In a small Indian village Kiran, a 13-year-old, is savagely beaten and raped by three young men and then threatened with death if she tells anyone about the rape. Kiran tells her father Ranjit of the gang rape and he notifies the police. The lads are arrested and jailed. Given the prevalence of rape in India where it is estimated 90% of rapes are unreported and a woman is raped every twenty minutes Kiran is not alone. Kiran’s position is that she would fight to the death for justice and her father Ranjit pursues the case in the criminal courts with dogged determination.
The villagers wish to bury the matter in the customary way of having the rapist marry the victim “as after all” she is already soiled and no one will ever want her. And it is the women “that asks for it”. The boys just “made a mistake”. Ranjit and Kiran are upsetting the harmony of the village and its traditional ways. The family is ostracized for advocating for Kiran, taking the case to the police and pursuing the case in court. Ranjit’s life is threatened by the perpetrators’ families because he won’t “compromise”.
The result is that the misogynist tigers are “killed” and sentenced to a groundbreaking 25 years in prison rather sensational news in India. Since the decision women reporting rape in the administrative region where Kiran resides has doubled.
The rampaging Indian rapists have taken a blow but nonetheless gang rapes and sexual assaults in India of a particularly vicious nature continue. A question of “Sleeping Tiger Hidden Dragon”?
I am left thinking the documentary has not addressed a crucial question as to why many Indian men are so brutal. Where is the requisite need to beat and rape women as young as thirteen. After contemplating the film the answer may be because they can “get away with it”.
Some of the attitudes of the villagers stubbornly remain in contemporary Canadian society today but those relics hopefully are receding to the point we can soon hope the misogynist tiger is finally severely wounded at least here in Canada. The end of misogyny is unfortunately but a dream and the tiger continues to prowl.
“To Kill a Tiger” is nominated as the Best Documentary Feature Film in the 96th Academy Awards.
Written and directed by Nisha Pahuja.
You can watch the trailer here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yt6H2mX23I and the entire film on the National Film Board of Canada website at https://www.nfb.ca/distribution/film/to-kill-a-tiger
RKS 2024 Film Rating: 94/100.
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