Member-only story
‘Mrs Chatterjee Vs Norway’: A Cultural Eye Opener On The Lopsided Nature of Indian Arranged Marriages
A real life exposé on the sexist and discriminatory nature of Indian arranged marriages.
*This article contains movie spoilers.*
Introduction
‘Mrs Chatterjee Vs Norway’ is a movie about an Indian immigrant mother’s nightmarish ordeal with ‘Barnevernet’, the child welfare authorities of Norway, during a custody battle for her children.
The movie, based on a real life incident that took place more than a decade ago, released to critical acclaim last year (2023). It gave rise to epistemiological debates and online criticism questioning whether the imposition of Western standards of childcare upon immigrant parents was a valid and justified way of dealing with issues pertaining to parenting in the first place.
Even more heated debates took place on social media where netizens questioned whether child welfare authorities confiscating children from their parents based purely on subjective interpretations of cultural differences and not any objective reasoning was even within the purview of the law.
I’ve read dozens of reviews on the web about the tearjerker movie, which even caused a rift in international relations between Norway and India at the…
