Despite a decade of feminism, the lot of Indian women at the brink of the 21st century is painfully hard. Widespread poverty means families need to send their children to the workplace, especially the girls. Pasupathy, at ll spends the day kneeling at a factory bench gluing together matchstick boxes, earning 25 cents per thousand boxes.

For a girl to make it past birth is a challenge in much of rural India, where families cannot bear the cost of a dowry. Although it is illegal to tell the mother the gender of a fetus, one Bombay clinic performed 8000 abortions, of which all but one were female. Female deaths are not limited to fetuses. Wives are killed, even burned alive, in disputes over dowries.

Abused women get no support from the police. The intolerable situation is giving birth to a new found militancy. Phoolan Devi was brutally raped by 22 higher caste men. To revenge this outrage, she led a gang who set about murdering her assailants. After eleven years in jail she is now in parliament campaigning for women. The film ends with the lament of a young bride. "I’m too young to marry. I want to continue school. I’m sad because I don’t have any choice."

"Born to Bondage is a stark piece of film-making, packing a potent punch in its taut 40 minutes of running time."
- Anthropology Review Database

Association for Asian Studies, 2001