Can film industry's call for cleansing hold momentum?

A censored fact-finding report sets off a new wave of sexual abuse allegations in the Malayalam film industry. The missing pages could reveal more than what they hide.

Bengaluru: Two weeks since the Justice Hema Committee’s report on the issues women face in Malayalam cinema was made public, it is pertinent to note that the report’s most striking outcomes are not traced directly to its findings. Four years and eight months after it was submitted to the Kerala Government, after court battles and an RTI query, the report has come out with some of its contents edited out to ensure confidentiality. What it has, still, done is enable women in the industry to name their abusers, this time through the media.

The report talks, in detail, about sexual abuse, discrimination, pay disparities, violations of human rights, and coteries that mute these voices of distress, but this is a 290-page report with 55 of its pages redacted. This is a public document that does not expose the alleged perpetrators whose names, along with the survivors’, have been removed over privacy concerns.

That a report without names can embolden women to speak out about their experiences and report sexual assault, leading to cases against at least four top-league industry names and forcing a powerful actors’ body into virtual hiding and subsequent dissolution, is an important story. The Committee’s findings and the follow-through signify a potential disruption of power structures established and enabled by men in cliques and mark a generational shift these men have failed to see coming.

In all, cases have been registered against at least six men including filmmaker Ranjith, actor and MLA of the ruling CPM M Mukesh, and actors Siddique and Jayasurya, in connection with incidents alleged to have happened over about 15 years.

One of the two cases against Ranjith involves the alleged abuse of an aspiring male actor. Ranjith, a vocal supporter of the ruling Left, has since stepped down as chairman of the state-run Chalachithra Academy. Mukesh has found relief in a court order that has granted him interim protection from arrest till September 3, while the other accused are seeking legal counsel to evade arrest. Mohanlal, Kerala’s biggest movie star and president of the Association of Malayalam Movie Artists, did not address the serious allegations raised against his colleagues in the association, including Siddique, the general secretary. Later, he resigned from office and disbanded the executive committee, in an apparent cop-out.

A Special Investigation Team that includes four senior woman police officers has commenced its investigation on the new set of cases. This has the makings of another #MeToo movement in the Indian film industry, with possibly greater impact. 

Another chance for correction

Existing redressal mechanisms across film industries are largely informal, with complaints addressed or mediated under the powers held by the
relevant industry bodies. Their shortcomings had led to the demand for an Internal Complaint Committee (ICC) in every film production unit, at the time the Hema Committee was constituted. 

In an important recommendation, the Hema Committee notes that ICCs are not feasible, since all-men power lobbies can influence the workings of these committees. It recommends the enactment of a statute and the formation of a tribunal with a retired district judge, preferably a woman, as the “only solution” to issues faced by women in the industry.

There are calls for similar fact-finding probes from other language film industries where the first wave of allegations that started in 2018 has died down. 

Some of the major stars, filmmakers, and music industry stalwarts named by the survivors in 2018 have continued to find work.

Calls for an investigation by state-appointed committees have started coming from Kannada cinema. Actress Ritabhari Chakraborty has sought a similar probe in the Bengali film industry, to "unmask the predators”. Actor Vishal, general secretary of the South Indian Artistes’ Association, has announced plans for a committee to study abuse in the Tamil film industry. 

Critically, the new cases present an opportunity to take sexual abuse in the industry, beyond allegations and denials, and beyond sensationalised media trials, to actual closure in the courtrooms. In its report, the Hema Committee notes that survivors of offences in the industry, many of which fall under the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition, and Redressal) Act, 2013, popularly known as the POSH Act, chose to not approach the police “fearing consequences”. The candour with which some of the women articulated their abuse over the past couple of weeks indicates a shift. They send out the message that it is okay to speak up.

This is a shift, primarily inspired by a group of women who risked a loss of work and the possibility of targeted attacks from within the industry when they demanded corrective action, and to its credit, by a government that initiated the Committee to probe the allegations, a first in the country.

However, the onus of building on this momentum, fast-tracking the investigation in these individual cases, and setting a narrative that addresses the larger, systemic issue of power and its abuse for gain, is on the state. Questions on its intent to do so have been raised, against the backdrop of the removal of important portions from the report and allegations that the government stalled the release of the committee’s findings. On Saturday, the CPM said Mukesh need not resign as MLA.

The Hema Committee says there is evidence to believe that women face sexual harassment “even from very well-known people” in the industry, who were also named before the panel. Five pages that follow this section are missing from the published report. In another section, the Committee notes a “shocking experience” of having to listen to the nature of sexual assault and harassment women have gone through. Here, another 13 pages have been removed. 

“But where is the proof?”

Seven years have passed since the sexual assault of a popular actress which led to the arrest of the alleged conspirator, actor Dileep, the formation of the Women in Cinema Collective (WCC), and a renewed demand to check gender-based disparities and exploitation in the industry that culminated with the Hema Committee. The trial in the case is ongoing.

#MeToo allegations have been met with industry responses that range from non-committal to hostile, and have invariably left the survivors accountable. 

In 2018, Kannada actress Sruthi Hariharan accused actor Arjun Sarja of inappropriate conduct while they were shooting a film scene. She has since highlighted the irony of having to prove that the incident, which occurred in front of a film crew, did happen. 

Actress Parvathy Thiruvothu, one of WCC’s founding members, has also hit out at this position — at times taken even by the government — that the complainant needs to produce the evidence of the crime. Singer Chinmayi Sripaada faces a shadow ban and continues to be harangued by social media trolls for this “evidence”, six years after she accused poet-lyricist Vairamuthu of sexual harassment. Her X bio reads: “Award Winning Singer banned by TN Industry for outing Molester”.

WCC members have faced extensive abuse on social media, where they have also been criticised for selective interventions. 

In a new, disruptive discourse, nuance and balance are not always assured but what the collective has done in its formative years is radical. It held on in the face of relentless pressure; it has now facilitated an open platform where women can, at least, seek the recourse they could not find in the industry.

An industry that produces some of the best films in the country is finding ways, from within, to fix its deep-seated biases. This call for reform may, or may not, find resonance in other industries but it does have in it seeds for big shake-ups. Seven years later. Or sooner.