The recent case of AIB member Utsav Chakraborty, who is accused of sexually harassing a fellow comedian Mahima Kukreja and several others, is a brilliant case study in the deep rooted hypocrisy that can be well associated with the ‘Indian liberals’. If one can paraphrase the legendary quote of George Orwell in Animal Farm, ‘all liberals are equal, but some liberals are more equal than others.’
The Utsav Chakraborty case is no exception. Ever since Mahima Kukreja has given a living nightmare to AIB with her bold stance on the issue, the ‘empowered brigade’ of India’s ‘powerful feminists’ have chose to once again maintain a mysterious silence on this issue from the start.
Be it the darling of liberals Gurmehar Kaur, or the self proclaimed ‘troll destroyer’ Swara Bhasker, or even the ‘troll whistleblower’ Swati Chaturvedi, they’ve either chose not to condemn the incident or support the mocking of the right wingers for supporting the movement. We need not exercise our memory well to know what would’ve been their reaction had the accused been a right wing nationalist, or at the best, a mere Modi supporter.
Rega Jha, who would otherwise leave no stone unturned in deifying the likes of Tanushree Dutta through her supportive tweets, chose to stay mysteriously silent on this issue. Equally silent was Barkha Dutt, who was the journalist responsible for the month long campaign that demonized the Hindu community in the worst way possible.
On another day, she wouldn’t have wasted a moment in tearing the accused’s reputation to shreds, for e.g. the Unnao Rape Case. But in the present case, it looked as if she duct taped herself in the same way she did in the Mandsaur case, where the accused was from the community that must not be named.
Kavita Krishnan, notorious as the terror cum Urban Naxal sympathizer, also deflected the issue supremely well. Refusing to comment on the issue, she instead continued with her rants against India, BJP, Yogi Adityanath as the list went on ad infinitum. Interestingly, while Swati Chaturvedi tried ably to deflect the question with her #MeToo retweets, she couldn’t help but expose her hypocrisy when she retweeted Richa Singh’s criticism of the right wingers for taking the matter head on.
https://twitter.com/richa_singh/status/1048116924826058753
Even Swara Bhasker, who seemingly led from the front in voicing her dissent against patriarchy, from the Kathua case to her recent support for Tanushree Dutta, chose to stay silent on this issue. But it was Gurmehar Kaur’s opinion, as published by Shekhar Gupta’s mouthpiece, ‘The Print’ that spilled the beans and lay threadbare the entire stance of this empowered brigade.
In her opinion, not only did Gurmehar refuse to support Mahima’s stance on this issue, she also hinted at ‘social media shaming’ of Utsav, as evident in her tacit support to the accused, just the way she supported Shamir Reuben when he was accused of the same crime.
To be honest, what Utsav did is no isolated incident. However, the mysterious vow of silence that this ‘empowered brigade’ including Swara Bhasker maintains when the accused is from one of their own is not only atrocious, but also unpardonable. We need not be reminded of how this very empowered brigade united as one to slut shame the victim who dared to raise her voice in the Tarun Tejpal case.
Even when Raya Sarkar decided to expose the sexual predators academically, the same brigade once again united to defame and shame her through an organized campaign, which not only doubted her intentions, but also openly supported the accused, as if they did nothing wrong. Try justifying this bizarre approach, can you?
If this was selective outrage of Swara Bhasker and her brigade, one could have understood their point. But this is an explicit support to the ghastly crimes that these ‘feminists’ claim to fight against. By either staying silent, or tacitly supporting the criminals, even when the actual evidences stand completely against them, is this ‘empowered brigade’ not being ‘anti- women’ here?