Notes on feminism from the Dehradun Literature Festival 2024

Panellists at the ‘Women Writing Women’ session at the Dehradun Literature Festival 2024.

Introspections around sexuality, female agency, patriarchy and bodily autonomy became a leitmotif of sorts in three all-female panel discussions at the recently concluded sixth edition of the Dehradun Literature Festival. Spread over three days in the mist-swathed capital of Uttarakhand, the festival saw over 100 speakers from varying backgrounds — literary, film, wellness, performance art, history and education, among others — engage the audience in around 45 packed sessions.

Within the tented confines of Deodar Court, one of the two venues of the festival, no topic was taboo, be it the binary dichotomy between the heroine and the vamp, the lack of comprehensive sex education in the country, the limitations of the body positivity movement, and the inherent sexism of the literary and film industries.

Doctor and sexual health influencer Tanaya Narendra aka Dr. Cuterus, who was in conversation with Jiya Dewan Ahuja, the festival’s executive director, at a session named ‘Body, Agency, Autonomy’, said that the definition of agency and autonomy stems from self-exploration. “You will eventually develop your understanding and meaning of what agency is to you. And I think that is the beauty of having a brain,” she told an audience of uniform-clad teenagers and young women.

Doctor and sexual health influencer Tanaya Narendra aka Dr. Cuterus.

Gender and storytelling

Screenwriter Atika Chohan, however, at another discussion titled ‘Women Writing Women – Owning our Stories’, rued the erosion of female agency in recent times. “Since Trump has come into power, boys are telling girls in American schools, ‘your body, my choice’… Reproductive laws have gone back… abortion is something we are reconsidering in India,” said Chohan, who shared the stage with other cinema personalities such as filmmaker Leena Yadav, writer-producer Sutapa Sikdar and actor Namita Dubey.

Do women write men better than men write women? Is the term “woman-writer” inherently sexist because it implies that a writer is, by default, male? Why did Hindi cinema devolve into a hero-centred narrative? Does gender impact how a filmmaker navigates the politics of the body and showcases sexuality? How does being bold on screen impact the way you are perceived off it? What was the impact of the angry young man trope on the film industry’s female leads?

All these questions and more became the focal point of both the aforementioned ‘Women Writing Women’ panel and the one that followed, ‘Dawn of the Female Goddess: Power, Perspective and a Female Gaze’, which had film critic Anupama Chopra and actor Sandhya Mridul in conversation with Penguin Random House India’s Milee Ashwarya. “Let’s accept that the film industry is a part of society. The storytellers, the writers, and the directors are all coming from that same society, right?” said Chopra, hinting at the inextricability of art and life.

(L to R) Milee Ashwarya of Penguin Random House India, actor Sandhya Mridul and film critic Anupama Chopra.

She believes the film industry worldwide has historically been male-skewed, with positions of power occupied mainly by men. This, in turn, influences narrative and characterisation. “A director completely reveals themselves in their film,” agrees Leena Yadav, pointing out, for instance, that the way men and women directors portray intimacy on screen is very different. The same scene “will be worlds apart in what it’s saying and what its politics are,” said Yadav, who has directed films such as Shabd, Teen Patti and Parched.

Filmmaker Leena Yadav

While these creative avenues and the larger world, by default, have a long way to go when it comes to gender parity, Chopra sees a ray of hope. “It’s so amazing for me as a journalist to see in the last 15 years how much women have reclaimed their space,” she said. “It’s a long road; we’re far from even anywhere near equity, but we’re very far ahead of where it was when I started in the 90s.”

preeti.zachariah@thehindu.co.in