Poster review: Dangal cheers Girl Power

Aamir Khan starring Dangal’s poster is out now, and its tag line reads: “Mhari choriyaan choron se kam hai ke?”, which translates into “Are my girls any lesser than boys?”. The poster shows a middle-aged Aaamir Khan with four fierce looking young ladies, possibly his daughters/mentees, around him.

The film itself is a biographical work on Haryana’s Mahavir Singh Phoghat, who taught wrestling to his two daughters – Geeta Phogat and Babita Kumari, both of whom went on to win international competitions. While Geeta won the gold medal in the Commonwealth Games, 2010 and is the first Indian woman wrestler to have qualified for the Olympics; Babita won the silver medal in Commonwealth Games 2010 as well as a gold 2014.  Hailing from Bhiwani in Haryana, the family apparently faced a lot of opposition from the community when they supported the girls to become wrestlers.

Last month we saw the release of Udta Punjab, which was a raw look at the widespread narcotics problem in Punjab; and now we will witness Dangal, which will likely raise the challenge of gender bias. While it remains to be seen whether Dangal will raise a larger social issue or be a largely personal story, there is no denying the impact of the entertainment industry in highlighting important social issues. In this case: the status of women, particularly in Haryana.

Studies on Haryana show that the state has deep seated gender biases that show up across indicators. The most glaring among these is that Haryana has the lowest child-sex ratio in the country, followed by Punjab. This essentially translates into high son preference, and the killing of the girl child in either the womb or right after she is born. Also, it is quite likely that baby girls just don’t receive adequate healthcare at an early age. Haryana also has some of the lowest sex ratios in the country.

Even though Haryana has been improving its ranking and score on the UN Gender Development Index over the years, there is a lot more work that requires doing. The story goes, that Mahavir Singh Phoghat’s example has been instrumental in bringing about changes in the perception of women in the state. Here’s hoping the film, which is out on the Christmas weekend this year, will do even more!

The poster is licensed under Creative Commons