Bollywood Star Outs Herself as Having Been Sexually Abused as a Child

Kalki Koechlin

In the hope that the stigma attached to child sexual abuse in India is lifted, Bollywood actress Kalki Koechlin on Monday spoke out about her own experience.

“The reason you haven’t heard about it is that I don’t like to talk about it, for me it’s not a one day headline, it’s something that’s a reality I have lived with for a long time,” said Koechlin in an interview with NDTV, an Indian news channel.

Choosing not to go into the details of the abuse or the abuser, the Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani star urged women to “break their silence” and speak about it to people whom they can trust.

Anoushka Shankar

Kalki is the second famous Indian woman to speak out about child sex abuse. Last year, musician Anoushka Shankar, daughter of Ravi Shankar, admitted to being sexually abused as a child.

Let's pray that this will embolden other women and girls to speak out. The rape culture in India has been around for centuries and it will not be easy to overturn.

“Right now 53 per cent of the nation [India] is going through CSA [child sexual abuse] that’s more than half the country and that’s only the official statistic. I think there’s a lot more happening because we know in a lot of families we brush it under the carpet and because of social, cultural pressure we don’t talk about these things,” said Koechlin.

"The key is to make that dialogue smooth for the child who has suffered such violence," she said.

“It’s extremely difficult to talk about it because in 50 per cent of cases it is somebody known or one of the family members who has abused a child so that makes it so difficult. Once you come out with it you have to confront that person and that is pretty much reliving the whole pain of it again. It is tiring, exhausting and traumatic for the person to relive the experience with the psychiatrist, family member or abuser, so it’s a sensitive and difficult subject to tackle,” said Koechlin.

The actress, who made her debut as a prostitute in Dev D and later appeared in blockbusters such as Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara, found therapy in her art and acting.

“It took me many, many years to even come and talk about it. It’s also how you choose to go ahead with it and what you choose to do with it. For me my writing and my art, my acting is therapeutic, it’s my way of releasing things out. I think everybody has different outlets as long as there are places where you can do that. Not everybody has the privilege to talk about it openly.”

Daughter of Ravi Shankar Reveals Childhood Sexual Abuse

Musician Anoushka Shankar says she was prompted to reveal her experience of sexual abuse after learning of the gang rape and murder of a woman in Delhi. (See Rape and Murder on a Delhi Bus)

Shankar, daughter of legendary Indian sitar player Ravi Shankar, said in February she had been abused by "a man my parents trusted" in her childhood.

Her revelation followed the fatal attack on an Indian student, for which four men have been sentenced to death.

"Her story is the apex of millions of stories," Shankar told BBC Radio 4.

Speaking on the Front Row programme, she said: "No-one I knew could help being affected by the gravity and intensity of that attack - and if it resonates with something in our experience then obviously it doubles the impact of hearing a story like that.

"I felt quite conscious as an Indian woman that there was a very unique moment happening where the entire world's attention was on sexual violence and on the role and position of women in India.

"I felt almost an obligation [to talk about my experience]. It didn't feel dragged out of me. If I was ever going to talk about my story, that felt like the right moment."

Anoushka Shankar

The musician has used her new album to express her concerns over the attack.

Shankar, 32, took the decision to talk about her experiences in a video, recorded in her London home, in which she appealed for people to support a campaign in memory of the gang rape victim.

"As a child I suffered sexual and emotional abuse for several years at the hands of a man my parents trusted implicitly," she said.

She added the attacks had included "groping, touching and verbal abuse".

Reflecting on the statement, the musician told Front Row's John Wilson: "It was something I never spoke to the media about.

"It had never felt like something relevant in a public context until this moment where I thought 'hang on, it's important for people to realize that this kind of thing can happen to anyone, anywhere'.

"I think there's a class issue in India where there can be an assumption that things like this don't happen to people from upper classes or who are privileged. I think part of what shocked people within India was that [the victim] was a middle-class girl. It's so ridiculous."

The musician has responded to the attack, and tried to address its causes, with a track on her new album, Traces Of You.

She said the song, which references the 23-year-old victim's name in its title, tries to capture a sense of the horror of the attack.

The album, recorded with producer Nitin Sawhney and her sister Norah Jones, also addresses the death of her father last year.

Shankar said her experiences had informed the spirit of the record, and brought a sense of "resilience" to the music.

"It's not necessarily about the passing of my father, it's about me passing through the passing of my father.

"There's a way that we all go through horrible and painful things and I'm not nullifying it in any way when I say we do go on.

"My childhood experiences were one of the big experiences for me [but] I know as a woman I've come through that.

"At some cost, but I've come through it."