THE #METOO UPRISING
AS WOMEN BREAK THEIR SILENCE TO NAME AND SHAME SEXUAL PREDATORS, THE NATION GOES THROUGH A COLLECTIVE CATHARSIS. #TIMESUP FOR WORKPLACE WOLVES
Skeletons come tumbling out of closets— in newsrooms and comedy collectives, film studios and ad agencies—as the #MeToo storm hits India
11: 50 pm: “I am sorry to bring this up—but I was thinking of the harassment you had to face…”
11.54 pm: “Nobody dares to mention M.J. Akbar. Wonder why. He has single-handedly destroyed so many lives and careers”
11.57 pm: “He used to take young journalists with him to cover prime assignments and then call them over at night. Those who did not obey were ruined”
11.59 pm: “Hell. Should we just anonymously call him out?”
It’s
October 7, Sunday, nearly midnight. And two women journalists are texting each other. Just three days ago, “writer. comic. poet. fighter” Mahima Kukreja had announced on Twitter: “I want everyone to know @Wootsaw is a piece of shit. He sent me a dick pic, was creepy, then cried saying I’ll ruin his career if I tell others.” Angry messages and posts started going to and fro across the internet. Women tore into @Wootsaw—better known as comedian Utsav Chakraborty—dis-
closed untold stories of their own encounters, tossed around ideas, collating lists of “alleged predators”. It was clearly a rare moment in time. Women were out to fulfil their tryst with destiny.
The celebrity journalist-cum-neophyte minister M.J. Akbar, who once famously said, “You can chop off limbs but can’t get rid of the head,” was “called out” on Twitter exactly at 12 am by the two journalists, with a screenshot of their exchange and a salute to Article 19 of the Constitution of India: “#TimesUp Mr MJ Akbar.” Within minutes, the post drew up to 300-plus Likes and Retweets. Before an hour was up, anonymous women were revealing untold stories of alleged aggressive sexual overtures by the man. It was freedom at midnight: the freedom to do what the laws against sexual harassment had failed to do till date. The rallying cry of this sudden and spontaneous uprising was a hashtag: #MeToo. The lesson? No power is absolute or uncontrolled and there is always safety in numbers.
SEX AND POWER
Women are emerging out of the woodwork with triumphant cries of “#Me too”, and prominent men who believed themselves to be above the law are toppling like power lines in a storm. The world has not seen such assertion of anger in women, the connective power of social media, the democratic force of the internet, nor the potential of a single six-character hashtag ever.
A year on since two exposés by The New York Times and The New Yorker first detailed allegations of sexual misconduct against Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein, #MeToo has become not just the story of one powerful man who exploited women just because he could. It is the toxic story of sex and power. It is what happens every day to women everywhere in the world. It is a conversation about men’s behaviour towards women and power imbalances, especially in the world of work. One year to the day since the NYT report blew open the #MeToo movement, it is the global conversation of the moment: on October 5, the Nobel Peace Prize committee recognised Congolese surgeon Denis Mukwege and Yazidi campaigner Nadia Murad for their efforts to end sexual violence.
One year to the month, #MeToo has arrived in the land of the Kamasutra. And the effects of public naming and shaming can be seen every day, as heads roll in the wake of the
#MeToo meltdown. The line-up of the accused is becoming increasingly illustrious: from big-time film producer Vikas Bahl to ace actors Nana Patekar, Alok Nath, Rajat Kapoor, Vairamuthu, Rohit Roy, Mukesh Kumar to M.J. Akbar. Carefully worded apologies are rolling out across the media. Those who remain silent, waiting to be forgotten, have their faces plastered across television screens.
PREDATOR ON THE PROWL
In the workplace, predatory men usually target subordinates, because they are unlikely to inform. “The victims often think that they will not be believed, the institution will support the predators, especially if they are well-known people, or that they will lose their jobs or career opportunities,” says clinical psychologist Dr Manju Mehta, former professor at AIIMS.
CAREFULLLY WORDED APOLOGIES FROM THE ACCUSED ARE ROLLING OUT. THOSE WHO STAY SILENT, HOPING TO BE FORGOTTEN, HAVE THEIR FACES PLASTERED ON TV
“Sexual harassment, assault or rape have little to do with sex,” says Mehta. “They may have sex on their mind a great deal, but only as a tool to control and conquer a body. The real thrill is in the conquest, not in relationships.” Bahl, it has been alleged, would “pretend to be drunk”, his preferred modus operandi to sexually abuse and assault women. Suparna Sharma, resident editor of
, Delhi, wrote in her tweet that “he (Akbar) was always preying on someone and generally crossing boundaries with others”. In the 1990s, when she reported to Akbar, he had once plucked her bra strap. Sharma was in her early 20s, but remembers screaming at him. That’s one of the many “transgressions” that were routine: “No one was spared and at that time there were no committees one could go to.” Most of the women who have called him out now allege that there was a pattern to the way he pursued women: arranging to meet them in a hotel room, holding out prestigious assignments, sending them out of town, insisting on a shared car ride. Almost all his accusers say they were young, many lived alone in a different city. Writer and journalist Priya Ramani has come on record saying Akbar had called her to his hotel room
in 1997, when she was a “rookie”, just 23 and he 43, at the time of the Incident.
