Should Heeramandi Show a Woman Saying ‘Yes’ to Being Raped?

In Heeramandi, Sanjay Leela Bhansali creates a magical world with beautiful faces, stunning costumes and memorable music. But, the sense of power dynamic in the series seems lopsided. The women of Heeramandi have agency over their bodies. They have made peace with their realities and have managed to find an ounce of respect by calling themselves ‘fankaars‘. Mallika Jaan, played by Manisha Koirala, is the most powerful. She runs the Shahi Mahal and decides the fate of every woman in Heeramandi. She has Nawabs and Britishers under her thumb, yet when the moment comes, the makers show her as the most vulnerable character in the narrative. Exploring the vulnerability and weakness of a woman is not a problem. In fact, one of the most exciting parts of Bhansali’s stories is how he extracts strength from a woman’s vulnerability. In Devdas, Paro decides to honour her mother’s wishes over Dev’s commitment, in Gangubai Kathiawadi, Gangu decides to turn the allegations and abuses into a powerful speech, and in Bajirao Mastani, Kashibai tells her husband that he is never welcomed into her room from that moment – you see women standing up for themselves, especially in their most vulnerable state. But, that’s not what Bhansali shows in Heeramandi. In the seventh episode, he shows Mallika Jaan offering herself to be raped.

In the scene, Mallika is not the reigning queen of Lahore but just a mother who wants her daughter to be out of jail. The price for freedom is big and she agrees to pay it. It’s not the ‘rape’ that bothers you as a viewer because the idea is to show Mallika Jaan breaking down to her lowest and losing all her agency at that very moment. It is the idea of ‘consent’ to being raped that doesn’t sit right. Is it okay to show a woman saying ‘yes’ to being raped? In the scene, Mallika Jaan first offers her entire wealth for her daughter’s freedom. She is sitting in front of the British jailer whose only goal is to rip Mallika off of her dignity. He first asks her to sing. “Hum fankaar hai, aise nahi gaate,” she tells him, adding that he shall come to their Shahi Mahal in the evening if he wants to see her performing. When he pushes, she starts to sing. Next, he asks her to dance. She hesitates but complies. He then asks her to dance naked for him. Mallika stands up in disbelief and asks him if he wants to rape her. She tells the jailor that he can go ahead and rape her along with other officials but he will have to set her daughter free after that. “Tum sab balatkar karna chahte ho. Kar lo. Par uske baad meri beti ki hathkariyan khol dena,” a furious but determined Mallika says. She clears the table and lies down.

It’s a poignant scene in the series. You see a mother sacrificing everything for the sake of her kid. But, should you be showing all that? Should you ever be showing a woman ‘agreeing’ to being raped even if it is for the sake of her kid? Isn’t the idea of ‘consenting’ to being raped very counterproductive to the whole build-up of women empowerment that you want Heeramandi to showcase in the first place? Again, using rape to show a woman being forced to give up is not the problem here, it’s the treatment of the scene that makes rape look trivial. So small a thing that Mallika would agree to be abused like that. Where is her sense of competency and strength in that time? The woman of her valour chooses to give up without a fight in that scene. The worst is the example that she is setting for other women where you are justifying rape as a ‘sacrifice’ for your kid. Ripping a woman off of her agency is one thing but showing her assuming that it is the only way out or worse, the ‘ultimate sacrifice’ is another. Mallika is the caring and worried mother at that moment but can’t we think better than using rape to show her performing a ‘mahaan‘ deed? The whole clan bows to her later and participates in her process of dealing with the pain but they also put her on the highest pedestal, vowing to sacrifice everything for the woman who offered herself to being raped for the sake of her daughter. Should rape be used in any story to establish a woman taking a higher moral ground? Being raped scars Mallika Jaan for life but what is more scarring is to realise that she agreed to it.

In another scene, Aditi Rao Hydari‘s Bibbo Jaan tells the world ‘hum jo karte hain apni marzi se karte hain‘ and you understand Bhansali talking about the power of consent there. The same ‘consent’ that he chooses to kill in probably the series’s most dramatic scene. Think.