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 "I feel God used me to start something which had to happen,"
Tanushree Dutta told Reuters. "All these women had this buried
deep in their hearts out of shame."
Dutta, who said she was inspired by Christianity, Buddhism, yoga
and the #MeToo movement in the United States, said last month
that prominent actor Nana Patekar had sexually harassed her on
the set of a movie in 2008.
Patekar has denied wrongdoing.
Dutta said Patekar, 67, had demanded she do intimate dance steps
with him in one song in the Hindi-language romantic comedy "Horn
OK Pleassss". When she refused, she said, members of a far
right-wing Hindu group attacked her car while she was in it,
including jumping on the roof and trying to smash the
windscreen.
Dutta, who walked out of the movie, went public with the
allegations the same day, but was threatened with legal action
by the Hindu group and felt so shamed by those questioning her
story and by the way the Indian media treated her that she left
Bollywood altogether and went to live in the United States.
Other than a few bit parts, she hasn't worked in a movie since.
"All of that disgusted me - it took my faith and confidence from
the industry," she said in an interview. "I didn't want to work
here. I still kept in touch and did some work which needed
short-term commitments."
Rajendra Shirodkar, Patekar's lawyer, has sent Dutta a legal
notice asking her to apologize to Patekar or face further legal
action. He hasn't specified what that action would be.
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The far-right group, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), this month
filed a complaint with the police against Dutta for comments she
made about their chief. The police in turn filed a defamation case
against Dutta, currently under investigation, based on the MNS
complaint.
Dutta, on holiday in Mumbai, said she hadn't intended to bring up
the issue in public again until she was asked by a reporter whether
the #MeeToo movement would ever come to India.
"My answer was that if what happened to me 10 years ago hasn't been
addressed and hasn't been brought to justice, then how can any
movement happen here?" Dutta said. She then repeated her allegations
from 2008.
The subsequent story on the Zoom TV channel set off a barrage of
other stories in the Indian media about her allegations.
This time, though, she didn't back off.
"I knew I had to keep the dialogue going ... and other women would
speak out. I was in it deep - there was no way out. I was not going
to cow down - not the second time for sure," she said.
Within days of her story hitting the headlines, a wave of
allegations - largely against figures in the media and entertainment
industries - has swept across social media in India.
(Reporting by Shilpa Jamkhandikar; Editing by Martin Howell and Nick
Macfie)
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