Tag: Kiran Nagarkar

Watch | Need to Fight Majoritarian Hate Against Minorities: Nayantara Sehgal

In an interview with Mitali Mukherjee, the author talks about her book ‘Encounters with Kiran’, the overarching political environment for India and why she doesn’t recognise the new India anymore.

Note: This video was first published on January 30, 2022 and is being republished on May 10, 2022, Nayantara Sahgal’s 95th birthday.

Nayantara Sahgal is one of India’s most iconic authors – known both for the range and depth of her writing, as she is for her political views. In her most recent book Encounters with Kiran, the personal, the political and the writer all come together to lead the reader into a rich and deeply sensitive relationship between two writers, Sehgal and renowned novelist and playwright Kiran Nagarkar, who died in 2019. In this honest and heart-warming chat with Mitali Mukherjee, she talks about the book, the overarching political environment for India and why she doesn’t recognise the new India anymore.

Kiran Nagarkar, Interpreter of Mumbai’s Aspirations and Anxieties

In his writings, Nagarkar has explored sides of Bombay that have always been in sight but are a blind spot to writers because they simply don’t know these exist.

Every city has a writer who gives expression to its desires, aspirations and anxieties. Salman Rushdie is the obvious candidate for Mumbai, but his is an articulation of nostalgia and fantasy. For me, the quintessential bard who gave gave voice to ‘Bombay’ – and, after the official name change, also ‘Mumbai’ – was Kiran Nagarkar.

His Ravan And Eddie came as a gust of smelly breeze (not fresh, because that would be wrong) and brought the city, in all its fetid glory, to its readers. In the novel, Nagarkar explored sides of Bombay that have always been in sight, but are a blind spot for many writers, especially those who write in English, because they simply don’t know these exist.

One of them was the chawl, a particularly Bombay invention, which has been the setting of a lot of writing, but mainly by those who wrote in Marathi or Hindi. P.L. Deshpande, a beloved of Maharashtrian readers, looked at chawl life through rose-tinted glasses, as one big happy family with its attendant eccentricities.

Kiran Nagarkar
Ravan And Eddie
HarperCollins, 2012

The Dalit writers upended it to show a place seething with caste prejudices. For Nagarkar, these tenements – build originally in the 19th century for migrant mill workers – provided grist for life at its most absurd. Ravan and Eddie, born at the same time, to a Hindu and Christian family respectively, in a chawl, negotiate childhood, adolescence and adulthood, with rock and roll and Hindi film songs playing into the background and shakhas being held in the neighbourhood. Nagarkar, who grew up in Dadar Hindu colony and then studied in Pune, was quite aware of the Hindutva brigade for a long time and skilfully used them in the book.

He wrote two more novels about Ravan and Eddie, in which other Mumbai themes like Bollywood and the builder lobby made an appearance, but they failed to meet the same success as the first. No matter, because by then he has sealed his position in the pantheon of great city writers forever.

He had begun his professional life as a copy writer in an advertising agency, a perfect avenue for his word play, but it was clear to him even then – in the 1960s and ‘70s – that he wanted to write. Among his closest friends was the poet Arun Kolatkar who also wrote on Bombay.

Nagarkar, who had gone to an English-medium school and thought in the language, had always felt that the Marathi literary world did not fully accept him. To prove to himself that he could write in his mother tongue, he wrote Saat Sakkam Trechalis (Seven Times Six is Forty Three), which did not get much recognition immediately but achieved recognition when it was translated in English a few years later.

Two other works of his brought him fame and notoriety. Bedtime Story, a play that updated the legend of Eklavya and his guru Dronacharya, was ‘banned’ by the Shiv Sena, RSS and the Hindu Mahasabha. They did not like the re-telling of the story through the eyes of Eklavya, who, instead of cutting his own thumb, moulds some mud into its shape and offers it to Dronacharya.

Also watch | Kiran Nagarkar on ‘The Erasure of Memory on a Monstrous Scale’

The Maharashtra censor board, which has to officially approve every play before it is given permission to perform, asked for 78 cuts, which he refused. Once, in a chat, Nagarkar once told me that during the hearings, board members – mainly officials and ‘prominent citizens’ – used to get restless as lunch time approached and speeded up the process. It was just the kind of farcical thing he would notice.

Cuckold, about the husband of Mirabai, who had devoted her life to Krishna, was a big success and brought him accolades such as the Sahitya Akademi award and the Order of Merit from the German government.

Many of his later works did not get the same level of fame, but he kept on writing and only last year his novel, The Arsonist, about Kabir, was published. He had faced accusations during the MeToo movement which severely impacted him emotionally and mentally and his publishers Penguin cancelled the contract. Juggernaut, which stepped in, faced a lot of flak but went ahead anyway.

Nagarkar was a private person but always ready to intervene in public debates. He wrote and spoke on the stifling of dissent and free expression, and warned about the dangers of rising communalism. He was concerned about his favourite city and last year, made an impassioned plea to save its public transport; his article in the Mumbai Mirror gave a huge boost to those fighting for the cause.

His empathy and essential humanity were well known, but his hallmark was his wry sense of humour. He would suddenly take the conversation to a funny place, and sometimes it took the listener a moment or two to realise that he had just made a joke. Most of his self-deprecatory remarks were aimed at himself.

Of late, he had become a magnet for researchers looking into the literary past of Mumbai. Though it cut into his writing time, he was generous about sharing his memories and his insights. Nagarkar had become a bit of a recluse, meeting only friends, but he always had time for a phone call, a message and of course, a joke.

Novelist, Playwright Kiran Nagarkar Passes Away

The author is known for his novel, Cuckold, which won him the Sahitya Akademi award.

Renowned novelist and playwright Kiran Nagarkar passed away in Mumbai on Thursday, September 5. He was 77.

