The Impact of the #MeToo Movement on India’s Reaction Towards Sexual Harassment
The #MeToo Movement in India started on the 24th of October, 2017, when Raya Sarkar, a student of law at the University of California, Davis- School of Law published a crowd-sourced ‘List of Sexual Harassers in Academia’. This list contained names of male professors (many of them prominent figures in Academia) from the most reputed universities of India including Delhi University, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Film, and Television Institute of India, Tata Institute of Social Sciences and St Xaviers College, Kolkata. The names of the accusers were kept confidential so as to protect their identity from further harassment, something that women who accuse men of sexual assault continuously face. This list was supposed to be a cautionary list, rather than a list that aimed to initiate institutional action. Despite the immediate reactions it prompted, some of which were negative, the #metoo movement across India in many ways has emulated LoHSA and followed the same principles of anonymity and social action instead of institutional action.
‘The List’ was criticized by many public figures- both men and women for undermining due process and maligning the reputation of men in academia without having any sufficient proof or evidence. It led to heated debates in the media, parts of the government and university classrooms. As is the case of many whistleblowers, Raya Sarkar received multiple death threats, which has had a detrimental impact on her mental health since then.
The #metoo movement in India and across the world has challenged due process itself. After a year of LoHSA being published, a new wave in the #metoo movement emerged especially in the entertainment industry and on college campuses. Many men accused in this new wave have been removed from their positions of power without any legal due process. This was celebrated by liberals and feminists across India as ‘the first challenge to men in positions of power’. It has been especially effective and also controversial in university spaces, with the movement calling for the social boycott of all men ‘called out’ for ‘harassment’ without due process. The burden of proving innocence in the public trial was put on the accused. Some of them tried to fight it, whereas others accepted their mistakes and promised individual change.
However, the #metoo movement in India is criticized by Intersectional and Bahujan Feminists for not giving the same level of credence, importance, and support to LoHSA as it gave similar events that followed. They attribute this to the Bahuja identity of Raya Sakar, which could have led to the ostracization and invisibilization of her struggles by ‘upper caste’ feminists and progressives in India. This has been in line with the general criticism of Intersectional feminists and Bahujan women against the feminist movement of India, which they deem to be ‘Savarna’ and ignorant of caste struggles within and beyond feminism. Despite these caste and class inconsistencies, the #metoo movement in India has significantly increased the discourse around sexual harassment and its prevention.
