Now you see me, now you don't

The most important thing about visibility may well be what it renders invisible Like a story mysteriously absent from our very noisy screens of Tanu Sharma an India TV anchor who attempted suicide having left social media messages blaming her superiors on June 22 Slighter allegations would have sent the nationinforming anchors into paroxysms but it seems they think the nation does not want to know about this case Why would that beIn an interview with the web portal News Laundry Ms Sharma alleged that she was subjected to constant abuse at work demeaned and humiliated and asked to go lsquomeetrsquo powerful people with shady possibly sexual implications India TV responded by saying she was overstating what had actually happened Only an investigation will show the truth mdash not that such niceties usually come in the way of breaking newsIllustration Amit BandreInterestingly in its response India TV volunteered the information that they were among the first of their kind to instate a sexual harrassment committee on another note itrsquos mystifying how people always seem to want points for merely doing whatrsquos legalItrsquos interesting isnrsquot it how to prove one is above board nowadays you can just put on the air of one who cares about womenrsquos safety Therersquos nothing new in this selfserving use of women by men to make themselves look good But well even America claimed it was bombing Afghanistan to save the womenBut in addressing this aspect of Ms Sharmarsquos claims they coolly donrsquot address another part and obscure or make invisible the real issues brought up by the story which is of employment practices in the highly unorganised media industry Parts of Tanu Sharmarsquos contract have been shared online There will no media person who has not been expected to sign a contract with such clauses You cannot leave and must do everything you are told to But you can be sacked at a momentrsquos notice without the employer giving any reason for it When I refused to sign one such contract the company lawyer tried to chivvy me into it by saying itrsquos just on paper itrsquos not meant like that Doesnrsquot mean anything come on Really If it doesnrsquot mean anything why is it thereItrsquos there because contracts donrsquot exist in a vacuum but in fact in a context of a huge power imbalance They are not there to ensure the rights of both parties but rather to demonstrate who is the boss man and who is the plantation slave They exist to reiterate the feudal basis of much hiring especially in contract jobs which nowadays is a lot of jobs And every day this power will be asserted in little overseering ways For instance I once worked in an office where work days routinely stretched to 12 or 15 and sometimes 20 hours We staggered back to work after grabbing a little sleep each day mdash yet one day we were told we must sign in each morning Of course there was no need to sign out Just a little crack of the whip for remindersOne of the reasons this cycle continues is because especially among middleclass people in these sorts of jobs there is a reluctance to push for unions By doing this they fear being singled out for discrimination but also of identifying with lsquoworkersrsquo They believe that by virtue of their class if they keep their heads down long enough they will eventually inherit the post of oppressor mdash also called hacking it But perhaps itrsquos time they stop hacking it and looked their invisible reality in the eyeParomita Vohra is an awardwinning Mumbaibased filmmaker writer and curator working with fiction and nonfiction Reach her at wwwparodevicomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper