NEW DELHI: I didn’t even know I was holding my breath until my phone screen emitted the message “Priya Ramani is acquitted”. And then my Twitter timeline exploded with happiness, tears, and hope: from women I know, women I don’t know. But we were bound by a euphoria that felt deeply personal in a country where women are accustomed to daily defeats and disappointments.
What happened on Wednesday afternoon was that an Indian court acquitted journalist Priya Ramani in a criminal defamation case filed against her by a former government minister. In 2018, during a #MeToo wave in the country, Ramani had alleged in a social media post that she was sexually harassed in 1993 by MJ Akbar, then press director, when he had called her at a hotel in Bombay for get a job. interview. Following her allegations, more than twenty more women had come forward to file allegations of sexual misconduct against Akbar, who was then Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s cabinet minister.
The allegations led Akbar to step down as minister, but not before he filed a criminal defamation case – which used an archaic law from the colonial era – against Ramani. Over the past two years, we have all seen the case unfold with nervous anticipation as the future of the #MeToo movement in India, as well as the campaign to secure safer jobs for women in the country, they depended on the outcome of this case. If it were silenced, we would all be silenced. After the defamation lawsuit, many voices had already been silenced and the #MeToo movement had become extinct.
In 2018, Ramani told a Delhi court that “it was important for women to talk about sexual harassment in the workplace. Many of us believe that silence is a virtue. ”But even for those who did not believe that silence was a virtue, our patriarchal system has always managed to silence them.
I was 26, when I moved back to India after working for three years in the British media and working as a correspondent in the Calcutta office of an Indian newspaper. After a year and a half of my job, I had to quit due to sexual harassment by the head of the office. I went to the highest authority of this newspaper with my complaints. Mostly people were in disbelief that he was talking about sexual harassment. You were supposed to smile and endure it, not file a complaint against a “man of fame”. Because, even if the claims were true, Somehow, “I must have carried it forward.” At that time there was no social media, no law against sexual harassment.
The incident killed my career, while my bully went further and further into the organization, including the delusional praise after he passed away from a terminal illness a few years ago. My complaint was never acknowledged. It is a scar that I have been enduring for over 16 years. I’m still bitter, I still don’t trust the system.
And I’m not alone. An annual review earlier this month by the Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry for Women (India’s first national chamber of business for women) found that nearly 69 per cent of victims of sexual harassment keeps him silent due to lack of confidence in the system, for fear of reprisals. , and concern for their careers, and the belief that there would be no consequences for their bully. A report by the Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India found that only 31 per cent of the companies surveyed had set up internal committees to investigate allegations of sexual misconduct.
Back in Calcutta, many women approached me later, telling me with certainty that they were also harassed by this man. But no one would record it. If you knew what would happen to me, I might not have gone to the registry either. Over the next few years, no other media organization in the city would hire me, regardless of the references it produced.
And while I was fighting for justice, they came to me from various places. A male editor sitting in Chennai gave my bully a character reference; he didn’t even know me. The companions remained silent or offered unquestioning comments about my character to the HR manager. My only ally was my fiancé and partner (now my husband) who stood by me, but we were already engaged and his testimony did not carry too much weight. A good friend who witnessed the harassment also bowed, panicking about his career. It was good in life, reaching the top management level in various news organizations, while my career was cut short. The president of the group — a woman — didn’t even bother to acknowledge my emails.
But that was in 2004. The Supreme Court had already formulated the Vishaka Guidelines on Sexual Harassment in 1997, but there was little awareness —- I definitely didn’t know. The guidelines would become the basis of the Sexual Harassment of Women in the Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Reparation) Act in 2013, which required the organization to have internal committees to investigate allegations of sexual harassment. sexual harassment.
After months of these onslaught, I was hesitating on the verge of a nervous breakdown. My self-confidence was decimated; I began to doubt the truth I had lived through for months before I filed a formal complaint. I stopped seeking justice and instead tried to resurrect what was left of my career in the city, but without much success, and five years later, when I was presented with the opportunity to move to another city and start again, I took it. I managed to revive my career, but the harassment and attack on my dignity continued to be a deep scar that was never completely healed.
But when I read the court ruling, a ruling that recognized that “even a man of social status can be a sexual harasser” and that “sexual abuse takes away dignity and self-confidence” and I stressed that “the right of reputation cannot be protected at the expense of the right to dignity ”and, above all, that“ women have the right to file their complaints even after decades ”: I heard a claim that was mine.
And she was not alone, from activists to an average woman on the street, everyone was confused with the hope that this would be a turning point in the history of women’s movements in India. Gender activist Kavita Krishnan says this victory is important because “it will act as a deterrent to the next man who believes all he needs is a defamation lawsuit to silence a woman.”
Rituparna Chatterjee, a safe workplace advocate, agrees. “In a country where, as a woman, the mere fact of existing has the feeling of going to war every day, that’s huge, even if we let it sink into the fact that we’re celebrating the fact that a woman has not been punished for her truth, ”he said. he says.
The trial on Akbar’s defamation lawsuit will be a “good precedent for existing cases,” says Ranjana Kumari, director of the Delhi Social Research Center, a non-profit organization that works to empower women. “It’s so important for the court to recognize that a woman’s dignity is more important than a man’s reputation,” he said.
Kumari, who is part of more than 30 sexual harassment committees, says the ruling will resurrect the Indian #MeToo movement and encourage more women to seek legal redress. In 2004 I did not go to court because almost everyone was discouraged and said that this would only mean continued harassment for me. While he waited for the judge to rule on the case, there was a pit in his stomach and his fingers were well crossed. Because, as I told my husband, “you never know.”
“There are some days when trust in the system needs to be restored,” says Pallavi Pareek, founder and CEO of Ungender, a Delhi-based advisory firm working to improve diversity and inclusion in the workplace. with a focus on sexual harassment and maternity discrimination, in accordance with existing laws. “This trial will give confidence to millions of women who watch every day, whether to speak or not. Women who doubt if anyone will believe them. “
Yes, it is a trial and it may not be enough to review a system designed to act against women, but if the verdict had gone against Ramani on Wednesday, the repercussions would have been severe. At the very least, it would have institutionalized harassment of women.
So let’s take Ramani’s victory: tomorrow we will fight again.