Mumbai: Former Miss India and actor Niharika Singh opened up about her #MeToo experiences in the entertainment industry, calling out Bollywood biggies Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Sajid Khan and Bhushan Kumar.
The “Miss Lovely” actor’s account was shared on Twitter by journalist Sandhya Menon.
Singh said that she decided to write the piece to expand her understanding “of what constitutes abuse, who we choose to punish and whom we are willing to forgive”.
The actor said she has dealt with various forms of exploitation throughout her life beginning with her gaining an understanding of the violence that came about in her parents’ marriage.
“My father is from Uttar Pradesh, and my mother from Rajasthan; both belong to untouchable communities… Their tumultuous marriage and everyday violence that was normalized within the family gave me an opaque understanding of what constitutes love and what constitutes abuse while I was growing up,” she wrote.
Upon moving to Delhi, she wrote that she learned how women were victimised, “Depending on which part of the city you lived in, the extent of the abuse varied. Your caste background, economic conditions and political affiliations determined that. Law and order were tools reserved for those who had access to power.”
According to Singh, she got modelling jobs as she was “fair-skinned” and “photogenic”.
Soon after her Miss India pageant win, Singh said she was signed by Raj Kanwar for her Bollywood debut but the project got shelved and T-Series honcho Bhushan Kumar decided to launch her.
“Bhushan Kumar asked Kanwar to release me from his contract as a favour so I could be cast in his other film… Bhushan Kumar called me to his office to sign ‘A New Love Ishtory’ where he gave me an envelope as a signing amount for the film. It contained two 500 Rupee notes.
“I got a text from him later that night, ‘I would love to know you more. Let’s get together sometime’. I wrote back saying, ‘Absolutely! Let’s go on a double date. You bring your wife. I’ll bring my boyfriend.’ He never wrote to me again,” she wrote.
The film got delayed and the actor claimed she never got paid for her work on the project.
In 2009, Singh signed “Miss Lovely” opposite Siddiqui. She wrote that she and Siddiqui came close during the making of the film as she “found him real, after all the superficial ‘filmy’ interactions I’d had in the past years”.
The actor revealed that she had invited the “Manto” actor to her home one morning, where he ‘grabbed’ her. “I tried to push him away but he wouldn’t let go. After a little coercion, I finally gave in. I wasn’t sure what to make of this relationship. He told me it was his dream to have a Miss India or an actress wife, just like Paresh Rawal and Manoj Bajpayee. I found his little confession funny but endearing…He often complained about how he was judged on his looks, skin colour and that he wasn’t fluent in English. I tried to help him deal with his insecurities, but he was stuck in a state of victimisation.”
The two started dating but according to Singh, she ended the relationship because of Siddiqui’s frequent lies.
She met Siddiqui after three years when “Miss Lovely” got into the Cannes Film Festival in 2012. The actor said she wanted to be friends with him but “he tried to re-engage me sexually, begging me to be with him but I refused, saying I was happy to be his friend and nothing else”.
In the post, she also called Siddiqui a “sexually repressed Indian man whose toxic male entitlement grew with his success is hardly surprising. What is interesting to note that despite not identifying as a Hindu, he carries deep caste prejudices since he chose to protect the honour of his ‘Brahmin’ wife after their names came in CDR scam, while he felt very comfortable painting me as a seductress wearing faux fur in his book, who he could sexually exploit, for public imagination.”
She blasted Siddiqui’s frequent collaborator, director Anurag Kashyap for continuously supporting him.
Singh also claimed that she was briefly engaged to Mayank Singh Singhvi in 2011, but parted ways because he “was a sociopath”.
Mayank later got married to Anissia Batra, who worked with a German airline. She had allegedly jumped from the terrace of her house in July and Mayank was arrested on the charge of dowry death.
In September it was revealed that a former Miss India had approached Delhi Police and recorded her statement in the Anissia Batra case. In her statement, she had told the police that she called off her engagement after he threatened her and chased her with a knife.
“Violence against women may be a common feature faced by all women in India, but there is no denying the fact that certain kinds of violence are customarily reserved solely for Dalit women,” Singh wrote, adding that patriarchy has no gender nor does abuse. “We can’t forget the role of mothers and wives who are equally responsible in covering or enabling their sons’ and husbands’ crimes… It’s time to realise that the pompous, neoliberal, savarna feminism is not going to liberate anyone.”
She concluded her post by sharing her encounter with Sajid, who was recently dropped as the director of “Housefull 4” following sexual harassment allegations by multiple women.
“Filmmaker Sajid Khan, who I met a couple of times while he was dating an actress I knew years ago, made a few predictions when a close friend of ours was opening her second restaurant – ‘This place will shut down within a year, mark my words.’ To his actress girlfriend he said, ‘She won’t survive a day without me in Bollywood’. ‘And, this one’, looking at me straight, ‘will soon commit suicide’.
“My restaurateur friend is opening her fourth restaurant. It is difficult to get a table at the other three. The actress’ career skyrocketed after she dumped the filmmaker and I, have managed to stay alive,” she wrote.
(With inputs from PTI)