Bollywood actress Preity Zinta's molestation case against her ex-beau Ness Wadia has sharply divided opinion on social media. A cluster of distinctly malicious comments have placed the blame on Zinta even before investigations started into the high profile case.
Zinta lodged a written complaint against Wadia with the Marine Drive police station last Friday accusing Wadia of grabbing her hand and abusing her during a cricket match in Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai on May 30.
Zinta's case is a classic example of Indian misogyny on Twitter and Facebook. Till his name is cleared, Wadia is the accused party in the case. Similarly, Zinta's allegations need to be established and proven by a court of law. And before either of those things happen, it is distasteful and downright disgraceful to shame a complainant of sexual abuse on public forums.
Consider for a moment that Zinta is speaking the truth. What are we saying about our attitude towards women victims of abuse when we call her an attention w**** and opportunist (as some people did on Twitter)?
Twitter users called Zinta an "ungrateful woman" who got the IPL ownership of Kings X1 Punjab because of Ness Wadia and accused her of staging the abuse to "return the favour". Others called her "a desperate soul, seeking media attention with her gimmicks". "She's a has-been". "Who would bother abusing Preity Zinta?" the amount of vitriol that people are capable of spewing is truly staggering. And all of this without proper cause.
This begs the question - if a well known public figure gets this kind of treatment on simply filing a case of molestation, what is the plight of an ordinary woman abused in our country?
It's completely all right to side with any of the party in the case but instead of waiting for the legal process to take its course, social media users seem to have found the woman guilty in this case and are shamelessly shaming her on every public forum.
In her open letter to the media Zinta said "No woman likes to be involved in a controversy like this which makes her open and vulnerable for all to take a dig at. I have worked for over 15 years in the film industry and have never been subject to such humiliating behaviour and for that i really want to thank all the men that worked with me. Through all our highs and lows my head was always held high."
Chauvinism is a very real thing on our social media sites. This demonization of sexual abuse victims (no matter Zinta or anyone else) need to be stopped.
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