MUMBAI: Tanushree Dutta who helped set off the #MeToo motion in India difficult se**xual harassment and abuse sees it as a part of her spiritual training after a distasteful expertise 10 years in the past successfully ended her profession.
“I really feel God used me to begin one thing which needed to occur,” Tanushree Dutta informed Reuters. “All these girls had this buried deep of their hearts out of disgrace.”
Dutta, who mentioned she was impressed by Christianity, Buddhism, yoga and the #MeToo motion in america, mentioned final month that distinguished actor Nana Patekar had se**xually harassed her on the set of a film in 2008.
Patekar has denied wrongdoing.
Dutta mentioned Patekar, 67, had demanded she do intimate dance steps with him in a single music within the romantic comedy Horn OK Pleassss. When she refused members of a far right-wing Hindu group attacked her automobile whereas she was in it, together with leaping on the roof and making an attempt to smash the windscreen.
Dutta, who walked out of the film, went public with the allegations the identical day, however was threatened with authorized motion by the Hindu group and felt so shamed by these questioning her story and by the best way the Indian media handled her that she left Bollywood altogether and went to stay in america.
Aside from a couple of bit elements, she hasn’t labored in a film since.“All of that disgusted me – it took my religion and confidence from the business,” she mentioned in an interview. “I didn’t need to work right here. I nonetheless saved in contact and did some work which wanted short-term commitments.”
Rajendra Shirodkar, Patekar’s lawyer, has despatched Dutta a authorized discover asking her to apologise to Patekar or face additional authorized motion. He hasn’t specified what that motion can be.
The far-right group, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), this month filed a grievance with the police towards Dutta for feedback she made about their chief. The police, in flip, filed a defamation case towards Dutta, at present underneath investigation, primarily based on the MNS grievance.
Dutta, on vacation in Mumbai, mentioned she hadn’t supposed to carry up the difficulty in public once more till she was requested by a reporter whether or not the #MeeToo motion would ever come to India.
“My reply was that if what occurred to me 10 years in the past hasn’t been addressed and hasn’t been dropped at justice, then how can any motion occur right here?” Dutta mentioned. She then repeated her allegations from 2008.
The following story on the Zoom TV channel set off a barrage of different tales within the Indian media about her allegations.
This time, although, she didn’t again off.
“I knew I needed to hold the dialogue going … and different girls would converse out. I used to be in it deep – there was no method out. I used to be not going to cow down – not the second time for positive,” she mentioned.
Inside days of her story hitting the headlines, a wave of allegations – largely towards figures within the media and leisure industries – has swept throughout social media in India.
