Dead Bollywood And It’s Dead Conscience
When Payal Ghosh accused Anurag Kashyap of molestation and the entire Bollywood rose in support of the accused than the victim, it forces one to think what sort of a deranged mentality they must be having to defend an alleged molester? The entire film industry is standing tall with the accused film director, Anurag Kashyap, on the premise of him being a friend or a member of the film fraternity or simply because they never really cared about victims of rape/molestation/sexual assault/domestic violence so on and so forth.
Let us be clear when a woman garners the strength to tell the tyranny of her soul, and you try to invalidate her experience then you are an accomplice in a crime against her. Voices of women have been strategically suppressed for centuries. Women too have played an active role in suppressing the voices of their fellow beings, as one can witness in the ongoing case of alleged molester Anurag Kashyap and the victim Payal Ghosh. Actresses of Bollywood are with Anurag Kashyap (the accused) than with Payal Ghosh (the victim). These are the same actresses who are often seen calling themselves as “feminists”.
The sad state of India where those who were supposedly the face of progress and liberation, “the Hindi film fraternity,” are now willing go to any extent to save their acussed friend, Anurag Kashyap.
There would be nothing wrong if they want to side with the alleged molester because he is their friend, but the problem arises when they project him as the flagbearer of feminism. Or when they pitch themselves as feminist but refuse to stand by a woman victim. Or when they collectively try to silence a woman’s voice by ganging up on her, making crass statements, asking her for proof of molestation and accusing her of speaking up after so many years. What’s the difference between them and the society at large who puts the onus on the victim to prove s/he has been raped/molested? Who forces the victim to remain silent out of shame, as if s/he is to be blamed for being the victim and not the criminal for committing the crime?
Why this bothers me as an Indian woman? Because I live in a country where a family’s dignity, self-respect is valued more than the pain of their daughter/wife/mother/sister. A middle-class family would prefer to shut the issue, not report in fear of societal shame while the perpetrator continue to exploit others. Hundreds of woman silently live their life after being raped/molested just because they are scared to speak up. They are scared of public humiliation/shame. They are scared of judicial trial and the trauma their families would go through if this becomes public. Hundreds of women continue to live their life without garnering the strength to say the truth, their pain, their story, and now we can see why.
If a film actress, Payal Ghosh, is being targeted for speaking up so late, she is being vilified for some conspiracy against the director then imagine what a simple middle, lower-middle or a lower class girl would have to go through? By class, I mean, the economic capability of the family.
What is happening today in Bollywood is nothing, but a display of why a woman doesn’t speak up, and how an accused is saved over the victim. Payal has to prove she is a victim, while Anurag goes scot-free in spite of being the alleged perpetrator.
This is dead Bollywood and their dead conscience.
Featured image: DNA India
About the author
Prakriti S is a foodie, wildlife photographer and politics enthusiast.
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