My Seditious Heart

by Arundhati Roy

  A man who read my essay of last week, came up to me and said, “She’s scum. Why are you getting involved with her?”

  I’m not sure I know how one defines scum. But for the sake of the argument, let’s assume that she is. Phoolan Devi (Scum)— like a degree from an unknown university. Does Scum have civil rights? It took a Salman Rushdie to make the world discuss the freedom of expression. Not an Enid Blyton. And so, to discuss an individual’s right to Justice, it takes a Phoolan Devi. Not the Pope.

  In yesterday’s papers, the chairman of the Censor Board defended the delay in clearing some films on Rajiv Gandhi. “The trouble with political films,” he said, “is that they are about real people. They must be absolutely true.” In the eyes of the Law, are Rajiv Gandhi and Phoolan Devi equally real? Or is one a little more real than the other? As we watch the drama unfold in the press, one thing has become absolutely clear. The most elusive, the most enigmatic, the most intangible character of all is the “Truth.” She hardly appears. She has no lines. Perhaps it’s safe to assume that the play isn’t about her at all. If so, then what are we left with? Versions. Versions of the story. Versions of the woman herself.

  We have the version of her in the film: Poor Phoolan. Raped and re-raped and re-re-raped until she takes to crime and guns down twenty-two Thakur Rapists. (Forgive her, the film says to us.) We have the version of her painted by the producers now that she’s protested about their film: manipulative, cunning, trying to hit them for more money. (Look at the greedy bitch!) We have the version of her that appears in the papers: Ex-jailbird. Flirting with politics. Trying to adjust to married life, manipulated by her husband and her French biographers.

  And these are only some of them.

  We have versions of her story. Phoolan’s version. Mala Sen’s book that claims to be based on Phoolan’s “writings.” This film that claims to be based on Mala Sen’s book. And these are only some of them.

  As always, when we cannot agree, we must turn to law. Study contracts. Examine promises. Scrutinize signatures.

  What does Phoolan’s contract say? Or, more accurately, what do Phoolan’s contracts say? They say quite simply, all three of them, that the film was to be based on Phoolan’s writings; the film was to be Phoolan Devi’s version of her story. Not Mala Sen’s version. Not Shekhar Kapur’s version. Not your or my version. Not even the “True” version (if such a thing exists), but Phoolan’s version.

  You see, it turns out that Mala Sen’s book was published long after the first contract with Phoolan was signed.

  The first agreement for the purchase of the rights to Phoolan’s version was with Jalal Agha’s company called Anancy Films. It was signed in 1988. The contract clearly states (underlined right across the top) that it was to be a documentary film “relating to Indian banditry and your role therein.” Having made this clear, the contract refers to it as “the Film.”

  Another agreement was signed in 1989 informing Phoolan that the rights to her “writings” now belonged to Channel Four.

  The third letter was issued in 1992 by BV Videographics, S. S. Bedi’s company, affirming the agreement between Phoolan Devi and Channel Four and informing her that they were the latest in the line of succession to the rights of her story.

  The contracts, smuggled in and out of prison by Phoolan’s family in tiffin carriers, are vague and cursory. Couched in this vagueness there is a sort of disdain. Of the educated for the illiterate. Of the rich for the poor. Of the free for the incarcerated. It’s like the attitude of a memsahib getting her ayah to undertake to vacate the servants’ quarter in the event that she’s sacked. Essentially, Phoolan Devi seems to have given Channel Four the rights to film her version of the story of her life, in return for the sum of a little over 5,000 pounds. Less than 1 percent of the 650,000-pound budget of the film. (What was that about her being greedy?)

  Anyway, let us assume that it all started out in good faith. That they intended to make a Documentary Film. Somewhere along the way it became a Feature film. They took care of that in the small print. Okay. In the last clause of the agreement(s), they gave themselves the right to “cut, alter and adapt the writings and use alone or with other material and/or accompanied by editorial comment.”