A leading figure in contemporary Indian literature, Nagarkar wrote seven novels, each unrelenting critiques of postcolonial India and all it holds dear.

He is best known for his epic novel Cuckold (1997), for which he was awarded the 2001 Sahitya Akademi Award in English. The spirit of bawdy irreverence has been an enduring feature through his years of literary output and shines through in his equally popular novels Saat Sakkam Trechalis (‘Seven Sixes Are Forty Three’) written in Marathi and published in 1974 and Ravan and Eddie,in 1994.

Nagarkar wrote seven novels in Marathi and English, interweaving linguistic traditions of both. He also wrote plays and screenplays, the most famous of which is his first play, Bedtime Story (1978).

Born in Bombay in 1942, Nagarkar studied at Ferguson College in Pune. He held many roles, switching from assistant professor to journalist and copywriter when he was not writing plays, screenplays and novels. Mumbai was at the heart of his art, and was a topic he explored in his video interview to The Wire as well.

Nagarkar received several awards. His website lists the H.N. Apte Award for the best first novel, the Dalmia Award for the furtherance of communicative harmony through literature, a Rockefeller grant and a scholarship from the city of Munich, in addition to the Sahitya Akademi award.

In 2018, Nagarkar was among those named in the #MeToo movement by at least three women journalists who alleged that he had behaved in an inappropriate manner with them during interviews.  Nagarkar denied the allegations in a statement posted on Twitter:

In the light of the allegations, Penguin publications, which was supposed to release his book The Arsonist stepped back. However, Juggernaut Books took up the contract, saying it did not wish to “suppress” a book that had strong relevance to the kind of issues that were being debated in the country. In a statement justifying its decision, it said:

“As publishers, we must find a balance between freedom of expression and our responsibility to not give a platform to those who have been accused of sexual harassment. In this instance, we felt that by not publishing Kiran Nagarkar’s book we would be suppressing an important novel that compellingly addresses some of the major issues and debates in the country today.”

The Arsonist was Nagarkar’s reinvention of the Bhakti poet Kabir, made contemporary for modern readers. In her review of the book for The Wire, author and journalist Mrinal Pande suggested the reworking did not work that well: “I am afraid Kiran Nagarkar… tries to decontextualise Kabir from his time and present him as a guru for modern India, also [reducing] him to a combo of Rajnish and Sadhguru.”

News of Nagarkar’s death was met with tributes to his literary prowess, but also reminders about the allegations against him:

Watch: Kiran Nagarkar on ‘The Erasure of Memory on a Monstrous Scale’

Celebrated writer Kiran Nagarkar talks about his books, dealing with censorship and the decline of his beloved Mumbai.

Note: This interview, taken and released in 2017, is being republished upon Kiran Nagarkar’s passing. The writer died in Mumbai on September 5.

Celebrated writer Kiran Nagarkar talks about his books, dealing with censorship and the decline of his beloved Mumbai.

Kabir For Our Digitised Marketplace

Kiran Nagarkar’s latest novel ‘The Arsonist’ tries to decontextualise Kabir from his time and present him as a guru for modern India.

Kabira khada bazar mein, liye luathi haath,
Jo ghar foonke aapna, chale hamare saath.

(Kabir, stands in the market place, carrying a burning torch,
Set fire to your own house, if you wish to accompany him.)

Thus spoke Kabir, the 15th-century mystic poet and inventor of Sandhya Bhasha or language of riddles. His philosophy as also his language is neither Hindu nor Islamic, but a hybrid born of various dialects two contemporary heretical sects used: Nath and Siddha.

This weaver, illiterate poet, unwanted son of a widowed Brahmini, brought up by a Muslim couple, rose to be an iconoclast who sought no disciples but acquired many. He finally told his disciples, who were hell-bent on compiling his bani (poems) in (the only authentic collection of his poems) Bijak, “Do not trust what is written therein (Santo, Bijak matt parmanaa).”

He was definitely a rare bird, but the way the taxonomy of 21st-century Indo-Anglian writing presents Kabir as exotic is somewhat cringeworthy. I am afraid Kiran Nagarkar’s latest novel The Arsonist, which tries to decontextualise Kabir from his time and present him as a guru for modern India, also reduces him to a combo of Rajnish and Sadhguru.

There is a sense in which Kabir is very modern. He was largely free from the vices of florid speech and performing miracles. He did not lean towards either his Hindu guru (Ramanand)’s faith, nor towards the Islamic teachings of the clerics. He never knelt for gurus or the patshah (Sikandar Lodhi in this case).

Still, like most writers of Bhakha (a pre-Hindi vernacular prototype of Hindvi) poetry in the middle period, he was tricky. He made a faith of personal sincerity and a career of disingenuousness. The way Nagarkar’s Kabir meanders through long (often tortuous) arguments with his disciples like Athang, Alan or His Majesty (redolent of Vajpayee and his weak-kneed admonitions regarding Raj Dharma), just does not gel.

Then there are the women.

Kabir had married Loyi, another abandoned child like him. Some of his most gentle poems are addressed to her:
“Kahat Kabir sunahu O Loyi, hum tum binasi, rahego soyi (Says Kabir oh listen Loyi, you and I will turn into dust, only He shall remain).” Nagarkar’s Kabir, in the age of #MeToo, is married to the mistreated Kashmira, who kicks him out. He threatens her, “I would return, vengeance would be mine…I would make her suffer and plead for mercy.” Sentences like, “This country suffers from a surfeit of monster egos. Let’s celebrate your birthday every year as the National Festival of Monster ego-busting comedy” will make even Nagarkar’s erstwhile admirers like me cringe. 

