If we can accept western technology then why not adopt their modes of protest too?

This year the Nobel Prize in Literature will not be awarded. This is hardly the first time something like this is being done, but never before has the reason behind such a step been a sex scandal. The members of the Swedish Academy decide the recipient of the prize each year but this year the award has to be canceled because there are only ten extant members of the total council of eighteen. That is not enough to come to an agreement over a suitable recipient of the Nobel Prize. Where did the rest of the members of the council go? They have resigned because the husband of one of the members of the Academy has been accused of sexual harassment by eighteen different women. The Academy also used to financially aid an organisation founded by the accused. Besides, in the past this same man has been accused of leaking the names of the winners in advance having gained the information from his wife. After these uncomfortable incidents came to light some of the members of the Academy resigned. One must admit that it is because of the Me Too movement that so many women have come forward with their stories of harassment against such an influential man. The movement has provided immense impetus to women who have faced sexual violence to voice their accusations, to not be afraid and to never feel ashamed. It has provided many women with a lot of strength and assured them that no matter how rich or influential the accused men are, their stories of harassment will no longer remain dirty secrets, that their Time’s Up. In case of the Academy, if the women had not come forward the husband Jean Claude Arnaut would have remained installed as a virtuous man in the public eye. His reputation now lies in ruins, the Academy has snapped all ties with him and his wife too has had to pay for his indiscretions by resigning from her position in the Academy.
Hollywood too has gone through a storm recently. A series of women came forward and accused powerful producer Harvey Weinstein of sexual harassment. Harvey was forced out from his own company. Accusations were leveled against Kevin Spacey and Ben Affleck too; Spacey lost his deal with Netflix as a result while Affleck too has had to apologise for an old incident when he had groped a young journalist. Accusations were raised against director Oliver Stone that he had allegedly grabbed the breasts of a woman in a party twenty years ago, with the woman recently making the story public. Dustin Hoffman, Sylvester Stallone, Michael Douglas, Roman Polanski, David Copperfield are only a few among the nearly 122 celebrities against whom many women have alleged sexual harassment. Without consent they have grabbed breasts or touched buttocks, told sexually coloured jokes, lured women to their rooms under false pretexts, tried raping many of them and even succeeded with some. Not just in Hollywood, this is everywhere, in the music industry, in the world of art, in politics, business or media. The effect of Time’s Up has been felt in nearly all of these places. Not just ordinary women, celebrities have accused other celebrities of sexual harassment and have caused devastation in the lives of many such predatory men, causing them to lose their reputations, their careers as well as their clout. To give due credit, Me Too has managed to unmask many such predatory abusive men. The stronger Me Too has grown in the west, the more rabid general misogyny has become too. Time’s Up has added to the pressure, leading to many institutions crumbling and even ministers being forced to resign.

In the Cannes Film Festival this year, for the very first time, a hotline has been established to combat harassment. If anyone attempts any sort of indiscreet behaviour they will be immediately reported to the hotline. On fliers of the festival this year they have printed advice such as ‘Good behaviour is required’ ‘Don’t spoil the party, stop harassment’. This sort of an initiative by Cannes is commendable as well as essential.
A few days ago the Attorney General of New York Eric Schneiderman was forced to resign after four previous lovers alleged that he used to physically abuse them. Although Eric was a vocal crusader in the fight for gender equality he is now being regarded as a liar and fraud by the people, the shame forcing him out of office.

