Although Hollywood has been taken by storm with the historic #MeToo movement, in a which a number of industry-folks have spoken about their past abuse by the hands of their industry-colleagues, which includes prominent producers and famous stars, India has been pretty detached from the whole thing as of now.
With the number of sexual assault and rape incidents that are being ‘brought to light’ in the west, some of which even date as far back as 40 years, the movement has suddenly given a platform to every victim of a past sexual assault, who was once silenced by power, intimidation or shame.
As the biggest Hollywood names continued to speak on the matter, Bollywood had managed to keep itself away from it all – despite many people hinting that similar things had probably been brewing underneath the surface of the glitz and glamour, for all these years.
Tanushree Dutta may have finally broken that mold.
The former actress and beauty pageant winner, has accused actor Nana Patekar of sexually assaulting her some 10 years ago, when they were shooting together for a film.
Tanushree has alleged that Nana had sexually assaulted her back in the year 2009, during the shooting of the film – ‘Horn OK Please.’
The actress spoke on the incident in a recent interview with Zoom:
“Everyone knows about Nana Patekar that he has always been disrespectful towards women. People in the industry know about his background… that he has beaten actresses, he has molested them, his behaviour with women has always been crude but no publication has printed anything about it.”
Stating that her voice was once silenced before on the matter, Tanushree insists that #MeToo had happened in India, a long time ago:
“The #MeToo happened in Hollywood a year or two back, but in India it happened several years ago. I was probably one of the first people in the history of this country in the media field to speak up and stand up. Everybody saw what happened but the memory and the popular perception of it is that Tanushree Dutta spoke up against harassment and then she was no more.”
Watch her interview with the network below:
We’re sure there would be thousands willing to jump the gun with questions like, ‘Why so late?’ or ‘Why now?’, but it is only for the greater good, that we allow every silenced voice to be heard, without putting a time-boundation to it.
It takes courage to face your perpetrators and bring them to public, and it doesn’t always muster inside your overnight. Sometimes it may take years too. 10 years.
No matter how old the story, it deserves to come to light.