Minister accused in India’s growing #MeToo movement
NEW DELHI: India’s belated #MeToo movement snowballed yesterday after several female journalists accused a minister in Narendra Modi’s government of sexual harassment and a producer alleged she was raped by a veteran Bollywood actor. Women journalists took to Twitter to allege how M J Akbar, a wellknown former editor and now a junior foreign minister, conducted job interviews in fancy hotel rooms and made sexual advances when they were starting out in the media.
Priya Ramani, the first journalist to go public with the allegations, identified Akbar as the unnamed editor whose inappropriate behaviour she had written about in an article last year. Ramani said she was 23 when Akbar called her to a Mumbai hotel room for a job interview around 20 years ago. Akbar was “an expert on obscene phone calls, texts, inappropriate compliments and not taking no for an answer,” she said in the article which she reposted on Twitter on Monday. “You know how to pinch, pat, rub, grab and assault. Speaking up against you still carries a heavy price that many young women cannot afford to pay.”
India’s foreign ministry was yet to respond to a request for comment from AFP and Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj ignored reporters when asked whether she would investigate the claims. Akbar - who has edited prominent Indian newspapers such as The Telegraph, Asian Age and The Sunday Guardian and is a also a member of parliament - was yet to comment.
Sexual overtures
Another journalist, who preferred to remain anonymous, said she declined a job offer after “the whole experience of an interview sitting on a bed in a hotel room followed by an invitation to come over for a drink”. Journalist Prerna Singh Bindra said Akbar “made life at work hell” when she refused his sexual overtures. Many women in India have in recent days taken to social media to out sexual predators, emboldening others to come out with their experiences.
Bollywood figures, stand-up comedians and other top journalists have all found themselves accused of abusing their positions to behave improperly towards women. The trigger appeared to be actress Tanushree Dutta, who has accused well-known Bollywood actor Nana Patekar of inappropriate behaviour on a film set 10 years ago. Late Monday, writer and producer Vinta Nanda published a Facebook post saying she had not only been raped but “brutalized and violated endlessly” by a popular actor 19 years ago.
She did not name him directly but gave enough hints which led others in the Hindi film industry to quickly identify him on Twitter as Alok Nath. “Neither I am denying this nor do I would agree with it,” said Nath who is adored for his fatherly and genteel on-screen persona. “It (rape) must have happened, but someone else would have done it,” the 62-year-old actor was quoted by Indian news channel ABP as saying.
The Hindustan Times, one of India’s major national papers, said that Prashant Jha, its political editor and chief of bureau, has been asked to step down from all his editorial roles pending an investigation. “This is a case of sexual harassment and an internal committee has been set up,” said the media group’s general counsel, Dinesh Mittal, in an announcement. Jha was accused by a former female colleague, Avantika Mehta, of sending inappropriate messages. Mehta made her complaint on Saturday in an article on the Firstpost news site and then on her own Twitter account. Jha did not answer calls or text messages seeking comment. He has not responded publicly to the allegations.
Some other media outlets also have launched inquiries. Among them The Wire, an online news portal, asked for specific complaints to be addressed to its Internal Complaints Committee after its co-founder, Sidharth Bhatia, was accused on Monday on Twitter of sending inappropriate messages to subordinates by a woman who claimed she worked with him. Another woman claimed on Twitter that he had made a vulgar comment about her. Bhatia denied wrongdoing in a statement and said he did not recall either of the women as employees. He said he was willing to face an independent inquiry.
Separately, India’s biggest comedy group, All India Bakchod (AIB), said its future was in doubt following a series of allegations about sexual harassment. Tanmay Bhat, the chief executive and co-founder of AIB, resigned after saying in a statement on Friday he made a “big mistake” by continuing to work with a stand-up comic even after Bhat knew of allegations of inappropriate behaviour by the performer.
The comic, Utsav Chakraborty, was accused last Thursday by Mahima Kukreja, a fellow comic, of soliciting nude pictures from under-age girls online and sending her pictures of his genitals. She confirmed to Reuters that he sent her the pictures. Chakraborty denied asking for nude picture from underage girls. He has said in a statement that has since been removed from his Twitter account that any sexting he did he thought was consensual.
According to a statement from the comedy group, another AIB co-founder, Gursimran Khamba, was also placed on a temporary leave of absence by the collective after an anonymous woman on social media on Monday accused him of “emotional blackmail” and of trying to force himself on her. In a statement, Khamba denied any wrongdoing, saying there was no violation of consent. He said the two of them “hooked up consensually multiple times”, and that the relationship later became toxic. The woman has also said the two of them were in a consensual sexual relationship, but that he also forced himself on her on two separate occasions. — Agencies