Before I start, let me get some disclaimers out of the way:
1) Sexual Harassment at workplace is abhorrent. Just because it is more pervasive in certain professions, doesn’t make it acceptable and its denial is worse than abatement as tweeted by Appurv Gupta:
If you are just saying it false and not investing these allegations then for me You might not be the culprit in the past but now you are !
— Appurv Gupta (@appurv_gupta) March 13, 2017
2) I don’t know Arunabh Kumar of TVF, neither even follow him on social media. Don’t even like him much as an actor but do respect him for the content his company creates.
3) I do like the content created by AIB having called out hypocrisies of their founders on twitter occasionally
This Qtiyapa Guy (that’s Arunabh’s handle on twitter) has been accused first by an anonymous person and then by some more women openly of sexual propositions and harassment. The reaction from TVF, the company he founded and his colleagues has been a classic rookie mistake of denial and possible intimidation (similar to what NRN did in case of Phaneesh Murthy). Reiterating disclaimer #1 here, this needs serious investigation irrespective of whether this is a Start-up or a Bellweather enterprise of its sector. However, moot point of this post is not that.
What I found interesting was what has been happening in this upcoming business of Web-based content start-ups, with two entities having created their mark AIB and TVF. Rather than going too far in past, let me concentrate on what has happened through the weekend. Following the election results on Saturday TVF came out with series of tweets, some compiled in accompanying pic and one such is here:
Akhilesh Yadav asking Mayawati ji to share CM seat. #ExitPolls2017 pic.twitter.com/JHzmvZueIh
— The Viral Fever (@TheViralFever) March 9, 2017
In contrast, AIB tweeted this pic and put up a video on their FB page:
These are to reinforce the proclivities of the creative founders of these entities with respect to contemporary political ecosystem and I am not getting into personal relationships of Rohan Joshi with Mahesh Bhatt’s daughter or Tanmay Bhatt’s with Rega Jha of Buzzfeed.
When I tried to research the news about Arunabh Kumar and his misdeeds, the top searches were returned from The Quint and Buzzfeed (OK I am bringing in Tanmay and Rega here). The Quint is the same platform which in its zeal to paint the Army in poor light (as a means of embarrassing the central government) through, its “Sahayak” system abetted suicide of a soldier recently.
My hypothesis is that Arunabh Kumar would have merrily gone around being a sexual predator had TVF not shown its political proclivities the way it has been doing. And if this is all baseless, as is claimed by his colleagues, however improbable it may be, there is some serious shit going on!