The rehabilitation of those tainted by the #MeToo movement has begun in the Hindi film industry. On June 1, just before the release of Super 30’s first trailer, director Vikas Bahl, accused of sexual harassment by a former employee of the now defunct Phantom Films, was given a clean chit by an “internal committee.” The said committee was headed by Reliance Entertainment which held a 50 percent stake in Phantom Films and was also involved in the production and the distribution of Super 30.
Bahl was absolved of all charges and this cleared the way not just for a smooth release of the film but reinstated his position and his name as Super 30’s director in the credits. In the end, the acquittal of Bahl who ironically joined the league of successful makers post the success of a feminist film like Queen, had perhaps more to do with the fate of the film that was riding on his name than his presumed innocence or supposed guilt.
On June 14 this year, actor Nana Patekar was also cleared of sexual harassment charges after police said that they had not found sufficient evidence against him. Patekar, you will remember was accused by actress Tanushree Dutta of harassing her in 2008 on the sets of a film they both starred in. When she filed a case formally in 2018, it brought the focus back to the deep-seated rot that has gone unaddressed in the film industry. Despite video evidence of Dutta’s car being attacked on the sets of the said film where the inappropriate advances allegedly took place, the police obviously found no evidence that Dutta had been targetted in a toxic work space.
The total negation of Dutta’s allegations in 2019 vindicated her fears that speaking against entrenched power structures in the industry is futile. She possibly anticipated this when she told NDTV last year, “How is any movement going to happen in India until and unless you acknowledge what happened to me 10 years ago?”
The fact is that the industry has always been protective of male privilege. If a star or director is successful and/or well-connected , eventually he will be rehabilitated despite notoriety.
The women are not as lucky though. Remember Geetika Tyagi who made news in 2012 after filming an altercation with Subhash Kapoor, the director of Jolly LLB and accused him of molesting her? In 2014, Tyagi filed a case against Kapoor. The director was arrested and later released on bail. Even though he apologised on camera about his behaviour, it was Geetika who vanished into oblivion while Kapoor continued to thrive.
Akshay Kumar who was recently praised by Kangana Ranaut for backing women-centric films with his star power and who is a conscientious supporter of all worthwhile gender related causes and is a National Award winner for his performance in Rustom, a film about a morally upright Naval officer who kills a sexual predator, was so impressed with the success of Jolly LLB that he replaced Arshad Warsi in the sequel. No big deal, right?
But in 2018, when the Geetika Tyagi case came into focus once again, Subhash Kapoor’s latest film with T-Series, Mogul, ran into trouble. Aamir Khan and Kiran Rao then issued a statement on Twitter to distance themselves from the project.
Hindustan Times however reported this week that Khan is back on board for Mogul. The din around the case has died down and Khan with uncharacteristic candour stated, “I’m just doing what my heart says is right, and what my conscience tells me is right.” Obviously, Geetika is not a big enough entity to either appeal to the heart and conscience of a mega star in search of the next big hit.
Moralising is good for cinema but it should never come in the way of profiteering.The fact remains that we cannot blame just those who cross the line like Kapoor self-confessedly did, because there are those who enable such transgressors and facilitate such violations with tacit support, complicit silence, and convenient fence sitting.
As I mentioned in a previous piece, Amitabh Bachchan who infamously penned a pedantic, patronising letter to his grand daughters about the freedom to just be before the release of Pink, took a veiled jibe when asked in 2017 about the perils of speaking your mind on social media (in the context of Gurmehar Kaur) . Without taking any names of course, he said that if one is active on social media, one must be prepared for trolls. This is the same actor who once banned the press for writing uncomplimentary things about him. But he is not the point of the story. The point is that today, gender conversations are mostly milked for profit by actors and production houses .
This is after all an industry where the #MeToo moment came sixty years too late for Daisy Irani. For many in the Hindi film industry, it will never come. Daisy Irani finally told her story because she has no fear of a social media backlash. She has no career at stake and nothing to lose by naming names and acknowledging that she was violated at a shoot location by a man she called ‘Uncle.’ She was just six then. Her abuser is dead but Ms Irani has named the elephant in the room. And underscored that the abuse not just of female actors but of child stars is not a myth. The 2018 footage of Papon kissing a child contestant on her mouth on the sets of a reality show was disconcerting to many but the outrage around the incident has also died.
The erasure of such stories is to be expected in a milieu where trucks accidentally ram into rape survivors and sometimes it takes forever to incriminate powerful men.
Hindustan Times reported today that the woman who has levelled “harassment” charges against former union minister Swami Chinmayanand , could face even more delay in getting justice because the evidence in the case has gone missing from her Shahjahanpur hostel room.
So far a formal case has also not been registered against the accused.
It is no surprise then, a Friday release like Section 375 establishes exactly where the Hindi film industry would like to be seen in the #MeToo debate. On the right side of convenience, privilege and power.
**Reema is the editor and co-founder of Unboxed Writers, the author of Perfect Eight, the editor of Chicken Soup for the Soul-Indian Women, a translator who recently interpreted Dominican poet Josefina Baez’s book Comrade Bliss Ain’t Playing in Hindi, an RJ and an artist who has exhibited her work in India and the US . She won an award for her writing/book from the Public Relations Council of India in association with Bangalore University, has written for a host of national and international magazines since 1994 on cinema, theatre, music, art, architecture and more. She hopes to travel more and to grow more dimensions as a person. And to be restful, and alive in equal measure.