I have been introduced to feminism(s) and the feminist way of doing politics by my own position in the social structure where I have a locus with my own oppressions and privileges. I had an early realisation about how sexual harassment, molestation and assault thrive in academia when I was raped thrice in school by three male teachers – to the extent of one of them raping me till I fell unconscious. I choose not to describe it further because this piece is more about (re)visiting politics, rather than (re)collecting trauma.

A Facebook post put out by Raya Sarkar, a woman lawyer compiling a list of male academics and professors accused of sexual harassment and inviting others to “Name and Shame” the harassers, has gone viral. The list includes the names of faculty members of renowned institutions and internationally renowned scholars. But, the intention behind this piece is not the Facebook post but the statement put out by “feminists” who are “dismayed by the initiative on Facebook”. I shall not go into the list and speak about it; I rather plan to enquire about the way the statement has been put out against it.

I admit that I have never had formal academic training in feminism(s) or its theories. A majority of what I speak, practice and perform comes from what I have lived through and learnt in my interactions with others who have been positioned in the most grinding intersections of social oppressions. A lot of my understanding has been shaped by a critical way of doing self-reflexive politics and I have regarded nuance as an ultimate condition of doing my politics, which gives me the dazzlement I get when I see the “best” feminists of the country come up with a statement of the sorts.

I still wonder why it comes as a shock to many people that (historian) Dipesh Chakrabarty and his like can be sexual harassers “in disguise”. In my humble opinion, to which I hope our most respected “feminists” will agree, someone’s academic CV cannot be correlated to or causally linked to them being potential sexual predators. There is no guise for a sex offender, they latch around identities shaped by their identitarian privileges; privileges that allow them to maintain a power hierarchy.

Primarily, I am glad to see elite feminists of the country promptly come together, even if it is because of an anxiety of losing their privileges, especially when they maintain an eerie silence when it comes to supporting Dalit-Bahujan-Adivasi students who face casteism, gender non-conforming and transgender students who feel unsafe in gender-specific hostel rooms and misgendering washrooms.

What happens to the “radical” voices when an issue demands stepping out from the privileges of academic enclaves and the security of being a popular academic? What would be the proper, “just and fair”, due process of doing such activism? How do we plan to interrogate our privileges if we are unwilling to be rendered uncomfortable by them? I wonder, a statement that says “statement by feminists”, somehow has been endorsed by mostly Delhi-based (with a JNU majority), upper-caste feminist scholars. This gives me a threatening inkling of either the fact that they have taken up the responsibility of speaking on behalf of feminism(s) in general; they have let themselves be the sole representatives of a feminist critique.

I am reminded that there isn’t and can never be one “good” way of abiding by feminism(s), and feminism can never be someone’s gatekeeper to impose and alienate. Such a way of propagating feminism is a way of ostracising and de-legitimising the voice of other feminists; we, as feminists, do not need to be stamped by your academic chairs to be identified as feminists.

I am also worried and concerned about a term used in the statement – “genuine complaints”. I feel this statement in itself is a huge way of de-legitimising narratives surrounding sexual harassment and abuse in academic spaces. One big reason why victims/survivors are typically scared to come forward and talk about their trauma openly is because such confidantes give them their vote of competence only when there is an articulation of the abuse. I am sorry, but survivors/victims do not owe you a description of their trauma; we call the system unfair and unjust only because it thinks otherwise. This is a weird moment of perspiration where the aspirations of being a feminist are shaped by the fears rather than assurances of a feminist academia.

This is both scary and threatening to me, as the way the statement imposes a sense of crime on the victims/survivors who have decided to speak up (and given their consent to the list being compiled), by saying that “makes our task as feminists more difficult”. Thank you for having an inflated ego that issues solidarity statements only when one of you is in danger and a protest statement, again, when your anxieties of losing your privileges are triggered.

We cannot ignore the dynamic nature of feminist ideologies which allow us the greatest weapon of nuance – self-critique. We cannot be evasive to this if we want the younger generation of feminists to develop more nuanced ways of reading, (un)learning, propagating and participating in feminist politics.

Without de-legitimising the work done by the ones who endorsed the statement, I, as an aspiring feminist, appeal to them to allow rigorous self-critique (beyond the realms of anxiety-driven self-defence) as a fundamental outlook on any critique they are propagating.

I stand worried and express my concern on the hegemonic nature of the feminist academia which still stays to alienate and eliminate voices and appears staunchly hypocritical in supporting the construct(ion) of a “proper” way of doing feminism, and also propagating it as an essential to gather larger feminist support.

Are we fragmenting our solidarities because our privileges suddenly matter more than our loci in feminist ideologies?