Online Discussion: Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy's Academy Award for her documentary, "A girl in the River"

This blog is about my response on online discussion on Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy's Academy Award for her documentary, "A girl in the River"

Stop telling Sharmeens and Adigas to photoshop reality  -Moni Mohsin

Moni Mohsin, author of the best selling social satire wrote against the controversial questions raised and favor of literary writer. Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy won the Academy Award for her documentary, A Girl in the River. Sharmeen’s films are about truly heroic Pakistani women — women who have suffered appalling cruelty and oppression but who have refused to be silenced. In telling their stories to the world, they have fought back and exposed injustice. Any nation should be proud to have such women in its midst. We should celebrate them, not try to hide them away like a shameful secret. Or indeed, question their patriotism.

Cultural Study:-  

The prime duty of any literary writer is to present the contemporary issues and picture of the nation. Everyone has the right to voice and freedom of expression. So they are free to portray the condition of their country. But many followers of ideology and political discourse try to ban this kind of harsh reality because they do not bear the bad images of their culture and country.

Prime duty of any literary writer is also to present a real and true picture of his/her Nation. Writers have ‘Freedom of expression’ as well. Thus they are free to portray the real image of the country. But so-called protector of culture may not like that their Nation and culture are revealed in black light in front of the world. They are ‘Too sentimental’ and ‘Orthodox’ regarding their culture. Therefore the Indian Government banned the documentary made on “Nirbhaya Gang Rape”. They said that because of this our culture will be distorted and we will not have more foreign tourist. In the same way ‘A Girl in the River’ was not accepted by a wide range of people because they consider themselves as a guard of culture. They cannot allow the story speaking harsh reality of Nation.

We have recently example of Film Padmavati in which the group of people banned the film because they do not like that people see about their culture. Another one is the documentary film "Nirbhaya gang rape" which was banned by the government because they believe that our new generation becomes spoiled because of the movie. 

Postcolonialism:

People are of the opinion that the writer should write good about their nation, they must sing only the glory of the nation. In this way, we are going away from reality. It is the general belief of people that white people give awards to a third world country because they are very happy to see the bad image of the once colonized country. But it is not so. T.S Eliot portrayed harsh reality about his country in the poem ‘The Waste Land’. And also it won many awards from his country. Thus it is a quite false belief that foreign countries are giving awards only for that reason. Or writers are writing only for awards from white people. Of course, western interest can be narrow in its focus and agenda driven. But whose is not? Instead of frothing with self-righteous rage or manufacturing hysterical conspiracy theories to justify other people’s selective interest or indifference, we would be better served to confidently define our own priorities. We have to fight our battles, celebrate our heroes and tell our stories truthfully.