Born in 1982 in New Delhi, Niharika Singh won the title of Miss Earth India in 2005 and began acting in 2006, making her feature film debut in the 2012 film Miss Lovely. She is currently the director of Future East Film.
Her maternal family is from the Regar caste, and her paternal family is from the Jatav caste. In 2018, she wrote an account of her experiences of sexual harassment and violence and her #MeToo experience as a Dalit woman naming Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Mayank Singh Singvi. Nawazuddin Siddiqui is a Sheikh, an upper caste Muslim. Mayank Singh Singvi’s caste has not been reported, though Singvis are often Bania Jains.
In her account, she outlined the various encounters she had with actor Nawazuddin Siddiqui, who allegedly coerced her and made inappropriate advances towards her without any consideration for her consent on multiple occasions. In 2009, he allegedly came to her house and grabbed her suddenly without her consent. According to her, it was only after coercion that she gave in and began a relationship with him. The relationship lasted a few months, ending after she said she realised he had been telling a series of lies to her, including not disclosing that he was married to a woman he had abandoned after making demands for dowry. In 2013, he allegedly made advances towards her again while working on a film, which she refused. In 2014, he once again grabbed her after a promotional event, according to her statement, and after she refused, he began to discredit her as an actress in his circles.
In 2017, he wrote a memoir titled ‘An Ordinary Life’ with Rituparna Chatterjee, in which he fabricated stories about their relationship and sexual encounters, using her real identity, without her consent. News publications began to print and publicise the excerpts which mentioned her, using various images from her life. The excerpt portrayed her as a ‘faux-fur’ wearing seductress, waiting for Siddiqui with candles lit across her home, jealously sending emails to other women he had been with. He sexualised her without her consent, and this was not fact-checked by the author or the publication house, both of which refused to apologise or take responsibility for it.
In 2018, when she wrote her statement published by journalist Sandhya Menon, various people victim-blamed her on twitter. Trolls claimed that she was lying, many blamed her for mentioning her caste, blaming her for continuing to associate with him, and so on. Actress Kubbra Sait also publicly defended Siddiqui and dismissed Singh’s experience, saying that she was simply airing a relationship gone sour and ruining a man’s reputation. There was also an organized troll campaign with identical tweets about Singh lying and Siddiqui being a good man.
In her account, Singh also mentioned abuse by Mayank Singh Singvi, who allegedly physically abused her and used casteist slurs. Although the details of this have not been reported on, she mentioned that he spread false stories about her in her social circles, which amounts to victim blame.
The ease with which the character of a Dalit actress was maligned in the public sphere in violation of all journalistic and publication norms, without so much as protecting her identity, show the prevalence of victim-blame against Dalit women who are seen as sexually available by default.
References:
https://twitter.com/TheRestlessQuil/status/1060850214267871238/photo/2
https://www.thequint.com/entertainment/celebrities/niharika-singh-says-nawazuddin-siddiqui-is-lying-to-sell-his-memoir
https://www.thequint.com/entertainment/bollywood/nawazuddin-siddiqui-an-ordinary-life-memoir-niharika-singh
https://www.news18.com/news/buzz/why-are-nawazuddin-siddiquis-defenders-using-the-exact-same-tweet-to-troll-niharika-singh-1935195.html
https://feminisminindia.com/2019/08/09/conversation-niharika-singh-caste-representation-feminism-bollywood/
https://www.bollywoodlife.com/news-gossip/a-passionate-relationship-with-miss-lovely-co-star-niharika-singh-a-one-night-stand-with-a-jewish-waitress-5-revelations-of-nawazuddin-siddiquis-love-life-from-his-book-an-ordinary-life-a-memoi-1086638/
https://www.ndtv.com/entertainment/kubbra-sait-trolled-for-defending-nawazuddin-siddiqui-after-metoo-allegations-says-why-should-i-not-1946623
https://www.ndtv.com/entertainment/kubbra-sait-jumps-to-nawazuddin-siddiquis-defense-after-niharika-singh-names-him-in-metoo-account-1945686
