Time hasn't dimmed her Babri valour

KOLKATA: It was the morning of December 6, 1992. Emmy award winning filmmaker Ruchira Gupta, then a reporter with Business India, was standing atop a nearby roof watching the Babri mosque Ayodhya being demolished by saffron activists.
When the third dome was being brought down, Gupta felt she needed to be closer. It was hot and dusty so she tied a hankerchief round her head.Dressed in jeans, she was mistaken for a Muslim man and attacked by the kar sevaks. “When they realised I was a woman, I was molested and my clothes torn. I would have been killed had it not been for a kar sevak I had interviewed the evening before. He told them I was a Hindu and they let me go,� Gupta recalled.
Among the key eye-witnesses, Gupta has testified before the Librehans commission inquiring into the demolition of the Babri Masjid and has been hounded for her outspokeness. “I have had people bad mouthing me, my work. But, it matters little. I want to use my communication skills for advocating issues I believe in,� she said.
Gupta’s interest in the rise of the religious Right resulted in her pursuing a fellowship on the subject in US. In 1993, she researched for a BBC Panorama documentary ‘The Brotherhood’ which showed the RSS in the aftermath of the Babri Masjid demolition. This year, she has worked on another documentary on the “Nazistyle politics� in Gujarat for Channel 4. “Made about two months ago, Saffron warriors looks at the rise of Hindu fundamentalism and its repercussions on ordinary people,� Gupta said.
A journalist for 14 years now, Gupta was born and brought up in Kolkata. Her first job too was with an English daily in the city. She is currently in city and two of her films — The Brotherhood and Saffron Warriors — were screened at the Seagull Arts and Media Research Centre on Tuesday.
Gupta became the first Indian to win the Emmy for ‘outstanding investigative journalism’ in 1995 for her film, The Selling of Innocents.
The documentary, made for the Canadian Broadcasing Corporation, traces how women and children from Nepalese villages are sold in Mumbai brothels. Gupta moved to the United States about five years ago. She has worked around the globe on UN assignments and specialises on the issue of sex-trafficking and violence against women.
In New York, she founded Apne Aap International, a NGO which seeks to end sex-trafficking. She working with NGOs in India and Nepal. “I am in the process of finalising projects with two organisations in Kolkata who are working with sex workers.