  Herein (they believe) lies their salvation. What did they mean by this clause? What did they intend when they included this in the contract? To me, as a writer of films, it seems fair enough. You must have the right to cut, alter, and adapt your source material. Of course you must. Unless you want to make a film that is exactly as long as the life of your subject. But does “cut, alter, and adapt” include Distort and Falsify?

  The producers’ (by now public, and written) refusal to show Phoolan the original version of the film (the one that has been seen and reviewed and is now on its World Tour) suggests that they know they have done her a terrible injustice. But they say they are not worried because they have a “fool-proof” contract with her. What does this imply? That they deliberately set out to cheat and mislead her? That they conned an illiterate woman into signing away her rights? I don’t know. I’m asking.

  Surely the fact that they were dealing with an illiterate woman only increases their obligation to her? Surely it was up to them, to check and countercheck the facts with her? To read her the script, to fine-tune the details, to show her the rough cut before the film was shown to the rest of the world? Instead what do they do? They never meet her once. Not even to sign the contracts. They reinvent her life. Her loves. Her rapes. They implicate her in the murder of twenty-two men that she denies having committed. Then they try to slither out of showing her the film!

  “Cut, alter, and adapt”? Is that what it’s called?

  Could it be that the film’s success, and the producers’ (and director’s) blatant exploitation of this person, both have to do with the same thing? That she’s a woman, that she’s poor, and illiterate, and has (they assume) no court of appeal? Which is why she became a bandit in the first place? Which they haven’t got yet. The point that they seem to keep on missing (in the film, and otherwise) is that she’s no victim. She’s a fighter. Unfortunately for her, this time she’s on their territory. Not hers.

  After I saw the film, which was about three weeks ago, I met Phoolan several times. Initially, I did not speak of the film to her, because I believed that it would have been wrong of me to influence her opinion. The burden of my song so far has been: Show her the film. I only supported her demand that she had a right, a legal right to see the film that claims to be the true story of her life. My opinion of the film has nothing to do with her opinion. Mine doesn’t matter. Hers does. More than anyone else’s.

  Two days ago, on September 1, when the producer replied to Phoolan’s legal notice, making it absolutely clear that he would not show her the original, international version of the film (the version that has been written about, and so glowingly reviewed), I sat with her and told the sequence of events, scene by scene. The discrepancies, the departures, the outright fabrications are frightening. I wrote about some of them last week. I didn’t know then just how bad it really was.

  Phoolan didn’t write any prison diaries. She couldn’t. She narrated them to someone who was with her in jail. The writings were smuggled out and given to Mala Sen. Mala Sen pieced them together and wrote first a script, then a book. The book presents several versions of the story, including Phoolan’s. The film doesn’t. Mala Sen’s book and Bandit Queen the film differ radically, not just in fact, but in spirit. I believe that her film script was altered by the makers of the film. Substantially altered. It departs from the book as well as from Phoolan’s version of her story.

  Since I have not seen Phoolan’s diaries, I can only read the extracts published in Mala Sen’s book and assume that they are accurate. Mala Sen quotes her: “What I am writing is read by many, and written by those I do not know so well …” What a terrible position to be in! What easy meat for jackals!

  According to Mala Sen, Phoolan Devi was reluctant t
o even discuss rape:

  There are various versions of what happened to Phoolan Devi after Vikram Mallah’s death. When I spoke to her she was reluctant to speak of her bezathi (dishonor) as she put it, at the hands on the Thakurs. She did not want to dwell on the details and merely said, “Un logo ne mujhse bahut mazak ki” (Those people behaved badly with me). I was not surprised at her reticence to elaborate. First of all, because we had an audience, including members of her family, other prisoners and their relatives. Secondly because we live in societies where a woman who is abused sexually ends up feeling deeply humiliated, knowing that many will think that it was her fault, or partly her fault. That she provoked the situation in the first place. Phoolan Devi, like many other women all over the world, feels she will only add to her own shame if she speaks of this experience.

