To Kill a Tiger
The Indo-Canadian Nisha Pahuja explores a horrific miscarriage of justice in Jharkhand, eastern India.
A father waits…
According to the writer-director Nisha Pahuja, in India 90 per cent of rape cases are never reported. Those that are reported are happening every twenty minutes, although convictions are less than thirty per cent successful. Pahuja’s documentary covers one such case concerning a thirteen-year-old Indian village girl being raped by three young men at a wedding party. The tradition is that if parents cannot attend a wedding, they send their children instead. Ranjit, the girl’s father, usually told his daughter to be back home by a certain time. However, on this occasion he didn’t and so he blames himself for what happened. The three rapists were guests at the party and persuaded the girl to stay on until everybody else had left. Then they each held her down whilst raping her in turn, then beat her up, saying don’t tell anyone or we will kill you and throw your body down a well.
When the villagers got to hear about the incident, many of them sided with the three boys. Even the attitude of their local counsellor was that the boys should be forgiven and that one of the attackers should marry the girl, because nobody else would want to after she had lost her virginity. Besides, the village would be shamed if she didn’t marry. Some of the villagers question why the girl was out on her own at a wedding celebration, thus ignoring the gravity of the incident itself. This is an unbelievably appalling excuse for doing nothing about the horrendous attack on a young girl, but it seems to illustrate only too well the attitude of men to women that still holds sway, the fact that women do not matter to men. Obviously the #MeToo movement has yet to reach the subcontinent.
Ranjit is a fairly poor farmer living with his family in less-than-ideal surroundings and is at a loss as to know what to do. An unimposing man of great character, he wants to help his family but is ignorant of the ways to go about it, because to get anywhere usually involves bribing somebody. Certainly, he is helped by the exposure offered by Pahuja’s film which is an astonishing indictment of the prevailing attitudes of the local population who at times even hassle the filmmakers working on the documentary.
This is a very important film, at one and the same time it both illuminates in the way that it shines a light on what looks like rabid injustice, but is also extremely moving in presenting what appears to be a hopelessly tragic situation in which nobody can possibly win or emerge unscathed.
MICHAEL DARVELL
Featuring… to keep the girl’s anonymity, we were asked not to mention any participants’ names. Only the girl’s father, Ranjit, is credited.
Dir Nisha Pahuja, Pro David Oppenheim, Nisha Pahuja, Cornelia Principe and Andy Cohen, Screenplay Nisha Pahuja, Ph Mrinal Desai, Ed Dave Kazala and Mike Munn, Music Jonathan Goldsmith.
AC Films/Minor Realm/Notice Pictures/National Film Board of Canada-National Film Board of Canada.
125 mins. Canada. 2022. US Rel: 20 October 2023. UK Rel: 16 November 2023. No Cert.