Kabir’s mind moved fast; still, when it came to women, it moved no faster than the times allowed. One of the dohas ascribed to him says jokingly, if a woman’s shadow falling on a snake can blind him, think my brothers, of those that stay with women all the time. And yet it was not women that pulled him down, it was his son Kamal: “Booda vansha Kabir ka, upja poot Kamal, Hari ka sumiran chhand ke ghar le aayaa maal (My son Kamal has dragged my family down by eschewing a holy life for riches of various kinds).”

Also read: Kabir in His Time, And Ours

“Nostalgia,” writes Nagarkar, “is not just selective memory, it is the reinvention of the past as it never was.” Okay. But if nostalgia morphs into misanthropy, as it occasionally does here, it bothers. “Let me state right at the start,” Nagarkar writes, (ironically in the Afterword), “I am neither a Kabir student nor a scholar. Yes we did have Charlotte Vaudeville’s book of translations of Kabir’s Dohas and Bijak at home and I dipped into them from time to time but I have to confess shamefully that I am not that passionately into poetry…when I was sitting in my friend Renate’s house writing my novel God’s little soldier… By the time the GLS was done it had 16 pages of excerpts from Amanat (one of the two protagonists)’s book The Arsonist.”

In the currently common laissez-faire coziness of liberal humanism, lives Nagarkar’s Kabir, now discussing the His Majesty’s dress, now travelling with His Majesty. Given the man and his extreme aversion to kings and the Brahminical nobility of Kashi of the 15th century, this seems outlandish and bizarre. The Arsonist is too busy portraying the many-faceted genius as a Bhakti poet who has such a deep sense of irony and humour, and never quite captures the description the author himself has come out with in the Afterword. 

Kiran Nagarkar
The Arsonist
Juggernaut Books, 2019

Is it because his ideal reader is a kind of projection, not entirely sympathetic to him personally perhaps, but definitely of a type? This is a type we come across more and more – the frequent Indian flier to Europe, who returns for a few months in the year to write on Kashi-Delhi-Kolkata-Mumbai-Bangaluru… 

Neither Kabir nor Nagarkar mind you, are mere pebble slingers. But for each of them not only the means but also the aims of literature are different. “Let me ask an embarrassing question,” Nagarkar says to his reader. “We may sing Kabir, but when will we start living like Kabir, that is living by his tenets?” The tone and tenor of the question are proof that Nagarkar’s destination is the bold Anglo-Indian or European reader, who will come and squat inside his novel and enjoy polemics that last occasionally for several pages in exotic locations and comic situations. 

Kabir is hot and brief in the original: precise, swift and anything but self-indulgent. The tension between the two writers gets even more acute when one tries to read Kabir (in Roman) as Nagarkar chooses his verses at random. It is a tension between authorial privilege and a radical invocation of the individual’s rights that Kabir stood for. This despite the fact that both writers are equally concerned about the human situation and literary bliss.

Why analyse the pleasures that both sides know or should know first hand? Why resort instead to wild analogy, aggressive promotion of 21st-century liberalism shaped in the cauldron of India’s upper middle classes, across complex cultural codes that treat the readers as passive and the author as the guru? Is all this game playing, this sleight of hand, the juxtapositions in time and cultural complexity leaping again and again over 600 years of India’s evolution, truly for the reader at all?  

Also read: When Kumar Gandharva Fearlessly Sings Kabir’s Formless Form

Lines from Nabokov on reality sum up this novel wonderfully well:

“Reality is a very subjective affair…A lily is more real to a naturalist than it is to an ordinary person…but more real to the botanist. And yet more…to a specialist in lilies. You can get nearer and nearer…to reality; but you can never get near enough…it’s hopeless.” 

Mrinal Pande is a writer and journalist, and the former editor of Hindustan.

#MeToo: Hindustan Times’s Bureau Chief Steps Down After Harassment Allegations

Prashant Jha is one of the first high-profile figures named to step down from his role since the #MeToo movement hit the Indian media.

New Delhi: Following allegations of sexual harassment, Prashant Jha has stepped down as the political editor and bureau chief of the Hindustan Times (HT). In an email to editorial staff, HT editor-in-chief Sukumar wrote:

“Hi all, Prashant Jha has stepped down as the Chief of Bureau and Political Editor of Hindustan Times with immediate effect. The bureau will report to me for the time being.”

A former Hindustan Times correspondent, Avantika Mehta had accused Jha of harassment. She posted screenshots of Whatsapp conversations between her and Jha on Twitter.

“I was as nice as I could be because my little experience in Delhi has taught me pissing off a man who’s considered a darling journalist will have shit repercussions for my career and/or I’ll be at the receiving end of his friend’s wrath or laughter.”

Also read: Dark Underbelly of Indian Media Revealed as Scores of Journalists Say #MeToo

Mehta later clarified that the conversations were from 2017, when she was no longer an employee of the Hindustan Times.

Jha is one of the first high-profile figures named to step down from his role since the #MeToo movement hit the Indian media. In his email to the HT editor-in-chief, he wrote:

“There have been specific allegations against me – and my personal conduct – recently, which have raised moral questions about my conduct. In this backdrop, I believe it would be best for me to step down from the position of the National Political Editor/Chief of Bureau of the Hindustan Times. I would not like the organisation to suffer, in the least, because of any allegations I face.”


Responding to The Wire‘s queries, the organisation’s general counsel Dinesh Mital confirmed that the management has accepted Jha’s offer to step down pending inquiry. While Jha continues to be a part of the media group, an investigation led by their internal complaints committee has been set in motion.

We have also sent a questionnaire to the HT editor-in-chief. This story will be updated as and when they respond.

Dark Underbelly of Indian Media Revealed as Scores of Journalists Say #MeToo

Three newspaper editors among those named by women in a series of social media revelations.

New Delhi: Almost a year after the MeToo movement started with Harvey Weinstein and then expanded to Hollywood at large, India is finally experiencing its own MeToo movement. Prompted by former actor Tanushree Dutta’s revelations, the baton has been picked up, but not by Bollywood – which has largely remained silent – but the world of Indian journalism and comedy.

