A day after his sister Reihana backed the allegations of singer Chinmayi Sripaada against veteran lyricist Vairamuthu, AR Rahman has taken to Twitter to break his silence on the #MeToo movement. Something that has already ravaged reputations within Bollywood, the Indian stand-up comedy scene and Indian journalism, has reached the Tamil & Kannada film industries too.
Rahman said in his statement that he was ‘shocked’ by some of the names that were coming forward, as both victims and perpetrators. And that he is always for anything that makes the industry a ‘cleaner’ place. One of the biggest weights in Kollywood (along with India), this endorsement comes as a boost to survivors of harassment.
— A.R.Rahman (@arrahman) October 22, 2018
However, the Dil Se composer also warned the public about the ill-effects of a ‘Kangaroo court’ that social media can become. And that we should allow for a ‘new form of justice system’ in case, someone tries to ‘misuse’ it for personal gains.
A singer/composer in her own right, Reihana, appeared on a TV show and claimed to have heard similar stories from many other women, for a long time. And yet, she undid most of her good work by comparing women to ‘open food’ and calling men ‘flies’.
Someone in my office wanted to ask Reihana, so what if food is left closed forever, won’t it rot? She was victim shaming. But women doing that isn’t a surprise. Which is WHY we focused on the main issue, what she said about Vairamuthu https://t.co/h7TBC3JvfV
— Dhanya Rajendran (@dhanyarajendran) October 23, 2018
One of Tamil cinema’s popular lyricists, Vairamuthu, has worked with AR Rahman from the days of Roja to as recently as O Kadhal Kanmani.
Chinmayi Sripaada’s allegations have been supported by actors Siddharth and Prakash Raj, who said that it warranted an investigation at the very least. And that has also prompted actors like Sruthi Hariharan to speak about an incident of being inappropriately touched by actor Arjun Sarja, something that was backed by many anonymous junior artists on the film set. Lakshmy Ramakrishnan too, spoke up about how PR Nikkil Murugan repeatedly ‘crossed the line of modesty’ with her.
