As a powerful movement ploughs through the nation, finding ground has become difficult. Whom to believe, what is right, we don’t know anymore.

Both comedian Mallika Dua and actor-filmmaker Nandita Das have made a career out of standing up for the right, deconstructing the difficult and breaking stereotypes. But today, when their support could have added the much-needed gravitas to survivor stories of the #MeToo movement, showing millions of people what to do when the storm hits home, they, sadly, have chosen the easy way out.

No, it is neither about Mallika nor Nandita. It is about their fathers, both noted personalities, who stand accused of sexual harassment. Though veteran journalist Vinod Dua has partially responded via his show on a website, celebrated painter Jatin Das, who is also a Padma Bhushan awardee, has called the allegations against him vulgar and the #MeToo movement “a game”.

"I am shocked. All kinds of things are happening these days…I don't know her, I have never met her, and even if I did meet somebody somewhere, one doesn't behave like this. It is vulgar. There is a game going on, some people are real, have done some things, while some people are making allegations for the fun of it,” he told PTI.

Had he ever been touched without his will or been sexually harassed in any other way, Jatin Das would have known that rarely does anyone name a sexual offender “for the fun of it”. He would have known that every person who discloses their identity in accusing another receives severe backlash both online and in real life, and runs the risk of losing their credibility. And it is not just the survivor, it is also their families and friends that suffer. This is why it takes great courage to share stories of sexual abuse, because more often than not they tend to define the people telling them.