A Pakistani journalist catches the attention of the President after speaking out about the desperate need for women’s representation in media. This week’s essay is read by Shefali Shah, who plays Vartika Chaturvedi in Delhi Crime.
MEREDITH: A warning to our listeners. In this episode, we talk about violence and sexual assault, so parts of it may be difficult to hear.
Delhi Crime, Ep 6: My mother used to tell me a story about a girl who was terminally ill. There was a tree outside her window that was shedding its leaves. She told her father that the day the last leaf fell would be her last day as well. So one day, her father, he took the last leaf and glued it to a branch of the tree so that it never falls. Every day she would look at the tree and see that last leaf hanging on. And it was that leaf that gave the girl that strength to survive.
BINA: It hits you in such a way and then you’re haunted afterwards it’s not like you watch it and go oh that was great series I’m done. It echoes and gathers resonance in your life.
MEREDITH: Throughout my time at the Boston Globe, I’ve been surrounded by talented people who give voice to the voiceless. My colleagues – specifically those in news, the investigative reporters on the Spotlight team, dedicate their entire careers to making sure that people are paying attention to injustice, corrupt systems, complicated conversations.
By watching my favorite reporters, the ones whose work leads to real change, I’ve learned that the best journalists aren’t just interviewing and researching or taking notes. They’re also practicing an extraordinary amount of empathy so they can truly understand their sources and what they’re all about. It’s quite a skill, and one I greatly admire.
Today’s story is about one woman who does just that, and was inspired by the show Delhi Crime, a series that cast a light on an epidemic of violence.
This story written by Rabia Chaudry, is about how one journalist was inspired by Delhi crime to write her own piece about systemic injustices. Read by Delhi Crime’s, Shefali Shah.
SHEFALI: Drip, drip, drip.
That’s how acclaimed Pakistani journalist and award-winning author Bina Shah describes the quietly relentless stream of news chronicling violence against women in her country. Raised in Karachi, where political and gang violence made public spaces extremely dangerous for women, Shah’s experiences compelled her to start a blog, The Feministani, where she proudly declares her brand of feminism thusly:
“Feminism is really nothing to be afraid of, even though in Pakistan it is a dirty word, a sign that you’re an atheist, a Western agent, a threat to the system. I’m neither an atheist nor a Western agent. But I am a feminist. I am a threat to the system, to the status quo that dictates where women ‘should be’ in our society. I decided a long time ago that the system was rotten, and that feminism was the best way for me to upend that system.”
SHEFALI: The author of four novels and a columnist for Dawn, Pakistan’s oldest and most widely read English language newspaper, Shah has spent much of her career writing about gender, culture, politics, policy, and justice for both Pakistani and international audiences. And she watched in horror as heinous crimes against women in Pakistan became normalized - from honor killings to acid attacks, sexual and domestic assaults. Between the insensitive reporting on these crimes in the media, and a systemic unwillingness to prosecute them, Shah was beginning to fear that the public had become numb to the horrific nature of these constant stories.
All that changed on the evening of December 16, 2012 in Delhi, when 23 year old physiotherapy student Jyoti Singh Pandey boarded a private bus with a male friend. They were returning home after watching the film “The Life of Pi”.
Jyoti, who became known publicly as Nirbhaya, meaning "Fearless", was gang raped by six men who were already on the bus. She was violated with an iron rod that tore through her intestines, and her male friend was beaten and restrained as the attackers took turns assaulting her. The bus never even stopped moving through the busy streets of Delhi as the hour-long attack took place. When it was over, Jyoti and her friend were dumped on the side of the road.
For years, both India and its neighbor, Pakistan, had been sleepwalking through the onslaught of attacks on women and girls. But the sheer brutality of this attack awakened both nations from their slumber.
SHEFALI: Suddenly, protests flooded the streets of Delhi and other parts of the country. And across the border in Pakistan, Bina Shah watched in amazement. Having been raised in a relatively conservative Muslim-majority nation, where women were told their safety was best guaranteed inside the home, she had assumed things were different in India.
In Karachi, Shah says, “we’re used to a certain amount of insecurity, women are always discouraged from moving around freely around the city, public transportation is never really very safe for us, we don’t consider the streets to be welcoming places.” As a teenager, she visited India, and she remembers how different it felt walking through the streets. Seeing women walking around freely, she thought, “I wish my country were like this.”
But Nirbhaya’s story tore the veil off that perception. Finally, the world understood what activists in India’s cities had been saying for years: the streets were not safe for women, and rape culture was rampant.
“I live in a country” said Shah, “where gender crimes against women are pretty egregious. But when the Delhi bus crime took place, all of South Asia was flabbergasted. I mean, really shocked.”
