ME TOO: "I WAS LUCKY TO HAVE HAD WOMEN WHO SLAPPED ME"

Anurag Kashyap is one of the most popular directors in the Indian film industry. He was associated with the now defunct Phantom productions, but that got dissolved after sexual harrassment allegations were made against Vikas Bahl, who was also one of the partners in the production. 

Manmarziyaan director Anurag, has now stepped down from the post of the director of one of India's most popular film festivals. He took to Twitter to post a series of tweets, where he clarified his stance on the recent Me Too Movement.

"In the light of the current events , I have decided to step back from my duties as a board member from MAMI until the shadow of doubt of our alleged complicitness in silence and not doing anything about it , is cleared.

On the other hand I vehemently deny to have stayed silent on the issue & not doing anything about it for years. Can’t explain further to people who don’t understand due process, legalities. Have been resilient through all accusations , keep flinging them my way.

The accused was named and shamed a long time back. For people who don’t read the details & only the headlines, I have no response. A lot of women work with me and have been around , I am answerable to them & they stand witness to our actions &our struggle to do the right thing.

Let the purging continue .. it’s as good a time as any for all of us to introspect , look into ourselves and see how we all have been complicit in so much,with our silence, forced by fear of consequence or by choice.

In more than a year I have questioned myself a lot, reflected on every single date I went to, every interaction of mine with the opposite sex, every encounter all that I could recall.

And my greatest and simplest learning is that the line of consent is not just defined by “No” , most times it’s before that “No” is uttered. And the line of consent depends on the person that owns the consent. It varies from person to person.

It’s our conditioning, even for the most woke people. Most of us are still learning , everyone who claims to know what it means , and I talk about us men , we really don’t know . None of us know . It can’t and should not be defined so simply.

It begins with respecting the individuality and acknowledging the ownership the other has over herself, and continuing awareness of it. My mind has been restless over many day/nights &more I read everyone’s accounts , it keeps adding to it.

I feel like just apologising for being a man. I use to feel I have come a long way from growing up in a smalltown &today I feel like somehow I am still there. There is so much I really don’t see & also see others around me pretending to see & I feel ,”inko bhi kahan dikhta hai”

I was lucky to have had women who slapped me from time to time to turn that boy who at 18 told the girl in his class “ladkiyon ko yeh nahin karna chahiye “ to whoever I have become today.But I also wonder ,why & when did they stopped slapping me and thought it’s enough. It isn’t."