Hema Committee report: Will the heroic struggle of the women succeed?

Devaki Bhaagi, 36, still remembers the day when her dream of entering the magical world of cinema turned into a nightmare.

She was 12 when she went to Mananthavady, a quaint town in Kerala’s Wayanad district, with her father. “Wayanad was far removed from the glitter and glamour of the movie world,” recalled Bhaagi. “One of my father’s acquaintances, a telefilm actor, had told us that a filmmaker and his crew were at a hotel in Mananthavady to audition teenagers for their film Vacation.”

The filmmaker was K.K. Haridas, who had directed family entertainers in the 1990s. “As my father and the filmmaker talked in the hotel room, I grew bored and wandered out to the balcony,” she recalled. “An assistant director came and started talking to me. Then he grabbed my hand and pulled me to a room, offering me a gift. The grip tightened as we neared the door, and I panicked. ‘I don’t want any gift!’ I cried out. ‘Don’t worry, girl,’ he said, and tried to push me into the room. I screamed and grabbed a part of the door, and his grip loosened. I escaped and ran back to my father, who was still talking to the filmmaker, and sat beside him silently. I told him what happened as we left the hotel.”

Bhaagi’s father, a teacher, shook with rage as he listened. “He confronted a photographer, who was part of the film crew, and asked, ‘What is happening here? That man dared to misbehave with my little girl!’ The photographer said, ‘Mashe (sir), please take her and leave this place as soon as possible. If I talk about things that are happening here, they would just throw me out.’ We left the place immediately,” said Bhaagi. “Throughout the journey home, my father held my hand.”

Shocking as the experience was, Bhaagi did not let go of her acting dreams. She acted in advertisements and short films when she was in high school, and won the prestigious Kalathilakam title in the district-level school youth festival. When she was in Class 11, a debutant filmmaker approached her promising a lead role. To her dismay, he demanded that she be prepared for “adjustments”―a euphemism for sexual favours. “My parents were shocked that someone could come to our home and say such things,” she said.

This second incident forced Bhaagi to abandon her acting dreams. “To me, the film industry appeared to be filled with predators and manipulators,” she said. Bhaagi, however, returned to the industry when she was 28, as a script assistant for a filmmaker who was her senior in college. Today, she is an actor and ad director, and more importantly, a member of the Women in Cinema Collective (WCC)―an influential group of women artistes formed in the aftermath of the case related to the sexual assault of a leading actor in a moving car in February 2017.

Malayalam cinema is currently in a watershed moment, as women like Bhaagi are speaking out about the horrific experiences they have had in the industry. The revelations have come after the report of the three-member Justice K. Hema committee, formed in 2017 to study issues of sexual harassment and gender inequality in the Malayalam film industry, was released on August 19. The report revealed many instances of abuse, sexual harassment, exploitation, discrimination and exclusion in the industry.

After it was released, allegations of sexual misconduct against prominent members of the industry have gripped Malayalam cinema. Filmmaker Ranjith Balakrishnan recently stepped down as chairman of the Kerala Chalachitra Academy, an autonomous institution under the state government, after Bengali actress Sreelekha Mitra accused him of misconduct. On Mitra’s complaint, the Kerala Police registered a case against Ranjith under section 354 (assault or criminal force on a woman with intent to outrage her modesty) of the Indian Penal Code.

Meanwhile, taking “moral responsibility” for the crisis in the industry, most members of the executive committee of the powerful Association of Malayalam Movie Artists (AMMA) resigned, along with its president, actor Mohanlal. Two days earlier, veteran actor Siddique had resigned as AMMA general secretary after actor Revathy Sampath accused him of rape and criminal intimidation. The police have registered a case against Siddique based on the complaint.

Allegations have also been made against other prominent figures in Malayalam cinema, including actor and legislator M. Mukesh, who is a member of the ruling CPI(M), and AMMA joint secretary Baburaj.

A STAINED LEGACY

After it was formed in 2017, the WCC launched a film society named after P.K. Rosy, Kerala’s first woman actor. Rosy had played the lead role of Sarojini in Vigathakumaran (1928), the first Malayalam feature film. Her portrayal sparked an outrage because Sarojini was a caste Hindu and Rosy was a dalit Christian. Having become the target of angry mobs, Rosy was forced to flee Kerala.

She has been hailed as Malayalam cinema’s first symbol of resistance. The second is the leading actor who was sexually assaulted in 2017, but had the courage to stand her ground and file a police complaint. As the Malayalam film industry experiences a #MeToo moment, she is being seen as a torchbearer of the changes that are happening.

