India's Daughter: Make it #NirbhayaBetrayed, not #NirbhayaInsulted

India's a funny country. A harmless, yet revealing documentary is enough to grab prime time space on news channels and elicit a debate in Parliament.

Worse, the home minister treats the documentary like a riot has broken out, and Arnab Goswami does what he does best: Shout at the top of his voice over a nonsense issue. The hashtag #NirbhayaInsulted has been trending on Twitter for more than 24 hours now, and I want to replace it with #NirbhayaBetrayed.

Because that is what has happened. Nirbhaya, or India's daughter, has been betrayed by our lawmakers, television hacks, and all the so-called right-minded people. The documentary India's Daughter was meant to highlight plight of women in India, and how they are looked at with scorn for changing with the times, on a day meant for them, International Women's Day, March 8. But, because sensationalism sells and the superstars of Indian media could not do what Leslee Udwin did, we chose to denounce it, call it unethical. A contributor to this website told me on Twitter that by airing the documentary we are "unknowingly endorsing" the views of Mukesh Singh, the December 16 rape convict who was among the five men interviewed by Udwin .

"Endorsing his views." That is what she said. As if the documentary only has Mukesh Singh's views. I don't know if she has seen the documentary or not, but what I do know is that simply because a documentary is on a subject, it does not mean that the documentary endorses it.

Simply putting it: Will a documentary on, say, Hitler endorse Nazism?

You'll have to be a special case to believe that.

I am making this sound simple. But this is how it should be. It is a documentary, and should be treated like one. Our lives don't depend on it. The documentary was meant to be the voice of the several women and girls who are looked at with contempt for being vocal, outspoken and not "sanskari", but now that voice has been muzzled by a court order.

Rajnath Singh has said it is a restraining order. Many on the internet have already called it a ban. And maybe that is the problem with our country and our media. There's always too much noise and it is mostly inaccurate. People like to draw assumptions and denounce courage and those who like to take unconventional approaches.

That is just like my Punjabi neighbour who used to call me a "band baajewala" because I played for a band when I should have been preparing for CAT.

We are Indians and we have a herd mentality on just about everything: beef, women, cricket, sanskriti, rape, drugs, alcohol,etc. I hope this changes one day. Till then, I am going to surf the internet and try to watch India's Daughter online.

Home Minister Rajnath Singh convenes a meeting of top officials on the issue of #Nirbhaya rapist documentary shoot. #NirbhayaInsulted

— All India Radio News (@airnewsalerts) March 4, 2015