Meet the SHEROES - Nisha Pahuja

Nisha Pahuja is a director and writer, known for The World Before Her (2012), Diamond Road (2007) and Bollywood Bound (2003). In India to Promote World before her which is an award-winning film, premiered at Tribeca Film Festival in 2012 and screened at more than 125 international film festivals. It has also won 19 awards and distinctions, including the Best Documentary Feature at the Tribeca Film Festival 2012. Anurag Kashyap will be presenting the documentary before its release. The World Before Her is hitting screens in Bangalore, Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Pune and Ahmedabad on April 25. SHEROES catches up with Nisha about the movie and her journey

Tell us about World Before Her

'The World before Her', shifts between the worlds of the Miss India pageant and a Hindu fundamentalist camp for girls. It is a powerful, controversial and intimate story about what it means to be a woman in contemporary India. In one, Ruhi Singh is a small-town girl competing in Mumbai to win the Miss India pageant. In the other India, Prachi Trivedi is the young, militant leader of a fundamentalist Hindu camp for girls run by Durga Vahini, where she preaches violent resistance to Western culture, Christianity and Islam. 

Initially the film was just going to be about Miss India but once I began to read about the opposition to beauty pageants, it shifted and I knew I had to include voices of opposition. Then on a research trip I met Prachi, who told me about the Durga camps and it seemed if I could access one, I’d have a great story about two parallel worlds and 2 ideas of what it means to a woman in India.

The extreme worlds were fascinating to me for two reasons-first because they seem to be polar opposites when in fact, as we discover, they aren't really.  And secondly because I feel these two extremes reveal something not just of India, which is in a period of transition, but the world at large. In some sense the film holds up a mirror to our collective current reality--one that is made up of two key tensions, capitalism and religious fundamentalism.

This is the first time cameras were allowed into the Hindu nationalist camp. How did you get access?

Yes, we were the first crew allowed inside a camp and it took nearly two years to get access.  Prachi was the one who told me about these camps and I realized after meeting her that I would only be allowed in if people felt they could trust me.  So I decided to divide my time between India and Toronto, primarily to make inroads into the movement and to give people the time to get to know me.  It got to the point where I was almost a normal fixture at Hindu rallies!  I made it very clear to the organization and the people I was meeting that I had real issues with their politics and their vision for the country.  But I also emphasized that I had no intention of making a film that was sensationalist, demeaned them or judged them in any way.  I simply wanted to present them as they see themselves and I wanted to try to understand them.  After nearly 2 years of forging these relationships they gave me permission.

Did you ever face any challenges while shooting?

Yes! In both worlds maintaining access was a nightmare! In the Durga camp on the very first day of shooting they tried to shut us down.  One of the leaders of the camp had not been informed that we would be filming and demanded we leave.  I don’t know how we managed but somehow, after a 4-hour negotiation we convinced them to let us stay. Our access was severely curtailed (some of the potent brainwashing sessions were closed to us) but we were just so relieved to not be shut out completely.

But interestingly, the beauty pageant was much more gruelling. In part because the event was totally disorganized so we never knew if we were getting story and character development; and in part because there were also things they didn’t want to make public. So we often had to shut our cameras off or just leave.  But this is also normal when you’re making a film about secretive worlds.  There’s constant negotiation because your job as a filmmaker is to push past boundaries, and theirs is to maintain them.

What was the most disturbing discovery that you made while filming?

More than the physical training the girls at the Durga camp are given it's the brain washing and the blood curdling chants they are taught that shocked and depressed me.  On the bus ride they take en route to their parade they learned a few phrases that I simply refused to include in the film.  Those were the sorts of moments that were especially trying for us.  As filmmakers we needed to be objective and not react but as people we were torn between affection for the leaders of the camp and our rage and sadness at what they were teaching these young girls.  

What are the women in the film doing now?

All three of the pageant women I followed—Ankita, Ruhi and Pooja are making Bollywood films and Prachi interestingly has become a lawyer! She is now living on her own and is still unmarried but her beliefs have not changed. Chinmayee, the young girl from the Fundamentalist camp is active on facebook and has started wearing miniskirts.

What is the India Campaign and how will it work?

Because India is so diverse and stratified, we’ve come up with a strategy to reach as many people as possible. There are 4 elements to our campaign. We will be screening in Universities, colleges and high schools, there will be speciality and theatrical screening in six cities and areas where the female infanticide rate is high. The film will also see an online release leading upto National Elections in May. Most of these involve travelling with activists, educators, media and the women in the film in order to engage with audiences. Right now, we are running a kickstarter campaign to get a wider audience and outreach for the film.

Watch the trailer of World before Her