Why Is Bollywood Silent?

Before the Hema Committee Report, The Women in Cinema Collective (WCC) was formed by a group of female actors from the Malayalam film industry after the assault of a female actor by a male colleague in 2017. WCC had insisted that A.M.M.A (Association of Malayalam Movie Artists) should have an IC, but then there was the debate was about having ICs (Internal Committees) at each production unit. However, the recent uproar led to the resignation of acclaimed director Ranjith, the head of the Kerala Chalachitra Academy chairman handed his resignation, bowing to Kerala government pressure two days after Bengali actor Sreelekha Mitra accused him of having touched her inappropriately. This was followed by super star Mohan Babu as head of A.M.M.A. along with his colleagues who resignated from the organization.

“It has been planned to recommend to the government that forming of IC should be made mandatory while registering the name of a movie and the existence of the IC should be specified while call sheets are given to the cast and crew,” said Sandhya, who had been guiding the WCC legally to form ICs in the film industry.

However, though women from general professions do carry complaints to the police, the molester and the harasser goes scot-free, and their voices are silenced at the outset, in case of women working in the film industry, from a costume designer to an art director to a junior artist or top actress, there is a collective wall of silence that stops the victims from even approaching the police because their very employment in the film industry is directly linked to their compromise to sexual acts by men in power because if they refuse, they will be quietly and not so quietly will be ousted out of the industry.

The Hema Committee report released on August 27, has exposed the rampant abuse of power and status by power-wielding men in the Malayalam film industry. It states, “The Indian society is at a critical juncture where it is faced with the issue of a nefarious rape culture that normalises sexual abuse of women in the workplace. In light of the recent Kolkata gang rape-murder case as well as the Malayalam film industry exposé, it is important that we demand a change and justice for the survivors and victims of sexual violence. This is not just an isolated issue. Rape culture spares none and makes the marginalised even more vulnerable.”

Interestingly, the Report is based on real-life experiences of forced sexual harassment made by actors and other women who have been victims in the hands of very powerful men who hold control of the film industry in Kerala.

Two weeks after the Hema Committee report sent shockwaves across several Indian film industries, artistes from the Kannada film industry (KFI) have responded to the ongoing issue. After actor Sruthi Hariharan demanded a panel in Sandalwood similar to that of Hema Committee, members of Film Industry For Rights and Equality (FIRE) have asked the Karnataka government to constitute a committee headed by a retired judge to study and report on issues faced by women, including sexual harassment in the industry.

FIRE was formed during the #MeToo wave in 2018 when Sruthi accused actor Arjun Sarja of sexual harassment. A not-for-profit organisation under the Societies Act to tackle sexual harassment and casting couch in the industry, FIRE is led by filmmaker Kavita Lankesh, president of the panel. Actor Chetan Ahimsa serves as the secretary. Incidentally, Kavita Lankesh is the sister of Gowri Lankesh who was brutally murdered some years ago.

There is also the allegation by the VIP perpetrators is that there is no sexual harassment as sexual relationships are consensual that is, based on the ‘consent’ of the women concerned. Theword ‘consensual’ is an adjective derived from the noun ‘consensus.’ English is a tricky language where words often have subjective interpretations that differ from person to person and from place to place while in some cases, over a period of time, they acquire definite meanings. The word “consensual” has almost exclusively come to be associated between two or more people who mutually agree to sexual activity, agenda unknown.

The main difference between sexual harassment at the workplace and the casting couch lies in the difference between forced sex and consensual sex. But in some cases, as Weinstein’s famous and not-so-famous victims have stated, “consensual sex” can also be forced. But then, it becomes a question of the powerful versus the vulnerable and in these cases, sexual pressure and blackmail is a war between the powerful and the vulnerable, where the ‘vulnerable’ is not necessarily weak and without options.

It is rather strange that Bollywood, the most internationally popular film industry in India, maintains an explosive silence on the very phrase “sexual harassment at the workplace” as if itdoes not exist. But it does. The same goes for the Bengali, Marathi and other film industries where women prefer to remain silent for the fear of being thrown out of the industry following which, it would perhaps be impossible for them to get another job. Had they backed the Hema Committee Report, the movement would have been much stronger than it is becoming now.

This is a never-ending story filled with stories of exploitation by powerful men conditioned by patriarchy of women brought up to believe that they are weak which they are not. The only way to close this is by quoting Martin Luther King who said, “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”