India: A Dangerous Place to Be a Woman

This programme contains scenes which some viewers may find upsetting.

Last December, cities across India

were engulfed in a series of protests.

They stemmed from the death of a young woman

who'd been brutally gang-raped on board a moving bus.

With the story making global headlines, millions

around the world were shocked at the viciousness of the rape.

One of those was Radha Bedi, a young British Indian.

'..Even the death penalty.'

It's just not fair, it's not right, it's horrible.

Now Radha's going to India to discover

the tougher reality of life for young women there.

She'll meet girls who have suffered appalling brutality.

I try and tell myself, "All right,

"they've taken her face but they haven't taken her heart."

She'll meet men who blame women for the violence they suffer.

If she'd been respectable, this would never have happened to her.

She'll try to understand what's underpinning all this violence.

What's really clear and urgent is that we need to value women

in this country, equally.

And she'll find herself caught up in her own struggle for justice,

after she was sexually harassed on a previous visit to India.

You freeze, you're in shock.

But I want to see if the police will take my case seriously.

28-year-old Radha lives at home with her parents.

In a few days' time, she's heading off for India.

And she's starting to worry she's not really prepared for the trip.

That one is a bit too sexy, I suppose.

Yeah, that's more like it. I could wear that.

I'll not take my shorts.

Radha's been to India before.

But this is the first time she's going without her family.

So, not too short.

I am nervous.

Before I've been to India and, you know, I go as a tourist,

I visit my family.

But I don't really get to see

and understand what daily life is like for women.

I want to find out what it's like to be an Indian woman living in India -

what do they face, what battles do they face?

I had no idea that this is...something like

what we've seen happen just a few months ago.

'An outpouring of grief on Delhi's streets, stunned into silence...'

A girl just went out to the cinema, came back and she lost her life.

But I suppose sitting in the comfort of your living room,

you're always that little bit more removed.

You can switch off the TV and that's it, you don't have to deal with it.

'The brutal assault on the young medical intern has shocked Indians.'

It is my motherland and I don't want to think that bad things happen.

But I guess this trip I am scared about what I'm going to find out

and actually be faced with the truth.

Are you going to miss me? Straight question?

Um...yes and no.

That sounds like a no to me!

You've got to be really smart when you're in India.

Just watch yourself, be very vigilant - don't trust anybody.

Cos I don't trust anybody there.

Naturally, it's going to worry me but you need to look after yourself.

Delhi - India's capital.

A city teeming with more than 20 million people.

An ever-expanding middle-class rubs shoulders with

millions of poorer migrants.

In this overcrowded metropolis,

sexual violence is often feared by women.

Radha's arriving in a place which now has the dubious reputation

of being India's rape capital.

It was on a cold December evening last year that a horrifying story

of brutality began to unfold.

It made headline news in India and then around the world.

'Our top story at this hour. Four men who allegedly gang-raped

'and then brutally beat up a medical student in Delhi last night

'have been identified by the police.

'The victim, a 23-year-old medical student, is now in hospital

'where her condition is said to be extremely critical.'

On her first night in Delhi, Radha is meeting up with

an old friend, Vandana, outside a luxury shopping mall.

It's here where the rape incident began.

A young student, Jyoti Singh Pandey, had gone with a male friend

to see the film Life Of Pi.

When they were trying to get home at around 9:00 at night, they were

unable to find a rickshaw that would go to her area of the city.

They were picked up on the side of the road by a private bus.

On board the moving bus, they beat up Jyoti

and her male companion before raping her repeatedly.

Worst of all, they inserted a car jack inside her,

rupturing her internal organs.

Yeah, I was just going to say that. It's horrible, isn't it?

Just thinking about it, what she must have gone through.

THEY CHANT We want justice! We want justice!

Outrage after Jyoti's horrific ordeal

led to mass demonstrations across the country.

Police struggled to contain the rage,

as men and women filled the streets in protest, demanding greater

safety for women and justice for the girl who'd been brutally raped.

Ten days later, Jyoti died in hospital from her injuries.

Five men and a teenage boy were arrested.

They're currently on trial for her rape and murder.

In such cases, conviction can mean the death penalty.

Three months on from the rape, Radha is keen to know

whether passions are still high about what's happened.

I can hear something.

Support your sister, support your daughter. Come and speak up.

Every night, a small group of protesters hold a passionate

candlelit vigil for the girl who's died.

The main point of what they're saying is "hang the rapists".

I totally agree with that.

I think they should hang the rapists for what they've done.

-DIRECTOR:

-Why?

Because of the sheer brutality of what that girl suffered.

Hanging is the only justice that can be done for her.

