MJ Akbar, minister of state for external affairs and former journalist, has hit back at the #MeToo movement. Far from an apology, which many expected, or even an acknowledgement of his actions as a predatory editor, he has decided to sue journalist Priya Ramani for criminal defamation.
Ramani, an independent journalist, was the first to call out Akbar, as more and more women across industries shared experience of workplace harassment and abuse by men of power in India’s #MeToo movement.
Akbar, before he became a BJP politician, is one of India’s most well-known editors and columnists. Legendary almost if the use of the cliché is permissible.
Also legendary were the stories of his that these 14 women have made public and many more besides. But Akbar has claimed “irreparable loss to his reputation” in his 41 page defamation case, filed by Karanjawala and Co.
One might hazard that this is an intimidation tactic to ensure that these women either backtrack and that no other woman dare come forward.
The minister’s first response after he returned from his official foreign tour is telling of the patriarchal mindset, which thrives in the party he represents. “I never did anything” is repeated in his statement and the brazen nature is palpable. The women are all liars. He alone is true in his innocence. Though in not all the anecdotal accounts of abuse did he “do nothing”. Besides, sexual harassment and bullying can be verbal, they can be innuendo, they can be carrots dangled and they can be chances taken. This is the workplace, your livelihood, where the boss’s word is law, not a public bus where you can get off at the next stop.
Akbar in his characteristic florid prose, ends his statement with these lines: “Lies do not have legs, but they do contain poison, which can be whipped into a frenzy.” Dreadful mixed metaphors aside, Akbar also implies that there is some political motive to these allegations: “Why has this storm risen a few months before a general election? Is there an agenda? You be the judge.”
Sitting in judgment therefore, as instructed, one might guess at some delusions of grandeur at work here. If a group of female journalists wanted to derail the BJP’s chances in the 2019 general elections, why would they target MJ Akbar, a junior minister and Rajya Sabha member? There are many other ways and bigger fish to fry or rather net first, before frying.
What men like Akbar and others who have cried foul at this awful female uprising have not realised is that the MeToo movement has risen not around left wing versus right wing politics. The biggest name, which has fallen in the Western world, is Hollywood’s Harvey Weinstein, seen as liberal and generous in his support of artistic license. What politics brought him down?
Such reactions, as displayed by Akbar (and as an evil liberal feminist I cannot grudge his right to defend his reputation such as it is), are typical of the very patriarchy that women are fighting against. The “I did nothing” defense is meaningless when you have targeted the youngest and most vulnerable women in your newsroom. How far does the “Oh, why did you remain married” defense go in matters of domestic violence?
Indeed, as CNN journalist Majlie de Puy Kamp has been quoted as saying in The Indian Express, in response to Akbar’s statement about politics: “I am not a citizen, I cannot vote. I do not have a political agenda. Plus, I have a paper trail. My father wrote an email to Akbar about the incident to which he responded. I have evidence. I am disappointed but not surprised by his statement. I am, however, very comfortable with my story.”
Lies don’t have legs, but the truth of these women has integrity and pain. That also means something.
The author is a senior journalist.