Since 2017, the #MeToo movement has been successful in the conviction of Harvey Weinstein, who was at the centre of the landmark trial.

However, the turning point for India was the heinous 2012 Nirbhaya case, which caused an uproar both within India and in the diaspora. During the news reports that covered the rape cases, there was a glaring absence of the narratives of raped and abducted women from the 1947 Partition. In this talk, I explore the recent filmic depictions of Saadat Hasan Manto’s short stories, “Open It” and “Thanda Ghosht,” and how the filmmakers Nandita Das and Rahat Kazmi deal with the sensitive topic of gender-based violence, especially in the #MeToo era.

I will also draw on my research drawn from the Q and A when Das was touring around the United States and screening Manto in American universities. Drawn my dissertation, “Representing Women and the 1947 Partition in Hindi Cinema and Television (1948-Present),” I will discuss themes of the impact of Urdu writer Manto’s works, censorship, ethics of traumatic realism, and how confronting the past is essential to mourn the rape victim-survivors of the 1947 Partition.

Dr. Nidhi Shrivastava, University of Western Ontario (Canada), Adjunct Professor, Sacred Heart University (USA)

Dr. Nidhi Shrivastava completed her PhD in the department of English and Writing Studies at University of Western Ontario (now Western University) in London, Ontario, Canada and works as part-time faculty in the Department of Languages and Literature at Sacred Heart University. She is currently working on her dissertation entitled “Representing Women and the 1947 Partition in Hindi Cinema and Television (1948-Present).”

Her research focuses on the #MeToo movement, Hindi film cinema, censorship, the figure of the abducted and raped women, Indian rape culture, and the 1947 partition. She co-edited the volume of Bridging the Gaps Between Celebrity and Media with Jackie Raphael and Basuli Deb and her academic research has also been published in South Asian Review.

She also writes for Canada’s popular magazine, Anokhi Life. She also has a forthcoming chapter coming in an edited volume, #Metoo and Literary Studies: Reading, Teaching, and Writing About Sexual Culture. She is also co-editing with her colleagues on an edited volume on Reimagining #MeToo in South Asia and the Diaspora, and will be working on her book proposal for her dissertation this summer.