Dangal is a step forward, even though not an ideal one
In my film, Izzatnagri Ki Asabhya Betiyaan, on the resistance of young Jat women against feudal-patriarchy and khap panchayats, Mukesh Malik, a young Jat woman and an aspiring journalist says, “I had to go for a job interview in a local daily. My father wouldn't let me. He grabbed me by my hair and threw me on the ground. When my mother tried to rescue me, he did the same to her. Even though he was stronger than me, I kicked him back.”
As someone who has worked and made films in the Jat belt for a while, first Haryana and then western UP, largely around issues of gender, caste and communalism, let me start with my first disclaimer, I was deeply moved by the film, Dangal. I was overwhelmed. Not only by the fact that women who grew up in a deeply regressive and even misogynistic society go on to become achievers in what is considered a male bastion, but because there is a father who challenges certain gender relations and gender stereotypes. Where even nationalism is redefined and women assert themselves in the often macho realm of nationalism and “national pride”.
There are reviews and critiques of the film, where the father is being rubbished and written off as a violent and patriarchal brute who forces his dreams on his daughters. One who doesn't give them a “choice”, robs their childhood, violates their innocence. In all these criticisms of the film, the original Mahavir Phogat is also being trashed. There is no denying that Phogat's character is patriarchal and authoritarian, yet here is a gentle reminder to those who make above assertions: There is a violent misogyny almost intrinsic to Haryana's landscape. One that Haryana (and particularly its dominant caste) has been infamous for. The media may have stopped reporting them, but crimes in the name of “honour” are still rampant, Haryana has the worst sex ratio in the country and there exist in abundance, unfathomable violent crimes against women.
Second disclaimer: I am not suggesting that other parts of the country or South Asia or the world or outer space are pristine, gender equal utopias. But patriarchy has many manifestations, and the state in question has seen a violent, feudal-patriarchy and some simultaneous glorious struggles against it. Young women have often led these and in some cases men have contributed to it too.
Mahavir Phogat, in my humble opinion, with all his flaws, without a nuanced university educated understanding of feminism, did contribute to one such struggle. Yes, the man did force his dreams on his daughters. I look forward to a society where children (both girls and boys) can lead lives of their choosing without parental and familial control and violations. Who doesn't want the ideal? But Mahavir Phogat comes from a society where such dreams of professional success are only thrust (yes, I agree, they are “thrust”) on boys. Girls are not even considered worthy of that.
What is thrust on these young girls is another kind of violation, the imposition of a domesticated life on girls, where “choices” are far more minimal. Violations far worse (one is even shown in the film where a 14 year old girl is being married off to a man/boy she's never met). Phogat's ascribing that dream on his daughters is definitely a step forward towards gender justice. Not the ideal, but a step towards the ideal for sure.
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| Photo: Screengrab of film |
Third disclaimer: I don't undermine the value of academic work, on questions of gender (or anything else). I contest only those views which are not rooted in grassroots realities.
Haryana has a legacy of sports and sports persons and sports achievers. It is a state that respects, almost venerates its sports persons but women entering this sphere in relatively larger numbers is only a recent phenomenon. And especially when it comes to contact sports like wrestling. Veteran women's rights activist (and sportsperson) from the state, Jagmati Sangwan was also a former volley ball player. She's been awarded with the Bhim award, the highest honour the state government can confer to a sportsperson. She often recounts how an incident around the women's volley ball team decimating. The team, when they were supposed to play in the nationals, fell apart since a lot of the team members were forcefully married off and their sports careers came to an abrupt end. This incident, she says, played a big role in making her the awe-inspiring women's rights activist that she is today.
While working on my film, Izzatnagari Ki Asabhya Betiyaan, I was, to put it mildly, overwhelmed by the role women were playing in challenging gender relations.
