Chiraiya, which has drawn an audience of millions, has prompted conversations on social media around consent and misogyny.
9 hours ago
Geeta PandeyWomen and social affairs editor, India
JioHotstar
A new web series that confronts marital rape in India has put the spotlight on the grim topic in a country that has stubbornly refused to criminalise it.
Chiraiya - the Hindi word for small birds - aired on JioHotstar in March. It has already drawn an audience of millions, making it one of the network's most popular Hindi shows in months.
Praised by media critics for confronting a subject that is largely seen as taboo, it has sparked conversations on social media about consent and misogyny. At the same time, some commentators have described it as "anti-men" and "an attempt to undermine the sanctity of marriage".
Divy Nidhi Sharma, the show's scriptwriter, says the series follows two women, Kamlesh and Pooja.
Kamlesh, played by Divya Dutta, is a middle-aged homemaker who firmly believes "women should be interested in cooking and housework". Pooja, played by Prasanna Bish, is educated, socially conscious and talks about gender equality and dignity.
Their worlds collide when Pooja marries Arun – Kamlesh's brother-in-law that she reared as her own son. He is seen as the perfect match for Pooja, but her dreams of a happily ever after are shattered when he rapes her on their wedding night.
When she confronts him, Arun tells her he has "just taken what's mine".
"Why do you keep repeating that I raped you?" he says, adding that marital rape is not a crime in India and there is no law to deal with it.
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Dutta says the show is about consent, "specifically in a marriage, which is considered a very, very special bond".
"Marital rape is very difficult to talk about. Every woman who goes through it thinks it's just her story. She thinks if she speaks about it, there will be social stigma, the harmony of the house will be disrupted," she tells the BBC.
In the show, when a battered and bruised Pooja speaks up about how Arun is treating her, she is advised by everyone, including her mother, to adjust, as talking about it would only bring them shame.
Kamlesh starts off believing consent for sex is implicit in the marriage, Dutta says.
But as the series progresses, her thought process begins to change when she is forced to decide between her "comfort zone" or "to hold the hand of a woman she's not really fond of".
"She comes to choose the right path," Dutta says, becoming a dependable ally of Pooja.
Some 6.1% of Indian women who have ever been married women have experienced sexual violence, according to government data. But despite years of campaigning by activists, India remains among three dozen countries - along with Pakistan, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia - where marital rape is not outlawed.
Activists have filed a number of petitions in recent years in the Supreme Court calling for marital rape to be criminalised. But the government, religious groups and men's rights activists oppose any plans to amend the Colonial-era law, which exempts a man for having forced sex with his wife if she is not a minor.
There was outrage last year when a man convicted of raping his wife, who died within hours of the alleged assault, was freed on appeal because, as the judge said, India did not recognise marital rape.
Sharma, Chiraiya's scriptwriter, tells the BBC: "This injustice is happening within our homes, in our neighbourhoods.
"What I find most troubling is that there's no legal or social recourse. So, as a writer I felt I should do my bit about it."
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Adapted from a Bengali show called Sampoorna, Chiraiya has been reimagined for northern India, which is a much more patriarchal region.
"The protagonist of Sampoorna is a feminist," says Shamra. "Our protagonist Kamlesh is a woman who doesn't even know the spelling of misogyny, she's so steeped in patriarchal conditioning that her moral compass has gone haywire.
"But in the end, she rises to fight what's wrong."
Director Shashant Shah says with Kamlesh, "we wanted to present a woman that millions of women in India can relate to".
"She is a person who has faith in the family system. But slowly you see the transformation, as her world slowly crumbles, she realises it's all a façade, a farce where people are suffering within the family."
The intention behind making Chiraiya, he says, "was not to question the government or laws, we wanted to raise this question to the society - how do you look at it? We wanted to make people aware".
Pooja's story, he says, "is fictional, but it's the reality for millions of women" and with Kamlesh's character, "we wanted to tell a story of sisterhood".
Though the web series centres around women, Shah says they took care to ensure men in Chiraiya are not frothing-at-the-mouth villainous caricatures.
"They are not monsters - they are just regular people we encounter in our daily lives. Patriarchy is so deeply entrenched that most people are not even aware they are being misogynistic," he says.
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The response to the show, Dutta says, has been "absolutely overwhelming".
"I've been getting midnight messages and calls and personal notes on Instagram and Twitter. Everyone's watching it. Veteran actors are calling me to say thank you for doing this. Someone sent me a sari with a heartfelt note, somebody's sent a poem they've written. I think it really stirred something within everyone."
There have also been some negative responses. Sharma says some people are "getting triggered" by it and there's been "a backlash from a section of men saying shows like these portray men in a bad light".
"But our aim was to just start a conversation. We are artists, we can't make laws, we can't curb crimes, we can't change society rapidly, but we can use art to make a taboo topic mainstream," he says.
Dutta says she is concentrating on the positives and ignoring the rest. "I would rather not read that 1% [negative feedback] and thrive on the 99% who are giving it their love, who are saying thank you. Let's concentrate on the thank yous."
Dutta says she believes that impactful stories like Chiraiya have the power to change the world.
"I think this will make a difference in more ways than one because it is telling us where we are going wrong. And rather than just putting the onus on the outside, for someone else to do something for us, this show just emphasises that let's start from home first.
"And that is a first step, but it is a very strong step."
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