Video-maker Harvinder Singh releases United Kingdom’s Daughter to say that sexual violence is a universal problem – not just in India.
Britain has the fifth highest number of rapes in the world but only one in ten rapists are convicted, according to a tit-for-tat video in response to the BBC’s India’s Daughter documentary which was banned last week.
The BBC documentary, which featured an interview with Mukesh Singh, one of five men convicted for the gang-rape and murder of a Delhi student, caused anger in India among nationalists who felt it had sought to tarnish the country’s reputation and suggest many Indian men believed women were to blame forrape.
Video-maker Harvinder Singh released United Kingdom’s Daughter in response to the BBC film to show how sexual violence is a universal problem and not unique to India.
The film begins with dramatic music and pictures of cowering, traumatised women and one in an unbuttoned, transparent blouse, as subtitles highlight the scale of Britain’s grim rape and sexual violence statistics.
“United Kingdom is fifth at the world’s rape list,” it said. “The number of rapes is more because many do not report”, it added.
“Ten per cent of women in the United Kingdom experience sexual victimisation”, but “a third of Britons believe women are responsible for rape,” the film claimed in a direct response to the BBC’s documentary which suggested the views of a convicted gang-rapist and murderer were more widely shared.
In the documentary Mukesh Singh, one of the Delhi gang-rape killers, said she was to blame for the attack: “A decent girl won’t roam around at 9 o’clock at night. A girl is far more responsible for rape than a boy.”
They had a right to “teach her a lesson” but she would not have been killed if she had not resisted, he said.
In the Indian response, a low budget selection of photographs, graphic statistics and clips from another BBC documentary, the producer claimed women in Britain “don’t resist the rape so killing figures are a few”.
The claims made in his video reflect a widespread anger in India, especially among nationalists, who believe the BBC’s India’s Daughter unfairly maligned the country and made false generalisations about the attitudes of its men.
Some of its claims appear to be factually incorrect. According to official figures, 233 women are raped in Britain every day, while the conviction rate is 60 per cent – considerably higher than India’s 24 per cent but regarded as shamefully low regardless.
The film also sought to make wider criticisms of British society – 41 per cent of marriages “broken in just 20 years” while “11 per cent population living under the poverty line” and “31 per cent of people age of 65 or more living in old age homes”.
The BBC video which provoked the Singh response:
Delhi Gang Rape Documentary: BBC Airs Film in UK, Rejects India’s Call For Worldwide Ban
