10 Hard Hitting Movies On Rape

As Assi gets ready for release this week, Deepa Gahlot lists 10 films that deal with rape in different ways.

Hindi films about rape crimes have shown a gradual but sure shift towards a more combative tone.

Scripts have moved from rape survivors being accepted by the noble hero (Patita, Prem Rog) to dozens of films usually with Insaaf or Awaaz in the title that were about male leads avenging the rape and murder/suicide of a wife, sister or daughter.

Sometimes, the survivor was angry enough to take revenge herself, as in the small list of female dacoit films, but mostly, she was portrayed as a tragic victim because for a woman, losing her izzat was, according to mainly male script writers, worse than death!

Ghar (1978)
Where to watch: Amazon Prime Video

Manik Chatterjee's Ghar was one of the few that took a sensitive approach to how a gang rape affects the mind of a housewife (Rekha) and almost shatters her marriage, in spite of a sympathetic husband (Vinod Mehra).

Traumatised by the incident, and the scandal surrounding it, she withdraws into herself. It takes a lot of love and patience for her to return to normalcy. This was before therapy was trendy, news coverage of rape was lurid, and more often than not, the woman was blamed.

Insaaf Ka Tarazu (1980)
Where to watch: Amazon Prime Video

In B R Chopra's film, a model named Bharti (Zeenat Aman) is raped by a businessman (Raj Babbar). She has the courage to file a complaint and go to court, where her character is questioned, and she loses the case.

When her sister (Padmini Kolhapure) is raped by the same man, Bharti murders him. This time, the law is not so blind. Based on a 1976 Hollywood film Lipstick, this film was melodramatic, but also spoke up for women in its own way, when times were not so progressive.

Zakhmee Aurat (1988)
Where to watch: YouTube

Unabashedly sensational, this Avtar Bhogal film played up the opinion of a section of people, about how rapists should be punished.

Dimple Kapadia played Kiran, a cop, who is brutally raped by a gang of criminals. When she is unable to get justice, she forms a group of wronged women, who castrate rapists, with the help of a doctor (Rama Vij).

Damini (1993)
Where to watch: Rent on YouTube, Apple TV

The Rajkumar Santoshi film had the immortal line, 'Tareekh pe tareekh milti hai, lekin insaaf nahin milta'.

Damini (Meenakshi Seshadri) witnesses the rape of a domestic maid by her husband's (Rishi Kapoor) brother and his friends. Against pressure from her in-laws, she decides to testify, but they have the money and power to get her declared mentally unfit and sent to an asylum.

She escapes and gets the help of a lawyer (Sunny Deol) to bring the culprits to book, in the process getting her husband to stand by her too.

Bandit Queen (1994)
Where to watch: Amazon Prime Video, MX player

Based on the real life character of the dacoit Phoolan Devi, Shekar Kapur's Bandit Queen, starring Seema Biswas, had the most heart-rending rape scenes (there was a censor furore), in which a lower caste woman, Phoolan, is raped by upper caste men and paraded nude through the village.

Her rage and humiliation leads her to join a gang of outlaws, and kill all the men who dishonoured her. Her reign of terror amidst the upper castes lasted years, till she decided to surrender.

Bawandar (2000)
Where to watch: MUBI

Jagmohan Mundhra picked another real life character of Bhanwari Devi (played by Nandita Das), a rural Rajasthani woman, who shows exemplary courage in fighting against the upper caste men of her village, who raped her when, in her job as a saathin (grassroots social worker), she tries to stop a child marriage.

The law is against her, the cops and judges are corrupt, and the village ostracises her for bringing dishonour on the community. In the actual case, the media, women's groups and NGOs had come out in support.

PINK (2016)
Where to watch: Amazon Prime Video

In Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury's film, the significant line about consent 'No means no' is spoken by a lawyer (Amitabh Bachchan) in court, as he defends Minal (Taapsee Pannu) and her friends in a case filed by her molesters.

To escape rape, she had hit one of them on the head, which they turn into an attempt to murder case. The men are politically connected, and start intimidating the women, till a retired lawyer (Amitabh Bachchan), living in the neighbourhood, observes the harassment they are enduring, and decides to help them.

Mom (2017)
Where to watch: Amazon Prime Video, Z5

In her last film, directed by Ravi Udyawar, before her untimely death, Sridevi played Devki, a teacher, struggling to connect with her stepdaughter, Arya (Sajal Ali).

The teenager is raped at a party, battered and left for dead and the perpetrators go free for lack of evidence. Devki then decides to get justice her own way, as a vigilante, targeting and killing Arya's attackers.

Section 375 (2019)
Where to watch: Amazon Prime Video

In Ajay Bahl's Section 375, using the legal section defining rape, a costume assistant, Anjali (Meera Chopra), accuses a famous film director Rohan Khurana (Rahul Bhat) of assault and rape.

Forensic evidence is in her favour and he is sentenced for 10 years. His wife Kainaz (Shriswara) approaches celebrated lawyer Tarun Saluja (Akshaye Khanna) to defend him in high court, where he is up against his former protegee, Hiral (Richa Chadha).

The film does establish that going to the cops is not easy for a woman who has been raped -- the cops and doctors ask humiliating questions; she has to relive the trauma over and over again in court, and is usually disbelieved if the defence brings in the consensual sex argument.

Satyaprem Ki Katha (2023)
Where to watch: Amazon Prime Video

In Samir Vidwans' Satyaprem Ki Katha, Satyaprem (Kartik Aaryan) marries Katha (Kiara Advani), who refuses to get intimate with him. He discovers that she had been raped by her previous boyfriend Tapan (Arjun Aneja) and gotten pregnant.

She had been forced to abort, was mistreated by her family and attempted suicide. He agrees to give her space and time to recover, but later makes her file an FIR against Tapan, so that she can regain her confidence and self-respect.

Photographs curated by Satish Bodas/Rediff