In the past 24 hours, women have come forward to accuse at least three newspaper editors of what would amount to sexual harassment at the workplace – since the victim worked under the accused in the organisation’s hierarchy.

In addition, accounts are surfacing of harassment and predatory behaviour by journalists at work, and of journalists being targeted by prominent persons they had gone to meet or interview. As the personal stories of not just journalists but advertising executives and other professionals across India pile up on social media, the women speaking out say they are determined to put an end to the culture of silence which has allowed scores of men to get away with harassment, stalking and even assault – while on dates, in the course of work or other situations.

Who’s getting named and shamed

The outpouring started on Thursday, October 4, when a woman publicly accused comedian and YouTuber Utsav Chakraborty of sexually harassing her on social media by sending her “unsolicited dick pics” and asking for her nude pictures.

Multiple other women, including a minor, came out with stories of their own soon after, precipitating not only an industry-wide storm in the comedy world but also sparking off a separate thread on sexual harassment in Indian journalism.

Journalist Sandhya Menon started by sharing an account of being harassed by K.R. Sreenivas, currently resident editor of the Times of India in Hyderabad, in 2008 when they both worked at the Bangalore Mirror. The Mirror is published by the same company that runs the TOI.

Also read: Why I Believe Tanushree Dutta and Dr Christine Blasey FordWhile dropping her home at night, Menon said Sreenivas put his hand on her thigh and said that he and his wife had grown apart. Menon asked him to remove his hand and left. The next day she complained to the HR department but they promptly informed Sreenivas of the complaint. Others dismissed her complaints, telling her the man was harmless.

Menon followed that account with another one about Gautam Adhikari, former editor in chief of DNA in Mumbai. Following a night out with Menon and a friend, Menon said Adhikari kissed her without consent and then later asked her not to tell anyone.

She also had to refuse subsequent offers to see him and spend the weekend away with him. Menon’s account on Twitter packed added punch because she also pointed readers to two blog posts she had written at the time of these incidents, where she had described what had happened but not named the editors involved.

On Saturday, a former Times of India journalist, Sonora Jha, who worked out of the newspaper’s Bangalore bureau, recounted an incident from 1995 involving Adhikari when he was TOI’s executive editor. Sonora wrote on Menon’s Twitter timeline that he “called me to his hotel room to discuss flexible hours and then the same assault you described”:

Sonora, who is now a professor of journalism at Seattle in the United States added that when she complained to her immediate supervisor, he told her that Adhikari had asked that she be “sidelined”:

The third editor Menon tweeted about was Manoj Ramachandran, an associate editor with the Hindustan Times in New Delhi, a newspaper she was working with at the time.

What started off as a thread about her own experiences soon transformed into a sort of list of perpetrators as other women started messaging Menon stories of being harassed by the same men, and then other accounts of different men were also added to the Twitter threads.

Menon then updated the list with screenshots of these conversations, some anonymous and some not.

Initially, a woman who wished to stay anonymous, described a distressing interaction she had as a reporter with author Kiran Nagarkar; however, a few hours later, she decided to put her name on the allegations, tweeting:

Joshi described the environment when she was interviewing Nagarkar as “one of the most uncomfortable” she has ever been in. She added that he’d sat too close to her, insisted on hugging her goodbye and that his hands had lingered for too long, leaving her feeling uncomfortable.

Prashant Jha. Credit: Facebook

A former Hindustan Times correspondent, Avantika Mehta, first shared her story anonymously in a piece for FirstPost, but decided to identify herself on Twitter a day later.

Mehta, who has accused Hindustan Times editor Prashant Jha of harassment, said they’d met in 2014 when she joined HT and that she’d tried very hard to “not piss him off” despite multiple messages from him where he propositioned her.

She also posted screenshots of Whatsapp conversations between her and Jha. Though the date of the exchange is not known, or the precise work relationship between the two, Mehta called Jha’s messages an act of “harassment”. “I was as nice as I could be because my little experience in Delhi has taught me pissing off a man who’s considered a darling journalist will have shit repercussions for my career and/or I’ll be at the receiving end of his friend’s wrath or laughter,” she tweeted.

Update: On Sunday, Mehta clarified that the conversations were from 2017, when she was no longer an employee of the Hindustan Times.

Mayank Jain. Credit: Facebook

In another thread, Anoo Bhuyan, health reporter at The Wire, identified Mayank Jain, a reporter from Business Standard as a “sexual predator” and then described being at the receiving end of his “unwelcome sexual predations”.

Soon after, a freelance journalist replied to the same thread, adding screenshots of her conversations with Jain in which he assumes that shel would like to “take a place” with him, implying he assumed she would want to have sex with him.

Along with Jain, Anurag Verma, a former trends editor with Huffpost India was also accused of harassing women with inappropriate snapchats and requests to “send nudes.”

While most of these interactions describe straight, older men imposing themselves on younger, female colleagues, just a few days ago, this spate of allegations was preceded by a quieter thread on Twitter which said that Hindustan Times journalist Dhrubo Jyoti had been accused of making multiple men uncomfortable with his behaviour.

While Jyoti did not address the concerns on the same thread, he responded to someone else, acknowledging his behaviour and said that he was working to make amends to all the individuals he might have hurt.

How the accused have reacted

While, Prashant Jha did not answer a call and text asking him for a response to these allegations, Chakraborty has vehemently denied sending unsolicited pictures of his genitalia to any women and has specifically denied asking for nude pictures from a minor.

In a long thread, he explained his actions, saying pain medications for his chronic disease had often left him in a haze, where he was unsure of who he was even talking to on Snapchat or any other social medium, adding that he had mistaken some of these interactions to be consensual expressions of sexual interest.

After getting flak for his apology, he posted this.