It really is.

There's so much of this.

Since the Delhi rape, reported cases of sexual violence

have more than doubled.

Every day these newspapers are full of stories about

sexual violence and rape.

Look. "Dalit girl gang-raped in car in Amritsar."

"Acid attack on woman and maid."

"Youths jailed for raping minor cousin."

Half a dozen papers here and they're all just full of stories.

Radha's discovering that stories about women's safety

and sexual violence are now headline news.

"Delhi reels under surge in major crimes."

"Rapes, 145 in 2012. Now just over 350 cases this year."

So far. We're only just three, four, months into the year.

I wonder if they're the ones who are enforcing what's been written

on this poster here?

It's all very well having it written down,

but do they follow through with it in practice? That's another matter.

Radha wants to know what the daily reality is like for

young women on Delhi's streets.

-Hi. How are you?

-I'm good.

She's come to a popular market to meet another friend, Bhavana,

who lives in the city.

So crowded, Bhavana.

So am I OK walking like this?

-So, you have to protect your...?

-Exactly.

-Assets.

In India, sexual harassment is often written off as being harmless fun.

It's described, quaintly, as Eve teasing.

Verbal sexual remarks.

Where I come from, if a guy looks me up and down

it will wash over my head.

Not really, no.

It's trying to figure out what is Eve teasing, you know?

If someone just stares at you in admiration, admiring, I don't know,

your asset, or saying, "She looks pretty," is there any harm in that?

Really?

Even though sexual harassment is often dismissed as harmless teasing,

Radha's about to discover how easily it can spin out of control.

And not just in the big cities.

She's come to the state of Assam in the north east of India

where, one evening last summer,

a girl was subjected to a humiliating assault.

Her ordeal was filmed and then shown on national news.

-Hi, Mousumi. Nice to meet you.

-Nice to meet you.

23-year-old Mousumi wants to tell Radha what really happened.

The incident was filmed by a passing cameraman from a local news channel.

It soon went viral on the internet.

Oh, my God!

Even though she'd done nothing wrong,

Mousumi is now seen as being a girl of low character.

After her attack was shown on national television,

public outrage forced the police to act.

11 men were arrested and convicted of her assault.

Now I understand how something as small as Eve teasing,

as a guy checking you out, can go to this.

She was stripped in public, you know. No-one helped her. No-one.

And she blames herself, she feels ashamed.

She feels that she's the one who's done...

She's been made to feel that she's the guilty party.

All she did was go to a club, a friend's birthday.

A friend's birthday, and this is the price she's had to pay.

Radha is shocked by what she's heard.

But she's no stranger to sexual harassment herself.

It's something that she's faced before on previous trips to India

and memories of those incidents are now returning.

One time after a night out, I was taking a taxi, and the taxi man

invited himself to touch my lower leg,

grab onto it and slowly move it upwards.

I looked down at my leg and I thought,

"Is he doing what I think he's doing?"

And I was telling myself, "No, he's not."

And the whole initial shock stops you from reacting.

Radha managed to escape from the taxi shaken up but unharmed.

But then six months ago, while in India for a wedding,

she was out in a market in Delhi when she faced another incident.

I was shopping for an outfit for a friend's wedding

with my mum and my auntie.

We had, like, a personal assistant

to help show you what you look like and everything.

And it's only when he sort of crouched down on his knees

towards the bottom of the dress to fix the flares and things

that I felt, oh, something is touching my ankle

from underneath the skirt,

and I could feel his hand just slowly moving up my leg.

And I kind of jolted and flinched and moved backwards and thought, "No."

It was a clear, like, "I'm not comfortable with this."

And that's when my auntie was like, right, OK, he's gone a step too far.

I was just in shock and just wanted to get the hell out of there,

to be honest. My auntie demanded to see the manager.

They just didn't seem to be bothered. They didn't really care.

I was furious. Really, really was furious.

You feel disgusting,

you feel tainted, like someone's just infected you.

That's how you feel. Deep down.

It's still here with me today, it still haunts me.

I can't think about it but it's still there at the back of my mind,

that I've been through these two experiences.

Looks like a pretty rundown area to me.

Amid all the outrage about the sexual harassment and violence

suffered by Delhi's women, some lone voices have spoken up for men.

INDISTINCT SPEECH

Thank you. Nice to meet you.

One of those is the man originally hired as

the defence lawyer for three of the accused.

Such was the brutality of the Delhi bus gang-rape

that no well-known lawyer agreed to take on the case.

-Can I have a look?

-Yes.

Lawyer Manohar Lal Sharma runs his business from his humble apartment.

