Tanushree Dutta, The Kerala Nun and Dr Christine Blasey Ford: Why Women Don't Speak Up

The last few weeks have been promising if you are a liberal living in India. The Supreme Court of India made three landmark judgements -- decriminalising section 377 of the Indian penal code, abolishing the sexist adultery law and allowing women's entry into Sabarimala temple. It's the September we have all been waiting for. But in the backdrop of such landmark judgements, three cases of sexual assault have unfolded -- the nun rape case in Kerala; Dr Christine Blasey Ford and the Brett Kavanaugh case in America; and Tanushree Dutta versus Nana Patekar case in Mumbai.

If you've been following all the three, it's hard to ignore the similarities, especially when it comes to how the complainants have been treated. In case you haven't, let's bring you to speed.

The Three Cases

First up is the Kerala nun who accused Bishop Franco Mulakkal of the Jalandhar Diocese of rape in June 2018. According to the nun's accounts, the bishop had raped her 13 times between 2014 and 2016 during his visits to a convent in Kottayam, Kerala. She filed a case with the Kerala Police under Section 164 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.

Despite three other nuns also accusing the same bishop of sexual misconduct, Missionaries of Jesus the congregation, to which the complainant belonged, has backed the bishop, saying it was all a conspiracy to malign the church. An influential man, Mulakkal roamed freely despite the mounting evidence as many factions of the church went about maligning the nun's character. Meanwhile, five nuns openly proclaimed their support for the victim, protesting for the bishop's arrest. It was only after the public anger reached its fever pitch that the bishop was finally arrested on September 21, 2018.

Next is the case of Dr Christine Blasey Ford, a professor of psychology at the Palo Alto University who accused Brett Kavanaugh, an American attorney running for the post of Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, of sexual assault in 1982 when the two were 15 and 17 respectively. She alleged that Kavanaugh and his friend Mark Judge, a writer, pinned her down and groped her when the two were drunk at a house party.

Dr Ford initially made the complaint anonymously, fearing a backlash from the Republican party. But after the party criticised the complaint since it came from an unnamed source, she was forced to reveal her identity.

The third and the most recent case is that of Bollywood actor Tanushree Dutta who accused veteran actor Nana Patekar of sexual misconduct and intimidation at the sets of the 2008 movie Horn Ok Please. Tanushree alleged that the actor conspired with choreographer Ganesh Acharya to change the dance steps of a song they were shooting for. According to her, it was deliberately done so that Nana could touch her inappropriately.

"They (film crew) were forcing me to do an intimate step. My contract stated that it was a solo dance sequence, and it was not supposed to be a duet," she told ANI.

Tanushree who was uncomfortable with the dance steps made her displeasure known. She was accused of "not cooperating" and was replaced by actor Rakhi Sawant.

The Aftermath

In the aftermath of the allegations, all the three complainants, the nun, Dr Ford and Tanushree Dutta, faced the same rebuttal from the society -- Why now? Why not earlier?

In Kerala, independent party MLA PC George thought it appropriate to address the nun as a prostitute because she complained only the 13th time. "Twelve times she enjoyed it and the 13th time it is rape? Why didn't she complain the first time?" Sadly, the view is held not only by a routine motor mouth like George, but also by many others, some of whom also appear on debates on news channels.

In Dr Ford's case, Republicans attacked the timing of her allegations, hinting that her move was politically motivated to nick Kavanaugh's chances of securing the associate justice's position.

Even Tanushree's case wasn't any different. Despite a journalist and the assistant director of Horn Ok Please corroborating her story, the actor was accused of staging a publicity stunt by accusing a veteran actor. Comment sections on social media sites are rife with criticisms, most of them questioning her intentions to come out a decade later. Some even questioned her credibility, citing the bold roles she played at the beginning of her career. An underhanded move, but nothing we haven't seen before.

Why Didn't They Speak Up Earlier?

When it comes to this crucial question, the proof is in the pudding. Do you think public reaction would be any different if any of the aggrieved parties had come out back then?

One tends to think that rape is always done by physical force, but it can also be coercion or through intimidation. So when PC George asked whether the nun enjoyed it the first 12 times, he doesn't understand that she could have coerced into submitting to the bishop's will because he is an influential man. There were allegations of bribery at first for the nun's silence. When that failed, death threats followed. She would have ended up like a cold case file just like Sister Abhaya, a Kerala nun who was murdered in 1992. Same goes for Tanushree Dutta who was attacked by regionalist goons for messing with a Marathi icon. The traumatic episode explains Tanushree's long absence from Bollywood.

Truth is that nobody comes out smelling of roses in the aftermath of a sexual assault allegation, including the victims. Ask any of the victims of Bill Cosby or Harvey Weinstein. All the three complainants in the above cases have taken on influential men. Knowing whom they are up against, can you blame any woman for taking her time to confess about what she's been through? It takes a lot to finally find the strength and it's the victim's prerogative to chose when she wants to come out. Long story short, it doesn't matter when, it only matters that she did.

(The opinions expressed in the above article are of the author and do not reflect the stand or position of LatestLY.)

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Sep 30, 2018 07:45 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).