‘Liberal’ historian William Dalrymple, part of the lobby that bullied Bloomsbury India publication to drop the book “Delhi Riots 2020: The Untold Story” authored by Advocate Monika Arora, Sonali Chitalkar and Prerna Malhotra, had made women feel uncomfortable with his “creepy behaviour” and was called out for his sexual overtures during the 2018 #MeToo movement.
The #MeToo movement had given many women the courage, strength and a platform to freely voice their opinion without fearing retaliation.
Over the years many women had kept quiet when it came to all types of harassment, particularly in the media, advertising, academia and the film industry which is wrought with instances of sexual harassment.
However, William Dalrymple being a celebrated author & historian and someone who is looked up by many people seems to have taken advantage of his position and had made moves on women that made them feel uncomfortable.
Dalrymple sent friend requests through Facebook and had asked out young women for drinks and dinner.
Scroll employee Karnika Kohli had put out a tweet in October 2018 in which she asked if no one will be talking about William Dalrymple, implying his attempts to make sexual moves on women.
Following this, women who felt uncomfortable around him or who had been engaging in conversations with him on social media accused him of flirtatious behaviour.
A girl named Preetha had received a friend request out of the blue which she had accepted being his fan. However, he started making her feel uncomfortable by complimenting her and even asked her out for dinner and drinks. When she replied that he might consider it, he had supposedly replied with ‘winks’ and ‘kissy smileys’.
But instead of questioning the sexual predator, people pounced on the prey. They had told Preetha that it is not wrong for someone to ask a woman out for dinner or drinks. This had forced her to write a long post where she said “It is disheartening not at all shocking that men are questioning my intentions instead of Dalrymple’s in this case although other women have shared that they have heard of/had similar encounters with him.”
Many other women followed suit and called out his attempts to make moves on them. A twitter user MissKandpal also said that she was asked out for dinner. “Creeped out to the core”, she wrote on her twitter.
Author and political analyst Shubhrastha had also received a random friend request and unsolicited messages from Dalrymple.
It is to be noted that Dalrymple is married and is father to three children. He spends most of his time in India to do research for his books which many historians claim is nothing but an attempt to whitewash the crimes of the Mughal empire and the colonial rule of the British.