ALEXANDRIA, VA-Over a decade ago, filmmaker Nisha Pahuja was working on a documentary about masculinity in India and covering the work of an NGO. While sitting in on a gender sensitization program designed to promote understanding and respect for all genders, she met Ranjit, a farmer in Jharkhand, India. Eventually, he told her that he was there in his effort to pursue justice for his 13-year-old daughter, Kiran (pseudonym), after three men had sexually assault her.
“Ranjit and [his wife] Jaganti allowed us into their home, and we didn’t know what was going happen. We had no idea if they were going to pursue the case,” said Pahuja, who added that she and her crew “put one foot in front of the other” in telling their story.
That work ultimately led to the 2023 film,”To Kill a Tiger,” which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary. The movie was screened for students and the public at Alexandria City High School (ACHS) on May 2 as part of the #StandWithHer campaign. A panel discussion followed.
“At the heart of this film is the universal condition of human beings struggling, struggling for a chance to be heard, struggling to try to tell the truth of what happened, and struggling to be free,” said Atul Gawande, MD, a renowned surgeon and author and former Assistant Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development for Global Health, as well as an executive producer of the film and chair of the panel discussion.
Pahuja was born in India and moved to Canada with her family as a child in the early 1970s. In India, a rape is reported every 20 minutes, but the conviction rates have historically been less than 30%. The movie shows why as Ranjit takes legal action against his daughter’s rapists despite facing consistent hostility from people in his community in doing so. After a 14-month trial in 2018, a judge found the three men guilty and gave each of them a 25-year prison sentence. Kiran is now studying to become a police officer.
The case and movie inspired #StandWithHer, a global initiative dedicated to empowering survivors and engaging men and boys in the work of gender justice. It includes a petition calling on the U.S. government to fund U.S. domestic programs that support survivors and to preserve the foreign aid that lowers the risk of violence and harm for millions of women and children.
#StandWithHer has also held a number of screenings of a shortened version of the film all over the U.S. (The entire movie is available on Netflix.) The ACHS showing was the most recent. Earlier in the day, Pahuja met with students at the school to discuss her experience and the film. On the panel discussion, she said the students showed great curiosity and sophistication with the questions they asked.
“There were a lot of questions about the ethics of filmmaking, the kind of consent that I got, [if] I showed them cuts of the film, and how did I feel about being a western filmmaker going in and filming,” said Pahuja.
According to the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network, someone in the U.S. is sexually assaulted every 68 seconds, and every nine minutes, that victim is a child. While conditions in the United States and India are different, Pahuja said the message of To Kill a Tiger is universal because “It’s just about doing the right thing.”
“Human rights, equality, these are not negotiable. They’re actually the thing that all of us inherit at the moment of birth. We all deserve this,” said Pahuja.
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