Two Paths, Same Control? Gender Roles, and the Illusion of Choice in The World Before Her 

• Through the journeys of Prachi and Ruhi, the documentary The World Before Her shows the difficult choices many women face between tradition and modern aspirations.
• In the Durga Vahini camps, women are encouraged to protect tradition and the nation. While they are taught strength and leadership, their lives continue to be guided by expectations around marriage, family, and obedience.
• In the pageant world, young women seek opportunity, visibility, and independence. Yet their freedom often depends on meeting strict beauty standards and social approval, reminding us that empowerment can sometimes exist within limits.

How do we have sensitive conversations about problematic religious practices?

Should I be more traditional or more modern? This is a question that continues to shape our lived experiences in a space where tradition and modernity intersect, and every decision carries both possibility and limitation. The documentary, The World Before Her by Nisha Pahuja, depicts that neither path is easy, and through Prachi’s and Ruhi’s journey, Nisha invites viewers to see the complexities of both worlds. 

Through Prachi’s journey in the Durga Vahini camps and Ruhi’s path in the pageant world, the film reveals that both “choices” operate within tightly structured systems of expectation. Whether framed as nationalism or modern aspiration, women’s agency remains shaped and limited by social, cultural, and political forces that define what a “good” woman should be.

Religious Nationalism and the Sanctification of Tradition

Nisha shows how Hindu nationalism sustained in Durga Vahini camps sanctifies tradition and positions women as both agents who uphold the system and symbols through which the nation’s moral order is displayed. One of the Durga Vahini trainers reminds the girls that their duty is to be married by 18 because by 25, they become too “strong-willed.”According to her, education makes women too Westernized and deviant, and a woman’s true value is her ‘character,’ and not her ambitions. The sanctification of tradition has also normalized communal violence and violence against women and girls because the documentary shows how Hindu nationalists violently police women’s behavior in the name of protecting Hindu tradition. This indicates that nationalist ideologies often anchor themselves in control of women’s bodies, and women are made into embodiments of the nation’s moral and cultural limits, policed by male desire and social expectations.

Religious nationalism also seemingly expands women’s leadership possibilities by expecting them to perform hypermasculinity, but their leadership only remains symbolic as structural privileges of leadership are reserved for men. In the Durga Vahini camps, women are taught that femininity is weakness, and they have to become hypermasculine (tigers) as proof of capability and devotion to Hindutva. For instance, Prachi gains status and respect in the camp by embodying hypermasculinity. However, at home, her father still expects her to marry and have children, against her will. As a result, although women may gain authority within nationalist spaces, it rarely translates into autonomy over their own lives as they remain constrained by patriarchal expectations.

Modernity, Policed Bodies, and the Illusion of Freedom

In the pageant world, women and girls are expected to conform to Eurocentric beauty standards where their bodies are constantly surveilled and subjected to behavioural training. For instance, most of the girls, such as Ruhi, go for skin whitening sessions and other beauty treatments, believing that “fair and skinnier” is better. Interestingly, the girls do not mind because Nisha reveals that in India, women have few pathways to financial stability or equality with men and the beauty industry offers them a rare opportunity for economic freedom and respect. However, their liberation remains highly fragile as they continue to be criticised, disrespected, and accused of dishonouring their culture, especially by Hindu extremists. In addition, although pageant girls believe they gain autonomy, it is conditional because to gain entry and remain in the industry, they must meet rigid standards that privilege fair skin, specific body proportions, younger women, and a carefully curated version of femininity.

Conditional Empowerment in Traditional and Modern Spaces

Although empowerment in both spaces expands women’s roles and possibilities, it does not contribute to the redistribution of hegemonic power. For instance, in Durga Vahini Camps where tradition is sanctified, the women’s nationalism and performance of masculinity does not free them from gendered hierarchies, and patriarchal expectations. Even motherhood, which is framed as the pinnacle of feminine honour, does not guarantee them value in a context where daughters are systemically devalued as Nisha reveals how 750,000 sex-selective abortions are performed in India every year. Similarly, in pageant spaces, although the girls gain recognition and visibility by performing the feminine ideal, they do not have access to true structural power and their success remains dependent on their social desirability.

Therefore, the documentary essentially dismantles the belief that women can secure their freedom by simply choosing the “right” path. Nisha allows us to see how our choices are heavily influenced by social, cultural, and political forces, and both tradition and modernity operate within structures that limit the scope of women’s individuality and liberation. When a girl’s life is conditional, and her choices are negotiated within hegemonic spaces, the promise of choice becomes an illusion because true empowerment cannot exist without dismantling structures that confine it.