Bawandar

Cast:	Nandita Das, Raghubir Yadav, Ravi Jhankal, Ishrat Ali, Yashpal Sharma, Deepti Naval, Mohan Bhandari, Rahul Khanna
Director:	Jagmohan Mundhra
Producer:	-

Bawandar is a film inspired from the real life story of Bhanwari Devi who was gangraped by the upper caste men in the village because she dared to raise her voice against the injustice meted out to the women in the village.

The story goes thus. A writer from England called Amy (Laila Rouass) and her friend Ravi (Rahul Khanna) come to Dabri village in Rajasthan. Amy is writing a book on Rajasthan and wants to incorporate the story of this woman Sanwari Devi (Nandita Das) who is married to Sohan (Raghubir Yadav). No one is ready to show Sanwari's house to Amy. But somehow she maanges to reach the house of Sanwari who is ostracised by her villagefolk.

Now, we move on to Sanwari who took her first step against injustice when she faught for her rights with the local contractor demanding that she be paid the exact amount for which she has worked for. News of her standing up for her rights reaches the ears of the head of a women's organisation run by Shobha (Deepti Naval).

Shobha asks Saanwari to join the organisation. Saanwari initially refuses but when she needs some money, she joins as she realises that she would be paid a good Rs 250 for her work. And herein begins Saanwaris' move towards women's upliftment. During one such occasion, she takes up the cudgels against an upper caste man who tries to molest a widow.

At one time, Saanwari complains against a child marriage in the sarpanch's house. The cops and the sarpanch are hand in glove and they inform sarpanch Purnia Gujar (Ishrat Ali) that it was Saanwari who had given the information.
Purnia Gujar and his cronies are furious and bash up everyone in Saanwari's house and cause damage to property. They also order that no water or any other supply should be given to Saanwari's house.

But Saanwari has been emboldened by now and she goes and gets water from far away and even gets a buffalo home to get milk. The Gujars get more upset that Saanwari is unperturbed, and in order to teach her a lesson, they thrash her husband and then rape her in front of him.

Saanwari is destroyed, but then she gathers courage and goes to the cophouse to file a complaint. The inspector (Ravi Jhankal) is a corrupt man and he does not register the complaint and asks her to get a medical certificate.

Saanwari goes to Jaipur to get her certificate done and in the process, goes through lot of mental agony. Luckily her husband Sohan stands by her. She spends a night at the local police station as she cannot live anywhere else. The women police talk very rudely to her and even ask her how much fun she had when she was being raped by five men.
Later Saanwari comes back to Dabri and files a case and deposits her ghagra in the police station. The case goes to court after Shobha asks the local MLA Dhanraj Meena to intervene. Even as he takes time, some socialite women in Delhi led by one Anita (Lillette Dubey) approach the prime minister and ask for his help. The PM intervenes because he can make hay by taking a dig at the government led by the opposition party in Rajasthan.

A honest lawyer (Gulshan Grover) fights Saanwari's case despite being a man from the upper caste Gujar community. But the Gujars come together and Meena Gujar to save his votebank helps the Gujars win and the Gujars' lawyer (Sri Vallabh Vyas) manages to falsely prove that Saanwari is of low character as her ghagra contains stains of the semen of another man but not the five people who had raped her.
Amy and Ravi return home as Saanwari fights on.

The performances are A-grade. Very honest and sincere performances by Nandita Das, Raghubir Yadav, Deepti Naval and Gulshan Grover prop up the film. The supporting cast is good.

The direction is weak at times. The scene at the lady cophouse where the woman cop asks Saanwari how she was raped, by asking her kitne aadmi the, sounds very dirty. That scene should have been omitted. The sincerity of the maker here is questioned, by the addition of a scene catering to the front-benchers. Ditto for another scene at the Dabri Police Station where Ravi Jhankal masturbates on Saanwari's ghagra after reading porn books and listening to lurid music.