In the west when accusations of sexual harassment or abuse are raised even the most influential of men have to now go through shame and censure; they have to face public ridicule. In many cases they have to leave their high positions of authority, come to terms with their fall in society and their tarnished reputations. And how are things in our subcontinent? Here women continue to face torture and incredible sexual torment, rape or gang rape on a daily basis. Not just adults, even infants are no longer safe. Every day there is fresh news of abuse against a child, be it in Comilla or Kolkata. Let’s take India for instance. Even after accusations are proved the accused do not fear any backlash against their reputation. Back in 1988 a government official had accused the then DGP of Punjab Police K.P.S Gill of sexual harassment. The next year Gill was awarded the Padma Shri, the fourth highest civilian honour. Even after the accusations were proved in court the award wasn’t rescinded and nor did it affect Gill’s name in any adverse way. Various accusations of harassment, including allegations of rape, have been raised against as many as 48 MLAs and 3 MPs across party lines but the political parties hardly care about such data. If things come to a head they can always blame things on the violated woman’s clothes or her character and support rape too if need be. The only consequence is that no one will have to suffer any at all – since most people in the country are used to victim-shaming rather than shaming the predators.
Misogyny, abuse, rape have become so normalised in our societies that accusations leveled against men result in people shaming not the accused but the woman who has gone through the ordeal. Men don’t have to hang their heads in shame, women do. I speak from experience when I say that society has never criticized or rebuked any man who has shamed me or cheated me; it is I who has always had to bear the brunt of all abuse. I used to be in love with and was married to poet Rudra Muhammad Shahidullah a long time ago. In the second volume of my autobiography Utal Haoa (Restless Wind) I have written about his treatment of me, terrifying stories of his regular visits to brothels even after marriage and bringing back STDs to infect his wife with. After reading these accounts Bangladeshi society had felt no hatred for him; all their hatred had been directed at me. I had dared to speak about sex in public and that must make me a bad woman, a fallen woman. Because to them the only good woman is the kind that silently tolerates all abuse and torture at the hands of her husband, and the woman who successfully hides all her husband’s misdeeds is the one with the strongest character. In fact, after the revelations about Rudra nothing happened to his social standing other than his consistently surging popularity. This is unthinkable in a civilised nation. In the third volume of my autobiography Dwikhondito (Split) I have written about renowned author Syed Shamsul Haque’s frank admissions regarding his relationships with teenage girls. He had once taken me on a trip and force me into sharing a room with him at night. Even though I had averted any untoward incident the whole thing had been terribly uncomfortable. Did Syed Haque have to apologise after these revelations? Did he have to bow his head in shame? Did his social standing suffer? Not at all. He continued to lie with his head held high, went to court and hit me with a hundred crore lawsuit and got my book banned by the High Court. Syed Haque is no more but my book is still prohibited in Bangladesh. Those who were expected to be on the same side as freedom of speech and the independence of women, they had sided with Syed Haque, sang his praises and thrown the choicest of abuses at me, all because I had dared to publicly reveal the misdeeds of the great man.

This is our patriarchal misogynous society. Sunil Gangyopadhyay, the ex-president of Sahitya Akademi, had once groped me; I had been stunned by his audacity. Even after revealing this on social media no one had accused Gangyopadhyay of any crime, they had directed all the abuse at me. Many had figured out I was speaking the truth but they had sided with him nevertheless. They were convinced that a man had the right to sexually harass a woman. When Sunil had devoted himself to banning Dwikhandito he had repeatedly remarked that whatever happens between two people behind closed doors has no business being discussed in public. Since I had done exactly that in the book I was pronounced guilty and the men who had committed the actual crimes were deemed not guilty simply by virtue of the fact that they were men. What would Sunil have said about Me Too? Would he have also rebuked the western women who are revealing the abuse they have faced at the hands of men behind closed doors? No he wouldn’t have. He would have hailed them precisely because they are from the west, while had it been a woman from this region he would done all in his power to drive her out, to silence her, to bring down devastation upon her.
I am talking about my own experience but this can as well be the experience of any woman in the subcontinent. A Ram Rahim or an Asaram Bapu is punished, not to give women their due rights, but because such punishments help one reap immense political profits.

