A new post on Medium believes that the entire incident was orchestrated because of something similar happening in a Nidhi Bisht-directed play
After an anonymous blog on sexual harassment titled 'The Indian Uber – That Is TVF' by a user called The Indian Fowler went viral, several women have come out on social media to say that they were sexually assaulted by the company’s founder and CEO Arunabh Kumar.
In the midst of these allegations, two blog posts have been doing the rounds – one on Reddit and the other on Medium, which is where The Indian Fowler first posted his/her allegations.
The Medium article written by Ravi Rao, a self-proclaimed fan of TVF’s work, says that while Rao was in IIT, he attended a play during the college’s theatre festival. “I happened to watch play called “Who Let the Dogs Out?” directed By Nidhi Bisht. It was a brilliant play but something happened during the act. A female member of the audience got up accusing the guy next to her of touching her inappropriately. The whole auditorium was shocked and many people were almost ready to beat the guy up. But it turns out that it was staged and it was all a part of the play. It was quite well done,” wrote Rao in the March 13 post.
Earlier, a Reddit user going by the name ‘self.india’ put this post.
Guys, the entire TVF drama is a PR stunt! from india
When people called out the post, saying the account self.india was created a couple of hours before the claim was posted, the individual resorted to his original handle tvf_mole to reiterate that it was a PR exercise.
Here’s the problem. If it is a PR exercise, both TVF and the alleged complainants will get into trouble. The Mumbai police has already reached out to the women who alleged they were sexually harassed or sexually assaulted by Kumar.
As per Section 182 of Indian Penal Code 1860, whoever gives to any public servant any information which he knows or believes to be false, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to six months, or with fine which may extend to one thousand rupees, or with both.
As Per Section 211 of Indian Penal Code 1860, whoever, with intent to cause injury to any person, institutes or causes to be instituted any criminal proceeding against that person, or falsely charges any person with having committed an offence, knowing that there is no just or lawful ground for such proceeding or charge against that person, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to two years, or with fine, or with both; and if such criminal proceeding be instituted on a false charge of an offence punishable with death, imprisonment for life, or imprisonment for seven years or upwards, shall be punishable with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to seven years, and shall also be liable to fine.
In an earlier piece, I had spoken of how individuals have started using social media to highlight sexual harassment. A survey by the Indian National Bar Association (INBA) conducted earlier this year, found that of the 6,047 participants (both male and female), 38% said they’d faced harassment at the workplace. Of these, 69% did not complain about it because many feared that complaining would result in their identities getting revealed, which could be followed by the individual becoming the topic of office gossip.
But social media complaints, too, have implications, as the Rohan Joshi case indicates. Without a police complaint, false allegations can cause irreversible damage. Joshi can consider himself lucky that the person came out within an hour to claim that the post was fake, but others may not be as fortunate.
In TVF’s case, if the claims that the entire episode is a PR exercise are true, we can only wonder how low a production house will stoop to get its ratings. In 2008, Mumbai Mirror carried a front page story about Malaika Arora and Arbaaz Khan going through a divorce. A day later, they realised that it was a publicity stunt for a fairness cream and published a story about how the journalist Vickey Lalwani was tricked. While the then-couple were criticised (they are currently separated), the difference between what they did and the claims that the sexual harassment chages against Arunabh Kumar are part of a PR stunt is that divorce is a more personal thing.
As for what is better for Kumar, it is clear that allegations of sexual harassment would be as bad as making false claims of sexual harassment just to promote a show.
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