As India battles rape, a female superhero joins the fight
A new comic book features a young village woman who, with the help of a goddess, spreads awareness about sexual violence.
The comic book 'Priya's Shakti' is reaching India's vast population of youths with a message about respect for women and girls.
Courtesy of 'Priya's Shakti'
Like millions of his countrymen, Indian American filmmaker Ram Devineni was horrified when a young woman was in 2012.听But he wasn't spurred into action until after attending a protest against the assault. During his conversation with a police officer, the cop shrugged:听鈥淣o good girl walks home at night.鈥�
鈥淚 knew then that the problem of was not a legal issue; rather it was a cultural problem,鈥� Devineni recently told . 鈥淎 cultural shift had to happen, especially in modern society. Deep-rooted patriarchal views needed to be challenged.鈥�
That, Devineni figured, required getting a message to young people. And what better way to do that than with a comic book鈥攅specially when half the country's population is under the age of 25?
The result is ,听a comic (available both digitally and in print) that tells the story of a young village woman who鈥攍ike too many victims of sexual assault in India and elsewhere鈥攆inds herself blamed and ostracized for her own ordeal.
Priya turns to the Hindu goddess Parvati for help (shakti is defined as a听female principle of divine energy), sparking a battle among the gods between those who see the attack as proof that human beings are beyond redemption and those who would teach them the error of their ways. Ultimately, good prevails鈥攁nd with Parvati鈥檚 help, Priya ends up riding a tiger back into her village, where she humiliates her attackers and recruits her family to help spread the word about the evils of mistreating women.
鈥淲e made the story fun to read, even though it鈥檚 about rape, and challenging patriarchal views. It is perfectly designed for teenagers,鈥� Devineni told听. 鈥淚t can be read in 15 minutes, but the message takes you further and lasts.鈥�
Devineni isn鈥檛 the first Indian activist to realize the potential of comic books to effect social change. Aditi Gupta had a similar idea with , a comic book providing information about the touchy topics of puberty and menstruation, which many Indian girls are never properly educated about.听
Devineni was inspired in part by the popular comic book versions of Hindu myths he鈥檇 read as a kid. He figured a similar format would appeal to a broad audience: More than 80 percent of India鈥檚 1.2 billion people are Hindus.
The digital version of Priya鈥檚 Shakti also contains 鈥渁ugmented reality鈥� features: With the help of a popular app, , certain panels can activate micro-documentaries about real Indian rape survivors.
Devineni also enlisted street artists and Bollywood poster painters to create murals in the Mumbai slum of Dharavi that contain codes people can scan with their phones to make animated clips appear. The project has also spawned a busy hashtag, #.
To date, the comic has reached an impressively wide audience: More than 1.2 million users have visited the comic book's website; more than 150,000 free digital copies of Priya's Shakti have been downloaded; and 3,000 print copies were distributed in December at the听. There are plans in the works to get copies into schools, and New York City's City Lore gallery will host an interactive exhibit featuring Priya's Shakti in the spring.
鈥� Vince Beiser has reported from more than two dozen countries for Wired, Harper鈥檚, The Atlantic, Rolling Stone, and others. In 2014 he won the Media for Liberty Award.
鈥� at , a leading source of socially relevant news, features, opinion, entertainment, and information 鈥� all focused on the issues that shape our lives. Visit .
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