This is not a Man vs Woman fight only: Nandita Das on MeToo

New Delhi: The ongoing MeToo movement in India has let open a can of worms as some of the biggest names in the entertainment industry have been accused of sexual harassment for fellow workers and former colleagues. From Alok Nath, Subhash Ghai, Vikas Bahl to Anu Malik, Sajid Khan—all have been accused as alleged sexual predators.

Renowned actress and filmmaker Nandita Das, whose father and famous painter Jatin Das too had been accused of harassment by as many as four women, recently spoke about the MeToo movement in India at the 24th Kolkata International Film Festival (KIFF).

Indianexpress.com quoted Nandita as saying, “We do not want to trivialise the movement. We have to ensure that any woman who is abused and has been in any way sexually assaulted must come out. This is not a man versus woman fight only. It is a fight against patriarchy. We also need men to be supportive of this kind of movement and not just women. Therefore we need to hear women out and not just make it an elitist thing and to remember that there are many women who are vulnerable all over our country who do not have the vocabulary of MeToo and do not use hashtags. They too are going through a lot of this kind of abuses that we all need to speak up about.”

“I think artists are constantly being divided by caste, creed and religion these days. Even the artists are self-censoring themselves. These are dangerous times and not enough artists are coming together and really speaking. When Safdar Hashmi was killed with whom I had worked for four years, spontaneously artists came on to the streets. We don’t have to wait for Safdar Hashmi and Gauri Lankesh to give up their lives for us to realise that we are living in times where this can happen to any of us. Definitely, we want to be stronger but we don’t want to be martyrs,” she added.

Nandita recently was in news for her controversial venture 'Manto' starring Nawazuddin Siddiqui in lead role and Rasika Dugal.