Anurag Verma tweeted an apology and also explained his actions, saying he’d thought of the term “send nudes” really loosely, thinking it was a “meme” more than an actual request for naked pictures.

While Manoj and Nagarkar did not respond to The Wire’s requests for a response, Gautam Adhikari, in an email said:

“I do not recall any of this. I retired from the media industry many years ago and have no recollection of this incident. I always treated my former colleagues fairly and politely and this person was no exception I would think. I’m sorry if I have ever been unintentionally impolite to anyone but I do not recall such lapses from respectful behavior towards all.”

 

K.R. Sreenivas.

In an emailed response, Srinivas told The Wire, “TOI has said the charge would be investigated by it’s committee against sexual harassment. A highly empowered and accessible committee under this policy and under the law is in place to investigate and address all allegations of sexual harassment. The group is headed by a senior woman executive. I will submit myself to the investigation.”

Mayank Jain did not respond to an email asking for a comment either. However, he has since left media-related WhatsApp and Twitter groups without offering any explanation.

How employers have reacted

Responding to The Wire‘s query about allegations against Jha, general counsel and company secretary for HT Media, Dinesh Mittal said that they will be releasing an official statement on Monday, adding, “We will start an investigation immediately and follow our policies to the core.” He also said that had Avantika Mehta flagged these interactions during her time at HT “action would have been taken.”

All India Bakchod, the comedy group that employed Chakraborty full-time and then as a freelancer during the time most of this harassment is said to have occurred, has removed all videos featuring Chakraborty from their YouTube channel.

After being called out for knowing about these allegations and not acting until it became public knowledge, AIB posted a second apology for implicitly supporting Chakraborty’s behaviour.

Vice India, which recently launched a talk show with Chakraborty, has also removed all links from its website and Facebook page but has not made a statement.

Also watch: Vinod Dua discusses India’s #MeToo movement

HuffPost India, where both Chakraborty and Verma were employees – but not at the time these events occurred – posted a note from its editor-in-chief, Aman Sethi, which said:

Anurag Verma

“HuffPost India is unaware of any allegations levelled against Verma and Chakraborty while they worked here. We are checking if there were any similar allegations while they were here. HuffPost India has a zero tolerance approach to any form of workplace harassment.

HuffPost India stands with survivors and treats complaints regarding potential misconduct by its employees with utmost seriousness.”

Shyamlal Majumdar, Business Standard editor responded: “On Mayank Jain, a due process is on and we can share with you the details as and when we will have anything to say”.

TOI employees have asked their superiors to respond.

Now open, the floodgates are showing no sign of closing as women on Twitter continue to name and shame men including poets, authors and advertising executives. Others are sharing stories of being harassed without naming the perpetrators, yet more are anonymously naming perpetrators.

In the US, the initial flood of accusations was followed by a few court cases, entertainers being removed from shows and yet more taking self-imposed sabbaticals.

It is still unclear how many of these cases will be pursued legally or investigated by these men’s employers.

So far, this is what Menon has articulated on Twitter.

Indian media houses will now have to react to these accusations and navigate how they handle anonymous complaints, public ones and ones that took place so long ago that there are no corroborating screenshots of problematic interactions to serve as proof.

Though unconnected to the current campaign, one former editor, Tarun Tejpal of Tehelka, is already facing serious criminal charges – of rape – following a complaint by a journalist who worked with his magazine at the time. Five years later, the trial – which was meant to be fast-tracked to give speedy justice to the survivor – has yet to conclude in the face of repeated delays.

Note: The story has been updated to add Professor Sonora Jha’s account of a 1995 incident at the Times of India involving Gautam Adhikari, who was the newspaper’s executive editor at the time, the lawyer Avantika Mehta’s charge of harassment against HT bureau chief Prashant Jha, HT’s response, Srinivas’s and Business Standard‘s response.

Note: On Sunday, October 7, 2018, the story was updated to include Avantika Mehta’s tweets clarifying that her conversations with Prashant Jha were from 2017, after she had left the Hindustan Times.

Note: In an earlier version of this story, the account of an anonymous complainant against Kiran Nagarkar was inadvertently attributed to Poorva Joshi.

(The Internal Complaints Committee at The Wire is headed by our managing editor, Monobina Gupta. Anyone who wishes to make a specific complaint against The Wire’s employees, including its founding editors, may email mg@cms.thewire.in)

Scores of Women Are Saying #MeToo and Outing Journalists, Editors as Sexual Harassers

Three newspaper editors among those named by women in a series of social media revelations.

New Delhi: Almost a year after the MeToo movement started with Harvey Weinstein and then expanded to Hollywood at large, India is finally experiencing its own MeToo movement. Prompted by former actor Tanushree Dutta’s revelations, the baton has been picked up, but not by Bollywood – which has largely remained silent – but the world of Indian journalism and comedy.

In the past 24 hours, one woman has come forward to accuse at least three newspaper editors of what would amount to sexual harassment at the workplace – since the victim worked under the accused in the organisation’s hierarchy.

In addition, accounts are surfacing of harassment and predatory behaviour by journalists at work, and of journalists being targeted by prominent persons they had gone to meet or interview. As the personal stories of not just journalists but advertising executives and other professionals across India pile up on social media, the women speaking out say they are determined to put an end to the culture of silence which has allowed scores of men to get away with harassment, stalking and even assault – while on dates, in the course of work or other situations.

Who’s getting named and shamed

The outpouring started on Thursday, October 4, when a woman publicly accused comedian and YouTuber Utsav Chakraborty of sexually harassing her on social media by sending her “unsolicited dick pics” and asking for her nude pictures.

Multiple other women, including a minor, came out with stories of their own soon after, precipitating not only an industry-wide storm in the comedy world but also sparking off a separate thread on sexual harassment in Indian journalism.

