Pallavi Gogoi vows to speak truth, says relationship with MJ Akbar ‘not consensual’

Former minister of state for external affairs MJ Akbar had trashed US-based journalist Pallavi Gogoi’s allegation of rape against him and said that it was a consensual relationship. Pallavi Gogoi has dismissed the claims of MJ Akbar and stood by her words published in an article in The Washington Post. She said that a relationship based on “coercion and abuse of power” is never consensual.

The US-based journalist is currently working with a Washington-based American media organisation, National Public Radio (NPR) as the chief business editor took to micro-blogging site Twitter to air her views in response to Akbar’s denial.

Gogoi vowed to continue to reveal the truth “so that other women, who have been sexually assaulted by him, know it is okay for them to come forward and speak their truth too.”

Akbar on Friday, denied all allegations levelled against him by Gogoi. The 67-year-old former editor of several newspapers was accused of sexual harassment by at least 17 women journalists who worked under him in several media organisations where Akbar was the editor.

Akbar had said in statement: “Somewhere around 1994, Ms Pallavi Gogoi and I entered into a consensual relationship that spanned several months”. “This relationship (with Gogoi) gave rise to talk and would later cause significant strife in my home life as well. This consensual relationship ended, perhaps not on the best note.”

Putting her weight behind Akbar, his wife Mallika Akbar also dismissed Gogoi’s allegations and termed it a “lie” in a separate statement.

Responding to the former union minister’s denial, the US based journalist said, “yesterday, The Washington Post published my first-hand account of being physically, verbally and sexually assaulted by M.J. Akbar. I was in my early 20s, an aspiring journalist, and an employee at the newspaper he led”. “Akbar has insisted — just like other infamous serial sexual abusers of women — that the relationship was consensual. It was not”.

“A relationship that is based on coercion, and abuse of power, is not consensual. I stand by every word in my published account. I will continue to speak my truth so that other women who have been sexually assaulted by him know it is okay for them to come forward and speak their truth too,” Gogoi said in the statement quoted by The Indian Express.

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