Mainstream WeeklyDeath has a peculiar power over public memory. It can transform a controversial individual into a symbol of sacrifice, heroism, or national pride, often making criticism seem not merely unwelcome but morally offensive. The death of a public figure can change the terms of a conversation almost overnight. Questions that once demanded answers become uncomfortable reminders of the past. Those who raise them risk being accused of insensitivity, bitterness, or an inability to let the dead rest. But what happens to those whose experiences of the deceased were profoundly different from the memories being celebrated?
The recent death of veteran actor Nana Patekar on 8 October 2026, and the controversy surrounding actress Tanushree Dutta’s reaction, bring these questions into sharp focus. Dutta, who accused Patekar of sexual harassment during the filming of Horn ‘OK’ Pleassss in 2008, responded to his death with the words “evil dead”. The remark attracted criticism, re-opening a debate about the morality of speaking harshly of someone who has died. Patekar denied the allegations, and the criminal proceedings arising from Dutta’s complaint were subsequently closed after the police reported insufficient evidence.
Yet, to understand the controversy exclusively through the language of disrespect towards the dead is to miss its deeper significance. It is to focus on the anger expressed by a woman while overlooking the experiences that may have shaped it. Before asking whether Dutta’s words were appropriate, we should ask a more uncomfortable question. What does it mean to demand grace, restraint, and silence from someone whose own experience of an alleged injustice may have left her feeling unheard? It is an argument for a more expansive understanding of justice, one that recognises the dignity of the dead without making their dignity a reason to disregard the living.
The human cost of speaking out:
When Dutta spoke publicly about her experience in 2018, she revived an allegation concerning an incident that had taken place a decade earlier. She alleged that Patekar had touched her inappropriately during the filming of a song and that the production team subsequently sought to introduce intimate dance steps against her wishes. She also described the hostility surrounding her attempt to leave the film set, including an alleged attack on her car. These were her allegations, which Patekar denied. Dutta has also described the professional and financial losses she associated with the incident and its aftermath
The legal outcome did not necessarily erase the personal and professional difficulties Dutta says she experienced. Nor can a legal outcome, by itself, tell us everything about the personal cost of speaking publicly about an experience one regards as a violation of dignity. At the same time, taking her account seriously does not mean treating the allegations as proven; Patekar denied them, and there was no finding of criminal guilt.
Yet the question raised by this episode extends beyond the determination of criminal liability. When a woman speaks about an experience she considers unjust, she enters a public debate in which her credibility, motives and conduct may become subjects of scrutiny. When the person she accused dies, another expectation can emerge. That she should temper her words out of respect for the dead. But why should the death of the person accused place an additional burden of silence or restraint on the person who made the allegation? Does the obligation to protect a dead person’s reputation outweigh the right of the living to speak about their own experience? This is the tension at the heart of the debate.
Should Admiration Overshadows Accountability:
Art does not exist in a moral vacuum. Cinema is a collective enterprise, shaped by actors, directors, writers, technicians, producers, editors, musicians, and many others. As the Supreme Court observed in K. A. Abbas v. Union of India (1970), films possess a distinctive capacity to affect audiences and influence thought and feeling. A performance can move millions even as the performer’s personal conduct becomes a subject of controversy. To reject an entire body of work because of the alleged failings of one individual may disregard the contributions of many others. A film can become part of our personal histories, carrying memories of childhood, family, friendship, and loss. Its significance may extend far beyond the person whose face appears on the screen.
Artistic Achievement and the Privilege of Reputation:
Roland Barthes’s idea of the “Death of the Author” offers a useful starting point for separating a work from its creator. Once a work enters the world, its meaning is no longer determined solely by the creator’s intentions. Audiences too bring their own experiences and interpretations to it. Yet the independence of a work does not make questions about its creator’s conduct irrelevant. Nor should admiration for an artist become a reason to avoid those questions.
Consider the difference between saying, “Nana Patekar was a remarkable actor,” and saying, “Nana Patekar was a remarkable actor; therefore, the allegations against him must be false.” The first recognises professional achievement. The second is an unjustified inference about personal conduct.
Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of symbolic capital helps explain why such distinctions can become difficult to maintain. Fame, prestige and public recognition give individuals a form of social authority that may extend well beyond the field in which they earned it. The psychological halo effect can reinforce this authority: our favourable impression of someone in one area may shape how we judge them in another. An admired actor may therefore receive a degree of credibility or moral trust that their professional achievements, by themselves, cannot justify.
Patriarchy Is Old and Global
Patriarchy is neither new nor confined to a particular society. It has been sustained through legal systems, economic arrangements and social expectations that have historically privileged men. In Capital in the Twenty-First Century, Thomas Piketty examines how wealth and economic power become concentrated and how inequalities persist across generations. Although his analysis is not primarily about gender or the film industry, it offers a useful starting point for thinking about how concentrated power can protect established interests and make existing hierarchies difficult to challenge.
Gender inequality provides one illustration of this persistence. Women’s political rights arrived much later than men’s in many countries. France recognised women’s right to vote in 1944, Switzerland at the federal level in 1971, and Saudi Arabia permitted women to vote and stand in municipal elections in 2015.
Economic inequalities have also proved resistant to formal legal change. Piketty’s analysis of labour income in France, for instance, records an increase in women’s share of total labour income from approximately 20 per cent in 1970 to 38 per cent in 2020, while men’s share declined from 80 to 62 per cent. These figures concern the distribution of labour income, not total wealth or the value of unpaid work. Nevertheless, they illustrate how far the distribution of economic resources can remain unequal even as societies change their laws and recognise new rights.
The relevance of this inequality to the film industry lies not in any direct equivalence between income disparity and the treatment of sexual harassment allegations, but in the way concentrated power can create interests in preserving the existing order. Bollywood is not simply a collection of individual artists. It is an interconnected professional world in which reputation, commercial success, personal relationships and access to future opportunities matter. A public allegation against a prominent figure can consequently become more than a dispute between two individuals. It can raise uncomfortable questions about professional networks, the treatment of women and the industry’s willingness to examine its own practices. Those invested in protecting an established image may find it easier to contain the controversy than to confront the questions it raises. This is a structural possibility, not proof that the industry acted collectively to protect Patekar or that any particular person sought to silence Dutta.
Patriarchy operates within this environment not only through unequal access to power, but also through the expectations placed on women who challenge it. A woman who speaks about alleged misconduct may find that attention shifts from her account to her credibility, her motives, the timing of her disclosure or the language she uses. If she expresses anger, she may be criticised for lacking grace; if she speaks years later, the delay may be questioned; if she persists, her motives may be doubted. Such scrutiny can make the act of speaking out costly, particularly in an industry where professional reputation and future opportunities are closely connected.
This distinction matters when considering the responses to Tanushree Dutta’s remarks following Nana Patekar’s reported death. The All India Cine Workers Association (AICWA) condemned her remarks as insensitive and called for restraint, while actor Sandhya Mridul and singer Sona Mohapatra challenged the criticism directed at her. They argued, in different ways, that death does not automatically erase alleged harm or require those who speak of mistreatment to remain silent.
These contrasting responses bring a broader question. Why does discussion so readily turn to the propriety of a woman’s words, while the circumstances that prompted them risk receding from view? When a person dies, the impulse to protect their memory from criticism may become especially strong. A woman who has made allegations against him may then face an additional expectation to moderate her response in deference to the deceased and to spare others the discomfort of revisiting the past. The demand for grace can thus become another burden placed on the person who claims to have suffered an injustice. She is expected not only to live with her experience, but also to express it in ways that do not disturb established reputations or collective loyalties. The question is not whether the dead deserve dignity, but whether that dignity must come at the cost of silencing the living. When a person’s reputation is intertwined with the prestige of an industry and the interests of its professional networks, the issue extends beyond individual conduct. It becomes a question of who has the power to shape public memory: whose account is heard, whose words are judged, and whose experiences are allowed to recede into silence.
(Authors: Pallavi Devi teaches Constitutional Law at the Department of Law, Gauhati University and Rinkie Bora is s Research Scholar at the Department of Law, Gauhati University, Assam)