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‘IT’S TIME FOR ACTION NOW’
As Kangana Ranaut supports the woman crew member who allegedly accused filmmaker Vikas Bahl of sexual assault, industry personalities feel it’s high time to do something concrete about women’s safety
Is India’s #MeToo campaign finally gaining traction? In the wake of actor Tanushree Dutta filing a sexual harassment complaint against actor Nana Patekar, another case has hit Bollywood like a thunderbolt – a female crew member of the 2015 film, Bombay Velvet, has apparently accused film-maker Vikas Bahl of sexually assaulting her in 2015. The same incident was briefly reported on by a tabloid in 2017.
In a report by HuffPost India, the woman has alleged that Vikas continued to harass her until she “quit the company in despair”. Reportedly, she had reached out to Anurag Kashyap (Bombay Velvet director and Vikas’ partner in the nowdefunct production house, Phantom Films) in October 2015 about the incident. We tried contacting Anurag and Vikas repeatedly, but neither responded until the time of going to press.
On Sunday afternoon, Anurag put out a lengthy statement about the controversy on Twitter, part of which read, “I am better aware today to not allow ourselves to be in a similar place again. I am deeply, truly sorry to the woman in question and she has known this all this while. This will never happen again on my work premises ever again.”
ANGER BRIMS OVER
Now, a number of industry voices have spoken up about safety of women at workplaces, and the latest incident in question. Film-maker R Balki says, “I don’t think any name is bigger than the offence. And we have to take action, regardless of who the person is. There are no big or small names. If you have committed a crime, you are a criminal in the eyes of law. The law is the same for everyone.”
Film-maker Hansal Mehta also “feels strongly” about the incident, but is disappointed that the incident has been given a completely new colour. “There is a girl who has been through a traumatic experience, so the issue is: how do we make our workplaces safe? Are we talking about that? How do we ensure that such harassment doesn’t take place again? If you look closely, no one is talking about that,” he says.
Actor Ayushmann Khurrana condemns “harassment of any form” and feels “justice should come swiftly” in such cases. “It takes courage for a woman to speak of such incidents being fully aware that a woman is always judged and her actions are dissected. There should be rules with regard to safety in work environments for women in every institute/ organisation,” he says, adding that equal and fair opportunity should be given to both the parties to justify their stand without any pre-conceived bias. “They say justice delayed is justice denied. Let’s fix this soon,” he says.
BUT THERE’S STILL A LONG WAY TO GO
Although certain people have spoken up vis-à-vis recent incidents and women’s safety, Mehta ew voices who “either stand to gain or lose from the entire incident”, no one has spoken about the controversy. “Stars and their so-called social media fans divert all the attention towards themselves. That is my problem, and it’s defeating the whole purpose,” he says.
Balki feels that investigations need to happen. “Firstly, hats off to Tanushree for coming out and speaking up. When a woman speaks up, the world ought to listen. It takes a lot for them to speak. Instead of just arguing about it, we should take concrete action to set an example so that such things can never be repeated,” he says.