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HomeOpinion#MeToo blow could prove mortal to MJ Akbar the politician

#MeToo blow could prove mortal to MJ Akbar the politician

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MJ Akbar will find it difficult, if not impossible, to return to mainstream politics even if he wins the defamation case.

Union Minister of State for External Affairs M.J. Akbar’s resignation Wednesday may be the last we hear of him as a politician. At least in the near future.

Only the charitable will argue that Akbar’s resignation was voluntary. But given how this government functions, wait for reports suggesting he was told to quit by National Security Advisor Ajit Doval when they met Tuesday.

The first Indian politician to be felled by a hashtag, the mighty Akbar will find it difficult, if not impossible, to bounce back into mainstream politics even if he wins the defamation case that he has filed against journalist Priya Ramani.


Also read: India’s foreign office could not afford a man like MJ Akbar: Nirupama Rao on ThePrint


Unfortunately for Akbar, he has already been declared guilty in the court of public opinion. The general refrain being that 20 women don’t come forward to accuse someone of sexual harassment, decades after the alleged incidents, unless they have actually suffered at the person’s hands.

But why has Akbar resigned?

Weren’t we told that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party are “solidly” behind him? Weren’t there indications that he had gone to court — 97 lawyers in tow (a wrong claim) — only after the party and the government told him to do so?

Dispensable

Like most decisions in the Modi regime, the real reason behind why Akbar was asked to go suddenly, a day before a Delhi court begins hearing his petition against Ramani, remains shrouded in mystery. But there are some clues to piece together.

On Tuesday, the Congress leadership got National Students Union of India president Fairoz Khan, accused of sexual harassment charges, to quit his post.

News of Khan’s resignation was made public within minutes of Congress president Rahul Gandhi’s attack on Modi and the BJP for shielding Akbar — Gandhi didn’t take his name though.

This made amply clear that Congress was planning to launch more verbal attacks on the Modi government for allowing Akbar to continue in his post, something many within the BJP agree was hurting the ‘Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao’ slogan of the Prime Minister.

But Modi is not Sonia Gandhi or Manmohan Singh, who forced senior leaders like former Maharashtra chief minister Ashok Chavan (Adarsh scam), former railway minister Pawan Kumar Bansal (a corruption case involving nephew) or former law minister Ashwani Kumar (a coal allocation scam matter) to quit after their names cropped up in different cases.

As his close associates tell all and sundry, Modi doesn’t wilt under public or political pressure. The timing of his decisions is guided by a political sense.

After realising that the support for Akbar’s alleged victims was only increasing, with more names emerging of women who had allegedly faced harassment at his hands, and that the #MeToo movement required a scalp, Modi decided to sacrifice the former editor.

Akbar is not a grassroots leader with support among the voters — unlike say four-term MLA Kuldeep Singh Sengar, who continues to enjoy the party’s support despite being accused by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in a rape and murder case.

Akbar was expendable. And so he had to go.

Closure for his victims

For the almost two dozen women, who have come out to tell their stories of how Akbar allegedly tried to use his position as editor to sexually harass and assault them, the battle is going to be long and lonely.

In this age, where the average attention span is barely minutes and hashtags and breaking news change by the hour, the victims will need a lot of support and patience to take the battle to its logical conclusion, despite having won the first round.


Also read: Hang in there women, MJ Akbar is a victory, but the #MeToo fight is just starting


The venue will now shift from TV studios and Twitter to courtrooms, where resourceful men like Akbar have a huge advantage over others.

It’s here that the support of those who relentlessly went after Akbar on social media will be much required.

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2 COMMENTS

  1. Besharam arnab is doing chest thumping for his master for sacking akbar…. He is the most shameless journalist that our generation has seen

  2. My heart tells me it will not be David vs Goliath in the court. As Ms Kamini Jaiswal said on a TV programme, wait for Mr Akbar’s cross examination to start. Each woman will be deposing truthfully. None of them will wilt under pressure. The decision not to resign on Sunday morning was wrong. The decision to file a suit for criminal defamation against what was seen as the weakest link – since Ms Priya Ramani acknowledged nothing was “ done “ to her – equally so.

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