Muslim MeToo
12–10–2018, Mumbai, India: Stories are important … They can be more important than anything. If they carry the Truth.
Good Morning Everyone. It’s the Friday Post on a sweaty Friday morning. The #MeToo movement has finally come to India. Actress Tanushree Dutta’s interview where she accused actor Nana Patekar of having behaved inappropriately with her led to an avalanche. Many women relived the stories of horrors they faced. Tough as they were to hear, I am pretty sure they were tougher to recount and retell. Thankfully, some were listening.
In the days following Tanushree’s interview, author Chetan Bhagat, actors Alok Nath and Rajat Kapoor, comedian Utsav Chakraborty, Journalist and Minister MJ Akbar, singer Kailash Kher, and directors Vikas Bahl and Sajid Khan were accused by women of crimes ranging from harassment to rape. The whirlwind also brought to fore the silence of other powerful men around them; comedians Tanmay Bhat and Gursimran Khamba were forced to abdicate their positions at their firm AIB and Vikas Bahl’s Phantom productions shut shop. The movement caught on in neighbouring Pakistan too. While a few months ago, Meesha Shafi’s complaint against Ali Zafar went largely unheeded, Junaid Akram and Faisal Edhi were accused this time and there seems to be a wave of sympathy for their victims. Not all, of course, is hunky dory — Chetan Bhagat’s act was seen as a case of flirtation by quite a few and poet-writer Varun Grover was also named in what is being seen as a false accusation. The movement can be misused, but what can’t be? There is a need to listen to women and not get into victim-shaming, while at the same time ensuring that no one is judged guilty without adequate proof.
I have spoken previously of the need for Muslims to provide sex education to the children of our community. I argued it’s important in the face of growing sexual violence and also the opening up of society. As more and more Muslims claim spaces that weren’t theirs so far, they also come in contact with more members of the opposite sex, both Muslim and non-Muslim. It becomes imperative that we learn about what constitutes acceptable and unacceptable behaviour. Today, I am going to build on that in the light of the MeToo movement.
I grew up believing that sexual crimes were a western thing — my small Muslim world is holier-than-thou. It turns out I am not alone in this; a few of my Muslim friends have told me they felt the same. Given that we have always regarded talking about such things as taboo, our own female relatives don’t open up to anyone if they are subjected to such abuse and harassment. Ours is perhaps the first generation where Indian Muslim women from simpler and average families are accessing education. Some of them are also making it to the workplace — requiring them to leave the confines of their homes. By not making it easy for them to speak out, we have also made it tough for them to speak up. It won’t surprise me if many Indian Muslim women would feel uncomfortable challenging someone who catcalls them in the street or brushes against them in a Metro. In short, we are fostering a system where women are given a voice that is curtailed whenever it challenges a man.
There is also the case of sexual harassment — of both and women — in our religious institutions. While it has long been alleged that mentally unstable women left at some shrine believing they can be cured are often assaulted, it shook me to learn that even our madrasas are not safe from this practice. In her brilliant book, The Good Muslim, Tahmima Anam talks of the son of one of the protagonists being sexually assaulted by the teacher at the madrasa. Set in Bangladesh, this is a story that doesn’t get enough credence in our society. Even though there are a few reports here and there of a madrasa teacher being arrested, the problem could be more rampant that we admit it to be. This issue got some media attention in the West when prominent scholar Tariq Ramadan was accused of sexual assault and rape by two women, again leading to quite a few Islamic scholars being named. However, as is wont, we brushed it aside after terming it a Zionist conspiracy to defame Islam.
Perhaps the most appalling of all such incidents was the harassment of female pilgrims on Haj which led to the #MosqueMeToo movement started by Egyptian-American journalist Mona Eltahawy wrote about her experiences of facing such abuse which encouraged a lot of women in Pakistan and India to speak up. The invisible hand of Western propaganda that we see every time we are asked to look inward and introspect once again reared itself to crush their hopes. Nevertheless, it was a start.
Then, of course, comes the completely hush-hush topic of sexual misconduct within the family. Like all Indian families, we also believe such a thing to be impossible and an entirely Western phenomenon. We perhaps believe that our spiritual upbringing and the Qurán that forever adorns only our bookshelf will not let this happen in our homes. There is no need to bury our heads in the sand like an ostrich and imagine the world to be a good place. There have been cases of rape committed by the family members in the past. A very notorious case was where the father-in-law raped a woman in a village in Uttar Pradesh and the local panchayat ruled that this rendered her ‘unlawful’ (mine) for her husband. Better sense prevailed and the father-in-law was arrested, tried, and sentenced to ten years after being found guilty of rape.
Lastly, there’s the case of what I call “1400-years-ago” syndrome. I noticed a few Muslims on Twitter, in the wake of the MeToo hashtag, coming out and proclaiming how the Islamic system of “purdah” — from 1400 years ago — would have prevented all this. Some also termed the harassment and abuse women have faced a Western invention which does not exist in Islamic societies because of the rights that are given to them in Islam, again, 1400 ago. It’s not within the scope of this article to defend or criticise women rights in Islam nor is it my intention today. What is important is to realise that the threat women — and sometimes men — face is real and there’s no reason to bring Islamic pride to this discussion.
As I tried to say in “Let’s Talk about Sex”, a lot needs to change. We can all collectively do our bits and hope. Listen. Lend a year. Not judge. Create an environment in our homes which allows people to talk. Talk about their fears. Talk about what they have been through. We can also lend a hand in this. At least we can say a prayer for a better world where good wins over evil and people are not afraid of what’s not their fault. Till then, live long and prosper.
The author is a routine Engineer-MBA with a nine-to-undefined job and lives under the illusion that he can write. He also blogs here.