  Does this sound like a woman who would have agreed to have her humiliation recreated for the world to watch? Does this sound like the book that a film replete with rape could be based on? Every time Mala Sen quotes Phoolan as saying, “Un logo ne mujhse bahut mazak ki,” the director of the film has assumed that she meant that she was raped. “How else can a woman be expected to express the shame heaped on her …” asks Kapur. And in the film he does not shy away from dwelling on details. Oh, no. That’s woman stuff. When Phoolan won’t provide him with the details, he goes ahead and uses the wholly vicarious account of some American journalist from Esquire. The man writes with skill and feeling. Almost as though he was there. (I’ve quoted from this at length in “The Great Indian Rape-Trick I.”)

  Assuming, for the sake of argument, that whenever Phoolan says “mujhse mazak ki” she does in fact mean that she was raped. Do they have the right to show it? In all its explicit detail? This raises the question of an Individual’s Right to Privacy. In Phoolan Devi’s case, not just Privacy, Sexual Privacy. And not just infringement. Outright assault.

  In the rape scenes in the film (Phoolan Devi is shown being raped by her husband, raped by Babu Gujjar, raped by the police, and gang-raped by the Thakurs of Behmai), her humiliation and degradation could not possibly be more explicit.

  While I watched this, I remember feeling that using the identity of a living woman, recreating her degradation and humiliation for public consumption, was totally unacceptable to me. Doing it without her consent, without her specific, written, repeated, whole-hearted, unambiguous consent, is monstrous. I cannot believe that it has happened. I cannot believe that it is being condoned.

  I cannot believe that it is not a criminal offense.

  If it were a fictional film, where rape was being examined as an issue, if it were a fictional character who was being raped, it would be an entirely different issue. I would be glad to enter into an argument about whether showing the rape was necessary, whether or not it was “exploitative.”

  The Accused, a film that challenges accepted norms about what constitutes rape and what doesn’t, hardly shows the act of rape at all! Bandit Queen, on the other hand, has nothing intelligent to say about the subject beyond the fact that Rape is degrading and humiliating. Dwelling on the Degradation and the Humiliation is absolutely essential for the commercial success of the film. Without it, there would be no film. The intensity of these emotions is increased to fever pitch because we’re told: She’s real. This happened. And faithfully, our critics go home and write about it. Praise it to the skies. Who are we to assess a living woman’s rape? Who are we to decide how well done it was? How Brutal? How Chilling? How true-to-life? Who the hell are we?

  Had I been raped, perhaps I would devote my every waking hour to call for stiffer legislation, harsher punishment for rapists. Perhaps I’d take lessons from Lorena Bobbitt. What I would never ever do, and I don’t imagine that anyone else (even those who loved the film so much) would either, is to agree to have it recreated as entertainment cloaked in the guise of concern, for an audience that was going to pay to watch. It would be like being raped all over again. And ironically, the more skillful the director, the greater would be my shame and humiliation.

  I am disgusted that I was invited to Siri Fort to watch Phoolan Devi being raped—without her permission. Had I known that she had not seen the film, I would never have gone. I know that there are videotapes of Bandit Queen doing the rounds in Delhi drawing rooms. If any of you who read this essay has a tape— please do the right thing. Show it to Phoolan Devi (since the producers won’t). Ask her whether she minds your watching or not. Given all this, to call Phoolan Devi’s protests and demands to see the film “tantrums” and “grumbling” is so small-minded, so blinkered that it’s unbelievable. And unforgiveable.

  I’ve tried so hard to understand how it could possibly be that so many intelligent people have not seen through this charade. I can only think that to them, a “True Story” is just another kind of story. That “Truth” is merely a more exciting form of fiction.

  They don’t believe that Phoolan Devi is real. That she actually exists. That she has feelings. Opinions. A mind. A Past. A father that she loved (who didn’t sell her for a secondhand bicycle). Her life, or what they know of it, is so implausible, so far-fetched. So unlike what Life means to them. It has very little to do with what they associate with being “human.” They cannot put themselves in her shoes—and think what they’d feel if the film had done to them what it has done to her.

