Revealing out the past which has an adverse effect on your life is not an easy task and it becomes more difficult when you’re an internationally acclaimed journalist like Barkha Dutt. The strong lady disclosed about her past when she fell victim to the s*xual abuse as a kid and also about the incident where she was hit by a person whom she was having an affair with.
On Friday in New York, Barkha was participating in the “Women in the World Summit” where Menaka Guruswamy, a lawyer at the SC of India was also present and the host was Tina Brown and they were there to discuss the matter of gender and violence in India.
Barkha talked about an incident which took place in her childhood. She has written about it in her latest book, The Unquiet Land:
“I cannot with any honesty write about feminism, call myself a feminist, or talk about the need to lift the veil of silence and the conspiracy of silence around s*xual violence and abuse, if I’m not ready to break the silence in my own life.”
She also told what she feels now about the incident:
“It feels like yesterday, even sitting here today. I’m 44 years old, but I feel like I’m eight years old again. I can see that man’s face in my head every time I talk about it.”
She also became a victim of violence when she was hit by a person whom she was dating:
“I did try and come forward because I told myself that I’m not going to be silent. I could understand my silence as a child, but less so as an adult.”
She consulted the lawyers and told what they advised her as well as how she feels now:
“You’re going to waste your time. You’re going to be in court for the next 25 years. Nobody is going to believe you. You were dating this guy. They’re not going to even punish him. Just forget about it. I feel I should not have listened to those lawyers. I feel I should not have been defeatist. I should have gone to court because so what if it takes 20 years, it’s important.”
She also talked about the “contradictory culture” that we witness in India; on one side, a female is worshipped as Goddess while on the other side, she faces rape, violence and domestic abuse:
“(A law has) gone twice to Parliament, and parties that are headed by women have sent it back, as if to suggest that marriage is a license to rape. India is caught in the middle of that contradiction.”
The panel of ladies discussed Nirbhaya rape case too and its effects on the ladies who now gather courage to come out and reveal whatever they have borne in the past.