Journalist Sandhya Menon started by sharing an account of being harassed by K.R. Sreenivas, currently resident editor of the Times of India in Hyderabad, in 2008 when they both worked at the Bangalore Mirror. The Mirror is published by the same company that runs the TOI.

Also read: Why I Believe Tanushree Dutta and Dr Christine Blasey Ford

While dropping her home at night, Menon said Sreenivas put his hand on her thigh and said that he and his wife had grown apart. Menon asked him to remove his hand and left. The next day she complained to the HR department but they promptly informed Sreenivas of the complaint. Others dismissed her complaints, telling her the man was harmless.

Menon followed that account with another one about Gautam Adhikari, former editor in chief of DNA in Mumbai. Following a night out with Menon and a friend, Menon said Adhikari kissed her without consent and then later asked her not to tell anyone.

https://twitter.com/TheRestlessQuil/status/1048077522733289472
She also had to refuse subsequent offers to see him and spend the weekend away with him. Menon’s account on Twitter packed added punch because she also pointed readers to two blog posts she had written at the time of these incidents, where she had described what had happened but not named the editors involved.

Menon also tweeted about Manojan Ramachandran, an associate editor with the Hindustan Times in New Delhi, a newspaper she was working with at the time.

https://twitter.com/TheRestlessQuil/status/1048045893340078081

What started off as a thread about her own experiences soon transformed into a sort of list of perpetrators as other women started messaging Menon stories of being harassed by the same men, and then other accounts of different men were also added to the Twitter threads.

Menon then updated the list with screenshots of these conversations, some anonymous and some not.

Initially, a woman who wished to stay anonymous, described a distressing interaction she had as a reporter with author Kiran Nagarkar; however, a few hours later, she decided to put her name on the allegations, tweeting:

https://twitter.com/poorvajoshi93/status/1048188567636209664

In the message to Menon, Joshi describes how Nagarkar kept inching closer to her when she went to interview him. After the interview, he asked her to Skype with him at night, saying he talked to other women in that manner too. As Joshi was leaving, he insisted on hugging her and then “felt her up”. Joshi was so traumatised by the incident, she refused to write up the interview.

Mayank Jain. Credit: Facebook

In another thread, Anoo Bhuyan, health reporter at The Wire, identified Mayank Jain, a reporter from Business Standard as a “sexual predator” and then described being at the receiving end of his “unwelcome sexual predations”.

https://twitter.com/AnooBhu/status/1047922457145880576

Soon after, a freelance journalist replied to the same thread, adding screenshots of her conversations with Jain in which he assumes that shel would like to “take a place” with him, implying he assumed she would want to have sex with him.

Along with Jain, Anurag Verma, a former trends editor with Huffpost India was also accused of harassing women with inappropriate snapchats and requests to “send nudes.”

https://twitter.com/AninBanerjee/status/1048052295236243456

While most of these interactions describe straight, older men imposing themselves on younger, female colleagues, just a few days ago, this spate of allegations was preceded by a quieter thread on Twitter which said that Hindustan Times journalist Dhrubo Jyoti had been accused of making multiple men uncomfortable with his behaviour.

https://twitter.com/Ejazculate/status/1044802188491587586

While Jyoti did not address the concerns on the same thread, he responded to someone else, acknowledging his behaviour and said that he was working to make amends to all the individuals he might have hurt.

https://twitter.com/dhrubo127/status/1045334625374023680

How the accused have reacted

Chakraborty has vehemently denied sending unsolicited pictures of his genitalia to any women and has specifically denied asking for nude pictures from a minor.

In a long thread, he explained his actions, saying pain medications for his chronic disease had often left him in a haze, where he was unsure of who he was even talking to on Snapchat or any other social medium, adding that he had mistaken some of these interactions to be consensual expressions of sexual interest.

After getting flak for his apology, he posted this.

https://twitter.com/Wootsaw/status/1048088816030953472

Anurag Verma tweeted an apology and also explained his actions, saying he’d thought of the term “send nudes” really loosely, thinking it was a “meme” more than an actual request for naked pictures.

https://twitter.com/kitAnurag/status/1047942358518644741

Manoj Ramachandran seems to have deleted his Twitter account after these allegations. While Sreenivas and Nagarkar did not respond to The Wire’s requests for a response, Gautam Adhikari, in an email said:

“I do not recall any of this. I retired from the media industry many years ago and have no recollection of this incident. I always treated my former colleagues fairly and politely and this person was no exception I would think. I’m sorry if I have ever been unintentionally impolite to anyone but I do not recall such lapses from respectful behavior towards all.”

Mayank Jain did not respond to an email asking for a comment either. However, he has since left media-related WhatsApp and Twitter groups without offering any explanation.

K.R. Sreenivas.

How employers have reacted

All India Bakchod, the comedy group that employed Chakraborty full-time and then as a freelancer during the time most of this harassment is said to have occurred, has removed all videos featuring Chakraborty from their YouTube channel.

After being called out for knowing about these allegations and not acting until it became public knowledge, AIB posted a second apology for implicitly supporting Chakraborty’s behaviour.

Vice India, which recently launched a talk show with Chakraborty, has also removed all links from its website and Facebook page but has not made a statement.

Huffpost India, where both Chakraborty and Verma were employees – but not at the time these events occurred – posted a note from its editor-in-chief, Aman Sethi, which said:

“HuffPost India is unaware of any allegations levelled against Verma and Chakraborty while they worked here. We are checking if there were any similar allegations while they were here. HuffPost India has a zero tolerance approach to any form of workplace harassment.

HuffPost India stands with survivors and treats complaints regarding potential misconduct by its employees with utmost seriousness.”

Also watch: Vinod Dua discusses India’s #MeToo movement

Anurag Verma

An email to Business Standard editors asking about the accusations against Jain went unanswered. However, a source inside BS said that Jain’s fate at the paper is hanging in the balance as the Internal Complaints Committee has decided to pursue an investigation into these claims.

