'Inspired by God'
Says actress who helped trigger India's #MeToo movement; three organisations of media professionals seek resignation of MJ Akbar
The Bollywood actress who helped trigger the #MeToo movement in India challenging sexual harassment and abuse sees it as part of her religious education after an experience 10 years ago she said effectively ended her career.
"I feel God used me to start something which had to happen," Tanushree Dutta told Reuters. "All these women had this buried deep in their hearts out of shame."
Dutta, who said she was inspired by Christianity, Buddhism, yoga and the #MeToo movement in the United States, said last month that prominent actor Nana Patekar had sexually harassed her on the set of a movie in 2008.
Patekar has denied wrongdoing. Dutta said Patekar, 67, had demanded she do intimate dance steps with him in one song in the Hindi-language romantic comedy "Horn OK Pleassss". When she refused, she said, members of a far right-wing Hindu group attacked her car while she was in it, including jumping on the roof and trying to smash the windscreen.
Dutta, who walked out of the movie, went public with the allegations the same day, but was threatened with legal action by the Hindu group and felt so shamed by those questioning her story and by the way the Indian media treated her that she left Bollywood altogether and went to live in the US.
Other than a few bit parts, she hasn't worked in a movie since. "All of that disgusted me - it took my faith and confidence from the industry," she said in an interview. "I didn't want to work here. I still kept in touch and did some work which needed short-term commitments."
Patekar's lawyer has sent Dutta a legal notice asking her to apologise to Patekar or face further legal action.
Meanwhile, three leading organizations of media professionals in India have sought the resignation of India's junior minister for external affairs M J Akbar “in the interest of a fair probe and moral and public propriety.”
Akbar was accused by a dozen women including journalists of their sexual harassment, reported our New Delhi correspondent.
In a joint statement, the Indian Women's Press Corps, South Asian Women in Media and Press Club of India issued a strong statement saying, “The inability of women to speak out about such harassment needs serious introspection and redress. Akbar is a senior functionary of the government and his response should reflect the responsibility that is thus bestowed on him.”