Why Feminism Is Still A Dirty Word In India

Radhika Swarup asks "is it any wonder that I choose my words carefully before I tell a friend that I am writing about Me Too?"

Early in May 2020 I spoke to a friend based in Delhi.  He’d had a torrid time of it in lockdown; his business – largely footfall driven – had taken a nosedive, and he’d been downbeat for weeks.  I’d offered him a friendly ear through these months, though I was aware my words – it can’t last long, things will improve – must have appeared perfunctory to him. He asked me how I was doing, and when I told him my latest book had just been sold to a publisher, he was quick to congratulate me.

‘What’s it about?’

I blustered – and I later asked myself why I did – before telling him it was a family saga set around the global Me Too movement.

‘Oh,’ he replied. ‘OK.’

That was it.

That was the end of our conversation, and largely, our friendship.  There were no more birthday or Diwali or New Year messages.  There were no more texts asking how we were faring under lockdown, there were no more sharing of irreverent jokes about the mother tongue we both shared.

A few weeks later, a female Delhi friend asked about my work. This friend too congratulated me, but warned me to be wary of the Me Too topic.  All too often, she said, women accused men of assault without any substantial proof.

I wondered if she would have reacted the same way had I told her I was writing about a man who was wrongly accused of rape. Men raped women every minute of the day, of course, so would my account of a man wrongly accused have caused her to pause?

I didn’t say anything to her, but these exchanges have helped underscore to me that for much of India, the topic of feminism remains deeply problematic.

A little over two years ago, MJ Akbar, veteran journalist and minister in the Government of India, was accused of sexual misconduct by journalist Priya Ramani.  Her account was echoed by several others, and Akbar reacted to the accusations by launching a lawsuit for defamation against Ramani.  After months of interrogation, a Delhi court acquitted Priya Ramani in February 2021, saying that ‘right to reputation can’t be protected at the cost of right to dignity.’  Ramani had fought a lawsuit brought on by a more powerful man without being cowed, and as she stood outside the court on her acquittal, she pointed out in a clear voice that the victim in the case had been made to stand up in court as the accused.

And she is correct, of course.  Even as others corroborated her story, many in India remained disbelieving.  Where was the proof, they asked, and if such an atrocity had indeed been carried out, why hadn’t she come forward sooner?  Why hadn’t others?

We are a land that worships Goddesses, we are one where the ruling party was elected on the rallying cry of Beti Bachao.  We tell our girls to reach for the stars, but then we also tell them to be obedient, to respect authority, to settle down, and to compromise in a difficult situation.  We fill them with doubts just as we feed them fairy tales that tell them the world is theirs for the taking.

Boys are taught to be ambitious and to take risks, they are teased indulgently when they ‘sow their wild oats’, but girls come in for censure for following the same urges.  They shouldn’t be too thrusting or too aggressive. They should be pleasant and likeable. Of course, they should, but so should we all.  We should all be ambitious and pleasant. The two are not mutually exclusive.

We tell our girls to reach for the stars, but then we also tell them to be obedient, to respect authority, to settle down, and to compromise in a difficult situation.

And when the wife of our most divine deity, the complete man Lord Rama, remained the subject of suspicion even after she was made to walk through fire to prove her fidelity, is it any wonder that mere mortal women are called to defend themselves for daring to complain about being attacked? Is it any wonder that a swathe of India will feel today, not for Priya Ramani, but for the man she and at least eighteen others have accused of sexual assault?  And is it any wonder that I choose my words carefully before I tell a friend that I am writing about Me Too?

If I'm to analyse my hesitation to explain to my erstwhile friend what my novel Civil Lines was about, it probably stems from worry that a male friend might feel threatened by my talking about sexual assault.

Did I think all men culpable; was I one of those women who cried wolf?

The former assumption would have been terrible of me, but the latter assumption - after several years of friendship - was fairly telling in him.

Radhika Swarup is the author of Where the River Parts (Sandstone Press, 2016). She studied at Cambridge University and worked in finance before turning to writing. Her latest book is titled Civil Lines. Radhika lives in London with her husband and two children, and divides her time between England and India. The views expressed are the author's own.