The officer who feared having a daughter made a film about it
Ashwani Kumar is a Secretary in the IT Department of the Government of Assam and the Director of DITEC. He is also an IIT Madras alumnus and a career civil servant. Last Sunday, he was at PVR Chanakyapuri watching himself on screen, playing a police officer who initially opposes his wife’s decision to continue a pregnancy when they learn the child will be a girl. The film is called Devyani. It is streaming on ZEE5. And it begins from a place that Kumar says is more complicated than simple prejudice.
“Many people want a daughter; they desire to have one. However, they are held back by fear, fear of a society where times are tough, where one doesn’t know if a girl who steps out will return safely. Every day, she faces the risk of harassment, whether outside, within her extended family, or even in her own home,” Kumar said at the screening. “I have observed this and personally felt that, and that is what I have tried to portray here.”
The short film addresses female foeticide through this specific lens. The police officer at the story’s centre is not a villain. He is a man shaped by the same anxieties that Kumar described at the screening, the concerns about dowry, safety, and a society that continues to make the raising of daughters more difficult than it should be. An incident changes his perspective through the course of the film. He comes to support the pregnancy. He names the child Devyani.
The film stars Kumar alongside Archana Gautam, is directed by Ashish K Panda, and is written by Anwarullah Khan. It is produced by Aaroha Production. BJP MLA Pankaj Singh, who attended the Sunday screening at PVR Chanakyapuri, appreciated Kumar’s performance and commitment to the role.
What makes the film’s premise quietly unusual is the portrait of a father whose resistance is rooted in fear rather than straightforward misogyny. The distinction matters. A man who does not want his daughter because he thinks girls are inferior is one kind of problem. A man who does not want his daughter because he is terrified of what a world indifferent to her safety will do to her is a different kind of problem, and arguably a harder one to address through legislation or public campaigns alone.
