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Ethics and Theatrics
India’s Daughter reflects asymmetries of power and access, and of where and how discourses are generated and directed. Who represents whom, and how they do so, reflects many of these asymmetries and exposes many complicities. As to the question of why India’s Daughter was not made by anyone in India, this is one best answered by those who were most vociferous in their denunciation of the “ban.”
Imagine the following scenario:
An Indian film-maker, in collaboration with a major television channel, goes to France with the idea of making a film on the slaughter of the Charlie Hebdo journalists. The assassins are dead but others have been convicted, and our film-maker gets permission to interview and film them in prison. At the same time, a case against them is being heard in a French court. Our film-maker is horrified by the murders, but she wants to understand why and how this terrible deed was perpetrated in an advanced, civilised society, and wants to gain an insight into the sick minds of the murderers and their accomplices. She is hugely impressed by the outpouring of protest and support across France and Europe in its wake, wishes to demonstrate her sympathy with the dead journalists, and all those under threat of violence by Islamic “terrorists.” The film would be her gift to the people of France.