Is #Metoo Different from Traditional Women’s Rights Campaigns? A Point of View from India

MARIE CHARTIER: Do you remember when you started posting about #MeTooIndia? Were there a special event or a reason to start using this #?

RITA BANERJI: No, I don’t remember the exact time. But it was around when #MeToo was trending on Twitter. Then there were tweets sent out as a part of the campaign on female genocide that I direct, the “50 million Missing Campaign”. As part of the campaign advocacy, we have talked about sexual harassment at all levels of the Indian society. I started the campaign in 2006 and, I think, I started my personal Twitter account and also the Twitter account of the campaign in 2009. We had however used the hashtag from the start for the specific issues we were dealing with such as femicide, female infanticide, dowry murders and honor killings, because we found the hashtag was a good tool to draw public attention to the issues that we were addressing. Sexual harassment of women and systemic sexual harassment are not issues included in the Campaign goals. But we have talked about them often in the campaign, because they underlie the systemic femicidal violence we are campaigning against…