It is true that the #MeToo movement has exposed some popular names from several professional fields in India. It all started off after former Bollywood actress Tanushree Dutta accused the veteran Nana Patekar of sexual harassment, while they were on the shoot for a song sequence for the 2008 film ‘Horn Ok Pleassss’.
Then the veteran journalist and father of comedian Mallika Dua was accused of sexual harassment by filmmaker Nishtha Jain of late. Days after allegations against him, the journalist finally responded to it. During a show- The Wire, ‘Jan Gan Man Ki Baat’, which he hosts, he said that the accusation of sexually harassing someone can be easily thrown at anyone say a pope, a judge, a lawyer, a priest, an innocent man or even a doctor.
He quickly dismissed the allegations against him and said adding that there is nothing that had happened. He called all the allegations as ‘baseless’ and he feels that there is no point of accusing someone who has not committed any sin. In a lengthy post, Nishtha Jain narrated her painful experience and claimed that Vinod Dua had sexually harassed her in June 1989. In her post she opened up that she met him for the first time, when he took her interview for a ‘political satire show’, he was to start.
She wrote, “I was greeted with his typical sardonic smile. Before I could settle down he began telling a lewd sexual joke in that soft voice, barely opening his mouth. I don’t remember the joke but it wasn’t worth a laugh, just dirty. I felt hot in my face and I sat there most probably with an angry look. He explained the job and asked me what my expectations were and I quoted an amount that most graduates were getting at the time – 5,000 rupees. He looked at me and said, ‘Tumhari aukat kya hai?’ I don’t know what had hit me. I was stunned. What was this about? I had faced sexual harassment early in life but this sort of humiliation was a new experience.”
The story doesn’t end here. We all know that #MeToo movement has been in the headlines quite often. Several other prominent personalities such as Vikas Bahl, Alok Nath, Subhash Ghai, Chetan Bhagat, Suhel Seth and Karim Morani among others, have also been accused of ‘alleged’ sexual harassment which took the Hindi film industry by a shock. Following this, many Bollywood stars stepped forward and spoke against the offenders and then extended their full support to the assault survivors.
