India’s Daughter

India’s Daughter is the story of the brutal gang rape and murder in Delhi of 23-year-old medical student Jyoti Singh, and how the aftermath led to protests and serious soul-searching in India.

From the earliest age, Jyoti wanted to become a doctor, but her father had no hope of affording her education. She persuaded him to give what little money he had managed to save for her marriage, to fund her admission to medical school, and worked night shifts at a call centre, sleeping just 3 hours a night for 4 years. On a mid-December night, 2012, Jyoti went with a male friend to a movie, and then left on a bus. On that bus, six men beat her friend unconscious and, for almost an hour as the bus drove around, gang raped and beat her near death.

Against all odds, Jyoti survived for 2 weeks, but died after seven surgeries. The details of her horrific rape and murder captured the country’s attention, and demonstrations erupted throughout India as women and men alike took to the streets. Through interviews with Jyoti’s family and friends, victims’ rights advocates, as well as from the assailants, their lawyers, and their families, India’s Daughter paints a complicated picture of a country wrestling to embrace modernity while still dealing with the rampant effects of extreme poverty, and outdated paternalistic cultural attitudes towards women and their place in society.