Many sexual predators think that they are “irresistible” to women and that whoever they find desirable is automatically attracted to them. Even a friendly smile would indicate that they can proceed. “I am not a harasser. Never was, never will be,” author Chetan Bhagat has claimed against #MeToo allegations directed at him by a journalist, who shared screenshots of a conversation in which the author says he wanted to woo her, ignoring her protests that he was married. The allegations—that Patekar “had put his hands all over” model-actor Tanushree Dutta during the filming of the movie, Horn ‘OK’ Pleassss, in 2008, or that Kapoor would impose himself repeatedly on young women—do not surprise psychologists. Nor do people who expose themselves, like Utsav or Bahl: “They seek an admiring gaze and the exhibitionism itself excites them,” says Mehta.
Targeting women may have nothing to do with sexual needs. Many sexual predators are often married men, yet they find it exciting to use force in making their conquest, explains Mehta. Alok Nath has been accused of rape by his wife’s friend. In her allegation against adman Suhel Seth, journalist Mandakini Gehlot has written: “Suhel reached out—I figured for a quick hug—and planted a big sloppy kiss on my mouth, I felt his tongue inside my mouth. I was so stunned and I said something like ‘Suhel, you can’t do that’.” It’s all about power and control, says Mehta, the predator’s self-image is that he can dominate others easily.
MANY SEXUAL PREDATORS THINK THEY ARE “IRRESISTIBLE” AND WHOEVER THEY FIND DESIRABLE IS AUTOMATICALLY ATTRACTED TO THEM. EVEN A SMILE WOULD INDICATE THEY CAN PROCEED
THE #METOO ERA
#MeToo turned into a tsunami on social media after a call to action by actor Alyssa Milano, one of Weinstein’s harshest critics, on October 15, 2017. “If all the women who have been sexually harassed or assaulted wrote ‘Me too’ as a status, we might give people a sense of the magnitude of the problem.” Within 24 hours, 4.7 million women—and some men—around the world started taking part, speaking out and disclosing the harassment and abuse they have endured in their own lives, with over 12 million posts, comments, and reactions, reports Facebook. Today, the #MeToo website calls it a movement that encourages “millions to speak out about sexual violence and harassment”.
Milano’s online call may not have become a movement if Donald Trump had not won the US election, writes Rebecca Traister, author of Big Girls Don’t Cry: The Election That Changed Everything for American Women. Trump’s repeated vulgar comments about women, that a man can do anything to a woman if he is famous enough, has kept alive the fury and hashtag campaigns. A fresh wave of #MeToo unrest has swept across the US last week over the confirmation of Justice Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court despite allegations of sexual assault against him.
Such examples make anger a driving force in the internet age. It is possible to have conversations about what it means to be a woman, share experiences of sexual violence, build solidarity, bring the world closer and keep attention on events that slip off the news agenda. The internet also blurs boundaries, as work percolates into private spaces while personal time turns into work. “As we spend the largest chunk of our time at work, sexual harassment at the workplace is bound to become a big issue,” says sociologist Anagha Sarpotdar, an expert in sexual harassment from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. #MeToo is a metaphor for such workplace experiences, where more often than not, powerful men do not get punished for sexual misconduct, even when a complaint is lodged with the HR department.
NEW CONVERSATION
In some ways, many of the men being called out were not behaving any differently than they always have. Much of their behaviour with women was the same as what any number of men in positions of power before them would have done. But they were doing it in a moment where the conversation has changed. From privacy to adultery, triple talaq to Sabarimala, the Supreme
Court of India has been proactive in protecting and promoting women’s rights. “When a man can enter, a woman can also go. What applies to a man applies to a woman too,” a five-judge constitution bench asserted during the Sabarimala verdict this year. With their passionate court talk, they have captured the public imagination as relentless crusaders in a war against ‘evil’.
