Preeti Jain, an aspiring Bollywood actor, recently accused director Madhur Bhandarkar of raping her several times over five years. He had promised to marry her and give her big roles in his movies, she said. Bhandarkar dismissed her allegations. “I am the victim here … The industry should find a way to safeguard us from such situations. Tomorrow any guy can walk up and say ‘he made a pass at me’,” he told Tehelka.

I have been agonising over this. To my mind Bhandarkar is no victim. Once again the rape survivor is being made to prove her case. The accused is walking away with the media sympathy.

Looked at matter of factly, Preeti was willing to go along with Bhandarkar’s sexual advances as long as she believed that the route to a big role in his film would be via his bed. The moment she figured that he was only interested in the sex, she cried rape. Rape it was. Coercion, not consent. It was within Bhandarkar’s power to give Preeti a break.

To my mind a sexual encounter or relationship can be consensual only between equals.

It may have taken her five years to discover that she was nothing more than a sexual plaything for Bhandarkar. It’s happened before. She won’t be the last.

But Bhandarkar, he is the one who’s walked away with all the sympathy in this case. “The man on the street is behind me … Strangers have SMS-ed me with best wishes,” he gloats.

The media went to town over the story. Both made separate appearances on TV. I saw Preeti on a private news channel, being quizzed by a glib anchor. So why did it take you five years to say you’ve been raped? I thought her answer was combative. “I have been violated. I am not enjoying this publicity.” The anchor wouldn’t let go. The next question was even less objective. Bhandarkar says he’s the victim. I zapped the remote.

But I couldn’t get away so easily from a disturbing picture I saw last week. Naked middle-aged women protesting in front of the iron gates of the Assam Rifles headquarters in Imphal. The first time I saw the picture the women were behind a protest banner, only their legs exposed to the camera.

Tehelka used the naked picture of the women to condemn in the strongest possible words the atrocities committed by security forces on the people of the Northeast. Look what the armed forces have reduced Manipuri women to, Tehelka headlined.

But we used the picture again. On the cover of Tehelka’s 27th issue: Why India is losing Manipur. My eyes keep straying to a poster of the last issue on the wall opposite. The women’s backs have been pixelated, but the blurring hides less than it gives away. Have we violated the women of Manipur yet again, I wonder? To my mind the first time the picture told a story. The second time, the protest had been commodified. A cover picture to sell a story.