GUNJAN SAXENA: THE NEED FOR FEMINIST FATHERS TO EMPOWER THEIR DAUGHTERS

GUNJAN SAXENA-THE KARGIL GIRL: THE NEED FOR FEMINIST FATHERS TO EMPOWER THEIR DAUGHTERS

Thakur Ranjit Singh

FIJI PUNDIT does not normally do film reviews, unless it touches my heart and some raw nerves. Gunjan Saxena – The Kargil Girl did exactly that.

“GUNJAN SAXENA (Janhvi Kapoor) is a Yash Raj biopic (biography) of one of India's first woman combat aviator, an Indian Air Force (IAF) officer who flew helicopter missions in the 1999 Kargil war and is attributed to saving some 1,000 (thousand) lives. 

Flight Lieutenants Gunjan Saxena and Srividya Rajan paved the way for others to follow. In 1999, Gunjan, a helicopter pilot at 24, became India's first woman combat aviator to fly Cheetah helicopters in the Kargil war zone. She was tasked with medical evacuations, supply drops, and mapping enemy position duties.

Flight Lieutenant Gunjan Saxena, very ably played by a cool and childlike JANHVI KAPOOR. This movie proves that with determination  and a supportive father, sky is the limit for daughters with a resolve to succeed. 

The movie wages war against male chauvinistic patriarchal mind-set and discrimination against women. Here, the brother insists that his sister would suit as a stewardess and the mum worrying when her girl will find time to marry. She finds a friend in her supportive father who silently fights for her in every way possible. That is what I call a feminist father who empowers his daughters.

The movie starts with a shot in a passenger airliner where a child Gunjan wishes to have a window seat and the brother denies it. An understanding stewardess sees her interest and takes her to the flight deck which fascinates her and child decides to become a pilot.

It reminds me of my daughter, Ragni Singh Chand (still retains father’s surname after marriage) who, like me, enjoyed reading Perry Mason’s courtroom tales in Earl Stanley Gardiner books of 1970s. She wished to be a lawyer from a very young age. And like Gunjan, she was lucky to have a feminist father, empowering her to reach her goals.

PANKAJ TRIPATHI (father) with daughter JANHVI KAPOOR bonding together. All daughters need a feminist father to empower and help fulfill dreams of their daughters.

Being in Fiji, to study law in New Zealand does not come cheap in  1999 and early 2000, but I did my best to see her graduate with Masters in Law from Waikato University, with the aim of one day sitting on the bench of High Court of New Zealand. 

However, Gunjan was in a conservative parochial India, fighting her own battles at the same time, in a male- oriented establishment in Air Force, where females were zero, and not meant to be, hence there were no female toilets or changing rooms.

Despite anti- Karan Johar and the debates of nepotism in Bollywood, this is one inspirational movie about empowering our daughters. This is the story of Flight Lieutenant Gunjan and not about daughter of Sridevi and Boney Kapoor or sister of Arjun Kapoor or niece of Anil Kapoor. Therefore I recommend all mothers and grandparents to see this movie with the family to inspire their daughters to reach for the sky. I have recommended my daughter Ragni to show this movie to my granddaughter Rania Chand, and inspire her to fight all odds in a male - dominated society.

If you think this is a war movie with all gore, blood and shouting divisive slogans on India and Pakistan, you are wrong. Despite all the main characters being soldiers, it is still about what it is being a woman in a man’s world trying to make space in a man’s dominated fields. This is not about war alone, but about a woman what she wants and can do that any man can do. This film is about war, but the scenes are not showing killing machines but the rescue operations by these human beings who are saving lives.

WOMAN AT WORK:Flight Lieutenant Gunjan Saxena, in action with Cheetah Helicopter

This movie is about sexual discrimination, and the fight by a gallant woman to reach for the sky. While there have been many Bollywood movies on and around sexual violence, rarely have we seen one which tells the tales  of social conditioning in women's career choices, casual misogyny and extreme discrimination at the workplace with such accuracy and detail. 

Gunjan Saxena appears to have been well researched, which should tell you all you need to know about empathy. You do not have to belong to a marginalised social group (a female) to develop an understanding of their concerns. You just need to listen and observe without prejudice, arrogance, the persecution and discrimination that affects so many in India and worldwide.

Unlike other Bollywood war movies, this one treats the war scenes almost like procedural, which in itself is a quiet reminder that defence personnel in reality are human beings at work, not speechifying Hindi film heroes, who shout chest-thumping hatred against the enemy country.

This movie recount an individual's personal story, staying determinedly intimate even in war scenes. It is not only about one remarkable woman, but about every remarkable woman that ever lived.

Gunjan Saxena: The Kargil Girl is a very inspiring and watchable movie about sexual discrimination on our daughters. It is a deeply moving tale of a feminist father and his gutsy daughter who fights all odds to reach her childhood dreams of reaching for the sky.

While this may be a war movie, it however is largerly about sexual discrimination at work againt women in a male-oriented society. This movie very ably demonstrates that, with a very supportive father, a daughter can reach up to the sky. Very inspirational for females.

Hope our male-oriented society can learn that male chauvinism and discrimination are threat to progress and human development. And your own daughters and loved ones could be victims of this short-sighted prejudice. 

Hope we will be fairer, sensible and more compassionate to make a difference to the discriminated women in workplaces - and in everyday real lives. 

And more than anywhere, this is still very relevant in modern India today.

[About the Author: Thakur Ranjit Singh is an Auckland journalist and a media commentator, and runs his blog FIJI PUNDIT. He is originally from Fiji. E-mail: thakurji@xtra.co.nz]