Comprising 49 per cent of the electorate, Indian women are being felicitated, celebrated and awarded like never before by political parties of all stripes. If pre-election budgets are supposed to deliver a message, Budget 2018-19 focused on women. On July 20, when the Modi government faced a no-confidence motion in Parliament, the defence began by highlighting its track record on empowering women: Beti Bachao to Ujjwala Yojana to Stand Up India or Swachh Bharat. From Mann Ki Baat to Independence Day speeches, the PM talks about the achievements of women—in Parliament, sports, the judiciary—and lists out the new laws and schemes instituted in the past four years. Announcing the Permanent Commission for Women, he said, “This is my gift to the women of the country.” He has praised women Navy officers, warned rapists of the strictest punishment, assured Muslim women of protection from triple talaq. President Ram Nath Kovind awarded ‘Nari Shakti Puraskar’ on Women’s Day; NITI Aayog honoured Women Transforming India.
At the same time, public discourse around the world and in India has really started to grapple with sexual harassment, abuse and assault in the public sphere as a serious violation. Sexual interactions at the workplace include a wide range of behaviours that include flirting, bantering, sexual jokes, touching, consuming pornography, dating, affairs, live-in relationships and marriage. Where does consent end and coercion begin? How pervasive is consensual sexual activity in the workplace? How do workers and organisations distinguish between wanted and unwanted sexual behaviour? The india todayMDRA 2018 sex survey at the workplace shows sex between bosses and subordinates as a norm: of the 33 per cent men who have had sex with colleagues, 57 per cent engaged with subordinates. Of the 22 per cent women who have had sex with colleagues, 61 per cent got involved with the boss. How much of it is consensual or coerced?
Although the Supreme Court formulated the Vishakha Guidelines against sexual harassment of women at the workplace (Vishakha vs State of Rajasthan) in 1997, sexual abuse and aberrations at the workplace have returned to the spotlight time and again. Infamous cases of famous men—K.P.S. Gill, Phaneesh Murthy, David
THE INDIA TODAY SEX SURVEY 2018 AT THE WORKPLACE SUGGESTS THAT SEX BETWEEN BOSSES AND SUBORDINATES IS VERY COMMON. BUT HOW OFTEN IS IT COERCED RATHER THAN CONSENSUAL?
Davidar, Tarun Tejpal or R.K. Pachauri—have rocked the nation. The courts have had to come forward: in 2013, the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act was instituted; in 2017, the Delhi High Court ruled that mere physical contact without sexual overtones would not amount to sexual harassment at the workplace; this year, the Supreme Court has rejected a PIL to make rape and sexual harassment cases gender-neutral. Disputes over the right to work with dignity at the workplace have become the new battlefield. “I do notice that more and more young women are becoming less and less tolerant of any kind of sexual harassment,” says senior advocate Rebecca John. “It is not something women should bear silently, as women of our generation did.”
THE SILENCE BREAKERS
It is almost a cathartic experience for women who have kept silent about the abuse. “I have waited for this moment for 19 years,” wrote producer Vinta Nanda in a long post on social media on October 8. Nanda has shared an account of rape by the lead actor of the ’90s TV show Tara many years ago on a night when she was at a party and her drinks had been mixed. She says she was raped by the man whose wife was her best friend. He was Alok Nath. But it took her 19 years to come out with the horror of what happened to her.
“I think we are witnessing a huge transition,” says Santosh Desai, author of Mother Pious Lady, Making Sense of Everyday India, “an attempt to correct the power equation, the everyday imbalance that has triggered it.” There is a history of unexpressed and unacknowledged feeling. It has been in the making for a long, long time.” Social organisation makes up for who we are as people, and gender equations have for long determined the value systems that govern our societal structures. “It is a profound shift in the narrative and its impact will be felt sharply,” he believes.
The outpouring of anger is not only built around big things but small things too, points out Professor Madhavi Menon from Ashoka University. “This is not only about rapes or sexual assaults. It is about the daily insults and daily demeaning,” she says. While in the United States, women who broke their silence spanned races, ages and income groups, in India, the movement has been somewhat restricted to the educated, English-speaking, social media-savvy women. It is yet to move to smaller cities and across sectors—start-ups, small and medium businesses which are the largest employment generators. “This is the mood of the times,” says Desai. “The reason being that there is an underlying shift in the power equation. We do a lot of work in small towns, where we are seeing that women are getting far more assertive. For the first time, men are being evaluated.”
THE BACKLASH
To many, the movement “can’t last”. The powerful will never give up without a fight and it is only a matter of time before the backlash hits.
An op-ed in the American magazine The Atlantic points to the allegations against comedian Aziz Ansari as revealing women to be “angry, temporarily powerful—and very, very dangerous”. To be sure, there is much that is less than ideal in #MeToo: for instance, its standards of proof. The movement just goes by the court of public opinion. Also a violent assault is being treated with the same tar brush as a boss who persistently cajoles an employee for sex. There is hardly any debate on what the consequences should be in various cases. Some question the validity or element of exaggeration behind the finger-pointing.
