Let’s never forget India’s daughter

His eyes are dead, like a shark’s, and his voice cold, but the words are explosive, even though they’re delivered in a deadpan way. “She shouldn’t fight back. She should just be silent and allow the rape.” That way Jyoti Singh – India’s Braveheart, the 23-year-old whose gang-rape and killing continues to send shock waves around the world – would have survived, according to the bus driver. But she didn’t. After Mukesh Singh and his gang of five friends had finished attacking her, they threw her, semi-conscious, halfnaked and bleeding out of the bus in Delhi. Why? Because she was a fighter. She fought her depraved rapists, just as she had always fought inequality and the ingrained sexism in parts of her society – one that documentary maker Leslee Udwin claims breeds rape.

Her hard-hitting documentary India’s Daughter has been banned in India, and the country’s parliamentary affairs minister, M Venkaiah Naidu, has said it was “an international conspiracy to defame India”. Other politicians, celebrities and VIPs around the world have called for it to be shown – including Jyoti’s parents Badri and Asha. “Everyone should watch the film,” her father says.

“If a man can speak like that in jail, imagine what he would say if he was walking free. The documentary has only exposed what is happening in India.”

Let’s not forget that Jyoti was their daughter before she was India’s. And, as Mother’s Day approaches, we have an exclusive feature on the headline-making documentary, the woman behind it and Jyoti’s parents’ reaction on page 18 . Let me know what you think. Until next week,