A CASCADE of allegations on social media of sexual harassment and sexual assault against prominent individuals has kick-started what has now come to be known as the Me Too movement in India. The accused, all well-known personalities, belong to almost every sphere of occupation, ranging from the media, entertainment, art and academia to the world of politics.
#MeToo began with the former Bollywood actor Tanushree Dutta making an allegation in late September against the film actor Nana Patekar. She alleged that Patekar had sexually harassed her on the sets of a movie in 2008 and that she had complained about it even then. Tanushree Dutta subsequently registered a formal complaint against the actor at a local police station. Patekar denied the allegation and threatened to sue her.
Patekar was one on a long list of alleged harassers who were to be outed by women. Soon, charges of rape were made against Alok Nath, a prominent television star of the 1980s, by Vinta Nanda, a television producer. Several other actors joined her in accusing Alok Nath of sexual harassment. Big directors such as Subhash Ghai and the Tamil lyricist Vairamuthu also found themselves in the firing line. But the turning point came when many journalists, including one former journalist, and some politicians were named as sexual harassers. The worst-kept secret of the media was out, and it was time to look within. Many journalists in middle level and senior positions were accused by their colleagues and co-workers of sexual harassment and inappropriate behaviour. A good number of them resigned on their own volition, others expressed contriteness and apologised to the women who they felt they had wronged inadvertently; in some cases, the organisations initiated inquiry proceedings. There were very few who brazened it out, one of whom included a prominent former editor, author of several books and a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Member of Parliament.
M.J. Akbar, Minister of State for External Affairs, one-time president of the Editors’ Guild of India and former editor of The Telegraph, Sunday and The Asian Age , was in the spotlight after he was accused by 16 women journalists of sexual misconduct, sexual harassment and, in one case, action bordering on molestation. These women journalists gave graphic accounts of what happened to them more than two decades ago. The BJP MP was accused of sexually harassing them, some of them on more than one occasion, in office space and in hotel rooms. Not everyone claimed that he had physically molested them, which interestingly is his defence in a defamation suit filed by him against his first accuser. Yet Akbar’s behaviour, as per the narratives, verged on totally inappropriate behaviour not befitting a superior at work. There was no doubt about that. He seemed to have made each one of them feel distinctly uncomfortable with his behaviour and appeared to have misused his position in what was clearly an unequal balance of relations.
On October 11, when Akbar was away on a tour in Africa, his name surfaced. Soon, one woman journalist after another began narrating their experiences at work with him. Some other women journalists who had worked with Akbar in The Telegraph and The Asian Age commented publicly about a problematic work culture in The Asian Age in the 1990s but did not accuse him of sexual harassment.
Akbar did not budge from his ministerial position until October 17. He put in his papers after sustained pressure was built around him. He stated that he had “decided to seek justice in his personal capacity, I deem it appropriate to step down from office and challenge false accusations levelled against me, also in a personal capacity”. He also expressed his gratitude to both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj for giving him “an opportunity to serve my country”. His first reaction was denial, pointing to the belated nature of the allegations, hinting at a political conspiracy given that elections were due in 2019; and then he proceeded to file a defamation suit against Priya Ramani, the first journalist who outed him, his defamation hinging on primarily one sentence of his accuser who said that he did not “do anything”, even though the rest of the woman journalists’ narratives indicated highly inappropriate behaviour on Akbar’s part.
Priya Ramani had written an article in 2017 about an unnamed editor who was “as talented a predator as he was a writer”. She went on to reveal the identity of that person as Akbar when some journalists in the online media and mainstream print media narrated their stories of sexual harassment about their colleagues. Soon after, another vivid account was narrated by the executive editor of Force , a magazine specialising in defence issues, who described how on more than one occasion she was groped and molested by Akbar. In less than a week, 16 women journalists had come out, naming one single person. Akbar returned from his tour on October 14, issued a statement in which he denounced his accusers, calling the allegations “false and fabricated, spiced up by innuendo and malice”.
Singling out Priya Ramani’s statement that “she never named him [in 2017] because he did not do anything”, he said that “a sea of innuendo, speculation and abusive diatribe has been built around something that never happened”. He described the charge of molestation in his cabin as “fake, motivated and baseless”. On October 15, he filed a criminal defamation case against Priya Ramani and not the other dozen women, one of whom had alleged molestation by him. There was more to come. Unfazed by the defamation threat, 20 women journalists, all of whom had worked with him in The Telegraph and The Asian Age , issued a joint statement in which they said that they were willing to testify in court against Akbar, who they said had “engendered and presided over a culture of casual misogyny, entitlement and sexual predation” at The Asian Age .
Akbar got support from his party colleague and fellow MP Udit Raj, who suggested that the #MeToo campaign was the beginning of a “wrong practice” and that it could be misused by women. BJP president Amit Shah held the view that the veracity of the allegations needed to be checked and that social media could be a platform for making unverified allegations.
