At a media interaction on 26 October, the Malayali actor-turned-politician tried to turn his reel-life into real life. Once known mainly for his cine-avatar as the perpetually-angry, elite-justice hungry, thoroughly-misogynist ‘hero’ characters (yes, despite some better roles), Mr Gopi behaved with unbelievable condescension towards a woman journalist who asked him a question. Instead of answering her in a meaningful and civil manner, he turned into one of his obnoxious on-screen avatars. He put his hand on her shoulder and addressed her as ‘mole’ (daughter, literally, but also a condescending reference used by male lovers/husbands to refer to their loves/wives). She was clearly unhappy with the gesture, and backed away. Probably because the man has now become actually indistinguishable from the rotten, stinking masculinity he represents on-screen — knowingly or otherwise — he put his hand right back on her shoulder.

Quite understandably, the woman, and all sensible people around, were incensed by the man’s naked impudence. A controversy followed after which he ‘apologised’, claiming no ill (read sexual) intent, and that he merely thought of her as his ‘daughter’. ‘Men’s rights’ voices are a big presence in Kerala now, and incels are prominent on social media as well. They rallied to his support, like in earlier instances of public misogyny. Women lined up on the road to hug him (but then even Trump had a massive female following). Women’s groups, the State Women’s Commission, and professional associations condemned his behaviour and called for punitive action. Soon, the Kerala police filed a case of sexual harassment at workplace against him. This triggered even more raucous support from misogynist groups of all sorts: Trumpist female fans, miserable incels, frustrated older men, right-wingers of all sorts including BJP supporters, male and female.

But curiously enough, even some left supporters felt that the man was being wronged though they claimed to detest the man, his mannerisms, words, and politics. Autorickshaw drivers are an excellent group to gauge the reactions of working-class men, and so I asked the auto-rickshaw driver today about Mr Gopi and the case. “I can’t stand the man,” the driver said. “His very face sickens me, so I pity the journalists who have to speak with him.” Then he paused for a moment and said, “But this case is wrong.” He seemed to be still thinking about it when I asked “Why?” “Because, Madam,” he said, “this may not be sexual. He may be a jackass, but all jackass behaviour is not sexual, is it?” “Do you think all jackass behaviour has to be sexual?” I asked him in return. He seemed to be mulling on it till we reached. When I was about to leave, he said “Madam, no, you are right. It doesn’t have to be sexual.”

I think that it where the current dominant mode of addressing harassment at workplace is serving the larger interests of patriarchy more, and that of women, less. The law is usually interpreted to be dealing with sexual harassment, as though denigration in gendered terms can be forgiven. If the aim of the law is to assure women of a safe workplace, then the law needs to be interpreted in more liberal terms. Yes, we do know that jerks do not necessarily have to use sexually-coloured gestures or remarks to put you down.

Indeed, when we adopted the law against sexual harassment at workplace at the place where I work, Centre for Development Studies at Thiruvananthapuram, we also included the category of gendered insults and not just sexual remarks etc. among the sources of insecurity at workplace for women. For example, taunts of laziness against breast-feeding mothers who had to take breaks to feed their children, or snide remarks about young women faculty allegedly not publishing enough ‘even though’ they were unmarried. This decision was born out of the experience of women academics — that we are often put down not through sexually-coloured remarks, but also through gendered insults. Trying to force these acts into the category of sexually-coloured remarks is deeply counter-productive; instead, the law needs to be interpreted in ways that secure its ends. In such a reading, gendered insults are as pernicious as sexually-coloured remarks as far as the woman’s sense of well-being and security at work is concerned — and should be treated as equally damaging.

The ambiguity that Suresh Gopi’s misogynist following has exploited is precisely that between a sexually-coloured remark and a gendered insult. In this case, it could well be either. Both are equally harmful, but when the common understanding of the law penalises sexually-coloured misbehavior and words, it often gives a completely clean chit to the other. And because charges of sexual misbehaviour attract a heavy penalty, and also because parties in power are known to use them against their political opponents (alone — a practice rampant in present-day Kerala), it is easy to gather sympathy for the offender. Especially when he is backed by a powerful political party in the state.

Mr Gopi’s act was no doubt totally condescending — irrespective of whether ‘mole’ was sexually-coloured or not, it reduced the woman journalist who was working to a mere child and occupied a place of power, that of the father, over her. In this way, he disrupted her work, making it impossible for her to secure a valid and sensible answer from him to her question (which is her work), because he assumed her to be juvenile. And refused to correct himself even when she clearly indicated her displeasure by moving away. There can be no two views on this: this was a gendered insult, and just because the law mentions explicitly (and explicitly does not mean ‘only’) remarks, behaviour, gestures etc that are sexually-coloured, that does not mean that gendered insults are benign. Even if the man escapes the law through a weak interpretation of the law, he should be held to account in all public fora — and the utterly juvenile behaviour he has displayed towards the press since then should be condemned in no uncertain terms.

This man is a former BJP Rajya Sabha MP and the present Chairman of the (hapless!) Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute now, but he now apparently shoos away journalists saying “no touching, no touching!” How pathetic! Overall, it is he who has unraveled into an ill-behaved child, given easily to public tantrums.

I however knew another Suresh, son of Gopinatha Pillai, back in Kollam in my childhood, when his fame was strictly limited. He used to come to our house, being a friend of my older brother’s, and the son of my parents’ friends. I remember him as a vulnerable young man, the exact opposite of the vulgar violent masculine roles he has played in his infamous movies. He would come to also speak with my mother, who was a respected medical doctor, about his life, plans and worries. I distinctly remember the lines of worry we often saw on his face, about his future, his family. I was just a little girl. Like many adults back then, he would try to test my English spelling (if I am not mistaken, back then, he was a student in a local college, in an English MA course). It was always a joke at home that I never once got a spelling wrong when he tested me, but often, he failed to spell the words that I put to him. This was a young man on the brink of full-manhood who could still laugh at himself when a twelve-year-old-girl bested him in English.

What happened to that young man who was so desperate to get into the movies but still wanted to do his duty to his loved ones, not disappoint them, who took advice from women, who did not mind being corrected and outwitted by a little girl? He was like the many, many young people of his generation, and of this generation too — never nasty, never ill-behaved even if all the privileges given by his birth had been sedimented in him already. Over the years, he became a ‘star’ — in Malayalam movies — beefy brainlessness incarnate as masculine violence on-screen. By the time I had my little girls, I wouldn’t let them watch his movies, because this man, who once wanted to be a language teacher (if I remember right), was now the reigning on-screen theri-teacher (or the teacher of expletives) to his cine audience, especially young boys crazed by his aggressive mannerisms. But still I continued to think that this was, after all, just a screen-image.

Then, when he joined the BJP, I read it as the savarna-roots pushing out new shoots. That he was just a part of the neo-savarna social formation that had taken shape in the late twentieth century in Kerala. I was not surprised by his less-than-discerning responses in many public issues. The old wisdom of power corrupting and absolute power corrupting absolutely ring so true.

Suresh Gopi is the best illustration of what the (illusion of) absolute power that the BJP deludes its faithful with: it turns an ordinary young man with mediocre skills but a thousand worries into an inflated ego-balloon flying high buoyed by the hot air of majoritarian hubris, misogynist patriarchy, and casteist privilege. All of which makes him oblivious to the prospect of having a rough landing if the hot air is not released prudently. And women in Kerala are surely not obliged to bear that gust of hot wind imprudently released.