From activists, like Jagmati Sangwan, organisations like AIDWA, and the young women who fought daily battles on issues ranging from marrying someone of their own choice, to be able to study further and lead independent lives, to challenge khap diktats or to become sportswomen. Jagmati Sangwan, and the struggle she led against the khaps (and other such self-styled dominant caste panchayats) had put her on the receiving end of a whole range of sexist slander. Young women who dared to challenge traditional patriarchal norms were castigated and, in worst scenarios, killed. A deeply anti-woman reactionary politics was rife. All major political parties in the state pandered to these sentiments. But one thing I couldn't help notice was a grudging respect many leaders had for Jagmatiji, because of her achievements as a sportsperson.
It was in this environment that the Phogat sisters (and other young Haryanvi women) returned to Haryana from the Commonwealth Games with several medals to boast of. An already brewing, churning, challenging gender equation in the state got a shot in the arm that was unparalleled.
On the one hand, women's organisations like AIDWA rushed to felicitate them, progressive women teachers in schools and colleges dragged them to their educational institutes to talk to their girl students and inspire them. But what surprised many, was that it was not just the women's organisations that felicitated these sports women.
Even the khaps did when the very ideas and notions of femininity and womanhood that the khaps had championed were subverted by these women. The khaps not just felicitated them but were also forced to bend backwards. It was an existential crisis for the khaps. The young women achievers had forced a society to renegotiate their views of womanhood. Especially when these women had achieved their accolades in an area which was, exclusively, a male domain. Not just any sport but wrestling, which not just requires technique and brute strength but is also a contact sport. Mahavir Phogat's decision to push his daughters into wrestling may not have been an ideal act in feminist studies. But Mahavir Phogat is a product of his time and space. And in his context he realizes that girls can achieve what boys can. Even if it is wrestling. This was a massive break from the gendered roles that millions of women in that state are thrust into.
Disclaimer four: I am not suggesting that Haryana changed radically for women over night because of the achievements of Phogat sisters (and now Sakshi Malik). This change towards a gender just world will be long, arduous, and like in this case, fraught with contradictions.
Among the many characters challenging gendered notions of masculinity in the film is Geeta and Babita's male cousin. He is also coerced by his uncle to assist the girls in their wrestling training. He not only loses the wrestling matches against them, but other than some playful taunts, he never lets his male ego in the way. He is proud of his sisters and their achievements and doesn't feel humiliated about losing wrestling duels against them. He is happy being a background support, through and through.
Some aspects in the second half are of course, a little bit of a let-down. While Geeta challenges and even confronts her father's techniques when she moves on to another coach, but she doesn't take too long to return to her father's guidance. The second half then becomes more of duel between her coach and father and who will take the credit for her victory. Also, Geeta grows her hair again when she goes to the sports academy (her father forcefully chops them off when she was a young girl, an incident that shattered her). Growing her hair perhaps denoted both, a rebellion against her father as also reclaiming her sexuality.
It is ironic that the director chose to have her cut her hair again when she goes back to her father's tutelage. It is even more unfortunate that the film should have her character do that, especially when the actual Geeta Phogat retained her long hair in the 2010 Commonwealth finals. Finally, it was a relief to see her win the final match by herself without her father guiding her in the stadium.
After Chak De India and Dangal, I now look forward to the next generation of films about sportswomen. When some of the current lot of sports women will go on to become coaches, and the next generation of aspiring sportswomen will be coached by women themselves. And in many cases, their first coaches, would be their mothers. But as we inch towards that time, many Mahavir Phogats, for all their faults, would have also contributed to that journey. They violated all that their immediate society, neighbours, friends, relatives expected of them as fathers of young girls. They perhaps violated their own sense of patriarchal morality and even perhaps challenging their notions of masculinity and fatherhood too. Yes, this is not to suggest that they subverted patriarchy, but sure enough, took that one small, but daring step in that direction.
To quote a friend, "If one is born Mahavir Phogat; it is quite unlikely that one will die Justin Trudeau.”