Caste Into the Storm

By Shirley Hsu

Courtesy of clickwalla.com

"A single poppy seed is enough to spoil a whole vat of milk," declares one of the leaders of a tiny village nestled within the golden sand dunes of Rajasthan, India. The men, all high-caste Gujjars, sit on the dusty steps nervously twirling their mustaches and nodding in agreement. One of the village women, a low-caste potter, has been acting out of her place, and punishment is in order before the entire village is poisoned. The "poppy seed" is Sanwari Devi, a local woman who works for Rajasthan's women's development program, called Saathin. Devi has been interfering with the time-honored tradition of child marriage, even daring to report to authorities the marriage of the one-year-old daughter of a high caste village member, causing police to disrupt the ceremony. The men decide that Devi must be punished in the traditional way---by raping her.

In a story that at times is so outrageous it seems to be a parody of the truth, it is hard to believe that "The Sandstorm" is based on a true story.

Directed by Jagmohan Mundhra, "The Sandstorm" is a raw, gripping story based on the real life experiences of Bhanwari Devi, a rural Indian woman who was gang-raped ten years ago by five high-caste village leaders, including a village council chief and a priest, as punishment for challenging the tradition of child marriage. Instead of retreating in shame, as societal norms in rural India dictate, Devi became a national and international heroine when she took on the corrupt and chauvinistic judicial system in order to challenge her alleged rapists in court. After a controversial trial, the five men were acquitted of all but a few minor charges, and Devi is still waiting for an appeal.

"The Sandstorm," originally released in India three years ago and now playing in limited screenings in America, is director Jagmohan's attempt to keep Devi's story from being slowly erased from the public conscious.

Nandita Das plays a low caste potter woman. Courtesy of cinequest.com

Devi is given a powerful and sensitive portrayal by actress Nandita Das, whose previous film credits include Deepa Mehta's international productions "Fire" and "Earth." Das, who is no stranger to sensitive social issues---she holds a masters degree in social work---won a Best Actress Award at the Santa Monica Film Festival for her performance in "The Sandstorm." "The Sandstorm" also won Best Picture and the Audience Choice Award at the San Jose Film Festival, and was met with great applause at the London Film Festival, where proceeds from the screening were presented personally by Das to Devi.

Devi decides to fight for justice, but soon realizes that the evidence of her rape has been quietly swept under the rug---bureaucratic red tape delays Devi from having a medical examination until several days after her rape, when most of the evidence is gone. And in Jagmohan's retelling of the story, a local police officer takes custody of Devi's skirt and defiles it during a late night date with a lingerie magazine, thus sabotaging the DNA evidence.

This powerful story manages to shine through a muck of bad directorial decisions, the most offensive being the decision to frame Devi's story within that of Amy, a beautiful and shallow British journalist, who travels to Rajasthan in hopes of turning Devi's ordeal into a best-selling novel. The scenes containing Amy and Ravi, her male companion, are not only unnecessary, but downright degrading to the story. After the most harrowing scene in the film, in which Devi is gang-raped in front of her husband, who has been beaten into submission, the director cuts to Amy sitting in her hotel room, unnecessarily narrating: "This story is so shocking." Amy then says with a smirk, "On the other hand, I'm having a good time getting to know Ravi." Suggestive music comes on, and we see a shot of Ravi lying half clothed on the hotel bed. The levity of this scene is a slap in the face to Nandita Das' poignant performance, but perhaps most irking is that these scenes almost seem to be slapped onto the main story as an afterthought, perhaps in a misguided attempt to attract a wider audience with star power, as Amy is played by Laila Ruoass, a popular VJ and former "Elle" cover girl.

However, Jagmohan also made some insightful decisions in his retelling of the story. For example, setting the story amidst the rolling sand dunes of Jhanjheu, instead of Bhateri where Bhanwari Devi actually lives, makes for many beautiful and memorable scenes: It is in the sand that the illiterate Devi first learns to write her name with coaching from her young daughter, before a sandstorm sweeps away the writing, and it is in the sand where Devi is viciously raped by the village leaders.

Devi and her husband are attacked by village leaders. Courtesy of offoffoff.com

"The Sandstorm" has generated a flurry of controversy since its original release in India. Both women's groups and journalists have accused Jagmohan of sensationalizing Devi's story, exploiting her and of jeopardizing her court case. One of the most vocal critics, Kalpana Sharma, a journalist for "The Hindu," India's national newspaper, condemned Jagmohan for making the film without Devi's informed consent, and stated that Devi was "deeply worried about the impact of [the film] on her life, on the life of her children and on the on-going battle in court." Jagmohan claims that he had consulted the Forum Against Violence On Women, but that they would not grant their consent to the film, giving "vague excuses" such as "re-opening old wounds and traumatizing Bhanwari Devi." However, he maintains that Bhanwari Devi herself described her story in detail to the screenwriter, Ashok Mishra (National award winner for Shyam Benegal's "Samar"), and "tied raakhi" to him---a tradition that showed that she trusted Mishra to protect her.

Despite its flaws, "The Sandstorm" is an important film that shines an uncomfortable spotlight on the unjust treatment of rape victims in India. Jagmohan may have made a few manipulations and poor decisions in his retelling of the story, but the brutal injustice of the case comes through; in a November 1995 verdict, the five defendants were found not guilty. Among the reasons the judge gave for the acquittal was that the delay in obtaining a medical exam and in filing a complaint with the police indicated that Devi had made the story up. He also reasoned that upper caste men, including a Brahmin, would not touch a woman of a lower caste, much less rape her. Finally, he stated that teenagers usually commit rape, and since the defendants were all middle-aged, they were unlikely to have committed the crime.

Meanwhile, Bhanwari Devi continues to work as a women's rights activist in the village of Bhateri where she still lives, largely ostracized from the village community. While Devi may never see her attackers brought to justice, Jagmohan's film may help ensure that her story will not vanish like writing in the sand.

August 29, 2003