That’s why, in 2019, when Netflix aired the original series “Delhi Crime”, based on Nirbhaya’s story, Bina Shah took notice.
Shah, like many women from the Subcontinent, is familiar with the pervasive helplessness felt by women in a society that offers little choice, and little recourse for victims and survivors.
The women portrayed in Shah’s novels stand in stark contrast to other media portrayals of South Asian female characters, whose vulnerability is often deployed as a plot device to forward male heroics, or to glorify a Western savior.
That’s what Shah expecting from “Delhi Crime” as well. But it wasn’t what she got.
SHEFALI: Instead of a typical story about the suffering of a rape victim, the seven-part series centers on the character of Deputy Commissioner of Police Vartika Chaturvedi. Vartika is a wife and mother, as well as a compassionate but uncompromising commander of her largely male task force. She’s horrified by the crime she’s investigating, but resolved not to leave her command until all six attackers are found and arrested.
Beyond Vartika Chaturvedi, “Delhi Crime” also features numerous other complex women who are integral to the story. Sub-Inspector Vimla Bhardwaj is assigned by Chaturvedi to hunt down the youngest of the six suspects, and succeeds through diligent, old-fashioned police work; knocking door to door, checking surveillance footage, and running down leads until she gets her man.
The doctor in charge of the surgery that saves the life of Nirbhaya (whose name is changed to Deepika in the series), is yet another strong female character. She is authoritative and undaunted as she performs operation after operation to keep Deepika alive, all the while keeping police investigators eager to get an official statement at a distance from her patient.
Throughout “Delhi Crime,” the female characters are shown to be shaken on a personal level by the brutality with which Deepika has been assaulted - moved to tears and rage. They are also repeatedly hampered by systemic and societal constraints which pose barriers to their work. And yet, through it all, they remain unequivocally professional and competent, delivering on their duties without fail.
It just so happened that Bina Shah watched “Delhi Crime” not long after a terrorist attack on the Chinese consulate in her city of Karachi.
SHEFALI: On the morning of November 23, 2018, three armed separatists shot and killed two policemen who were stationed at a checkpoint, and then detonated hand grenades and C4 explosives at the main gate in an attempt to break into the consulate, killing two more people.
Thirty year old female officer Suhai Aziz Talpur, a senior superintendent of the Karachi police, responded to the scene and led a two hour siege against the terrorists, which led to all three being killed before they could take any more innocent lives. She was the first female officer ever to lead a counter-terror operation in the country. Talpur was awarded a medal of bravery by the government. Recognition of women in leadership positions is uncommon in Pakistan, and Talpur’s honor sent a strong signal to other women that they, too, should feel entitled to pursue careers like hers.
“But then,” says Shah, “there was an immediate backlash against her.”
As quickly as Talpur was recognized for her valor and service, she was attacked by television pundits, and on social media, accused of being honored not because of any extraordinary achievement, but because she was a woman.
What about the policemen who had died in the attack, demanded critics. Why weren’t they they ones being recognized?
To Shah, it was a familiar reaction to the public valorization of a woman. But then, right on the heels of the Talpur story, she watched “Delhi Crime”. The series wove together so many of the themes that South Asian women struggle with daily - issues Shah had spent her career thinking and writing about: sexual agency and freedom, violence, safety, professional and social barriers and expectations.
“Juxtaposed with what I had just seen in Karachi, it was just such a strong contrast to me that it really moved me to write about the series,” says Shah.” “To write about this police officer. To give kudos to the drama for the way it portrayed women in these strong roles. To say we need so much more visibility for our own women in the police in Pakistan.”
SHEFALI: Shah decided to write about “Delhi Crime” for her column in Dawn. In the piece, simply titled, “Women In Police,” she expressed pleasant surprise that “Delhi Crime” focused primarily on the women who were instrumental in solving Deepika’s assault on the city bus. She praised the show for portraying women at different stages of their careers and lives, and the challenges they faced in their respective positions.
She pointed out that Pakistan and India have much in common, including the same patriarchal and misogynistic attitudes towards women. Female officers are instrumental in responding to gender based crime. In Pakistan, she wrote, one in three women suffers physical violence at some point in her life, and female officers are more capable of understanding how difficult their experiences are. And yet, women in some parts of Pakistan serve at police stations that don’t even provide a toilet for them. Shah called on both countries to provide better support for the recruitment and success of women in the police force.
But Shah also felt a personal connection to “Delhi Crime’s” portrayal of the dynamic between Vartika’s and her daughter, Chandni, who wants desperately to get out of Delhi. Chandni repeatedly tells her parents she’s tired of living in a place where she cannot even safely leave her home after dark. She hates the city, and wants to study overseas.