TOI employees have asked their superiors to respond.

https://twitter.com/someshjha7/status/1048435598782918656

Now open, the floodgates are showing no sign of closing as women on Twitter continue to name and shame men including poets, authors and advertising executives. Others are sharing stories of being harassed without naming the perpetrators, yet more are anonymously naming perpetrators.

In the US, the initial flood of accusations was followed by a few court cases, entertainers being removed from shows and yet more taking self-imposed sabbaticals.

It is still unclear how many of these cases will be pursued legally or investigated by these men’s employers.

So far, this is what Menon has articulated on Twitter.

Indian media houses will now have to react to these accusations and navigate how they handle anonymous complaints, public ones and ones that took place so long ago that there are no corroborating screenshots of problematic interactions to serve as proof.

Though unconnected to the current campaign, one former editor, Tarun Tejpal of Tehelka, is already facing serious criminal charges – of rape – following a complaint by a journalist who worked with his magazine at the time. Five years later, the trial – which was meant to be fast-tracked to give speedy justice to the survivor – has yet to conclude in the face of repeated delays.

‘Sarva Kahi Samashtisathi’, a Day-Long Literature Festival Celebrating Namdeo Dhasal’s Legacy

Many young political activists also used the space to discuss issues of atrocities and discrimination faced by Dalits and the need to launch a national movement.

Many young political activists also used the space to discuss issues of atrocities and discrimination faced by Dalits and the need to launch a national movement.

Disha Shaikh, a trans-rights activist and poet, at the festival. Credit: Namdeo Dhasal literature festival

Mumbai: “The first ever rally for the rights of the trans community and for prostituted women was not by any funded-NGO but by a maverick poet from Kamathipura. Even decades before our lives had managed to capture the mainstream’s imagination and political parties had thought of us as their vote banks, Naama had rallied for our most basic issue of survival… for our rationing card,” announced Disha Shaikh, a trans-rights activist and poet, standing on the stage set up for a day-long festival organised to celebrate Namdeo Dhasal’s contribution to the Ambedkarite movement in India on February 15.

For the rest of the day, young emerging artists, mostly belonging to Bahujan communities, used the platform to exhibit their work and recalled Dhasal’s contribution through their songs, paintings, poetry and acting.

Dhasal (February 15, 1949-January 15, 2014), who emerged from the wretched landscape of Mumbai’s red-light district Kamathipura had single-handedly changed the vocabulary of Indian literature through his poignant writings which he began in the 1970s and continued until his death. Dhasal wrote nine anthologies of poems and several prose writings, which included a novel.

But it was his first poetry collection Golpitha published in 1971 that shook the literary world, which was until then only a Brahmin bastion. He radicalised the face of Marathi poetry with his explosive verses that explored the experiences of the oppressed by breaking away from norms and oppressive writing tradition. Around the same time, in 1971, Dhasal along with other poets and political thinkers, founded ‘Dalit Panther’, a group modeled after  America’s Black Panther movement.

Named after one of Dhasal’s critical prose ‘Sarva Kahi Samashtisathi’, the festival, in its third edition, was a unique take on the present political system. Most artists occupied the stage to speak of the abhorrent effects of the undying caste system in India. “Each of these performances, just like Dhasal’s writings are political. They speak of struggles and experiential journeys of the oppressed communities of this land,” explained Vaibhav Chayya, a poet and one of the organisers of the festival.

Rahul Pradhan, founder member of Yuva Panther, at the Namdeo Dhasal literature festival. Credit: Sukanya Shantha/The Wire

‘Samasthi’ which means gestalt, is often used to interpret the holistic state with ideal values of social justice, equality, freedom and fraternity in the society. “Ambedkarite poets have traditionally rebelled against existing elitist literature and social structure. And that comes at a serious cost. Dalit artists are denied mainstream spaces which are run and controlled by the brahminical mindset. This literature festival is an emancipatory platform and a counter to those oppressive structures,” Chayya explained. He along with several young Ambedkarites had first conceptualised this festival in 2016, two years after Dhasal succumbed to his prolonged illness in January 2014.

This year, the festival was organised at the JJ School of Arts in Mumbai. Over 500 people attended the festival. Renowned photographer Sudharak Olwe, director and actor Nagraj Manjule, and Sudam Rathod, writer and activist from Maharashtra, were felicitated.

“This space is exclusively meant to celebrate and remember our icons. Despite the unconducive environment, Dalit artists are flourishing and leaving their marks. Just like Dhasal, these artists drew sustenance from the situation that few would have survived,” said Dr Rewat Kaninde, the festival’s organiser.

The language of the festival, just like Dhasal’s poetry was distinctly different. The conversations revolved around the realities of a Dalit life and the struggles faced in the day to day existence. Majule, a poet himself, narrated an incident where he was “corrected” for his pronunciation when he once went to recite his poetry at the All India Radio. “You are constantly made to believe that the Brahmins way is a norm,” he said. “But you need to find a way out to retain your own unique voice.” His words were met with applause.

Many young political activists also used the space to discuss issues of atrocities and discrimination faced by Dalits and the need to launch a national movement. Speaking on the recent Bhima Koregaon violence, Rahul Pradhan, a young anti-caste activist from Nanded and a founder member of Yuva Panther said, “A systematic conspiracy is being hatched to finish the Dalit movement in the state. Post-Bhima Koregaon, several young emerging Dalit leaders have been booked under several cases. This is mainly done to finish the Dalit uprising in the state.” In the aftermath of Bhima Koregaon violence, Nanded police slapped four separate cases on Pradhan and he is at present facing an externment proceeding.