The truth is that prejudices against women still simmer just below the surface. Victims whose experiences are “insufficiently” abusive are being trolled, or blamed for what they experienced. “Men are being pushed into a situation they are not familiar with,” says Desai. “This is scary for them. They are forcefully trying to put the genie back into the bottle.” There is a lot of flash in the pan in this movement, explains Menon. “With the very title #MeToo, I think we are losing sight of collectivity. We often mistake the movement of chronology as a movement of progress,” she says.
The movement, according to Supreme Court lawyer Mihira Sood, can’t be in the legal framework yet. Not all women who have shared their stories want legal redress or are coming forward with complaints in the courts or in police stations. “I know a lot of women and me included who didn’t have the foresight to save screenshots as proof,” she says. “And I don’t know if the #MeToo movement is just about sexual harassment at the workplace. #MeToo covers in its ambit misogyny, sexism and any harassment where there is an element of threat. And this threat is subjective. Not everyone is immersed in terminologies and you can’t expect those nuances from survivors.”
Now lawyer Seema Sapra has filed a PIL in the Supreme Court against former attorney general Soli Sorabjee, alleging that the 88-year-old veteran lawyer has sexually harassed a number of women. Sorabjee denied these allegations. According to Supreme Court lawyer Karuna Nandy, the burden of preventing senior people from incurring civil and criminal liabilities should be on organisations and this is the way equality can be ensured. “Zero tolerance for such behaviour can clean up all possibilities,” she says. “Power is not given, but taken and the onus for ensuring due
process should be on the patriarchy.”
As more and more women come out on social media with accounts of sexual harassment and abuse at the workplace or otherwise with men who use power dynamics, the question is what happens to the #metooIndia movement that was initiated last year by 24-year-old Raya Sarkar, who came out with a list of men in Indian academia, accusing them of using their position of power to abuse women who worked with them? Lawyers like Rujuta Shinde, who is among a bunch of women lawyers who have promised pro bono legal advice should any women want to take matters to court, says it becomes an issue “when a public resistance movement is met with stringent defamation laws, where the accused is innocent until proven guilty”. The burden of proof in civil matters is a problem in cases of sexual harassment or assault and WhatsApp and Facebook messages have to undergo a veracity test and might not be permissible in the court of law. Delhi-based lawyer Satyajit Sarna, who works on defamation cases, says that in a lot of cases, lawyers will advise an accused person
who wants to file a defamation suit to just apologise instead. “Any of the accused would be best advised to let it pass, issue a statement, do anything but take it to court. Day after tomorrow, it will be forgotten. But if you file a suit, it will live for years and you will create a martyr,” he says.
But the movement has already been successful. Prashant Jha, political editor of the Hindustan Times, had to step down after lawyer-reporter Avantika Mehta said he sent her lewd messages. Video streaming service Hotstar announced that it was cancelling the production of the third season of ‘On Air with AIB’ after allegations of sexual harassment against two of its founding members, Tanmay Bhat and Gursimran Khamba, who have stepped down. Rajat Kapoor’s films will not be part of the Mumbai Film Festival. That’s how women are feeling vindicated, says Kalpana Sharma, a writer for Network of Women in India. “The anger of younger women is valid,” she says. At the time she started out as a journalist, the feminist movement wasn’t strong and there was no framework for legal action in case of sexual harassment at the workplace. Her network has initiated a survey on sexual harassment at the workplace, offering to build a support system for women in case they want to follow up on their complaints.
PREJUDICES SIMMER BELOW THE SURFACE. WOMEN WHOSE EXPERIENCES ARE “INSUFFICIENTLY” ABUSIVE ARE BEING TROLLED OR BLAMED FOR WHAT THEY WENT THROUGH
ROAD AHEAD
Arguments and counters are flying thick and fast. Camps are being formed and the air is thick with tension. India is living through an upheaval. The #MeToo moment has engulfed some of the most powerful men in politics, entertainment, and media. It has also forced a national reckoning with the reality of our workplace cultures. It is painful to hear the stories, the dredging up of terrible long-suppressed memories, but the next generation of women has arrived. And they are asking for more than their mothers ever did. They have frightening boldness and they will not be happy until they get their recognition as equal people. #MeToo will end only when women’s humanity is recognised and restored. As Sharma says, “#MeToo is a leaky dam that is now spilling over and it will continue. Let them call us fallen women. We will turn the tables on them.”
Till such time, fingers crossed.