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An Open Letter to Bhavana and Some Reflections on the Hostile Responses to it: Althea Women’s Friendship

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[This letter was written by Gayatri Devi, as the opening segment of the series of analyses that Althea hopes to collectively publish in the wake of the atrocious judgement passed by the Ernakulam Principal Sessions Court, written by the controversial judge Honey M Varghese, exonerating Dileep aka Gopalakrishnan in the actor assault case of 2017. The reflections on Dileep-supporters’ responses to it were written by J Devika.

In 2017, a leading female actor was kidnapped on her way back from work and raped by six men in a moving vehicle on the roads of the city of Kochi. The lead-rapist claimed to her that he was hired to do it. The alleged role of the actor Dileep in commissioning the horrifying act of violence, which was also filmed, has been at the centre of public outrage from 2017 to this day. Dileep’s role seemed to be strongly indicated by circumstantial evidence, however in the course of the trial, the advantages that he enjoyed seemed to surface repeatedly. The whole trial appeared to be an extended punishment of the survivor, and the culmination of it therefore was hardly unexpected. Nevertheless, the public, overwhelmingly with the survivor, has not taken the judgment lightly.

We believe that it is our feminist political responsibility to develop a critical discourse on on the normalization in Kerala of the insecure masculine that Dileep and his supporters represent, over the past three decades. The material we hope to examine includes the judgement itself as well as the many films that Dileep starred in, from the so-called ‘serious’ film he acted in directed by Adoor Gopalakrishnan, to his many slapstick comedies which became popular. The series is anchored by Gayatri Devi, and others will also contribute. This is the first in the series.]

Dearest Bhavana:

When I first heard the verdict in your 2017 case, in my mind, I silently thanked the fortuitousness of your name, “Bhavana.” Your name “Bhavana” means “imagination.” I thanked your name, because I believed that the strength to process the disillusionment and dissatisfaction that beset you upon hearing the wrong verdict was contained in your name. You must remember this fact. You must not forget this fact. You own a precious name. Your name embodies a precious truth.

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Keep Calm and Carry On: Dealing with Patriarchal Carpet Bombing in Kerala

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For all women in India, what is happening in Kerala should be an eye-opener.  This is how Indian society rewards you for reaching the top, aspiring seriously to be on top, and actually asking questions to authorities about why they keep drawing on women’s energies and resources while simultaneously undermining the very ground on which they survive. In Kerala, two things are going on: there is on the one hand, a vicious gang led by Rahul Easwar which is openly threatening women who would dare to enter Sabarimala with the worst kinds of violence, on the other, the horrid misogyny of the press was revealed at the press conference held by the Women in Cinema Collective who expressed their deep disquiet at the way in which the organization of cinema actors, AMMA, and its president Mohanlal, were eager to protect oppressors and ignore survivors. Also, even male intellectuals who have been very supportive of feminist and gender justices causes have been named in the MeToo campaign among journalists in Kerala.

Kerala is a society where, in the past twenty years, we have seen women come up everywhere — in journalism, literature, academics, cinema, architecture, engineering, art, management, sports, trade unionism, activism. Women in Kerala have been the force of social democratizing as evident from the struggles ranging from the Munnar tea garden workers’ struggle to the brave nuns protesting against sexual violence. For sure, a very large number of women in Kerala are ultra-conservative, and that is apparent both in their presence in the muck that Easwar and his gang are raking up in Kerala, as well as in the shameless way in which some of them were emboldened to hurl caste insults at the Chief Minister of Kerala. This is therefore reminiscent not so much of the Battle of Britain in World War II, but for the Battle of Stalingrad — which was heavily bombed by the Luftwaffe, even as there was hand-to-hand combat on the ground for control of the tiniest slices of the city, and where the city residents were often subject to the terrors of both the Nazi and the Soviet sides alike.

If you want to see male hubris overflowing, please take a look at this video, of https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2FWomeninCinemaCollectiveOfficial%2Fvideos%2F249328929064857%2F&show_text=0&width=267“>the press conference held by the Women in Cinema collective. All I can tell us all is, Keep Calm and Carry on. After all, unlike in the World War II, the ammunition of these creeps need not hurt us at all; it can make it only more powerful.