The Bollywood Film That Made India Talk About Abuse | Rahila Gupta | Ep 269 | The Mohua Show

This episode of The Mohua Show is a powerful and unflinching conversation about racism, patriarchy, migration, and what it truly means to survive as a woman inside systems designed to control her.

Writer, feminist, and co-author of The Politics of Patriarchy, Rahila Gupta speaks with rare honesty about arriving in Britain as a middle-class Indian woman — and watching racism strip her of class, security, and opportunity. From being pushed into “ethnic” writing boxes to fighting for abused migrant women trapped by immigration laws, Rahila reflects on how power, gender, and race intersect to shape women’s lives.

Drawing from decades of activism and scholarship, she speaks about why patriarchy survives every political system — from democracies to dictatorships — and why violence against women remains its most enduring weapon. She also introduces us to Rojava, a feminist-led Kurdish society inside war-torn Syria, offering a radical vision of what women’s liberation can look like even in the most unlikely places.

From landmark domestic violence cases that changed British law to the cultural impact of the film Provoked, Rahila reveals how stories, law, and feminist resistance combine to rewrite what justice can mean.
A conversation about power over silence, survival over shame, and why dismantling patriarchy requires both courage and imagination.

What this episode is REALLY about
Not polite feminism.
Not surface-level diversity.
Not saving women without changing systems.

It’s about:

• Racism and class — how migration erases social status
• Writing as survival — finding identity through language
• Patriarchy across the globe — why no system is free of it
• Rojava — a women-led revolution inside Syria
• Feminist resistance — how women build power even in war
• Immigration laws — how the state traps abused migrant women
• Killing to survive — when abused women are pushed to extremes
• Bollywood and abuse — Aishwarya Rai and breaking the silence
• Grief and poetry — writing as a way to hold onto love

If you’ve ever wondered why women stay, why systems fail survivors, or how patriarchy hides inside law, culture, and even democracy — this episode will change how you see power.