Unlike West’s ‘MeToo’, subcontinent’s men don’t hang their heads in shame. Women do

A Naked Protest

There’s a term called the ‘casting-couch’ – in simpler words, I will give you a good opportunity for success, but you have to sleep with me in exchange. The term may have emerged from the film industry but the casting-couch is omnipresent in the patriarchal society we inhabit. Married or unmarried, young or old, it has become normalised, almost commonplace, that the male employers will try and take advantage of a young job applicant.

Sri Reddy, a rising young Telugu actress, has launched a naked protest against leading directors and producers of the Telugu film industry about her experiences with this casting-couch. In response, Shivaji Raja, the president of the Movie Artists Association, threatened the strictest action against any other artist thinking of working with Sri. It is fairly obvious that under such circumstances no producer or director is going to be willing to work with her. Sri’s landlord too has handed her an eviction notice. She had wished to fight against discrimination only to be further discriminated against. Her stripping in public had most angered the same people who had stripped her in private. She has dared to speak out against rich and influential men; there’s no way they are going to let her be in peace!

Naked protests are nothing new. Of course, such a protest presumes certain physical and psychological risks since it is possible for anyone to retaliate with hatred or physically hurt the protestor at will. But nakedness is also strength. Even without any weapons it can make one feel powerful. Nakedness itself is a weapon. In the 80s Bangladesh, Noor Hossain, a poor auto-driver had taken off his shirt and painted in white ‘Let Democracy Be Free’ across his back and ‘Down with autocracy’ across his chest to march against the despotic Ershad government. The police had shot Noor Hossain through his chest and he had crumbled to the ground – a death that had shocked Bangladesh into silence. Noor Hossain was a symbol of the movement against tyranny in Bangladesh, a symbol of freedom. Many poems, songs, play were composed in his name. So many young lives have often been lost to police bullets while marching for freedom. But since martyrs of the Language Movement of 1952 no other death had devastated Bangladesh more than his.

A naked protest is not nudity, it is the act of taking off one’s clothes in public. It is the act of becoming utterly and completely vulnerable – a vulnerability that makes the protest against the oppressors much stronger. It also serves to bring into stark contrast the differences between the vulnerable and their persecutors. In such cases since it becomes immediately obvious who the oppressors are and who are the oppressed, a naked protest against discrimination is far more symbolic than most other forms of dissent. You have everything while I have nothing; you are powerful while I am not; you are huge while I am small – this is what a naked protest stands for. Is there anything more extraordinary than the sight of a bare chest pressed against the barrel of a loaded cannon? Don’t we remember that young Chinese man from 1989 standing in front of an advancing tank? When the tanks were reentering Tiananmen Square after having crushed to death nearly 10000 students the night before, all of whom had been protesting to save democracy, a lone unarmed youth had stopped the advancing machine of death with his own body. At that moment hadn’t the body been stronger than the tank? Of course it had. People across the world had expressed solidarity with that lone body back then. Then again in 1969 John Lennon of the iconic group The Beatles had stripped with his wife Yoko Ono in their hotel room in protest against the Vietnam War. He had called for peace instead of war, naming their protest Bed-Ins for Peace. He had asked people to make love, not war.

A naked protest attracts the attention of the people and the media. It sparks sympathy because the one who strips naked does so to stand by the dispossessed. Take the instances of rape committed by the army in Manipur for example. Driven to desperation by the sexual violence and the extra-judicial killings, a group of elderly Manipuri women had stripped down to nothing in 2004 and marched to the Kangla Fort division of the Assam Rifles with a banner that read ‘Indian Army, Come Rape Us’. Before this no other protest movement against rape had managed to strike a more lethal blow to the collective conscience in such a manner.

There have been naked protests the world over against various discriminatory practices. Last year nearly a hundred women in Argentina stripped in front of the court in Plaza de Mayo to protest against the various injustices and acts of violence being committed upon women, against the number of women being killed on a daily basis. Naked women lay down on the footpaths, many bodies intertwined together. Instead of causing sexual arousal such a scene could only make one tighten one’s jaws against the injustices being committed against women. At least that is what should happen. The same thing had happened in Argentina a couple of years ago too when women had stripped in front of the parliament to protest against the treatment of women as sex objects.

