Actor Rahul Ravindran rebuts Sowcar Janaki's insensitive remarks on 'Me Too'

Rahul, who is singer Chinmayi's husband, also wrote that he was proud to have married a 'brave heart'.
Actor Rahul Ravindran rebuts Sowcar Janaki's insensitive remarks on 'Me Too'
Actor Rahul Ravindran rebuts Sowcar Janaki's insensitive remarks on 'Me Too'
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Actor and director Rahul Ravindran, who is married to singer Chinmayi Sripada, has once again reiterated his unflinching support for the Me Too movement which hit the Indian art and culture scene in October this year. Rahul’s blog post comes in the wake of the insensitive remarks made by veteran actor Sowcar Janaki in an interview hosted by comedian and actor YG Mahendra.

Janaki, in the interview, questions the credibility of the women who have spoken up against their predators and calls the movement a ‘cheap publicity stunt’. Mahendra, on the other hand, eggs on Janaki to pronounce her verdict on the issue and approves of her snarky remarks.

Rahul’s blog, dedicated to the young girls out there, gives due respect to the senior artistes in their respective fields, but asks women to not listen to their advice on matters about which they have zero understanding.

“They are victims of the same centuries old conditioning that they are inadvertently trying to pass on to you. Before you realise it, you will be conditioned by their advice. You will lose your last drop of capacity for original thought,” he writes.

Rahul notes that if a woman is a victim of sexual harassment, there is nothing that she has to be ashamed of. He asks survivors to take their own time to come out of the trauma, and find the mental energy to talk about it. And most importantly, he asks victims to let the world know about their abusers, no matter how many long years it takes, because another young girl out there can also fall prey to similar crimes.

He further writes why one shouldn’t feel ashamed to talk about the abuse and adds that the only person to be ashamed should be the perpetrator. Rahul draws an analogy and asks why if in the case of a robbery, it’s the criminal who feels ashamed when caught, in the case of sexual abuse, it is the survivor who expected to feel ashamed.

“If these elders tell you otherwise, ask them if they felt any shame and stayed silent when they were robbed or pickpocketed or cheated. Ask them why in those cases it’s the criminal who should feel shame and why in this case it should be you. Ask them why they don’t think the perpetrator should feel even more shame than cheats and pickpockets who steal usually because of hunger,” he writes.

In a fitting rebuttal to Janaki’s comment where she talks about the shame that is brought upon the ‘revered men’, Rahul says that for centuries, the onus to prove abuse has always been on the shoulders of the survivor.

“Tell them that for centuries… millions and millions of ‘respected’ men have been getting away being serial predators. Ask them how long they will keep letting it happen and let these millions get away. Ask them why they’re so quick to defend the honour of a few who may be innocent and why they are so slow to empathise with the millions of victims that suffer,” writes the actor.

Rahul also talks about how the movement has been dubbed as a cheap publicity stunt and asks why women in power would ever do that, because all that the survivors receive in return is shame and humiliation. This also comes in the backdrop of singer Chinmayi Sripada, Rahul’s wife, being heavily let down by the Tamil film industry, after she spoke about the abuse she allegedly faced in the hands of lyricist and poet Vairamuthu.

Rahul has urged girls to support women like Chinmayi, Parvathy and Sruthi Hariharan so that someday, these women find justice. He points out that there was a time when women had to fight for their right to vote and that hopefully, there will come a time when women will be safe in this world in general.

The most endearing part of the blog is the note on which Rahul ends it. Calling Chinamyi a brave heart, he writes, “Much love and regards from a husband who is certainly not ashamed but is very proud to be married to a brave heart.”

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