Among the women MPs who expressed concern over the allegations were Textiles Minister Smriti Irani, Defence Minister Nirmala Sitaraman and Minister for Women and Child Development Maneka Gandhi, who went a step ahead and declared that she would constitute a panel of retired judges to look into the complaints. The Cabinet, it was learnt, shot down her proposal. No other Minister was willing to speak out on this issue, not even the Prime Minister. Some observers said that since the allegations against Akbar pertained to the period when he was an editor and not a Minister, he could not be held accountable. It was also stated that since it was the Prime Minister who had appointed him, only he could remove Akbar.
Meanwhile, the clamour from below was increasing. Journalist organisations, including women journalist bodies, and women’s organisations demanded that in the interests of natural justice, Akbar should step down so that a fair and impartial inquiry could be conducted. Women journalist organisations also demanded that the government should look into the implementation of the Sexual Harassment (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act in media organisations. Following a representation by the Indian Women’s Press Corps, the Women and Child Development Minister said she would look into the demand and prepare a report. The National Commission for Women assured the women’s organisations of action provided the complainants filed formal complaints.
More than 50 persons, including celebrities from the world of advertisement, entertainment, media, art and academia, have been hauled up by women who have accused them of either a one-off instance of sexual misconduct or in some cases predatory behaviour. The common thread that united all the accused was that most of them were in positions of authority and power, which made it perhaps easier for them to conduct themselves the way they did and also dissuade their accusers from complaining. While the film industry has been somewhat notorious in protecting its own flock, especially if they happen to be big names, the situation in the media has been even more shielded from the public eye given the high degree of informality of working relations as well as the precarious working conditions that most of the employees face.
The #MeToo campaign in India faced criticism similar to the that faced by its progenitor in the United States. It was labelled as one by an out-of-control mob of men-haters and an elitist, upper middle class campaign that did not address all demographic groups; it was also described as exclusive, removed from other movements and prone to hysterical witch-hunting. What the critics of the movement did not understand was that the movement was a symptom of either the absence or the failure of robust institutional mechanisms and legal processes to address sexual misconduct and harassment at the workplace.
In fact, the apologists for “due process”, as in the U.S., have maintained that the accusers ought to follow due process where the accused would also get a hearing. The biggest apologist for “due process” has been none other than U.S. President Donald Trump, who has himself been accused of misogynist and sexist behaviour. There is no doubt that sexual harassment at the workplace is a reality, including in the media. It is also a fact that Internal Complaints Committees are not constituted in every branch office of each media organisation as mandated by the Act, which stipulates that any workplace employing more than 10 women has to have a properly constituted Internal Complaints Committee. All organisations are required to submit annual reports to the authorities concerned on the functioning of these committees, apart from sensitising their employees on a regular basis about what is “welcome and unwelcome behaviour”.
Misuse ‘concern’
The other “concern” regarding the Indian #MeToo campaign is that it will be misused and will ruin normal behavioural relations between men and women. Similar concerns are raised in the context of the #MeToo movement in the U.S. There have been concerns that corroborating evidence and witnesses will be needed, and that it will simply become a “he said-she said” kind of a situation. It was also felt that as there are more serious crimes of a heinous nature and other forms of occupational discrimination against women, the #MeToo movement, with its narrow agenda, will trivialise the issue of crimes against women. Another concern is that there will be a backlash, a targeting of liberals by the right wing. What is not understood is there is a growing assertion by women and a consciousness that they have been taken advantage of in an unequal power dynamic, whether it be in the U.S., where gender equality is assumed as a given, or in India, where it is not.
There is an acknowledgement, however, that there will be grey areas. For instance, the anonymous accuser of the U.S. actor and comedian Aziz Ansari was held responsible for diluting the #MeToo movement in that country and dealing a blow to women’s empowerment. CNN anchor Ashleigh Banfield slammed the anonymous accuser for going to the press with a story of a “bad date”. #MeToo had overnight, she said, changed an oversexed environment at the workplace and had righted many wrongs, referring to the outing of the Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein and the actor Kevin Spacey. Ansari’s accuser had compromised all the gains by a “reckless accusation”, she said in an open letter on television.
The fact of the matter is that the #MeToo movement is not a legal process; neither does it seek one. This is its limitation and its strength as well. It faces the danger of being “episodic”. It has been argued that as due process has not worked for women, including in the U.S., social media has become the route to campaign and push for acceptable norms of behaviour. According to some reports, in the U.S. some two-thirds of sexual assault cases go unreported to the police, 97 per cent of the rapists get away scot-free and sexual assaults are generally tough to prosecute as the legal systems, like in India, make the filing of charges a daunting process. There is colossal under-reporting of all crimes against women – heinous and non-heinous.
Yet, if institutional sexism and sexual harassment at the workplace need to be addressed, it will have to be in the workplace through institutional mechanisms, with the pressure coming from within. The rights of gender equality are not exclusive of the right to a living wage and occupational security. The success of the #MeToo campaign will rest in its being broad-based and in its connecting itself with other forms of oppression and demographic groups if it has to avoid the tag of being exclusive and limited to a heightened sense of individualism. It has to go beyond catharsis.
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