Women fighting for animal rights on behalf of PETA too have resorted to naked protests against the fashion industry and use of animal fur. They have put on animal masks and stripped to lie down on the roads amidst chants of ‘It’s better to go naked than wear fur’. FEMEN, a Ukrainian radical feminist activist group, has been holding naked protests across the world to campaign against oppression of women. Their protests are directed against religion, patriarchy, despotism, corruption and rape and torture of women. The women of FEMEN write their protest slogans on their own bare backs and bodies and turn up at various places to stage protests, to shock and disconcert people. The other day when Bill Cosby was being taken to court the entourage faced the women of FEMEN with slogans written on their bodies – ‘Women’s Lives Matter’. The Bill Cosbys of the world have always treated women as merely sex objects and FEMEN’s primary focus is to fight this sort of misogyny.

When women take off their tops during such protest all eyes are usually drawn to their breasts. Since they had breasts the police was quite prompt is dragging/carrying the activists of FEMEN away. However the police never displace the protesting men. Breasts are the most natural thing in the world and yet they are treated as the most unnatural. Breasts are utterly normal but when bared they are immediately treated as the most abnormal. Women protest against weapons and power using the gifts given to them by nature. Naked protests are less about the nakedness and much more about a revolutionary spirit. A woman’s nudity makes a man uncomfortable because men have always treated women’s bodies as their personal property and seeing this body bared in public makes them uneasy. The fact that women are the true custodians of their own bodies, the fact that they have a right to do whatever they want with their own bodies, there are not many who are willing to come to terms with this. Whether people are willing to accept it or not nudity is a sign of resistance.

Sri Reddy had been protesting against the casting-couch for quite some time. The protest only gained ground when she chose to strip. What she had wanted to say, no one had had time to hear it before. It was only after she decided to take off her clothes that people stopped to listen. Perhaps the only way to combat injustices being committed against one’s body is by using the body itself. The police were prompt in rushing Sri away from the site of her naked vigil while the powerful and the influential paid scant heed to her protest. Perhaps because patriarchy is so strong there that Sri Reddy’s act of rebellion did not manage to make any dents on its perpetuity. Perhaps if other women like Sri had protested they could have catapulted some visible change. Like how thousands had taken to the streets in Delhi to protest against the Nirbhaya rape.

Sri Reddy has confessed to have been a victim to the casting-couch. She has mentioned names of famous producers and directors who have used her for sexual favours and who wanted to sleep with her in exchange of giving her a break. Just like this, in Bollywood and other film industries, if masks begin to come off the faces of all the rapists pretending to be divine and holy in order to earn the adoration of people and who sexually exploit young girls in secret, then perhaps some good can be done for the betterment of society.

Despite having requisite qualifications many women fall prey to sexual exploitation by their male overlords who cannot see beyond women as sex objects. Most people assume that artists and writers are much more progressive and open-minded than other people, that they believe in the equality of the sexes much more than other men. However they too can be rapists just like other uneducated, insensitive and inhuman men. They too can take advantage of a woman’s helplessness and exploit her for sexual gains.

In Hollywood the masks are gradually coming off the faces of serial sexual abusers – Harvey Weinstein, Bryan Singer, Matt Lauer, Garrison Keillor, Kevin Spacey. Bollywood, Tollywood, Kollywood, Dhallywood – in the numerous Woods that are there in the world, it won’t be enough if the sexual predators are only publicly exposed. Just as how the ground has been snatched away from under the feet of such men in Hollywood the same should happen to all others of their ilk. Men who continue to occupy positions of power and influence despite exploiting, harassing, insulting and torturing women just because they are women cannot be allowed to continue any longer. Let their reputations be swept away into oblivion by a tidal wave of comeuppance.