After the girl was raped,

she and her male friend were thrown from the bus,

and the attackers then attempted to run them over.

What's this?

I've heard some comments that you've made.

You said that you've never heard of a respectable girl ever being raped.

What's the difference between a respectable girl

and a non-respectable girl?

So do you think she had any responsibility -

the fact that she was out at night with a boy?

I am really shocked.

What he is saying is that, if I go out tonight, after dark,

with a guy who's not my husband, I'm not a respectable girl.

And if something DOES happen to me, and I do get raped,

that's partly my fault. My responsibility.

It's opened my eyes, you know. I didn't realise actually how different

life is here and how much society is different, culture is different.

We're conditioned differently.

Things that I take for granted...

in India mean a completely different thing.

The question of respect, the question of the way a girl dresses,

the way you are judged, how you are perceived.

These are things that I don't really give two thoughts about back home,

but here, you DO have to think about.

In India, there's another form of sexual violence

which is not often reported. It's known as an acid attack.

Radha's come to a rundown part of the city to meet Alok Dixit

who works to raise awareness about such attacks on women.

He's going to take Radha to meet a teenage survivor.

Alok. Hi. I'm Radha, nice to meet you.

Can you tell me a little about the girl we are going to meet now?

The girl Radha is about to meet was only 14

when she was attacked last year.

She's come to Delhi with her parents for treatment.

I've never met anyone who suffered from an acid attack,

so I'm just a bit nervous about what I'm going to see and...you know.

I hope I don't frighten her with my expressions, you know.

(Sorry.)

After the attack, Tuba got emergency treatment at her local hospital.

Since then, her parents have been seeking specialist help in Delhi.

But it's costly treatment, and money that the family don't have.

Four men were arrested after the attack

and are now in jail, awaiting trial.

Since the Delhi rape case,

the penalty for such crimes has been increased to ten years.

But, in reality, these cases can drag on for years in the courts -

and, if convicted, the attackers often end up

with much shorter sentences.

She's 15 years old but, you know, I just keep trying to tell myself,

all right, they've taken her face but, you know,

they haven't taken her heart.

They haven't taken her soul, they haven't taken her...

Radha's struggling to understand

what's underpinning all this violence.

Why is it that such brutality is happening

against young women in India?

Radha's come to the Delhi headquarters of UN Women.

She's here to meet Sabrina Sidhu

who's part of a team researching sexual violence in India.

We did a study in Delhi and the study showed that 95%

of women are scared to go out.

Our studies also showed that two in three men that were

interviewed felt that the dress women wore provoked them.

Where did this all come from, you know,

where do all these attitudes come from?

Men want to be in control, they want to be in power, right?

In your families, when boys grow up into men,

they really see how the mother and sisters are treated -

what value is put on their education, on their mobility etc.

And then they go do exactly that with their wives or daughters.

And then, through their life cycle,

they're being discriminated at every stage.

Until these mind-sets change, you know,

rapes, molestation, harassment will continue to happen.

What's really clear and urgent is that

we need to value women in this country, equally.

It's sobering for Radha to hear that what's underpinning

the violence is that women are often seen as inferior to men.

Disturbed by what she's heard, Radha wants to find out

what life is like for women outside the big cities.

She's decided to make the long journey back to her

home state of Punjab to meet her own relatives.

It's a six-hour trip on India's heaving rail network.

It's time to rough it. Ditch the straighteners and the hairdryer.

She's going to the village where her mother spent

the first few years of her life.

I really do feel like I'm a million miles away from home.

So different.

I'm so nervous.

-Hello-ji.

-Hello-ji. Namaste-ji.

Radha has twin cousins her age, who she's not met for a decade.

The guy is known as Bunty.

And the girl is Sheetal.

Bunty got married a few months ago.

His new wife has moved in with her in-laws.

My wife - Monu.

Monu? OK.

Like most Indian weddings, it was an arranged marriage.

Even though it was a happy occasion, Radha's keen to find out what

married life is like for the new bride.

This is my room.

For Bunty, like most Indian grooms,

the wedding meant a bonanza of gifts from the girl's family.

It's what's known as dowry.

In Bunty's case, the gifts were freely given.

But, all too often, the girl's family are forced to give more than

they can afford.

It's the price for having a girl.

The village is wealthy, with lots of money

coming in from relatives who've settled abroad.

Today Radha's going with her cousins to visit one family

who are celebrating the birth of a son.

Oh, my God.

LIVELY MUSIC PLAYS

The parents of the newborn boy live in the UK.

His relatives in the village are celebrating the birth

in the traditional way, with the help of a transsexual -

what's known in India as a eunuch -

who collects donations from well-wishers.

