The release of the Hema Committee Report on rampant sexual harassment in the Malayalam film industry reflects deeper misogynist attitudes across the country that will be harder to shake
The Malayalam-language film industry, based in the southern state of Kerala, has been in the news a lot lately for both good and bad reasons. It is responsible for some of the most interesting films in any Indian language in recent years, which have won it accolades and a fanbase beyond those who speak the language. Anand Ekarshi’s 2023 thriller Aattam (The Play) tells the story of a female actor in a theatre group who is molested at night by one of her 12 male colleagues. The film assesses the gender politics at play when the men meet to discuss the crime (invoking Sidney Lumet’s 12 Angry Men, 1957), and was named Best Feature Film at India’s 70th National Film Awards. Earlier this year, Payal Kapadia’s trilingual film All We Imagine as Light (2024) was awarded the Grand Prix at the 77th Cannes Film Festival. The first feature film from India to compete in the main competition since 1994, All We Imagine as Light contains one section that is spoken entirely in Malayalam. Prasanna Vithanage’s Paradise (2023), which premiered at the 28th Busan International Film Festival, won the Kim Jiseok Award last October.
Yet Malayalam cinema has also been thrust into the spotlight following the mid-August release of the Hema Committee Report (named after the retired judge who headed the committee) on the rampant sexual harassment, misogyny and the appalling conditions faced by women working in the industry. Set up by the government of Kerala following a Women in Cinema Collective (WCC) petition, the findings have triggered a new wave of the #MeToo movement. The WCC’s demand came after a horrific case of abduction and sexual assault in 2017 of a well-known actress allegedly orchestrated by Dileep (who goes by a single stage-name), one of the most influential actor-producers in the industry. The case remains in court while Dileep’s career has barely suffered a scratch. Unlike that of the survivor, whose identity was not only revealed publicly (under Indian laws, the identity protection of sexual assault survivors is mandatory): slut-shamed and trolled online, and compelled to take a five-year long hiatus from working in Malayalam films.
The Hema report is likely to have far-reaching consequences for the Malayalam film industry – albeit a smaller world than its mammoth Hindi counterpart (aka Bollywood) in terms of output, financial power and global influence. Although all names and identifying details are redacted, the report details the lack of basic facilities – such as separate toilets and changing rooms – on film sets, the absence of contracts, and an extreme gender pay-disparity. It highlights the expectation that women (even, in one documented instance, a minor) be ‘available’ on demand for sex, or risk being denied work. The report also points to a ‘power group of fifteen men’ that includes actors, directors and producers who impose unofficial bans on women who don’t comply and/or object to poor working conditions. This is all compounded by a lack of support from unions (led mostly by men, several of whom also stand accused of sexual abuse), despite Kerala having one of the strongest union-cultures in the country thanks to its history of electing left-wing and communist parties into power.
Though the report was initially submitted to the Kerala government in 2019, the authorities neglected to act upon the findings for five years, and the public release of the report this August was itself the result of a long-drawn-out court battle led by the WCC. But the aftermath has evolved at dizzying speed. In the first case to be filed based on the depositions at the end of September, the Kerala police is investigating makeup artist Saji Koratty for sexual harassment and stalking. More female artists have come forward with stories of sexual abuse and rampant abuse of power by male colleagues, several of them directly implicating some of the best-known names in the industry.
Before long, similar testimonies began to emerge from the Tamil and Telugu film industries in Kerala’s neighbouring states. It must be noted that allegations of sexual abuse and harassment have been made in relation to the industry over many years – in both of these regions, and those elsewhere in the country. These have been widely reported in regional and national media, both at the height of the global #MeToo movement and in the years since. Yet no other film industry, including Bollywood, has taken measures such as setting up a committee to look into working conditions, nor made any serious attempts to reckon with such allegations beyond treating them as one-off cases. Thus, rarely have there been any consequences for the accused, while the survivors have consistently been doxed, viciously trolled online, or lost work due to the backlash.
When, after several days of silence, responses to the Hema report began to appear from prominent actors in the industry, they were varied and often emotional. Some attempted to deflect culpability and obfuscate their responsibility. Mohanlal, one of the biggest stars in Malayalam, only resigned from the Association for Malayalam Movie Artists (AMMA) after several other members of the union were accused of sexual abuse, while still insisting he was not part of the ‘power group’. Instead, he urged the public: ‘Don’t destroy the Malayalam film industry like this.’ A statement by Mammootty, another influential star, parroted similar sentiments. An old interview from 2018 as been recirculating online, in which Mohanlal dismisses the #MeToo movement as a ‘trend’, before suggesting that men could also start a similar movement.
It has been reported that the leaders of a union representing makeup artists and hairstylists put pressure on their female members not to speak up, accusing those who do of ‘conspiring to destroy’ the union. Meanwhile, members of the Karnataka Film Chamber of Commerce in neighbouring Karnataka (home to the Kannada-language cinema industry) have opposed the introduction of Internal Committees (IC) on film sets, dismissing these organised bodies as ‘redundant’. Set up with the intention to ensure the safety of women workers, ICs are mandatory in all workplaces under the Prevention of Sexual Harassment Act. Members also raised concerns about setting up the Hema Committee due to the risk that it could lead to ‘financial losses’.
The casual attitudes to the handling (or not) of the problems women face on film sets undoubtedly stems from historical and acutely patriarchal ideas of women who work with men, and of women who work in the entertainment sector. Until some decades ago, it was assumed that girls from supposedly ‘good’ and ‘decent’ families did not get into films. If they appeared on stage at all, it was acceptable only if it was to perform one of the classical arts, like Bharatanatyam or Karnatic music. The assumption that actors who act out a romance with a man on screen must be ‘easy’ and willing to pursue such liaisons in real life, and that those who work into the day’s late hours are available for sex on call is a deep-set rot that is certainly not restricted to the Malayalam film industry. Parvathy Thiruvothu (a member of WCC and an actor who faced severe trolling when she spoke out against these issues some years ago) said in a recent interview that the chief intention of the Hema Committee Report was to ‘bring workplace practices that would protect everybody in the industry’ – and not just the women. How much will change, and how soon, remains to be seen. Although if precedents are anything to go by, there may still be a very long way to go before any change to both prevailing attitudes and policy across India’s film industries comes into effect.
Deepa Bhasthi is a writer based in Kodagu
