If one tends to think nothing could be worse than an AIB member resorting to sexual harassment with tacit support from the entire leftist cabal, the person is about to be proven horribly wrong. The ghost of sexual predators has once again come back to haunt the field of journalism. Journalists, who claim of keeping the flag of ‘liberal journalism’ aloft, have now been accused of being involved in grave cases of sexual harassment.
Case 1: In a curious incident, Anoo Bhuyan, who is a journalist from the prominent left liberal mouthpiece, The Wire, has accused one Mayank Jain, a political cum economic analyst working currently with Business Standard of sexually harassing her. Mayank Jain has been accused of asking Anoo Bhuyan to send ‘nude pictures’ of herself, apart from other illicit requests.
Backed by other victims who have suffered equally at the hands of Mayank Jain, who was also associated with Scroll.in and Bloomberg Quint in the past, Anoo Bhuyan literally roasted him apart in the following thread of tweets, where she accused him of being involved in sexual harassment with numerous interns, be it within Business Standard or outside:-
1. This Indian journalist here, is a #SexualPredator.
[Thread]:https://t.co/H3PbWwOcYZ— Anoo Bhuyan (@AnooBhu) October 4, 2018
Even though such a case, with the tag of #MeToo would be taken with a pinch of salt, courtesy the recent antics of people like Swara Bhaskar, it is a welcome change from the otherwise dreary and absurd propagandas that such journalists used to peddle.
Encouraged by the unflinching spirit of Mahima Kukreja, who went hammers and tongs after Utsav Chakraborty for sexually harassing her, as well as rage against organizations like the AIB for not looking into the matter and indirectly supporting him, journalists like Anoo Bhuyan have now found a voice in fighting for their own rights.
Case 2 : An ex editor from Huffington Post India, Anurag Verma, has been accused of indulging in sexual harassment with his fellow colleagues. In order to clear his name, Anurag allegedly came out with a clarification thread, wherein he tried to convince people of his innocence in the said issue.
I had posted a video where I pulled a packet of biscuits from my shorts and sent it to a ton of people on my snapchat. Which I now realise is not funny and very much crass. I didn’t send any unsolicited picture of genitals. I want to apologise for making people uncomfortable.
— Anurag Verma (@kitAnurag) October 4, 2018
The thread, however, exposes the extremely dismissive attitude of the concerned journalist about the entire issue. Instead of acknowledging his fault and apologizing earnestly, Anurag is giving extremely lame excuses for his horrible attitude. According to him, a term that would be lewd to a normal ear was an innocuous meme. Trust the ‘Indian liberals’ to stoop to this level in order to mislead the people. No wonder he was rightly taken down by Raksha Kumar and a Twitter user by the handle @DabbaVader, who exposed him in the following links:-
Oh god I am losing my mind over it so I just came back to say. His jokes were awful. I did not know enough things then as I do now and his jokes are extremely casteist and racist and simply awful. Please don't take this to mean I like his jokes. plain awful.
— malayka (@DabbaVader) October 4, 2018
Here's my story about a fellow-journalist, who continues to thrive. And, as I just found out, abuses other female journalists regularly.
CC: @TheRestlessQuil @AnooBhu @Vivx @newspaperwallah #MeToo https://t.co/SB0IC6W1wi— Raksha Kumar (@Raksha_Kumar) October 5, 2018
As much as we feel disgusted with such blatant exploitation of women, we shouldn’t be too shocked. Interestingly, these very journalists and intellectuals would have no grudges in defaming people through shoddy media trials and destroying their lives like they did in the case of Vikas Sachdeva, who was allegedly accused of molesting actor Zaira Wasim.
Not far back, in 2013, a woman journalist had accused her boss Tarun Tejpal, also famous as the head of the sensational tabloid ‘Tehelka’ for sexual misconduct. Not only was she ridiculed and shamed, her integrity and character was also questioned by the MD of Tehelka, Shoma Chaudhary, despite irrefutable evidences standing in support of the victim.
Now when these very people claim to be the protectors of the values that build a ‘flourishing democracy’, it doesn’t seem anything less than a rude joke. It might be confusing, given the ideologies of the victims and their oppressors, but as said rightly in ‘Chillar Party’, ‘We must stand up for what is right, even if it makes others unhappy.’ Even if their protests invoke the ire of the so called intellectuals, folks like Mahima Kukreja and Raksha Kumar shouldn’t back out from their mission of exposing such perverts, so that Indian women get a better workplace in future, irrespective of the profession.
