Director: Deepa Dhanraj; Cinematographer: Navroze Contractor
Duration: 00:51:55; Aspect Ratio: 1.296:1; Hue: 40.708; Saturation: 0.114; Lightness: 0.432; Volume: 0.100; Cuts per Minute: 12.305
Summary: Noted feminist documentary addressing the
Indian government’s controversial family
planning programme. After the infamous
Sanjay Gandhi-led forced sterilisation
programmes during the Emergency (1975-6),
the programme ran into trouble again
promoting injectable contraception, hormonal
implants and abortifacient pills, often on the
recommendation of international population
control agencies dominated by multinational
corporate interests. The film concentrates on
the experience of the women subjected to the
programme, contrasting this with the official
discourse and the well-known government-
sponsored advertising jingles (‘small family
happy family’). The women speak with, for
Indian film, unprecedented candour. The rapid
TV-style editing sometimes undoes the fine
camerawork but the film manages to convey
that the invocation of Western-style notions of
individual freedom in the very different context
of Indian women’s lived conditions can be
oppressive, esp. when women are socially
denied the right to control their fertility and do
not have access to appropriate post-operative
health care systems.
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