Chandni’s fears resonated with Shah, because as a teenager, she left Pakistan to attend college overseas for some of the same reasons. She wanted to study somewhere she could feel safe walking the streets.
In “Delhi Crime” Vartika is appalled by the thought of her daughter leaving, and determined to change her mind by showing her how great Delhi can be - until the attack on Deepika ends up confirming Chandni’s fears.
Like Vartika, Shah’s family also tried to get her to change her mind. “The argument that the elders in my family made was ‘oh no, look at the West,’” Shah recalls. “‘It’s so dangerous, so many rapes happen over there. Here you’re protected.’”
Their argument wasn’t enough to persuade Shah, who left to attend college at Wellesley, and then got a graduate degree at Harvard.
SHEFALI: In “Delhi Crime”, Chandni witnesses the challenges her mother handles - public protests, political pressure, and media attacks – while still successfully investigating and closing the case against all six suspects. While the attack on Deepika proved Chandni was right about her fears, she ultimately finds hope in her mother’s resilience, and decides to give her city another chance.
And so did Shah, who returned to Karachi after her studies, and still lives there today. She wanted to build her life as a writer and advocate in her own country.
Shah ends her piece on a positive note, stating that for the women of Pakistan, female police officers are not just role models. They are symbols of a brighter future.
That’s the main thing Shah felt when she watched “Delhi Crime”: hope.
“We’ve always had women police officers, don’t get me wrong” says Shah, “But the young women now are really becoming empowered. They really are sitting down and saying, ‘I am going to do this. Why not? Why can’t I have the same opportunities?”
Bina Shah’s essay about the series struck a chord with her audience, and was shared far and wide. So far and wide, in fact, it reached the eyes of Arif Alvi, the President of Pakistan, who sent Shah a Twitter DM thanking her for writing about the importance of women in policing. He agreed that much more needs to be done to recruit and support women who overcome so many barriers to join this nontraditional field, and expressed hope that Pakistani television and film would also follow the lead of “Delhi Crime,” and tell stories that showed women in a positive and powerful light. She was surprised and thrilled to hear from President Alvi. It remains to be seen whether his administration will take any official steps to support improvements to these archaic and patriarchal systems - but Shah’s column clearly got him thinking.
Whatever happens, “Delhi Crime” had a profound impact on Bina Shah, and the impact resonated with hundreds of thousands of readers through her piece in Dawn. She hopes this is just the beginning.
Because on Shah’s side of the border too, there are people like police superintendent Suhai Talpur, and countless other true life stories of female resilience and power. Stories of Pakistani women who are victimized, but who refuse to remain victims.
“One series is not enough,” says Shah, “we need 100 Delhi Crimes.”
SHEFALI: It feels really great to be a part of something that could probably bring about change. First and foremost, I would like to thank Bina, not for promoting the show, but for promoting a need of every woman in the world. Every woman who doesn’t have equal opportunities. Every woman who is actually fighting a battle to just find her footing in the world which is rightfully hers. So thank you very much for talking about these women, for reaching out to such a large audience through your articles, through your efforts, because that is how change would begin.
SHEFALI: Um. I am not undermining the problems that are there. I am not undermining the difficulties that women face on a day to day basis, whether it’s about safety, security, their rights, their education, their hygiene, their medical care. There are multiple, multiple issues that women are fighting every single day. But, I also want to say that, yes systems do hold you back, but the only way you can overcome it is if you stop holding yourself back, and you become bigger than the system. And you believe that change starts from home, not from the outside. And I really really hope that every single woman who’s listening to this finds the strength to stand up for what she wants. It might not be necessarily appropriate according to the standards of what other women want, but if this is what you want, then you should go all out and get what you want and ask for help. Please ask for help. A lot of us do not. We just think that we’ll fight our own battle. But believe me, you’re not alone in this battle. There are a lot of women across the globe who identify with exactly the same problems you have. So, it’s not your battle alone. So, reach out. Ask for help. And as a woman who has or is on the path of empowerment, reach out to others. Be a change not just for yourself but for every single woman across the globe.
BINA: When you’ve never considered a woman is going to do this job, you don’t even think in terms of what is she going to need. And if you’re a man, you’re not going to understand women’s needs. So what I’m saying is that, when you never even imagined that women are going to be doing these jobs, you don’t even get close to thinking about what are the things we’re going to need.
MEREDITH: Thank you for listening to Because I Watched. Next week about a school that was turned Upside Down with a Stranger Things transformation.
Because I Watched is produced by Netflix and Spoke Media. Today’s essay was written by Rabia Chaudry and read by Shefali Shah. Special thanks to Bina for sharing her story.
This is Meredith, and we’ll see you next week.