Three cheers for #MeToo but...

                                                            

The  #MeToo winds emanating from the West have now overtaken our sub-continent. Some heads cocooned in the safety of their impregnable ivory towers have rolled. Several more might follow, if these waves gain momentum; and, one too many, if lesser known Tanushree Dattas of our small towns find a way of being heard. As expected, our Bollywood’s megastars are keeping mum and looking the other way. The gutsy Tanushree who spearheaded the movement has been unsparing. She has said that this conspiracy of silence of the superstars hides less and reveals more: they have been complicit too, hence this chuppi. Well,  Bollywood, where the filthy rich super stars don't even pay their taxes, has never been known for any high moral standards anyway. What goes on behind the curtains for aspiring women actors desperate to bag a film role, is a badly kept secret of the tinsel world, we all know.

Well, we are a patriarchal society. Male supremacy and chauvinism run deep in our veins. Women’s woes start even before they are born. The birth of a girl child still evokes gloom in many a household. A male child enjoys special attention, care and privileges, and better education than a girl child. In spite of a law, a daughter is deprived of her due property rights by parents and her male siblings, by tacit understanding. Driven by violent mindsets and several socio-economic factors, ghastly rapes are daily news in the badlands of Haryana, Rajasthan, Bihar, West Bengal and MP. Therefore the scale at which sexual harassment prevails in our workplaces, places of religious worship, congregations, film studios, buses, trains and planes is not hard to imagine. How rampant it must be in our rural hinterlands against voiceless, powerless women, then? What about our domestic helps, women labourers and rural women who fall an easy prey to the lust of their employers and the feudal  lords? Will #MeToo reach out to them too? 

But there is another aspect to it which merits thought. Of course, seeking sexual favours from a woman by coercion, blackmail and force is deplorable and despicable. But what about the genuine, love-seeking Mahiwals of the present day seeking out their Sohinis? Will they get caught in the crosshairs of this movement? Will proposing to a woman you love become a difficult, scary  proposition in the wake of #MeToo? What about those exploratory subtle hints and gestures, amorous stares, those deft little touches and brushes, sending sweet little love notes which comprise the essential arsenal in that heart-throbbing game of wooing and courtship that precede the declaration of love? Will all such things become a 'no, no' too? Won't this world, already groaning under intolerance, violence, wars and hatred,  become too loveless and cheerless a place to live? In this age  of digitalization, humankind will perhaps be reduced to mere robots glued to their mobiles and TVs, and ‘LOVE’ - with all its glorious manifestations  and nuances - will be reduced to yet another digital exercise shorn of its divinity and bliss.

Therefore, while we must shed our patriarchal mindsets and proactively help and support this new surge, we must take care to avoid overlap by drawing clear lines of distinction between what constitutes coercion and what is a heart-felt, well-meaning gesture of love of a man to a woman…and vice versa. I hope the #MeToo  tide helps to bring to book the sexual predators but  ends up not in pitting men against women, or curbing mutual conviviality or freedom to mix and mingle and explore the beauty and wonder of this world together. 
                                
                                                       ***