reading data and news, but I actually am one of those of analyse, report and conduct workshops with such data. And you are right, the acquittal rate is much too high. You know how it happens?
Not sure if I should monopolise Mukta’s blog like this and whether this is even the place, but i can share with you a lot of this over personal mails, which are real situations happening in over 200 cases that I have worked on till now. 200 real cases.
As for men getting raped – yes, ofcourse they do, and little boys often get abused more than little girls, and i work with little boys in equal measure as little girls, but statistically a woman is 90% more times a victim of rape and sexual abuse than a man and a heterosexual man at that. So yes, I am sorry, this is a bigger problem for women than men, it is women who have to keep on looking over their shoulder as they go out because just being women make them vulnerable to outright forms of aggression and violence, and yes, you are absolutely right that they mostly get raped by people they know – boyfriends, husbands, fathers, uncles, brothers. How is that her fault?
Love,
Mono.
Prevent means taking precautions not to be caught (as far as possible) in the wrong place or be with the wrong people. Wrong people also means a friend who can get drunk in a party. Forcing you to chose whether to risk your life or as you put it honour. In one of my drinking gangs in the early 90’s (93) was a woman who after drinking at my friends place Dhaula Kuan would take hitches while wearing revealing clothes to Rajender Nagar in a half drunk state. When I objected to this she really lost it with me. I was never friendly with her but I was the only person who stood by her when she went through such a trauma. Obviously I did not counsel her except talk to her doctors/therapists post/pre the session and cant talk more here about what transpired but will share my thoughts on a one to one basis.
On women being subject to this crime by men known I never said it is their fault I just said I cannot understand how and why such men do it but was implying that possibly there is not defence or the only defence here is self-defence
When I meant rape of men I did not mean paedophile abuse but the agony a man goes through when falsely accused of such a crime.
And I genuinely am sickened by the dichotomy that most rapists get away and many more innocents suffer from the stigma for something they did not do. Having seen someone threatened by this is what makes me decry the same.
Chal let us not take more of this we will talk by mail.
also ‘prevention’ of rape? do you mean she should ask her rapist to wear a condom before rape :P? If you have ways to ‘prevent’ rape, please share, because alas, if we really knew about those, 1 out of 3 women of this world will be saved this violence!! gaah!
feminism
ˈfɛmɪnɪz(ə)m/
noun
noun: feminism
the advocacy of women’s rights on the ground of the equality of the sexes.
the doctrine advocating social, political, and all other rights of women equal to those of men on equal I say equitable
Ab meri behn aur mat likhna else I think MN may ban us from her blos
not banning, but following this discussion with interest. this is why i write, to get ppl to squabble on my space 🙂
I think we were debating not squabbling. It is something we both feel passionately about. But the doctrine to be followed is not “Let a hundred guilty go scot free but let not one innocent be punished” neither “Let a hundred innocent be punished but let not one guilty go scot free” but rather the guilty be punished the innocent acquitted and those attempting to use this crime as a way of settling scores be subject to harsh penalties pentinal and financial.