OML ex-employee responds to company’s statement on sexual harassment cases, says it ‘undermines pain and trauma’ of the women who shared their stories

Full disclosure: Newslaundry had partnered with OML for a debating event, Speak Out, in 2016. Newslaundry has not had any association with OML prior to this event or since.

Former OML employee Tanushree Singh has responded to the artist and event management company’s statement on the Caravan piece on how OML failed women in its ranks. OML called the story “biased” and “one-sided” in a lengthy statement posted last month.

In her response, Singh called OML’s response “tone deaf”, saying it “undermined the pain and trauma of several women who took the courage to share their stories”, while being “incredibly insulting” to the #MeToo movement.

She wrote: “I have nothing to gain from falsely maligning people who lead an industry I left behind years ago and everything mentioned in the Caravan piece is 100% true. I’ve suffered immensely in this process, both mentally and financially, but it was important to speak up and I have no regrets. OML stating that they went above and beyond their ‘legal’ obligation in my case is not only offensive but a display of a desperate attempt at arm twisting the law … While OML might have made efforts recently to take sexual harassment at workplace more seriously, fact remains that a few years ago this was never a priority.”

Singh detailed her experience with the ICC and its investigation, and said she was never allowed a “fair trial”. “But what is more important to note here is that despite being aware of two incidences where Gaurav Dewani [who headed sales at OML] had harassed employees, OML chose to have a predator employed with them for another 3 years. A sexual predator was given a ‘warning letter’ while scores of employees at OML are fired for far less every year.”

She also included a statement from the former OML employee who had made a sexual harassment complaint against Girish Raj (who had been her team head), which had been written about in the Caravan story. The anonymous statement added, “…due process was not followed as per the POSH Act … I shared every detail truthfully with the Caravan reporters and they shared my story as it is without painting it any other way.”

Caravan had published its detailed story last month, following which OML issued a statement.

The statement said the Caravan story “selectively picks certain incidents from the last 8 years to paint a biased, one-sided picture”. The story had focused on two instances in particular which OML’s ICC had investigated. With respect to the first instance, OML’s statement said: “…several of the statements she [the complainant] has attributed to senior employees at OML during the course of these events are categorically not true. We believe the ICC’s recommendations were fair, and went over and above what was legally demanded.”

With respect to the second complaint investigated by its ICC, OML published an email from the complainant to the ICC, thanking it for the “closure report”, based on which the complaint was closed.

With respect to the Caravan story mentioning Utsav Chakravarty, OML said: “The article speaks of Utsav Chakravarty, who we have never managed, but has worked for artists we manage and acted in their productions. OML has randomly been named complicit in his behavior, despite the fact that we did not have any knowledge of his misbehavior.”

OML said it had also set up an External Committee, independent of OML members, to investigate complaints. It said complaints about OML’s co-founder Vijay Nair (who had since left) were not brought to the attention of the ICC. “The broader narrative of the article is that we have encouraged inappropriate behaviour and protected senior persons who were employed with the company. We reject these allegations categorically. All complaints that were brought to the ICC have always been investigated impartially irrespective of the seniority of the alleged accused.”

It also refuted claims that it was a “boys’ club”, saying since 2013, 33 per cent of its workforce has been women. The statement said several of OML’s ex-employees and partners had been contacted by the Caravan story’s writers, and they were “blatantly lied to as well as humiliated whenever they have declined to provide views supporting the writers’ viewpoint. We have evidence of these conversations and chats that were used to solicit statements.” It also said there had not been full disclosure in the story: one of the writers had been evicted from an OML event, and had also been in touch as recently as last week with OML over a booking opportunity for an artist.

This story has been updated with a full disclosure of Newslaundry‘s association with OML in 2016. The story has further been updated with Tanushree Singh’s statement.