Interestingly, one of the actors who came out in support of her when the sexual assault came to light was Manju Warrier, former wife of actor-producer Dileep. According to the police, it was Dileep who had given a contract to a driver to abduct the actor and take obscene photos and videos of her. The police said it was an act of revenge, as the actor was close to Warrier and had reportedly encouraged her to file the divorce petition against Dileep.

Dileep spent 85 days in jail before he was released on bail. Interestingly, both Ranjith and Siddique were among the many celebrities who had visited Dileep when he was in jail. The case against him is still in court.

According to National Award-winning film critic and documentary filmmaker C.S. Venkiteswaran, the leading men of Malayalam cinema gained immense power after the emergence of television rights for movies. “When television became the major consumer of films, star ratings became immensely important,” he said.

In the 2000s, alongside Malayalam superstars Mammootty and Mohanlal, Dileep became a top beneficiary of these changes. Before the sexual assault case, Dileep’s influence in the industry was unparalleled―he held key positions in various film bodies and had the clout to bring about far-reaching changes. Just a month before he was arrested, for instance, Dileep had resolved a deadlock between two industry bodies over sharing theatre revenues. He had achieved it by orchestrating a split in one of the bodies, and becoming president of the newly formed third body, the Film Exhibitors United Organisation of Kerala.

AMMA expelled Dileep the day after his arrest. The decision was said to have been taken under pressure from actor-producer Prithviraj, who was one of the first among male artistes to publicly support the survivor of the assault.

The resignation of AMMA’s executive committee came a day after he strongly criticised it for mishandling complaints. Prithviraj, whose influence has grown in the past seven years, also spoke out against the culture of bans. He said he was also subjected to an undeclared ban. In 2004, when his career was in its early stages, he was one of the first male artistes to agree to work on contract, a decision that displeased AMMA’s leadership. Eventually, though, top actors also began signing contracts.

If it was a group of men who brought progressive changes to the industry in 2004, it is now a group of women that is leading the charge for change. “Shell-shocked by the incident, we came together as a group, determined to support each other and the survivor,” actor Parvathy Thiruvothu, a founding member of the WCC, told THE WEEK. “We discovered that many of us shared similar experiences of feeling marginalised. We realised that there was a long-standing pattern of such issues.”

WOMEN VS WOMEN

The state government appointed the Hema committee following a petition from the WCC. But the committee encountered several roadblocks. Initially, it issued notice in newspapers, calling on people in the film industry to appear before the committee and give statements. But not a single person responded. So the committee began reaching out to individuals, and holding meetings at night to suit the schedule of those who were willing to talk. Many prominent actors appeared before the committee more than once, spending considerable time clarifying various aspects. The hearings went on for more than two years.

In its report submitted to the government on December 31, 2019, the committee said Malayalam cinema was controlled by an all-male “power group” that wielded significant influence over casting and production. Since woman artistes feared retaliation and blacklisting, many of them chose not to appear before the committee. Many of them even said there was “no need” in Malayalam cinema for an organisation like the WCC.

WCC members who deposed before the committee said male artistes openly threatened to prevent them from working in the industry. Notably, the committee’s report, from which names and other sensitive information have been redacted, mentions an actor who was initially with the WCC, but later changed her stance to get more opportunities.

T. Sarada, committee member and National Award-winning actor who started her career in 1959, noted in the report that “sexual harassment existed even in the early days of the film industry”. She blamed “western culture” and increased openness in interactions for the current problems.

“Girlfriends and boyfriends are very public now,” she wrote in the report. “The relationship between men and women was different in the old days. The culture of the new generation is different. ‘Adjustment’ and ‘compromise’ are openly discussed now, whereas it was not so open then.”

Sruthi Rajan Payyanur, assistant professor of journalism and mass communication at Birla Global University, Bhubaneswar, said consent was often manipulated in the film industry. “Even after consent is coerced, the threats persist, trapping individuals in a cycle of fear and control,” she said. Rajan revealed that she had to abandon her dream of becoming a filmmaker in mainstream cinema after a director demanded sexual favours for hiring her as an assistant director.

The report said men had been exploiting the lack of legal awareness among women in cinema. To address the issue, a group of senior women lawyers have come together and formed a collective. “We see the possibility that survivors who are now coming forward and speaking openly could again be victimised, unless there is strong support system to help them,” said advocate Sandhya Janardhanan Pillai, a member of the collective.

