Rape-Accused Alok Nath Gets a Meaty Role in De De Pyaar De...Why?

In the wake of the country’s #MeToo movement last year, Alok Nath was accused of rape by Vinta Nanda.

Rape accused Alok Nath in De De Pyaar De. 

(Photo: YouTube/De De Pyaar De) 

Congratulations! Rape accused Alok Nath has finally been rehabilitated and women from across the country are heaving a sigh of relief. He, in fact, was among the 6.1% Indians who are unemployed, except that his unemployment was a bit of a different kind.

In the wake of the country’s #MeToo movement last year, Alok Nath was accused of rape by writer and director Vinta Nanda. After she called him out, her courage gave strength to several other women who also accused him of sexual harassment.

The Bollywood industry as a result, vowed not to hire the sexual harassment accused in future projects.

Women filmmakers, too, joined hands to support people sharing their stories of sexual harassment and decided not to work with any proven offender. Critically-acclaimed directors such as Konkona Sensharma, Nandita Das, Meghna Gulzar, Gauri Shinde, Kiran Rao, Reema Kagti and Zoya Akhtar were among the eleven women filmmakers who pledged their support to India's #MeToo movement.

In fact, Ajay Devgn himself tweeted in support of the movement. He said that he and his company will stand against the person who has wronged a woman...ahem!

Yet, no amount of activism could help Alok Nath not get the job. In fact, this isn’t the only movie that he will be starring in. The rape accused will play a judge in a movie called Main Bhi. He stars as the judge who gives judgments on matters of rape, sexual harassment and women’s rights – puts the perpetrators to task, basically.

Also Read: #Metoo Is the Single Most Important Political Movement: Shobhaa De

So, the guy has been unemployed for a brief period of time but has luckily waded his way back and with a vengeance.

Let’s look at the Hollywood – director Ridley Scott had set an example by replacing MeToo-accused actor Kevin Spacey with Christopher Plummer in his movie All The Money In The World just weeks before the film's release in 2017. Ridley Scott re-filmed chunks of the movie with Christopher Plummer, who also received an Oscar nomination in the Best Supporting Actor category.

Also Read: Next Step in ‘Me Too’ Is for Employers to Act: Urvashi Butalia

When PTI asked Ajay Devgn about the allegations against Alok Nath and the reasons for which he was chosen, he simply said:

“This is not the right place to talk about it. And jinki aap baat kar rahe hai woh film uske pehle complete hui (the film was completed before the allegations surfaced against the concerned person).”

The director, Luv Ranjan too was accused of sexual harassment. However, he unequivocally denied any allegations against him, and apologised to women whom he may have ‘hurt’.

The allegations against Ranjan couldn’t keep him from getting more projects and the hypocrisy of Bollywood has been made crystal clear – it’s easy to tweet about being woke, really tough to practice it.

The trailer has several issues as well, such as pitting two women against each other and reducing each of their lives to appeasing one coveted man. Age-shaming, casual misogyny are several other tropes that the movie has been perfectly peppered with.

But, a trailer usually is hardly a depiction of what the film will be like. Thus, we will wait for the movie to release before we issue a full-blown advisory for or against it. Till then, we are (un)happy that atleast some people are getting their jobs back, so what if they are accused of sexual harassment? Right Bollywood?

Also Read: Journalist Accuses Author Saif Mahmood of Sexual Harassment