  The more “touched” among them don’t denigrate her. They exalt her with their pity. From “Woman” to “Womanhood.”

  Indeed, the strength of the film is that it goes much beyond Phoolan Devi, who is of course the original peg …

  Kapur’s film is not the story of one extraordinary woman: it is a manifesto about Indian womanhood.

  When a woman becomes Womanhood, she ceases to be real.

  I don’t need to argue this any further, because my work has been done for me. Every time they open their mouths—the producer, the director, and even the actress of this incredible film—every time they open their mouths, they damn themselves.

  The West has lapped up the film. It has been very tightly edited and the essence of child abuse and caste discrimination comes out very strongly. Phoolan is just a vehicle for the expression of these.

  The film was a means of finding deeper meaning in the world. It was a means of discovering myself. It helped me discover new aspects of myself.

  When I was selected for the role, I read every report on Phoolan and looked at her picture for hours on end to understand her. When I was done with all this, I realized that I had formed an image of her and worked out why she had reacted the way she did. After this I did not want to meet her because I did not want any contradictions to the image I had formed of her.

  In their quest for Classic Cinema, they’ve stripped a human being of her Rights. Her Dignity. Her Privacy. Her Freedom. And perhaps, as I will argue later, of her Right to Life itself.

  And so we move from Rape to Murder.

  Phoolan Devi denies having murdered twenty-two Thakurs at Behmai. She has denied it in her statement to the Police. She has denied it in her “writings.” She has denied it to Mala Sen.

  Bandit Queen shows her present and responsible for the massacre of twenty-two Thakurs at Behmai.

  What does this mean? Essentially, I did not kill these twenty-two men.

  Yes, you did.

  No, I didn’t.

  Yes, you did.

  Cut, Alter, and Adapt?

  Does Bandit Queen the film constitute an Interference with the Administration of Justice? It certainly does.

  This February, after eleven years in prison, Phoolan Devi was released on bail. Two days after her release, the widows of Behmai filed an appeal against Mulayam Singh Yadav’s plans to drop the charges against Phoolan Devi for the massacre of their husbands. Phoolan’s trial is still pending in Indian courts. If she’s found guilty, she could be hanged.

  Very few know what really happened in Behmai on that cold February night. There was gunfire. There were twenty-two corpses. Those are the
facts.

  Was Phoolan Devi there? Did she kill those men? Two of the men who were shot but didn’t die have said she wasn’t there. Other eyewitnesses say that she was. There is plenty of room for doubt. Certainly there is that. All we have for sure, is a Definite Maybe.

  Faced with this dilemma, with this great big hole in their story line (Rape n’ Retribution), what does our “Greatest Indian Film Ever Made” do? It haggles with the “Truth” like a petty shopkeeper.

  “The case against Phoolan was sub-judice and so we took her statements about the Behmai massacre where she said she had shot a few people. But in the film we have not shown her killing anybody as we did not want it to affect her case.”

  But what if she did in fact kill those men? Is that not a terrible injustice to the murdered men and their families?

  Never mind the fact that according to the law, showing Phoolan Devi present, supervising and responsible for the massacre, whether or not she actually pulled the trigger, does not make her any less culpable. So, in effect, the result of their little arrangement with the “Truth” is that they’ve managed something quite remarkable. They’ve got it wrong both ways. They’ve done both sides an injustice.

  Apart from this, in other, more subtle ways, the Interference in the Administration of Justice has already begun.

  Phoolan Devi knows that the people who made the film have a lot at stake. She also knows that they have the Media supporting them. She knows that they are powerful, influential people. From where she comes from, they look as though they own the world. They fly around it all the time.

  And who is she? What has she got to say for herself? That she’s India’s best known bandit?

  She’s not even a free woman. She’s a prisoner, out on bail. She is terrified. She feels cornered. She cannot be expected to be coherent in her protest. She believes that all it would take would be a nudge here, a wink there, and she could land right back in jail. Perhaps her fears are unfounded. But as far as she’s concerned, they could.