Rape and sexual assault are one of the most heinous crimes which can have a very negative overall impact on the physical, emotional, and psychological life of a human being. Often treated as the same or similar in terms of its consequences and effects, the range of trauma that an individual suffers due to the monstrous actions of misconduct and assault differs substantially. It is one of the common phenomena which is occurring in the different parts of the world including Bollywood. While some of the women who have been victims of such atrocity have the courage to stand up against the culprit and face the world in the disguise of #Metoo movement, many of them are just bearing the pain that the incident has rendered silently on them.
The blame cannot be placed on anyone for the manner in which a woman react to such a situation as it depends on a number of factors like the workplace, the society, and the legal system. It is a complex process to gauge the faults of any person or object in such kind of a circumstance as women victims having a high profile job or belonging to a rich industry like Bollywood often face an unusually high risk of losing out job and reputation when they stand up for justice. Despite all these facts, Bollywood has seen some of the brave women victims coming forward to expose the crimes of influential men holding a reputable position in the industry.
The unalarmed blame
The Me too movement in Bollywood gained a lot of momentum after the accusation labeled on the famous actor Nana Patekar by Tanushree Dutta for sexual harassment on the sets of the movie Horn OK Pleasss in the year 2008. Many of the women survivors then gained the courage to come forward and state the names and deeds of their harassers on social platforms like Twitter. Some of the notable males in the Bollywood industry held accused of sexual harassment and assault include Alok Nath, Vikas Bahl, Sajid Khan, and Subhash Ghai.
The movie business in India which has always been discerned as an image-conscious industry has seen a few prominent names coming forward into the focus of the public either as victims or abusers. Allegations are seen leaking out of the industry on various men of high stature in the Bollywood industry by the women who have their abuse stories under the Me too hashtag on social media. The Me too movement then started forming after more number of women willingly came forward to expose some highly influential male names.
The beginning of it
One of the women to bring this issue into the limelight was the 48-year-old belly dancer Mona Matthews who broke the silence in Bollywood. She stated that women and newcomers in the industry having no direct connections inside often perceive compromise as the sure path to stardom and success in the industry. Their willingness to comprise is one of the first things that they need to be ready for when given an opportunity for work. They want to talk but are scared and they all want to be in the limelight for numerous wrong reasons which are why speaking about such issues has also been termed as common by a lot of people in the industry.