“I thought, if women can be physically strong, either they can beat back or they can take a beating”—a belief that grew into the Pink Belt Mission.
Even as a young child, Aparna Rajawat could see how boys in India were more respected, safer and freer than girls. Case in point: Her brothers beat her up for daring to fly a kite.
Wanting a way to defend herself, Rajawat cut her hair short and disguised herself as a boy, attending karate lessons behind her father’s back with the help of her mother and sister. By the time he discovered her secret, she was so good her coach was able to convince her father to let her continue. She went on to become a national champion and compete internationally, all while she was a teenager.
But that’s only the beginning of Aparna Rajawat’s story—a story in which her own achievements are only a backdrop to a life-long quest to inspire other Indian women and girls to achieve their dreams and protect themselves in a country where, despite its many advancements, incidents of sexual assault are still rampant and survivors struggle to get justice.
In the decade since the horrific 2012 gang rape and murder of a 23-year-old medical student that made international headlines and ushered in some reforms, the statistics on reported rape cases are still shockingly high: over 31,000 a year, which equals, on average, one reported rape every 15 minutes (with thousands more likely going unreported, not to mention instances of intimate partner violence, child abuse and marital rape).
Enter Pink Belt Mission, Rajawat’s nonprofit, through which she works as a motivational speaker as well as training thousands of girls and women in self-defense.
It’s also the subject of a new documentary directed by John McCrite.
A remarkable film, Pink Belt starts with Aparna Rajawat’s story, but goes much further, illuminating a path for anyone who cares about human rights to take that first step towards making a difference in their own communities and beyond.
In the following excerpts from their interview with Ms., Rajawat and McCrite talk about the founding of Pink Belt Mission, the film and their hopes for the future.
Pink Belt just finished its festival run, winning awards at every festival it entered, and is seeking a distributor so it can be made widely available to audiences worldwide.
Rajawat first started teaching self-defense to other girls as a teenager:
Aparna Rajawat: I thought if women can be physically strong, either they can beat back or they can take a beating. When I was 13 or 14 years old, I [drew] 10 pages, like a whole agenda to train every woman of my city, and I went to the district magistrate of Agra.
First, he just openly started laughing because of the pens and the colors and everything. I made little sun and moons on it to make it more beautiful. So, he laughed at me. [But after] I had some approval, I started teaching in the schools that self-defense. Not every woman of my city, of course; 2 million people live in my city, so no way I could train all of them. But it was in my head that I need to do that.
After college, she moved to London and became a successful international tour manager, but the news of the horrific gang rape and murder of the woman known as “Nirbhaya” (Indian law forbids releasing the name of rape victims) made her want to make a difference back at home.
Aparna Rajawat: When that happened to Nirbhaya, the lady who was gang raped by five men, something really stuck in my head because it was inhuman. We in India became immune to seeing the atrocities women are facing every day.
So, I came back to India, and I didn’t know where to start, what to do, where to go, but I believe when you really want to do something then nature will bring it to you. My brother-in-law was telling [his friend] about me and his friend became very impressed. He said, “Ma’am, I know someone. Why don’t you start helping young women?” I said, “Yes, I want to do that, but I don’t know what to do. So, he said, “There is a coaching center where young girls come from the village and urban areas, and they prepare for exams to make a career in government jobs.”
I remember exactly 76 girls were there. He said, “Come and motivate them.” I said, “Are you crazy? Are you talking to me? Motivation? I’m only good at having a mic in a coach and telling [tourists], ‘on the right side is the Taj Mahal’… Or I can teach women how to do kicks and punches.” He said, “Just tell your story, how you reached from the small labor colony of Agra to London.”
After speaking off the cuff for 45 minutes about her life, Rajawat worried she had wasted their time, but the girls’ reactions surprised her.
One girl told Rajawat, “You just changed my life,” and asked to hug her. Then, the remaining 75 girls wanted to hug her, too.
This was the moment Rajawat realized the value of words as a force of motivation. She went on to give further speeches, in both same-sex and co-ed schools and facilities, inspiring many young men and women.
Eventually, she decided to incorporate self-defense, leading to the founding of the Pink Belt Mission.
Aparna Rajawat: [I thought,] I should also add self-defense. That is my skill. Then I started asking [participants] about the basic rights a woman has, and I realized that women have no awareness about their rights, even basic rights. So, I inculcate all the legal rights that women have, the awareness. I start getting calls from 17, 18-year-olds, or sometimes 13, 14 [year-olds]: they’re trapped by 35, 40-year-old men.
Because now they have a phone, it’s cheap in India, so they come easily in a trap of these predators. I thought, I need to tell them about digital safety. So Pink Belt, the form you saw in the movie, it took three years to develop. I gave birth [to the mission] to only talk, then self-defense, then legal rights, digital safety, and then emotional, mental strength, because in India, most of the women are raised to be a good daughter, good wife. Nothing else. I started that in 2015. In 2018, I gave it the name Pink Belt because pink is a color of woman. A belt is power.
In the years since, the Pink Belt Mission has had tremendous success—including a Guinness World Record-breaking event, featured in the film, in which Rajawat taught self-defense to 7,401 women and girls to raise awareness for women’s rights—but the nonprofit has also faced some challenges.
Aparna Rajawat: In India, people don’t get it. Indian culture is very, very old, right? 10,000 years. There’s a certain way to live there in a society. I’m challenging their social system. I’m challenging their culture when I’m telling [men] that women are equal to you. Men are raised in certain way, and this is not only their problem. It is society, it’s their family who tells them, “You are a superior creature. You are the one who should be master.” And they’re teaching women that you are a secondary citizen, you are inferior, and you are lesser than men. So, when you are mentally conditioned by the society, then it is very difficult.
