It’s almost one year since “MeToo movement”, in which victims of sexual harassment started opening up themselves to shame those who assaulted them, started in Hollywood. Now, India is experiencing its own MeToo movement. In what can be termed as “shocking revelations”, in a span of couple of days, many started talking about the harassment they faced from their bosses, colleagues and even friends. Especially the women working in media industry opening up themselves and complaining their colleagues of sexual harassment is creating tremors in media circles
Youtube star Utsav Chakraborty “exposed”:
It all started with actress Tanushree Dutta’s allegations on Nana Patekar. She got support from many in the industry. In the past couple of days, many women come forward to reveal the harassment they faced. There is YouTube star and comedian Utsav Chakraborty. A woman revealed in twitter that he has sent some unsolicited photographs of his genitals to her. Many other woman supported her and revealed this comedian’s nasty behaviour. The comedian responded on the allegations. He denied some of the allegations but admitted about nude pics. His career almost came to an end as AIB Comedy group said all videos featuring Chakraborty will be taken down.
Journalist Sandhya Menon harassed by Times Of India editor
Journalist and writer Sandhya Menon made serious allegations on senior editor KR Sreenivas. She told, he had behaved in an inappropriate manner with her several years ago. In a series of tweets, she explained what he had done to her.
She wrote, “Let me tell you about KRSreenivas who is currently resident editor at toi Hyderabad , who offered to drop me back after a day’s work. We were about to launch Bangalore mirror back in 2008 and I had just moved to this city.After a trial print run, late at night he offered to drop a few of us. I was living the farthest so I was dropped last. I get to my house, we’re chatting. He lays his hand on my thigh and goes, “my wife and I have grown apart. She doesn’t understand me.There was more but I don’t remember. I asked him to take his hand off my thigh and left. I registered a complaint with the HR after that. I went to the committee for sexual harassment to figure out what i need to do and the woman who headed it told me she knew Sreeni for a long time and it’s unlikely he’d do something like that.”
After Sandhya Menon opened up, many other victims of KR Sreenivas sent her the horrible experiences they had with him and she shared all of them through her twitter account. Meanwhile KR Sreenivas responded on these allegations through twitter. He wrote, “The TOI has said the charge would be investigated by it’s committee against sexual harassment. A highly empowered committee headed by a senior woman under this policy and under the law is in place to investigate and address all allegations. I submit myself to the investigation”
Is all this just a tip of iceberg?
“Me too” movement suddenly exploded in India as top comedians, authors, directors, journalists and editors come under fire for sexual harassment. There is a debate that all this could be just the tip of the iceberg and much more to be exploded in coming days.