Veil of vagueness

When the Kerala government appointed a committee to look into issues faced by women in cinema, it was widely praised as a progressive, first-of-its-kind decision. But over the past few years, the government has squandered much of the goodwill because of the way it is perceived to have prevented the release of the report.

In February 2020, Justice Hema wrote to the government stressing the importance of protecting the privacy of those who deposed before the committee. In October the same year, the State Information Commission rejected RTI requests for the release of the report. The redacted report was finally released only after the commission reversed its decision this July. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan attributed the four-year delay in releasing the report to Justice Hema’s letter and the commission’s 2020 decision.

The government, however, has found it difficult to hide its apathy. On August 16, three days before the report’s release, Culture Minister Saji Cherian called a news conference in which he dismissed queries about the report, telling journalists that he had called them to announce the state film awards. The minister also announced the plan to organise a “film conclave”, which later became the government’s standard response to questions about implementing the recommendations of the Hema committee.

One of the recommendations in the report was the setting up of a quasi-judicial tribunal “to liberate women from the evils of the Malayalam film industry”. Vijayan, however, said the tribunal would incur significant costs.

Currently, there is no clarity on how the government plans to go about implementing the recommendations. Said Parvathy: “We kept choosing to trust the government to do the right thing. We still are; it’s been a week since the report came out and we are still waiting to hear from the government on the next steps.”

In 2014, a committee headed by acclaimed filmmaker Adoor Gopalakrishnan submitted his recommendations to solve disputes between industry bodies. “We recommended setting up a body that would contain representatives of industry and the government. But it was not taken up. Our other recommendations, too, were not implemented,” said Gopalakrishnan, who refused to comment on current developments.

There are concerns that suggestions in the Hema committee report would meet the same fate. The report lists 17 kinds of issues that women in cinema commonly face, many of which are cognisable offences. This has attracted criticism that the police have not been proactive in taking action based on the report. “For the purpose of setting the law in motion for criminal investigation, mere information alone is sufficient,” T. Asaf Ali, former director general of prosecution, told THE WEEK. “Section 176 of the Bharatiya Nagrik Suraksha Sanhita [says that] if the officer in charge of a police station receives information, or otherwise [has] knowledge, information or clue with regard to the commission of an offence, he has to set the law in motion for investigation.”

On August 22, the Kerala High Court admitted a writ petition seeking a directive to the director general of police to initiate criminal proceedings based on the report. The court has asked the state government to submit the report in full, including the redacted portions, in a sealed cover. The next hearing is on September 10.

Meanwhile, as pressure mounted on the government, Vijayan convened a special meeting of top police officers on August 25. A team of seven IPS officers was formed, and H. Venkitesh, additional director general of police (Crime Branch), was made its supervisor. The chief minister’s office said the team would function as a “special investigation team” that would look into the allegations. Notably, there was no mention of any inquiry into the allegations in the report.

Questions have been raised whether the government followed due procedure in forming the SIT. Section 21(2)(b) of the Kerala Police Act, which allows the government to create special units, stipulates the registration of a first information report for forming SITs. “An investigation without FIR is a farce,” said Asaf Ali. “They cannot summon, arrest, search or seize any material. And, they cannot file a report in court.”

The delay in releasing the government order constituting the team has added to the confusion. “This is a peculiar situation,” said an officer in the team. “The routine is to file the FIR in a police station and then transfer it to the SIT.”

The officer said the team was not formed under the Kerala Police Act, and that it would be operating under Section 30 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, which deals with the powers of superior police officers. The team’s powers and scope of operations, however, remains unclear.

The scope and structure of the planned film conclave also remains vague. There is criticism that the event could force survivors to once again share space with perpetrators. CPI leader Annie Raja told THE WEEK that Minister Cherian should have been more serious in his approach. “The first response after a report like this should not have been to announce a conclave,” she said. “The immediate reaction should have been to present the report to the public and commit to taking action based on its recommendations. That was the bare minimum.”

Cherian has also been criticised for letting Mukesh, the actor-MLA accused of sexual misconduct, remain in a committee set up by his ministry to create a “film policy” for the state. The committee, led by filmmaker Shaji N. Karun, has been tasked with addressing 25 areas of concern, including gender issues and women’s safety.

Karun told THE WEEK that it was up to Mukesh to decide whether to remain in the committee, despite the allegations against him. “I don’t mind if he remains,” he said, “as his insights as producer, actor and politician are valuable.”