When I was doing that Guinness World Record, there was a very big politician. He’s a member of Parliament of India. I went to him to ask for help. And the first thing he said: “What a stupid idea. You’re such a stupid woman. What will women achieve by that? I think you need to get some treatment.”
So, when I come here [to the United States], it was shocking for me people thinking I’m doing something good. In India, you get criticized, you get threats, my bike was burned.
Rajawat still worked as a tour manager after founding Pink Belt Mission in order to help fund her nonprofit work, which is how she met filmmaker John McCrite:
John McCrite: I was on vacation with my husband in India, and we met Aparna. Aparna picked up the microphone, and she told the story about passing as a boy so that she could take karate lessons and how her mother helped her. And then she said, “When I was passing as a boy, I realized boys are treated better than girls.” And when she had that moment, that realization, and then she went back to her family, it changed everything because she saw the boys were getting milk, and her and her sisters weren’t getting milk. So, she called that out.
To me, as a storyteller, that was the hero’s moment where she could no longer go back to her old life the way it was. And it was fascinating.
The big, big moment was we were driving into Delhi on the bus, and everybody had their curtains shut. She said, “You have to open the curtains.” And all the tourists complained. They’re like, “Oh God, it’s hot; I don’t want to open the curtains.” She said, “A woman was raped on a bus in Delhi, and you have to open the curtains. It’s a law now.”
Then she told the story of Nirbhaya, and I had heard of it before, but she told it in more detail than I had heard. And then she talked about Pink Belt.
McCrite and Rajawat became friends, and Rajawat stayed with McCrite and his husband when she came to visit Los Angeles a while later.
John McCrite: We were in my backyard, and she told [me] about the danger of her politics there, that there’s always this danger. I said to her, “Can I get your story, all those stories you told on the bus? Can I just film them with no agenda? Just I want to have them recorded.” I said, “I feel like you should have your story at least recorded.”
And then she said to me, “I’m going to go and try to break the Guinness World Record for most women trained in a self-defense lesson.” And I said, “Wow, that would be so cool if we could come film you in your journey to doing that. ” I didn’t know it at the time, but I had a three-hour bible of her life to work from. Then we went to my business partner, Dana Jackson, and we told her, and she said, “You guys have to go to India right now. You just have to go.” It was just a sound person and two camera people and me. And we went to India to film the World Record event. We were there for, I think, almost four weeks.
It was so funny because I didn’t know how to help, and it was never ever planned. It’s kind of like any grassroots movement; you’re led to the next thing and then the next thing and then the next thing.
The Guinness World Record Break event was important to Rajawat for many reasons, including getting the attention of politicians and other authorities who seem unwilling to listen or acknowledge what women and girls still face in the country. She’s still working towards that goal:
Aparna Rajawat: They want to close their eyes, and they kept pretending and kept giving that false report to the people: Everything is okay because the file doesn’t say anything.
In India, there is a notion of, if my girl is safe, I don’t care about the neighborhood. So, a girl is being abused, even being raped on the roadside, nobody speaks, nobody comes, nobody stands. Whenever I give a speech, I always say that today, at least you can call the authorities. You can do whatever in your power to save her at that time. But women are too afraid to take a step. Women are too afraid to stand for each other. If it’s my daughter, obviously I’ll go to any extent, but if it’s a neighborhood daughter? I was beaten every other day. Is any neighbor standing for me?
I wanted to change that notion in women’s minds; that ‘who cares?’ attitude should not work anymore. If you close your eyes to your neighbor’s daughter, tomorrow someone else will close their eyes for your daughter. So inside, we are all one, and when you stand for each other, then you can think out of the box.
That [Guinness World Record] certificate doesn’t mean anything for me. It is just so my work gets recognized, that politicians get some attention because of that. Women’s notions will change, and they feel empowered. I saw sparkles in the eyes of those women that day.
While the COVID-19 pandemic, which began mere weeks after Pink Belt Mission’s news-making self-defense event, disrupted some of Rajawat’s plans, she and McCrite both hope the documentary will bring attention to the effort to motivate, inspire and empower women and girls in India:
Aparna Rajawat: The documentary is definitely my biggest hope. It is not about the recognition of the documentary. It’s going to help in a very big way many sisters in India, those facing atrocities, that can change lives.
John McCrite: It’s interesting because Aparna and I connected in so many ways, we didn’t realize how parallel our lives were. For example, the world record event, it reminded me of in 1993 when I went to the March on Washington [for LGBT rights]. You don’t realize the power of your group, your people getting together in a big group to say, “We are here and hear us.” And I felt the exact same thing when I saw the World Record event. It reminded me of the March on Washington and the empowerment of it.
While the film continues to seek distribution, Rajawat and Pink Belt’s mission continues:
Aparna Rajawat: I want to spread [the mission] as much as I can in India, every state. Every woman at least should know the basic rights and basic way to defend themselves. But besides that, my main motive now is to open a help center. Many young girls commit suicide; no one is there to talk.
I want a help center there when these women are uneducated and facing abuse and when they are planning to leave a man finally, when they can’t take it anymore. It’s very, very difficult, no financial help for them. So, I want that help center where I can have a counselor who can talk. The woman can come and talk openly with a lawyer who can fight their cases and maybe a doctor. So, I want to gather all these professional skilled people [in one center] where the woman can come and really can get help.
So, this movie is very helpful for any woman around the world. I cannot reach with my words to every woman, but the movie can.