CHENNAI: A public hearing to open the socio-political discourse around #MeToo will be held on October 21. It is being organised by Kaani Nilam or Ek Potlee Ret Ki, an activist collective at Dr MGR Janaki College of Arts and Science For Women.
“As a collective that works with identities we understand very well how gender is one of the most weaponised element of a person’s identity; it is most widely used to attack or hurt someone,” says Radhika Ganesh, founder, Kaani Nilam, adding that the discourse around gender, sexuality and abuse has predominantly stayed in the margins.
The collective was moved to organise the public hearing as survivors of sexual abuse and harassment have been reaching out to them. “When the first wave of #MeToo happened, as a collective we got to experience first-hand what it is like for young people to come out and speak out against powerful names,” says Radhika. “Two of our young colleagues studying in Ambedkar University were part of it – one on the survivor’s side and the other was part of the internal committee that looked into the matter.”
When the second wave of #MeToo broke, friends began reaching out, requesting the collective to put out their stories. “Every day, I was putting out 10 different accounts on Facebook and Twitter. I also spoke out supporting singer Chinmayi and also posted messages about powerful Carnatic musicians. I was in the eye of the storm and also realised that the sheer amount of ignorance around this topic is extreme,” says Radhika
The collective regularly organises public hearings for all the issues they deal with. “We see it as a legitimate way of generating social consciousness and as an initial step towards advocacy. So we decided do one on sexual abuse and harassment,” says Radhika. “Dancer Swarnamalya Ganesh had put out a nine-point agenda to put forward to the Ministry of Culture and she has collaborated with us. The idea now is to go beyond individual accusations and look at the larger environment of violence that prevails and the silence we have internalised.”
The event on October 21 will feature a panel that is vastly representative and covers almost all groups of society -- women, men, people from different religions, caste, minority groups and all walks of life – and has a good amount of expertise on the subject being discussed.
“We usually call the complainant for deposition but since it is a very sensitive topic we are not asking people to depose in front of the panel,” says Radhika. Instead, they have collated a massive database of crowdsourced accusations on the internet. “We have chosen 15 from all the cases that came to our collective and have created comprehensive case studies. The full details are disclosed to the panellists but when we present it to the public, we may maintain confidentiality if the survivor requests it.”
The collective has also developed a series of suggestions for policy and advocacy level interventions, which will be presented. There will also be an interactive session with the audience. “But we are sincerely requesting people not to use it as a forum to pick up fights,” says Radhika, adding that they will also be releasing a bilingual booklet (in Tamil and English), ‘Towards Safer Equal Spaces: A Guide To Identifying And Dealing With Sexual Harassment And Abuse’, which will also be distributed free of cost. “Ten days later, we will also release an expert panel report and launch a website that will have comprehensive information about #MeToo and anything related to it ,” says Radhika.
The event will be held at Dr MGR Janaki College of Arts and Science For Women on October 21 from 3pm to 6pm.