Pollachi is all that is on our minds now; and on the news too. Like all else, especially that related to sexual harassment, we the ‘chowkidhars’ of such issues will wait and see how long it is before this outrage will be replaced by the next. Remember that Chennai case of a young girl and her seventeen harassers? This is what I point to when I insist that public memory is short-lived.
There are some that make hay while the sun shines through this tiny window, and political parties top that list. It is no different now with one implicated and the other interested in calling for justice.
From parties who promise jobs to women now but have spent most part of their existence protecting ‘their’ women from ‘men wearing sunglasses’, I ask this: Do you intend to run the state in-line with the advice the families of women are meted out on WhatsApp forwards (Don’t give girls mobile phones, don’t allow them to go anywhere unaccompanied) thereby setting women’s rights movement back by hundreds of years?
From ‘secular’ ‘democratic’ or ‘progressive’ alliances that have emerged I would like to know if these words mean to you the equivalent of what is printed in the dictionary. Can I hope to see a plan to deal with sexual harassment and violence on your manifestos?
After the #metoo wave that has been brushed under the carpet by Kollywood, I ask if political parties — that owe their legacies to the industry — will hold cinema, it’s stars and staff to account? Doesn’t every case of sexual harassment deserve the attention and support extended to the Pollachi victim?
On that very subject, I ask — how deep will you cut to leave your party’s name etched in the issue, and hold those accountable without voyeurism with the elections that are clouding over? If twenty five lakhs is enough to reveal the victim’s identity, what is the price for being entitled and thinking they’ll get away with it? Is there a price for courage to speak out?