Welcome 'Priya's Shakti,' new Indian comic with rape survivor 'super hero'

An Indian-American filmmaker has come up with a new comic book, Priya's Shakti, which has a female rape survivor as its super hero.

Inspired by Hindu mythological tales, the comic would tell the story of a young woman named Priya, who's a gang-rape survivor, and Goddess Parvati as they fight against gender crimes in India. The comic aims to focus attention on the problem of sexual violence in India, the BBC reported.

Creator Ram Devineni said that it was the brutal December 2012 incident in India, where a 23-year-old student was gang raped and murdered on a bus in Delhi, that witnessed a mass protest across the country, which gave him the idea.

He said that he was talking to a police officer who made a surprising comment saying "good girls don't walk alone at night," which made him realize that the rape and sexual violence was a cultural issue in India's male-dominated society, and it was the victim who faced social ostracism rather than the culprit.

In the comic too, Priya, an aspiring young woman, is blamed for being raped by her family and banished from home, after which she takes help from Hinduism's most powerful divine couple Shiva and Parvati, and returns on the back of a tiger to defeat her adversaries.

Mr Devineni chose mythology, particularly Hinduism, as it is the religion more than 80 percent of the country follows and had convinced street artists and Bollywood poster painters to create murals in the Mumbai area of Dharavi, Asia's biggest slum.

The comic targets children starting from 10-12 years to young adults, and digital copies of the book have been made available to be downloaded for free, while the printed copies in Hindi and English would be available at the Comic Con Mumbai later in December.

Mr Devineni said that he hopes to create awareness and change social attitudes with this concept.