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NWMI comes out in support of ‘accomplished poet and writer’ Meena Kandasamy, maintains stoic silence on her ‘Brahmin di*ks’ comment

January 2, 2021
The Commune

The Network of Women in Media, India (NWMI) on Friday (January 1, 2021) issued a statement condemning the “targeting and harassment of ‘writer-activist’ Meena Kandasamy” and said that it stands in solidarity with her while not uttering a word about the derogatory comment made by the ‘acccomplished poet and writer’ on a particular community.

Calling Meena Kandasamy as an ‘internationally acclaimed writer’, the statement said that “she consistently raised her voice against fascist forces, religious intolerance, and caste violence in her home state of Tamil Nadu and elsewhere”.

“She is frequently a target of vitriol in online spaces, but over the past few days, the harassment, ugly as it is, now includes character assassination as well.” the statement reads.

While the NWMI’s statement makes the effort to trace the point from which the issue developed, it does not mention about the comment made by the ‘accomplished poet and writer’ where she had made derogatory remarks against one particular community which invited severe backlash.

The ‘writer-activist’ tweeting The Commune’s article that elaborated on the rhetorics peddled in The News Minute’s article, while flaunting her credentials also made vitriolic comments against Brahmins by calling them ‘dicks’.

She also went on to ask if there are any Brahmin women who have achieved what she has at 36 following which many netizens on Twitter several condemned the language of the ‘accomplished writer and poet’ while addressing the point she had raised in her tweet.

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She had also abused another ‘neutral’ political commentator taking a dig at his Brahmin origins.

This fact does not find a place in NWMI’s statement which defended the ‘writer-activist’ saying that she ‘defended the piece and her right to be featured in it, enumerating her literary accomplishments’.

“In response, aside from relentless trolling, some sections have sought to sully her reputation and muddy the waters by resorting to an attack on her character. She has been accused of misleading people about her caste and appropriating the struggles of Dalits in the process. However, in her own writings she has made it clear that she is the product of an inter-caste union between a man from the Andi Pandaram community, classified as MBC in Tamil Nadu, and a woman from an OBC community.”, the statement read.

In a press release issued by the ‘writer-activist’s’ ex-husband Gunasekharan Dharmaraja, he raised questions about her Dalit origins adding that her mother belongs to a forward caste and her father a member of the Other Backward Caste (OBC). He alleged that Meena Kandasamy had been trying to extort money from him to withdraw the case slapped against him. He also added that that the ‘writer-activist’ has not been cooperative in court proceedings and has failed to appear before the XVIII Metropolitan Magistrate Court-Saidapet.

However, the NWMI statement highlighting the above matter noted in its statement “A perusal of the case status from 2014 to the present shows that the details of the case have been distorted. Such allegations and character assassination are some of the oldest tricks deployed to silence the voices of women.”

“The most egregious of accusations against Meena are that as a feminist she could not have been in an abusive marriage, and if she was in such a marriage, she could not be a feminist. Around the world, survivors of intimate partner violence know this to not only be untrue but to be an actively harmful insinuation that holds women in abusive circumstances back from speaking out and seeking help. As feminists we fight daily against our oppression as well as against our own social conditioning. Too many of us are survivors of physical and sexual violence. To deride Meena’s feminism or experience of violence, is to indulge in victim-blaming and shaming in such a way as to create yet another barrier in the path of those seeking to escape violent relationships.”, the statement added.

The statement concluded that “Meena’s ideas and arguments should be countered with ideas and arguments” and that “to harass, troll and character assassinate a woman for speaking her mind is to seek to silence her and the inconvenient truths she may speak” while not making a single reference to the vile tweet put out by the ‘accomplished poet and writer’.

Following this, many prominent journalists jumped in to support and stand in solidarity with Meena.

Dhanya Rajendran, Editor-in-Chief of The News Minute in a tweet said that the NWMI statement makes some ‘nuanced points’.

Many other journalists from The News Minute came out in support of the ‘writer-activist’.

Pakistani writer and New York Time Columnist Bina Shah also came out in support of Meena.

Several other Indian and foreign journalists and writers have also sent expressed solidarity with the ‘writer-activist’.

Many have also the NWMI’s statement saying that what the ‘writer-activist’ did was to spew hate against one particular community.