THEY ALL LAUGH

Even in Radha's own family, these traditions hold firm.

Her cousin Sheetal has two children,

a three-year-old son and a six-year-old daughter.

Poor little Lisa didn't get it.

I'm just struggling to understand why it's such a burden to be a girl.

I'm really struggling. I just, I can't understand it.

It's not...it's not sinking in to my head.

I think it's a bit of a reality check and wake-up call.

The sad reality is that being a girl in India is just a huge burden.

Even to the extent that people don't want girls.

HORN BEEPS

To see for herself the reality of what it means to be unwanted,

Radha is visiting an orphanage in the nearby city of Patiala.

She's here to meet Veena Bakshi,

who looks after more than 30 abandoned or orphaned girls.

It's one of hundreds of such places across India.

Girls often are taken in as babies or young infants,

and stay here until marriage.

MUSIC PLAYS

At this home, the girls grow up in one huge female family.

It means the younger ones get started early

on learning their Bollywood dance moves.

With so many sisters, they're getting the love

and affection their families wouldn't give them.

RADHA: Bye-bye.

Bye.

GIRLS: Bye!

I'm not a mother. I don't know what it's like to have a kid

but surely, you know, what sort of individual,

what sort of human are you to actually physically be able

to put your child, something that's part of you, in danger,

give it up, abandon it?

A child is a gift. And all these girls,

all their mothers have abandoned them.

Radha is shocked by all that she's discovered about

what it means to be a woman in India.

Back in Delhi, she's determined to take a stand, in a personal way.

She's decided to go to the police,

to report the harassment she suffered herself last year.

-Where's the police station?

-Straight down the road.

She's asked her friend Bhavana to come with her for moral support.

Even though the incident happened several months ago,

Radha has found out that under Indian law

she has one year to report any case of sexual harassment.

Six months ago, when the incident happened, you know,

I wasn't strong enough, I didn't want to deal with it.

I just wanted to forget about it, you know.

When you go through something bad, you just, you freeze,

you're in shock, you don't want to... You just want to block it out

completely but now that I'm back here in India six months on,

you know, just feet away from the shop, I do feel a sense of,

"Well, hold on, you know, you've got the courage, Radha.

"You can do this, you can go to the police."

And I want to see if the police will take my case seriously.

Radha is going to try to register her complaint at the nearby

police station as a member of the public, not as part of a BBC team.

The cameras are being left far behind.

Two hours later, Radha and Bhavana are out of the police station.

I expected nothing, to be honest.

My expectation was that they're not going to do anything.

I thought, OK, they'll make me write something down on paper

and then send me away. I honestly thought that I wasn't going to

be in there for the length of time I was.

But they physically dropped all their work, had me go to the shop,

escorted by three police officers, made an effort to speak

and find out from the shop itself what happened and who did it.

They've at least taken the step to, you know, ask you what's happened.

And they actually went with us. I mean, for me, it came as a shock.

Do you think it's because I'm a foreigner, they made an effort?

I am presuming yes.

PHONE RINGS Policeman calling. Hello.

Hi. Hello.

Anji?

Yeah, I would like to register the complaint.

You want me to come back?

OK. Bye. Bye.

That was shocking. I've just had a call from the policeman

and he wants me to come back to register the case.

He's insisting. So I think I'm going to go back.

Three hours later, and the police have been swift to act.

They've put pressure on the management of the shop

to identify the suspect and have now made an arrest.

I'm just gobsmacked.

I went to write a statement and, before I know it,

the culprit is there.

The police said, "Is this the man that groped you?"

And...

And I said, "Yeah."

And now a case has been opened.

-DIRECTOR:

-So are you pleased?

Yeah. Bit scared, though.

Of what?

When you come face-to-face with someone who's done something to you.

It's good what's happened, but...

I know his name.

They've taken statements, a full case has been opened.

And he's going to be put in jail tonight.

He was begging at my feet for forgiveness

and I just felt really uncomfortable.

He's from a village, he's got an old mum and dad.

He's supposedly got a wife.

The police slapped him, saying, "Well, if you've got a wife

"and you've got a sister, how dare you touch her?

"What gave you the right?"

And he was begging me. I couldn't even look at him.

Despite her fears about what's to happen next,

Radha's accusation is being taken seriously.

Since the Delhi rape case, there's been overwhelming public

pressure for a change in attitudes to violence against women.

And change has begun to happen.

Thousands of Delhi police officers are being trained to be more

sensitive to cases of harassment and sexual violence.

There's a new dedicated women-in-distress helpline.

And tougher penalties for crimes against women.

