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FOR once issues related to the safety, agency and dignity of women in public and workspaces (though less in the home) have come to dominate public discourse. Yet, as the continuing debate, expectedly though unfortunately fractious and possibly partisan, over the Me Too movement outing prominent personalities in India demonstrates, celebrations treating the moment as a decisive turning point in the continuing battle against a culture of entrenched male privilege and impunity appear premature. The blowback has already begun.

In part this is because previous attempts at ‘naming and shaming’ following the Harvey Weinstein exposures failed to gather adequate steam. The widely circulated list of prominent academics ‘charged’ with misusing their position and authority to harass and sexually intimidate ‘vulnerable’ junior female colleagues and students, after the initial shock value faded out, this despite widespread knowledge of the prevalence of such behaviour. Barring the rare exception, few institutional spaces responded empathetically to the allegations, more concerned about potential loss of institutional reputation than ensuring justice to the ‘victim’. Even fewer made any attempt to strengthen the institutional mechanisms, and processes mandated under law to investigate and redress grievances related to sexual misconduct at the workplace.

The responses this time around, at least in the world of media and entertainment, generate greater hope with not only more women but men too coming out in support of ‘victims’ willing to publicly share their stories. Already many prominent personalities have been forced to apologize. Some have even had to step down or lose contracts as colleagues, friends, and even families have lined up against them. So far so good. But will this go further and help craft the social environment to facilitate institutional change? Already we are hearing complaints about kangaroo justice, dilution of the standards of due process and settling of individual scores and pursuit of individual agendas, a familiar trope in all situations when established social hierarchies and norms are sought to be challenged. An equally insidious form of undermining these fledgling attempts is to argue that this is but an intra-elite battle, that the real battle is about the many more, less glamorous unnamed victims, hinting that if permitted to continue unchecked, the current process will irretrievably damage prospects of a harmonious work environment since every action will now be read through a different lens marked by distrust.

Though tendentious and self-serving these and other similar arguments undermining attempts at gaining social equality cannot be lightly dismissed. There is little doubt that the ‘naming and shaming’ strategy is a blunt instrument, likely in its wake to seriously damage ‘innocents’ even as it ‘outs’ well entrenched, privileged perpetrators. It is also true that allegations are no proof of misconduct, social or legal. The process, even when it results in the ultimate vindication of the accused, leaves the person scarred. Equally, and this is rarely stressed sufficiently, recourse to ‘naming and shaming’ emanates from the weaknesses of the redressal system. The case against a prominent environmental academic has been dragging on for years, seemingly nowhere close to resolution. The fact that there is little empathy for the alleged ‘victim’ or social support only strengthens suspicion that such delays favour the powerful. Should we then be surprised that so many of those at the receiving end of social unconcern and institutional apathy favour recourse to blunt instrumentalities.

In all situations when attempts have been made to ‘tweak’ conventional legal procedures to strengthen the prospects for justice for social groups – lightening the burden of proof, reversal of the presumption of innocence – and so on, because of recognition that conventional arrangements are inadequate, a hue and cry is raised about dilution of due process, most often by powerful groups now in the dock. Note the growing demand towards a reworking of these laws, seen as too harsh and unfair. And while this charge cannot be summarily dismissed, we equally need to recognize the fact that in our current system an overwhelming majority of such cases go unreported, are hushed up, do not enter the legal system, and in the rare cases they do, drag on for an inordinately long period and rarely result in conviction. Is this not subversion of justice?

Finally, it is worth considering why in matters of national security there is rarely a similar demand about burden of proof, the rights of the accused, or due process. If at all there is a growing clamour for further strengthening illiberal laws. In that lies a tale.

Going forward as a society we need to recognize the urgency of changing our social attitudes, reforming the social environment and strengthening institutional processes of redressal and justice. If not, fair or otherwise, we will experience more episodes of a Me Too like upsurge.

Harsh Sethi