#meToo – A shorter version of this appeared in CNBC TV18, this week

Two Thousand years ago, there was a story of a woman’s anger that burnt down a city. The famous Tamil epic Silapadhikaram narrates the story of Kannagi and her husband Kovalan, and their tryst with destiny. In the story, Kovalan and Kannagi migrate from their home town of Puhar (modern Poompuhar) to Madurai – the capital of the Pandya kingdom. It is here that Kovalan is falsely accused of stealing the Queen’s anklet and is executed as a thief.  When Kannagi comes to know, she is able to prove his innocence. But, her rage at the kingdom is not assuaged. The epic talks about her anger at the injustice becoming flames of rage that burns down the entire city.   Today when I read about the #metoo stories, the tale of Kannagi’s rage comes to mind.   A rage triggered by the sheer injustice of sexual harassment at the work place – where women were not just sexually harassed, but also not believed by seniors who take the side of the harasser. The fire is spreading, from industry to industry, as women are naming and shaming those who made their lives miserable. The big question is about what organisations do next.

The #MeToo movement started in 2006 when Tarana Burke used this on fledgling social network systems, to get African American women to share stories of their abuse. But, given that social media was in its infancy there were no major repercussions. The call got taken up last year, by actor Allysa Milano who put out her story of sexual harassment and assault, and before you know it, hundreds of thousands of women had joined in to share their own stories. India saw the first phase of the #meToo movement with law student Raya Sarkar putting out a list of academics who sexually harass (LoSHA). But, this list, did not get the kind of traction that it deserved, even though the names revealed were people in charge of developing young minds in academia. It took a full year before #MeToo went viral. Right now, we are seeing stories tumble out of various media industries- News, advertising and films. The cleansing, however,  is not yet over. These are stories of men who abused their powerand harassed women working in the same organisation. And, there were few systems in place which allowed the woman to find redressal. Almost all stories I have read have ended with the woman leaving her job, sometimes the industry, to start their professional life afresh.

For most organisations in India their first tryst with the Prevention of Sexual Harassment (also known as POSH) came about after the Tehelka case, where the managing editor Tarun Tejpal was accused of forcing his sexual attentions on a younger colleague. This is when most organisations scrambled together to set up their anti sexual harassment committees in place. Unfortunately, the haste with which these were set up meant that there was no room for training those who ran the committee.  The setting up of PoSH committees was done to comply with the law; not to solve the issue of harassment. For most organisations, the first response on issues of sexual harassment was denial that took the form of “but, he is a nice guy”; while they may have been right on the niceness of the man, the fact remains even nice guys can harass, molest, or rape. 

The current wave of #MeToo is too vocal, and too public; the men who are named too well known, for this to be swept under the carpet. As of the time of writing, the AIB founding team – many of whom have been accused of harassment – has been asked to step away from the company; director Vikas Behl has lost shows that he had pitched and is possibly staring at police action; Prashant Jha, the chief of bureau, HT has stepped down pending investigation. But, these are just the big cases. For every one of these big names being outed, there are probably thousands of more cases where the behaviour has gone unchecked. And, if they are outed, what are the consequences?

It is estimated that it takes between 8 to 10 months for the accused man to resume a somewhat normal life, getting back to his career without much damage. If you look at the Tejpal case, for example, you will see a man still in demand in the circuits that matter. RK Pachauri is still the toast of the world he inhabits. There are many more such predators at all levels across industries. And, the reason why they flourish is because the organisation enables it with lax systems, protocols, that makes the woman employee feel like an intruder in a boy’s club; and over and above that, makes harassment the price of getting into the club. And, this must stop. While these men are to be definitely held responsible for their behaviour and actions, some of the blame must lie with their organisations that enabled an environment in which this kind of behaviour is normalised. 

A complaint to the Prevention of Sexual Harassment Committee is usually the last step. The woman in employment has faced harassment at multiple levels, possibly multiple times, before the complaint.  And what she needs now, after overcoming multiple self-doubts on filing the complaint, is empathy. For an organisation it is just not enough to have legally mandated processes followed to the letter, to address this.  It is imperative that a safe working space is the norm – an environment that lets a woman thrive, just as well as the man does.

There needs to be training on how to behave at the workplace, and this needs to be part and parcel of every employee’s induction into the company, and part of continuous training and retraining. If senior team members who are part of the PoSH committee are not able to be objective about their colleagues; maybe there need to be more external parties on the committee who have no axe to grind with either person. But above all there needs to be receptiveness to hear the woman out,  respect her confidentiality. And crucial here is that information is not leaked to the accused, who can then use the weight of his position to pressurise the accuser. Also, with more and more companies outsourcing work to freelancers and third party vendors, these relationships need to come within the ambit of prevention of sexual harassment, as well.

Unless corporate India decides to do more than lip service to the prevention of sexual harassment at the workplace, #meToo is going to be an annual affair. The reason why women choose to share their most private hurt and grief with the world, is because there is no space in the organisation to hear them out. The reason why men’s names are tumbling out for public shaming, is because this is the only way women think they will get some measure of closure. Organisations have a key role to play in preventing entitled men from pressuring women for favours. It is a role in which they have hitherto failed. That needs to change.