Leslee Udwin: Wanted world to follow Indias lead

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PARVATHI MENON
COMMENT (38) PRINT T

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Reuters

British director Leslee Udwin denies having paid for interviews and striking a deal with convict Mukesh Singh for her
documentary Indias Daughter, which has been banned in India.
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economy, business and finance
media

Calls allegations against her in the Indian media a smear campaign

The Indian government is inviting the world to point fingers at India, and call it undemocratic and
unconstitutional, said Leslee Udwin of the ban on the documentary Indias Daughter, which has
resulted in the film going viral on YouTube.
Why are they doing this? Why are they intent on committing international suicide? asked the
award-winning British producer who directed the documentary that has been at the centre of a storm
in India. All I want to say to the world through my film and campaign is this: India led by example,
now follow Indias lead.
The film and accompanying campaign will see its official launch on Monday in New York. Among
those who will attend and support the launch are actors Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway and U.N.
Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Baroness
Amos.
An unfortunate outcome of the BBC version of the film going viral is that it does not carry the global
statistics on rape that the Indian and international versions have. The tragedy for me is that the
pirated copy on YouTube does not have the global statistics, as BBC Storyville has a house style that
doesnt allow them to put statistics on a film, Ms. Udwin said.
The director called the allegations against her in the Indian media a smear campaign. She denies
having paid for interviews, of cutting a deal with Mukesh Singh (the rape accused in Tihar Jail), and
of not having followed legal processes in filming the story. According to her, she showed the uncut
raw footage all 16 hours of it to a specially constituted five-person review team in Tihar on
December 9 and 10, 2013. She also got separate permissions from the Home Ministry and the police
for conducting interviews with the police and doctors. Several leading lawyers told her that the
documentary would not prejudice the case. Finally, she says that the movie was seen and endorsed
by the State prosecution team.

I am not a fly-by-night operator

Leslee Udwin, Director of the controversially banned documentary Indias Daughter, was back in
London for a few days before leaving for New York, where her film will be formally released on
March 9. Her voice hoarse with fatigue, Ms. Udwin responded to the issues the film has raised.
Excerpts from an interview with Parvathi Menon.
Your film has been banned in India for an interview with an accused rapist, and for
showing India in a bad light. How do you respond to that?
The ban is utterly beyond my comprehension because what this film says is like a mirror held up to
what Prime Minister Modi has said in all his statements about gender equality since he came to
power. He has spoken about resetting the moral compass in India, about supporting women attain
equality, and finding ways to educate women, has total synergy with the film. We are saying the same
thing.
He must have these moral values, otherwise he would not be saying these things. How does that
square with India bowing out of showing the film as it is?

All I wanted was to say to the world is that India led by example, now follow Indias lead. This was
the point of my film and campaign.
You had appealed directly to Mr. Modi to repeal the ban. Did you hear from him?
We havent heard from Mr. Modi yet. The government is inviting the world to point fingers at India,
and call it undemocratic and unconstitutional. Why are they doing this? Why are they intent on
committing international suicide? All I want to say to the world through my film and campaign is
this: India led by example, now follow Indias lead.
This film can still be shown if they change their mind by tomorrow night [International Womens
Day]. India will then be holding its head high to move forward with an agenda to put women in the
spotlight of getting equality which is unfinished business the world over.
If they do not lift this ban, it will be said that on Womens International Day, there were to be seven
countries holding hands for global equality, and India has bowed out.
The Indias Daughter campaign, which the film was designed to unleash worldwide, will be launched
globally on March 9. Every country in the world will take this film forward with the message Our
women are in trouble in every country.
Why focus on India when gender discrimination and rape is a global issue?
It was not the horrific rape that made me come to India. The extraordinary, courageous and
unprecedented protests that followed made me think: My God, they are fighting for my rights in
India. I was so grateful. I have myself been raped. It is not surprising -- one in five women globally
have been raped. So I am one of the 20 per cent.
The supreme irony is that my film has got statistics at the end of it of offences against women in
every country in the world. By their ban, the government forced the BBC version, and not the India
version, to be leaked onto YouTube. If you ban something, the first thing you do is to make every
person in the world see a pirated version. And that is what has happened. The tragedy for me is that
the pirated copy that went up on YouTube does not have the global statistics, and for a reason that is
mundane and ridiculous. The BBC Storyville has a house style that doesnt allow them to put
statistics on a film. It upsets and angers me that people in India would have seen the film without
those statistics.
There are three version of the film. In the BBC version, the credits are shorter and there are no
statistics. The international version is the full version with all the credits and the statistics. It also
names the rape victim, as her name is all over the international media, and even in Wikipedia. The
third is the Indian version in which the victim has not been names. That is the law in India, which we
all respect. The parents wanted her name out of the Indian version but agreed that it be carried in the
international version.

