After singer Chinmayi shared her personal account of having faced sexual harassment, the MeToo movement gained momentum in the South Indian film industry. The singer has accused lyricist Vairamuthu of sexually harassing and following this, actor-politician Kamal Haasan was asked about the movement that has taken the country by storm and was questioned on the silence from one of the biggest film industries in the county. About this, the actor said that it would be inappropriate for outsiders to comment on the movement. He explained that the victims should be the only ones being heard now.

Kamal said to the press in Chennai on Friday, “It would be inappropriate for a third person to comment on an allegation and this wouldn’t be justified either. If a woman wants to come out and tell her story then there is no harm in that. We have seen women speak out against injustice since the days of Kannagi. What is required here is for the accusations to be genuine.”

The MeToo movement in India began with actor Tanushree Dutta accusing Nana Patekar of sexually harassing her while shooting a movie in 2008. Following this, a slew of accusations were made against men in Bollywood such as Vikas Bahl, Sajid Khan, Subhash Ghai and Luv Ranjan. The movement gained attention in the south after Chinmayi actively started to share victim’s accounts on her Twitter feed to help women stay anonymous.

Since then, accusations have been made against composer Raghu Dixit, who has apologised for his actions. Singer Karthik has also been accused of sexually harassing women.

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First Published: Oct 12, 2018 14:13 IST