Urging the Bahujan masses to fight together, Pradhan said, “Academically, we are ensuring we take Babasaheb’s (Dr B.R. Ambedkar) legacy ahead, but politically, we fail him every day by supporting and aligning with political parties which have nothing to do with our community.”

Actors Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub, Rasika Agashe, Swara Bhaskar, Kiran Nagarkar and Rajshri Deshpande were also present at the event. The evening was set with each artist reading out Dhasal’s poems. Agashe also presented her adaptation of writer Rajesh Kumar’s play Sat Bhashe Raidas based on the life of the 15th century Bhakti saint Ravidas.

‘Sometimes We Wonder If You Have Forgotten You Are the Prime Minister of This Country’

Author Kiran Nagarkar, in his open letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, asks about his silence on crimes against Muslims and the practice of curbing dissent.

Author Kiran Nagarkar, in his open letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, asks about his silence on crimes against Muslims and the practice of curbing dissent.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Credit: PTI

Dear prime minister,

Greetings. We are all in awe of your energy, your single-mindedness of purpose and the fact that once you make up your mind, you will not let anything – absolutely anything – stand in your way.

When a bee gets into your bonnet, you make sure that it stings as many millions in the country as possible. To take a random example, among the various tasks you’ve set for yourself, one of your life’s missions is to make Aadhaar mandatory. I don’t wish to quibble but if I am not mistaken, the Supreme Court has to still decide on whether it impinges on the privacy of the Indian citizen, and so the government is  supposed to take it easy and not force it down everyone’s throat. The Supreme Court’s fiat has of course not made any difference to you. Everyone with a cell phone and a bank account is bombarded with an Aadhaar warning at least once a day, never mind that millions have already signed up for it. You have taken care to see to it that the Aadhaar form is accessible on the internet. There is, however, a small niggling problem. Millions of our countrymen have no computer or cell phones. Add to that, they have the gall to be illiterate. It seems to be of no consequence that an 11-year-old died of starvation and so many others are refused rations because they are not enrolled in the Aadhaar list.

In a matter of just over three years at the helm, you have taught us many things. One of the most important lessons you have laser-burnt into our minds is that truth is like quick silver. It can change from month to month or as in the case of demonetisation, day to day, and sometimes, even hour to hour. What’s just as remarkable is that, how shall I put it, it’s often confusing to know when you are speaking the truth and when you are indulging in fabrications. Fortunately, with the passage of time, we have learnt that one of your strategies is to give yourself ample latitude with facts and figures.

What’s even more noteworthy is that you assume a posture of golden silence in the face of the atrocities committed by so-called cow-loving Indians who have taken it upon themselves to harass and murder Muslim menfolk on the pretext of eating beef or of love jihad but more often than not for the simple reason that they happen to belong to the Islamic faith. When the foreign press notes that there is a dangerous trend in India of victimising people on the basis of their faith, you speak loftily and pronounce that this country will not tolerate any religious discrimination and the culprits will be punished. That, we have now grasped, is the extent of your concern because if at all the guilty persons are caught, in almost every case, they are let off. And what is your response to this grievous injustice? Quite simply you assume your fabled speak-no-evil, I-am-above-such-mundane-matters stance.

How can one forget another of your noteworthy contributions to our political culture? Your speech often has such an unusual turn of phrase. I must confess that while I have often wondered why Sonia Gandhi was unable or unwilling to scotch the dreadful corruption in the Congress party, I must say it’s very strange to hear the highest-ranking leader of the country refer to the ranking opposition party as termites who need to be eradicated or to Rahul Gandhi as Aurangzeb.

It has indeed been an education for all of us that when you are in a position of power, you don’t have to worry about fairness. You can call anyone foul names, but God help them if they slip up. Let me state in the most unambiguous terms that Mani Shankar Aiyar is in a class by himself. While he deserves to be severely reprimanded for his disgraceful language, you will grant that every time he opens his mouth in your context, he wins more votes for you than all your party members together can.

Sometimes your countrymen are left wondering if you have forgotten that you are the prime minister of this country. Whatever the failings of that loose canon Mani Shankar Aiyar, do you seriously believe that because he threw a party for a few well-known Pakistani personalities, he is in cahoots with the Pakistanis and hatching plots against his own country, and that too, as you added in your election campaign speech, in the company of our former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh? The proof you offered for this allegation was that some Pakistani politician had suggested that Ahmed Patel should become the chief minister of Gujarat? First of all, let’s understand that the constitution of India allows any citizen of the country to become not only the chief minister of any state, but to hold the highest office, the prime ministership as well.

I saw one of your spokespersons Shaina N.C. say on NDTV, in the context of the current elections in Gujarat, that everything’s fair in love and war. Do you also subscribe to that school of thought, prime minister? May we point out that the elections are neither love nor war. Instead, they provide the most important tool for the functioning of a democracy.

So whatever Mani Shankar Aiyar’s faults are in this time of elections, it is to his credit that he believes that while the top military bosses and the intelligence agency of Pakistan are indeed the reason why it poses a constant threat to India, it is of paramount importance and the only hope – if at all we wish to sideline and neuter the two culpable institutions – to befriend the rank and file of Pakistan. He has been doing this consistently over the years and never clandestinely. But on this particular occasion, it was in the company of many of our eminent citizens including the venerable elder statesman Manmohan Singh. It is one thing for a rabble-rouser to demonise Aiyar along with the former prime minister but quite another matter for the prime minister to indulge in such dangerous and egregious rhetoric. As prime minister of this subcontinent, you most of all people must surely understand the enormous gravity of accusing Aiyar and Singh of what is tantamount to treason.

As a deeply troubled citizen, I would really like to say to you: dear prime minister, please be the prime minister of this country and not a demagogue. And can you please comprehend one simple truth: Dissent is not a crime but the life-blood of a democracy.

Kiran Nagarkar is the author of Ravan and Eddie, and Cuckold.