‘Women of My Billion’ Review: What the Women Are Saying and Why We Must Listen

Desmond Tutu wrote, “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.” This is the overarching theme of the Amazon Prime documentary Women Of My Billion.

In September 2018, gender rights activist Srishti Bakshi started documenting her walking journey from Kanyakumari to Kashmir – essentially crossing the entire expanse of India. Her mission? To find out if her country is ‘beyond repair’ when it comes to gendered violence. 

Along the way, Bakshi speaks to countless people (mostly women) about societal conditioning, the need for both personal and financial agency, and the importance of ‘choice’. The documentary interspersed footage of Bakshi’s journey with conversations with three survivors of abuse. I wondered if this constant back-and-forth would feel jarring but it surprisingly doesn’t. 

Pragya Prasoon Singh, an acid-attack survivor herself, is now working to support other acid-attack survivors. Retired Indian Army doctor Sangeeta Tiwari and Neha Rai both talk about their abusive marriages and their journeys since then. 

Is it a technically sound documentary? Probably not. The background score is, far too often, distracting. Ironically, silence would have been a powerful tool (viz a viz the score) when it comes to a telling as earnest as this. But WOMB is an example of substance being more important than anything else, especially in this format. When the women speak to Bakshi or right into the camera, to a wider audience, you can’t help but listen.

The documentary begins with a harrowing sequence – the screen is dark, you can clearly hear a woman in distress. The team barges in and asks the husband if he hit his wife to which he responds, almost nonchalantly, that it was ‘just a few slaps’. From the very first scene, the documentary aims to challenge the way we view ‘violence’. 

Should we only condemn violence after it crosses a certain threshold or raise our voice at the first sign? It’s the same messaging behind films like Taapsee Pannu’s Thappad. When we normalise violence against some, we normalise violence as a whole. 

Throughout the 97 minute runtime, women recall how they would hear phrases dismissing their trauma – one of them being, “Aisa toh hota hai” (This happens). The viewers get a glimpse into how Bakshi uses seemingly simple exercises to question the way society conditions people to view women as the ‘weaker sex’. The documentary never treats the female experience as the monolith – every woman gets the space to share her story. This simple act of passing the mic makes a huge difference. 

The three talking heads recount their struggles from apartments. Bakshi brings case studies from the ground – usually from remote villages along her way. This contrast is extremely important – the reality of gendered violence crosses the borders of class, location, and identity. The documentary highlights that change, in such a scenario, can’t just happen from one person to another – it must be structural. A female cop chastises Neha for trying to report abuse, Sangeeta Tiwari’s parents send her into a marriage because they’re worried about their standing in society. Pragya faces the horrifying brunt of rejecting a man’s advances. 

And right at that start, we see the woman lament that the reason behind her husband’s most recent outburst is…laundry. 

We watch as Bakshi’s supporters increase in number, men and women walking by her side; marching for a better world. But we’re also aware of the stark reality that we’re watching this documentary in 2024 when the news is still filled with acts of violence against minorities and justice is few and far between. When society continues to blame women for acts of violence perpetrated against them. 

How, then, does one look at a documentary like Women Of a Billion with hope? The hope comes from one of the documentary's most striking scenes – when multiple women tear up as they think about comforting their 11-year-old selves. When Bakshi’s family embraces her at the end of the journey amidst a massive crowd. 

Bakshi’s ability to hold a crowd’s attention is evident from the several sessions she conducts with people during her journey. These might not be the documentary’s most interesting bits but their absence wouldn’t do the story any favours. It is important for topics as basic as the unequal division of labour, the need to include women in decisions about their life, a woman’s right to make choices about her own body, the pressure patriarchy puts on men, to be discussed. 

Even after watching WOMB, there will be people sealioning women speaking out against patriarchy and abuse. There will be people calling this documentary based on lived experiences ‘woke propaganda’. There will be people trying to dilute the message of intersectional feminism. But this documentary exists for those who will watch these women speak about their lives and feel ‘seen’. 

For people who will feel perhaps slightly unburdened by watching people on screen speak about theirs. The documentary isn’t able to capture the entire spectrum of the reality of gendered violence in the country – 97-minutes isn’t nearly enough for that.

In the past few years, conversations surrounding the intersection of gender with sexuality, caste, class, and race among others have increased exponentially. Perhaps WOMB didn't have the space for those topics but it’s a start of a conversation. And what better way to combat silence than through conversation. 

Women of My Billion is directed by Ajitesh Sharma and produced by Apoorva Bakshi and Priyanka Chopra Jonas. 

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