#MeToo and Due Process

A common question that has been skirting the broad narratives of #MeToo is that if the movement has gone far beyond the boundaries of due process and legality.

In April 2019, a few months after the #MeToo movement expanded in India, then Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi was accused of sexual harassment by a former Supreme Court of India employee. The committee that presided over investigation of the allegations included Gogoi himself, and unsurprisingly he was cleared of the charges. Prior to the case against Gogoi, in October 2018, journalist Priya Ramani accused MJ Akbar of sexual harassment. The former junior external affairs minister registered a 41-page defamation case against her. She won the case two years later when the court acquitted her of all charges. 

The phrase “Me Too” was coined by African American activist Tarana Burke in 2006 to raise awareness about the prevalence of sexual abuse and assault within the society, and help the survivors. It was the fall of 2017 when actress and activist Alyssa Milano sent out a tweet encouraging survivors of sexual harassment and assault to post #metoo as a status update. This post led to the rebirth of Burke’s “Me Too” into today’s “#MeToo”. 

When the #MeToo movement took off in the United States, Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein was accused by over 80 women of rape, sexual abuse and assault over a period of 30 years. It was only earlier this year that Weinstein was formally indicted on eleven counts of sexual assault.

Former US President Donald Trump too was accused of sexual harassment, along with his Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. He went onto get a full confirmation from the US Senate by a vote of 50-48. The list of alleged abusers in the US contained actors, musicians, politicians, businessmen.

If indeed the movement has gone too far, beyond the boundaries of legal system, how is it that men like Trump, Kavanaugh reached pinnacles of their careers? Or how Gogoi was nominated to the Rajya Sabha?

Speaking of the law and due process, women who went on to name their abusers faced attempts to be silenced by them by using the same legal system. In other cases, even men who had serious charges of rape walked scot-free due to lack of evidence or due procedure.

In India, many prominent Bollywood celebrities were named under the #MeToo movement. Filmmaker Vinta Nanda had accused veteran actor Alok Nath of rape. Nath was also accused of sexual harassment by other women from the film industry, including actor Sandhya Mridul and singer Sona Mohapatra. He was stripped of his membership of the Cine and TV Artistes' Association (CINTAA) but that was the extent of consequences the actor faced. The case against him was eventually dropped due to lack of evidence. 

The case against actor Nana Patekar, who was accused by actor Tanushree Dutta, was also dropped due to lack of evidence. Filmmaker Vikas Bahl was also accused of sexual assault in late 2018. The woman, who worked at Phantom Films, accused Bahl of assaulting her at a hotel room in Goa. Bahl left Phantom Films after the accusations came to light and the film production company was subsequently disbanded. Since this accusation, Bahl has gone on to direct and produce films and web series. 

In the light of the social media naming and shaming of abusers, three narratives came out- one that called for believing all women, one that called for disregarding all these accusations and the third which called for due process. 

Canadian author Margaret Atwood faced a social media backlash after calling for due process in the case of Steven Galloway, a former university professor accused of sexual misconduct. In a statement to the media, Atwood talked about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, defending her view on due process noting that advocating basic human rights for everyone was not equivalent to warring against women. 

Her opinion piece, she said, was meant to highlight the choice we now face; fix the system, bypass it or “burn the system down and replace it with, presumably, another system”.

Due process is absolutely necessary but if the same legal system does not award consequences to high profiled men, why would women place their faith on the law of the land?

In India, Raya Sarkar, a PhD Scholar, published a list on Facebook containing the names of men accused of sexual harassment by women from within her extended social circles. This list, later called the List of Sexual Harassers in Academia (LoSHA) went on to contain 75 names from approximately 30 colleges and universities across India, UK and the US. Since then, many more women came out to name and shame their abusers, some of whom included prominent actors, journalists, admen, filmmakers, artistes, entrepreneurs, politicians. Most of these men were removed from projects till investigations were concluded. 

In an interview with DW, Sarkar said that if due process worked for women, they would not have approached her with the names in the first place.

Karuna Nundy, a prominent lawyer in India's Supreme Court, shared her view on #MeToo's relevance to India, where outrage over sex crimes has sparked waves of public protests in recent years. 

"The #MeToo conversations in India are limited to a swathe of English-speaking, internet-enabled people. It's quite a lot in absolute numbers, but small for India. It's added, though, to the huge conversations that were already happening. The idea that due process is failing women, and civil disobedience can be legitimate."

A criticism of the movement is its exclusionary nature. It did not account for the voices of people from marginalized communities such as Dalits and Adivasis, disabled, queer, trans people and other non-binary persons.

The dichotomy of the effects of MeToo movement in India has been seen widely in the work culture. The biggest success of the movement is that it has started a conversation about inappropriate behaviour, harassment and consent. Legally, it brought companies and institutions to the point of constituting Internal Complaint Committee (ICC) and follow the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013, also known as POSH law.

It has been reported that the number of registered complaints under the POSH law also went up. This could be seen as a positive aftereffect of the #MeToo movement that women are now comfortable and aware of their rights to complain against sexual harassment.

This is a welcome step in India where sex is seen in a negative light. Legally, with complaints getting registered meant that women had a chance to access a proper redressal mechanism within the confines of the law of the land. 

(Originally written as part of IUIF assignments)