Following a barrage of ‘vile, degrading and disgusting comments’ that stemmed from her recent photo shoot in a lingerie, Bollywood director Anurag Kashyap’s daughter Aaliyah Kashyap took to Instagram to speak out against online hate and the toxic trollers who erode her mental health. “I have tried to ignore the harassment and shrug it off but the truth is that we need to speak about it because these kinds of comments contribute to the rape culture that affects all women in India (and the rest of the world) in one way or the other,” wrote Kashyap. She also claimed that the past few weeks were ‘hard on her mental health’.
“Ever since I posted a photo of me in lingerie, I have been getting the most vile, degrading and disgusting comments. I have never felt more frightened than I have in the past few weeks to the point where I considered deleting my Instagram,” revealed Kashyap. Her post was hailed as brave by actors including Kalki Koechlin (‘proud of you for sharing this’), Janhvi Kapoor’s sister Khushi Kapoor and health coach Deanne Panday (‘I am there to support you always).
Shah Rukh Khan’s daughter Suhana Khan, Amitabh Bachchan’s grand daughter Navya Naveli Nanda, Sanjay Kapoor’s daughter Shanaya Kapoor and Dia Mirza also hailed her courage for speaking out against online haters. Kashayp also reminded many of not standing up for her and spoke up against the rampant sexualisation of women. She wondered if candle marches or vigils for a woman after she has been sexually assaulted hold any significance, especially if they don’t stand up for women when they are alive. “I have grown up with these kinds of comments to the point where it culminated into me being sexually assaulted as a minor by a middle-aged man. The double standard is that many of the people who have harassed me, along with many other women, are hypocrites. They love to pretend that they are on a moral high ground but in reality, they are the ones promoting the rape culture that exists,” wrote Kashyap.
She also reminded everyone that haters who detest her posts are free to unfollow her, but her posts or her actions are not an invitation for sexual assault. She also named and shamed all those who put those vile comments and posted them for her fans to gauge the amount of vitriol that came her way. “Nothing any woman does ever can be. So instead of policing women how to dress or act, we should unteach men the predatory behaviour that has been normalised in our society. This is my body, my life and I choose what I want to do with it,” said Kashyap.
