News18 Harassment of Dalit Woman at Workplace: Here is Why We Need to Document Every Bit of Everything

A mediaperson from Kerala, a Dalit woman who works for News18Keralam, a channel from the Network18 group owned by Reliance, attempted suicide last week, following harassment at workplace. It was caste based and gender based. [It wasn’t sexual as suggested by some social media posts.] Inji Pennu wrote about the incident and how Malayalee mediapersons practise misogyny and privilege of caste in workspaces. The woman is out of danger and intends to join back to work today or tomorrow. WASH stands in solidarity with her. This is a series that we are starting on various kinds of harassment at workplace in an attempt to document it as much as we can. - WASH]

Malayalee cine artist Parvathi had said in an interview that the practice of ‘casting couch’ existed in Malayalam cinema. The social reaction to this statement by her was along the vein of ‘In our Malayalee soil? How can it be?’ An MP of this ‘No.1 state’ called an actor who was denied bail twice on accusation of sexual harassment and asked him ‘Did you sexually harass a woman?’ He replied ‘Would I do something like that?’

A news producer from News18Keralam news channel tried to commit suicide unable to bear the mental harassment and caste discrimination from her superiors. Soon came knights of patriarchy saying ‘If I had made mistakes in work, my father would scold me too.’ ‘We’re all uncles who have reached here after crossing many such hurdles,’ they said, like a werewolves during full moon. These statements were ‘liked’ and endorsed by women journalists who had once run a campaign saying ‘I am a proud woman journalist’

It looks like the people who ran Facebook post counters during the Dileep issue are now, in this matter, taking lessons from Kukku Parameswaran, Mukesh, Ganesh Kumar et al. [Friends of actor Dileep who came to his defense when he was arrested on charges of sexually assaulting his fellow actress.] They are all slipping away in the mushy justifications about their friends. Sometimes they are not even friends. But they are bound by a Brahminical chord to maintain patriarchy.

That’s all their ideals amount to. Just till the fingers are pointed at themselves. You just have to poke a sensitive spot to see them forgetting their lines and exposing themselves. These are the same people who claim that they are fighting RSS on Facebook. Which RSS? The four or five cadres in Kerala? Are they referring to Facebook trolls when they say right wingers? Isn’t it an exaggeration like saying ‘we are guarding the Pakistan border’ when it is coming from the Left ruling, Communist stronghold, Kerala? That too from those journalists who hold editorial privileged posts that don’t even get them out of their rooms and who resort to helicopter journalism.

In workplaces created solely by savarna patriarchy, it might be possible that injustice is not even discerned. It’s in such micro-levels the savarna patriarchy operates. Backed by their privileges they are dominating even the alternative media. They don’t even realize that the absence of their opinion does zilch to social media and keep on creating male narratives through their unsolicited opinions.

The woman fought. She was still attacked and she is now in hospital. [Update: She is now out of danger and intends to join work today or tomorrow.] These narratives are being created deliberately and without even taking the effort to listen to her side of the story. They even scribble Dalit, gender hatred saying one might be ‘scared’ to recruit a woman and a Dalit. Whites often say that they are ‘scared’ to recruit Blacks and Asians. Yes, one should be scared, if they are aware of their rights. Dear sirs, please recruit people who don’t have an opinion, who don’t question you and put up with all insults and ignorance with a smile.

Below are a few lines from a Facebook post that K J Jacob, a journalist with the Deccan Chronicle wrote. ‘I believe that when problems arise in workplaces, the laws constituted especially for that should be used. If laws made for protecting the interests of the weak sections of the society, it will, individually and socially have unwelcome repercussions. If a superior says that your work is not good, either accept it or prove that they are wrong.’

These words clearly show the absence of a political consciousness. From a position of privilege, a man is creating a narrative of threat by instructing how a victim of harassment at workplace should approach the problem. The victim should be ‘cordial’ and not question the misogyny and casteism or else it would result in ‘social repercussions.’

This is not the first time that K J Jacob is writing such violent misogyny. I need to talk about my own experience to show that he is a repeat offender. I was astonished by this ‘Dileep’ who was proudly displaying his designation as the editor of a media house on Facebook and yet writing such blatant misogyny on is wall. Astonished because in Malayalam, a place where there are laws regarding cyber spaces as a section called ‘electronically transmitted,’ someone in a senior position in media can write so openly and shamelessly with sexual connotations. 

K J Jacob, holding the post of the editor with Deccan Chronicle, during an argument on Facebook insulted me by calling me ‘chechi’ [Chechi literally means elder sister but is largely used by Malayalee males in a sexually suggestive manner. You can see it in a lot of porn titles available online and offline.] and said that I had reached where I live without intellect. He even resorted to victim shaming and victim bashing with me, a victim of cyber violence.

As always, I put an end to it after posting my retort. I also removed him from my list so as to remove him from my space. It is later, when I saw that he was mocking me overtly and covertly and insulting me indirectly that I decided to post on my personal blog as a documented evidence. I felt that it was time I started documenting this power grid of patriarchy. Otherwise, after every instance of violence, people would forget it and yet again, younger generations and others would be subjected to new violence from the same people.

An organization called WASH (Women Against Sexual Harassment) noticed this post. They felt that since the perpetrator was someone who held a position of power at Deccan Chronicle, they should respond to it. They contacted the Chief Editor of Deccan Chronicle, A T Jayanti and explained what K J Jacob had done. I was curious to know how the complaint from WASH would be taken up by a media house. I didn’t even expect a reply. But they got one from A T Jayanti.

She said that they would take legal action against WASH and that their editor had never faced any such allegation. That when they inquired about it to K J Jacob, he had said that he considered himself to be a decent person and he called his sisters ‘chechi’. It is evident from this incident how immature media houses are in handling such violence.

Mine was a complaint from an ‘outsider,’ someone who is outside their control and even their space. So then imagine the kind of violence that such media houses must be allowing to thrive by threatening and insulting within their four walls. The people to whom complaints are made would be those who flock around the ‘popular’ star and protect them. It is therefore not coincidental that K J Jacob defends a case that reached the police and trivializes it, saying that ‘I was also chided in work’ and that it was just carelessness during work. They are that good at maintaining the micro aggression. 

They are, standing knee deep in their privileges, trying to trivialize, make invisible and deny the lived experience of another person. Of a Dalit woman who not only didn’t have any privilege to help her in getting a job but also had to fight in her workspace to keep it.

Don’t you remember Dileep and his friends chanting ‘who can know my heart’s pain?’ It is a cry of help when they see they privileges being shaken. If there did not exist social media that don’t have editors, how much violence would they have crushed under their feet, still unaware of the changing times!