No space to screen, speak or paint

BY NUPUR BASU| IN Media Practice | 10/03/2014

Women documentary filmmakers, journalists, activists and artists in South Asia are experiencing a ‘shrinking space’ in showcasing their work and thereby expressing themselves.

At the 10^th anniversary festival of IAWRT (International Association of Women in Radio and Television) in Delhi from March 5 to 8, women from Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Bangladesh and India repeatedly expressed these concerns at panel discussions, film screenings and a seminar. The multiplicity of voices from South Asia on the issue of censorship came through loud and clear.

At a panel on “Through the looking glass- post –conflict Sri Lanka and its dilemmas” Anomaa Rajakaruna, a writer and documentary filmmaker from Sri Lanka said, “We have no screening places anymore in Sri Lanka”. Rajakarurna who screened her documentary film in the making – People of Puttalam -- about the marginalisation of Muslim refugees in Sri Lanka said that the narrative in Sri Lanka supported only what the establishment wanted and not an alternative one.

Supporting her in the arguments was Sumathy Sivamohan, a teacher and documentary filmmaker from Jaffna, whose film on the plight of plantation workers in the post-conflict situation on the island nation – Ingirinthu -was screened at the festival. “We as filmmakers and poets are trying to tell the story not just of different communities hit by the ethnic conflict but about the state of Sri Lanka as a whole – I tried telling the story of a forgotten history of the country…a forgotten community of indentured labour brought by the British to the tea plantations. But there is less and less space to show these works and discuss these issues in present day environment in Sri Lanka where any discussion critical of the government is quickly silenced”, observed Sivamohan.

Reporters Without Borders has listed Sri Lanka as a ‘country under surveillance’ since 2011 and stories of journalists censored and exiled abound.

Leena Manimekalai, Indian filmmaker and the director of White Van Stories on persons who have disappeared in Sri Lanka, who participated in the panel discussion, said: “Our main thrust as women filmmakers has been to break through a hegemonic narrative that dominates most descriptions of the conflict. For example in my film I talk about the disappearances of Sinhalas, Tamils, Muslims – not just the Tamils - but the moment you do that you piss everyone off”. Manimekalai had to go to the tribunal to ensure that she could screen her film in India.

“The narrative they accept is about one politician and one victim…any alternative narrative is unacceptable to them – the diaspora blocked my film, my screenings in Tamil Nadu were disrupted and stopped and I receive threatening messages all the time”, Manimekalai adds. “Documentary films are a medium to do uncompromising work and yet the establishment perceive it as bombs being placed under them. We have to make our films undercover and then when the film is ready to be screened, we find swords in the air everywhere to stop people engaging with our films!”

Echoes of censorship were also heard at a seminar titled hum gunahgaar auratein (we sinful women) on International Women’s Day, a part of IAWRT’s 10th anniversary celebration. Noted artist Salima Hashmi from Lahore, Pakistan (who also happens to be Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s daughter), traced the history of attacks on free speech and women artists from the days of Zia-ul-Haq right up to the present day to prevent women from questioning their subjugation both in the domestic and public space. Hashmi, by showcasing the works of women artists from Pakistan through the years, showed how the women have painted and expressed themselves despite all the attempts to silence and censor them.

“The space is shrinking for us women not only in our homes and public spaces – our very right to live, breathe and dream. And resistance is our only way forward even if it means we stand on the firing line and take bullets”, agreed Amar Sindhu, a teacher and activist from Sindh, Pakistan. Sindhu believed that “the personal is political”. “I said ‘no’ to the burqa and then my mother followed and then other women in the family.”

This year women activists in Pakistan, on International Women’s Day, went to Larkana to pay homage to ‘fallen women’ who had been buried in mass graves. “These women had dared to fall in love and had to pay a very heavy price for that – they were killed and buried without any grave stones. On Valentine’s Day in Pakistan this year, we paid homage to women who were killed by floating flowers in the rivers in their memory”, said the teacher from Sindh.

Fahmida Riaz, poet and writer from Pakistan, who had been charged with sedition in 14 cases by the Zia-ul-Haq regime and had had to jump bail and come and live in India for seven years, said that she had faced all this censure for merely writing on marriage, religion and culture. Riaz’s poetry questioning Pakistan’s lack of freedom for women and also India’s new aggressive Hindutva, showcased the power of her writing and critique before an appreciative audience in New Delhi.

Mithu Sen, Indian artist, summed it up nicely in her presentation. “The more they tried to censor me, the more challenged I was to express myself more unconventionally”.  In order to oppose prevailing languages she created her own language,  as a form of art  both in her paintings and in spoken audio tapes. It is gibberish, but she read out a poem in that language. 

Hana Shams Ahmed, coordinator, Chittagong Hill Tracts Commission from Bangladesh talked about the state censorship on indigenous women like Kalpana Chakma who was abducted at the age of 23 for challenging military oppression and patriarchy through her writings. She had kept a dairy and the case is still going on. “Nation building in Bangladesh is very Bengali and Muslim centric and does not take into account the contribution of the indigenous people to the country’s freedom”, said Shams Ahmed.

Dolly Kikon from the northeast of India, Priya Thangarajah from Sri Lanka, Gazala Peer from Kashmir and Kutti Revathi, from Tamil Nadu, stressed the need to revive reciprocal solidarity in the women’s experience and support each other as their struggles stem from the same source - the nation state and patriarchy. Especially for women living in conflict zones in South Asia. Thus, women from Jaffa should show solidarity with women from the northeast, and women from Karachi or Sindh should express solidarity with women from Tamil Nadu and Delhi. 

Nahid Siddiqui’s Kathak performance was a fitting culmination to all the stories of resistance that the women from south Asia had narrated. “I had been banned from dancing by the Zia regime and called an Indian spy – but I did nothing but dance all my life”, said the radiant Kathak dancer from Pakistan.