So now the YouTube version has got so many heads that I am trying every day to cut them down with
a sword. My team has pulled down the online version thousands of times because I want to obey that
ban, as it is Indias law. But unfortunately it has now got into Torrent.
How do you respond to the allegation that you did not follow due legal processes?
I am a producer of 20 years standing who does her due diligence. I am not a fly-by-night operator.
I followed the legal due process in every respect. I complied with the permissions: they are cast iron,
which is why I have actually released the copies of the permissions so people can have a look and see
what it says. It does not give editorial control to the Ministry of Home Affairs or to the prison. It
allows them only to reflect and approve of potential breeches of prison security. A five-person
committee from Tihar was constituted to look at the raw, unedited footage we shot in Tihar, every
single frame. On December 9 and 10, they saw every frame of the 16-hour footage.
There was one and only one comment they made. There was a moment when Vinay Sharma, one of
the accused, was looking to the camera and said something to the cameraman. The committee said
that piece should not be in the film because he hasnt signed the consent form to be interviewed. And
I said fine. On nothing else did they made a comment.
So I got permission to film the doctors, I got permission from the police (through their Delhi PRO
Rajan Bhagat), I got permission from the Ministry of Home Affairs and Tihar jail; and consent from
Mukesh Singh to shoot that interview.
On the issue of the interview being sub-judice, it is not so and I will tell you why. I sought the opinion
of at least five senior High Court and Supreme Court lawyers, who each told me verbally that the film
would not prejudice the hearings. I then went to the trouble and expense of commissioned a legal
opinion from two senior and well-known ex-Supreme Court judges. I had no idea what they would
say when I went to them. I will not mention their names because an opinion sought by a client has a
sort of legal privilege. They too said there is nothing in the documentary that could prejudice the
Supreme Court case.
Not only that. I also took the risk of showing the film to the state prosecution team, to be absolutely
sure, because if even one piece of evidence in the film could prejudice the case, I could never live with
myself for the rest of my life. The team said the documentary is one hundred percent accurate to the
case. We are amazed by how balanced it is, they said. They asked me to put a disclaimer at the
beginning of the film, and said they had no reason whatsoever that the film not be shown while the
appeal is going on. I have a disclaimer on every version.
Did you feel threatened by the government?
I had a screening of the film for senior editors in Delhi on Tuesday, March 3. A journalist came
running up to me and showed me on her mobile news that an FIR had been issued against me. It was
around 6 pm and the first thing I did was to call around seven lawyers whom I knew in Delhi. I was
due to leave on Wednesday, the following night. Every one of them told me to leave on the next plane
to England. They all said that my passport would be taken away, and I would not be able to get back.
I took this very seriously. And then decided to sit it out. If I left early, they will think I fled, that I was

in the wrong and had something to hide. I wanted to be able to proudly hold up the ticket of the flight
I took and show them it was booked three weeks before any of this started. Despite that there has
been a total smear campaign to say I fled.
What about the allegation that you made the film for commercial gain, that you paid
Mukesh Singh for the interview, and that he did not know he was being filmed?
I will not allow them to besmirch my name and say that I made it for commercial gain. I came using
my own money out of which I paid my crew. In the second leg of the project I had to take money out
of my childrens school account. In the third let, BBC came forward and said they would make a
contract and gave me 90,000. The film has cost 210,00. I am in debt for 120,000, and had to
borrow from my mother and a friend. I will make some money on it over the years because I will be
selling the documentary to other countries. I gave it free to NDTV, because I told myself that I would
not make a penny out of the Indian version.
And I can tell you hand-on-heart that we have not paid one rupee to anyone we interviewed.
It is absolutely untrue that Mukesh was talking in monosyllables and that therefore I filmed him
secretly. He was talking fluently from the beginning about himself and conditions in the jail. We
never did any secret filming. As a world-renowned producer who has won a British Oscar, I would
never do a thing like that.
There was no secret filming of Mukesh at all. In fact, we needed to put a mike on him.
Are the parents of Nirbhaya still with you?
Absolutely. Just two days ago I got a message from the father that made me cry. When you walk the
right path, there will be obstacles, there will be thorns he said.
The parents agreed to her name being mentioned in the international version, but not in the Indian
one. At least a year ago the father told me: I am not ashamed. It is wrong that rape should adhere to
the rape victim. She suffered enough without shame being put on her. It is the rapist who carries the
shame, and the society that the rapist has been encouraged by. All of them deserve that shame.