And these cases are now being fast-tracked through

special women's courts.

One of these is where Radha is now going.

Only three days after she went to the police,

her case is already being heard.

It's judgment day today and I feel a bit sick.

I've never been to a court in my life. I've never...

It's just really strange, I feel quite lonely right now.

I don't know.

I've got an opportunity to give myself a bit of peace of mind

and put things right and make that man pay for what he's done.

Do you think in the current climate they might want to give him

a much tougher sentence to show that they mean business

and they're serious about these issues?

Well, if that's what it's going to take, then... It's not up to me

to decide, but if that's what it's going to take.

You know, I don't know what's appropriate for this.

But it's hard to judge what's a stiffer sentence.

How do you teach someone a lesson and what is the appropriate

time frame - a day, two days, a month, couple of years?

In the Indian justice system, there's no jury.

A judge sitting alone will hear Radha's case.

An hour later, and the initial hearing is over.

The female judge asked me my story.

I told her in English what had happened.

She then said to the defendant, "Don't you have any shame?

"What the hell did you think you were doing?"

By her facial expressions, she said, you know,

it's going to be a severe punishment. Like that.

The man admitted touching Radha's leg

while adjusting the flares on the skirt she was trying on.

But denied it was in any way sexual.

The judge has yet to make a decision on his guilt

and what sentence he might face.

It feels horrible to know that here's me getting...

experiencing the full force of justice system.

But then there's other girls with much more serious crimes

who haven't come anywhere near close to what I've experienced at all.

One half of me feels guilty.

The other half of me feels that I am very fortunate.

Is it cos I'm a foreigner?

Is it because mine's an easy case to solve?

Convenient case to solve?

Radha's about to make one last discovery

about the mistreatment of women -

that it runs through all levels of society.

She's come to an upmarket area of Delhi to meet a doctor

who's taking her own in-laws to court.

-Hi, Mitu. I'm Radha.

-Hello. Nice to meet you.

Dr Mitu Khurana is the mother of twin girls.

-What's her name?

-Her name is Gudo.

-Hello!

She claims that her in-laws put huge pressure on her to abort them

simply because of their sex.

All this despite the fact that her in-laws were university professors

and her husband an orthopaedic surgeon.

So, dowry, what does that mean?

Then they discovered you were pregnant with twin girls?

Nothing to eat?

They said that to you?

Dr Khurana believes the problem of sex selection is getting

out of control in some of the wealthiest parts of the city.

She says ultrasound scans are being used to detect girls

and then abort them.

But abortion on the basis of sex is illegal in India.

Is this normal in a class of your background?

But it's illegal...?

Dr Khurana is now taking her husband and in-laws to court

for forcing her to be scanned.

He denies this and the other allegations made by his wife.

Dr Khurana is one of the few women of her class prepared to speak out.

What is this?

How determined are you?

There you go.

"All the best, Mitu. With you 100% - keep fighting.

"You will get justice for you and your girls

"and all other females in India. Radha."

Thanks.

You have to admire her determination.

Here is a mother who's been to hell and back to save her twin girls.

She's fighting the system, she's fighting society,

she's fighting the mindset.

She's fighting the patriarchal system.

You know, all for her daughters.

This mother is giving everything - to me, she's like a superwoman!

Radha's almost come to the end of her time in India.

Before she leaves, she has one more person to meet -

the father of the girl whose brutal rape on board the Delhi bus

had triggered the mass outrage.

After their arrest, one of the accused committed suicide.

Five others were convicted of her rape and murder.

Four of them have been sentenced to death.

This is where Jyoti lived with her family.

When I was talking to him, I was thinking to myself,

"What do I say to him? How can you say anything to him?"

I think about all the things I've done in my life,

I think this is probably got to be one of the most difficult things

I've ever had to do.

I'm glad to be going back, to be honest.

It's been a bit of a tough ride. Witnessed so many things,

been through so much myself that it's just, um...

In a way, I'm sad to be going back

but in another way, I'm glad, actually.

It's time to go home.

Hi, pussycat. Welcome home. Come on in! Come on in.

I'm knackered!

He hasn't got fat. I'm pleased about that.

It's just been really overwhelming.

I did not prepare myself at all for what I'd be witnessing,

seeing and hearing.

And it's really hit home that I've never once ever felt

lesser compared to my brother, as a girl, as a female.

I've never, ever felt that.

The girls that I met in India, they all want the same,

they want freedom, they want to have a choice,

they want to be an individual. They want what I have.

That's been the hardest thing is to come to terms with that.

The single most biggest thing that I've realised

and come away with is just how fortunate I am.