A series of sexual misconduct allegations has rocked the film industry in the southern Indian state of Kerala, triggering a flurry of police cases and prompting calls for a broader reckoning within the so-called Mollywood industry.
The latest wave of the #MeToo movement, which began in 2017, erupted after the findings of an inquiry into the problems faced by men and women in the film industry, prepared by a government-appointed panel known as the Hema Committee, were published on August 19. The report revealed widespread sexual abuse, along with other workplace violations, against women working in the Malayalam film industry. Malayalam is the dominant language in Kerala.
Sexual harassment is “the worst evil” faced by women in the industry, says the report, which runs to more than 200 pages.
So what's happening in Malaysian cinema, what does the report say and what's next?
Why was the Hema Committee created?
In February 2017, an actress was kidnapped and sexually assaulted by a group of men in a car while travelling to work in Kerala, a city on the Malabar Coast in southern India. The men recorded a video of the assault.
In response to this incident, 18 women from the Malayalam film industry came together under the Women in Cinema Collective (WCC). Malayalam actor Gopalakrishnan Padmanabhan, better known by his stage name Dileep, was arrested in July 2017 for allegedly orchestrating the assault. He was released on bail after three months. The court is still hearing the case.
Al Jazeera has emailed Dileep's lawyer Raman Pillai seeking answers to specific questions related to the allegations against the actor and those in the Hema Committee report. Pillai has not responded.
In November 2017, in response to an appeal by the WCC, the state government of Kerala set up the three-member Hema Committee, tasked with looking into the issues faced by women and men working in the industry. The committee comprised retired Kerala High Court judge K Hema, former actress Sharada and a retired bureaucrat. KB Valsala Kumari (English)
The committee collected opinions from male and female actors, makeup artists, directors of photography, and other crew members through online surveys and in-person interviews. Videos, screenshots, and photographs were also collected as possible evidence. In addition, a committee member visited the filming of a movie released in 2019. This was done to study the environment on a film set.
What is the Hema Committee Report?
In late 2019, the committee submitted its report to the state government. In late August 2024, a redacted version was made public, in which the names of all victims and perpetrators were removed.
The late release of the report was criticised by opposition politicians, including Shashi Tharoor, a Congress MP, who said in August: “It is absolutely shameful and shocking that the government has shelved this report for nearly five years.”
The government said the report’s release was delayed because it contained sensitive information. “Justice Hema had written to the government on February 19, 2020, urging that the report not be released due to the sensitive nature of the information,” Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan was quoted as saying by local media in August.
However, even though details were withheld, the report sent shockwaves across India because of what it revealed.
“It's not just about reporting on sexual violence, but it shows the power equations of the industry and other types of violations like discrimination, exploitation and retribution,” said J Devika, a feminist academic from Kerala.
What were the main conclusions of the report?
- “Denial of human rights to women in cinema”: On several film sets, women do not have access to changing rooms or bathrooms. This, the report says, causes health problems, including urinary tract infections, and women working on set “have ended up in hospitals on some occasions.”
- “Casting couch”: The report notes that women in the industry, especially aspiring actresses, are pressured by actors, producers or directors to grant them sexual favours in exchange for roles in films and other opportunities to advance their careers. Some witnesses produced video clips, audio clips and screenshots of WhatsApp messages to back up their claims. The practice is shrouded in euphemisms. “‘Compromise’ and ‘adjustment’ are two very familiar terms among women in the Malayalam film industry,” the report notes.
- Online harassment: Several women and men told the committee that they had been harassed and stalked in online messages and social media posts. This harassment can be sexual in nature, with actresses receiving threats of rape and assault along with unsolicited images in their inboxes.
- Contractual issues: Written contracts lack specific details about the nature of the scenes the actors will be expected to perform. Some actresses were quoted in the report as saying they were asked to do sexually explicit scenes they were uncomfortable with and had not been informed about beforehand. Many women also do not receive adequate remuneration due to unclear contracts, the report said.
Among its recommendations, the report calls for the creation of a judicial tribunal that would function like a civil court and allow women to file complaints.
The government is yet to set up such a tribunal but has formed a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to investigate a spate of fresh allegations about past cases of sexual misconduct made by actresses following the publication of the report.
Flood of accusations
After the report was published, many more Malaysian actresses came forward with allegations of sexual harassment and assault. These include:
- On August 27, actress Minu Muneer filed allegations of sexual misconduct against seven actors, including Mukesh, who is also a state legislator for the ruling Communist Party of India (Marxist) in Kerala. The actor has denied the allegations against him, claiming that Muneer had earlier asked him for money and then tried to blackmail him. On August 27, he was quoted by local media as saying that he welcomed a transparent investigation, saying, “This group, which has been persistently blackmailing me into giving me money, has now turned against me at this opportune time.” Jayasurya, another of the actors accused by Muneer, has also denied the allegation.
- Sreelekha Mitra, an actress known for her work in Bengali cinema, accused director Ranjith Balakrishnan of sexual harassment in 2009. Police registered a complaint against Balakrishnan on August 26. Balakrishnan has claimed that the allegations are false and said that he interacted with Mitra in the presence of a scriptwriter and two assistants, according to Indian online publication The News Minute.
The entire executive committee of the Association of Malayalam Movie Artists (AMMA), headed by one of the biggest superstars of Malayalam cinema, Mohanlal, has resigned following allegations of sexual misconduct among some of its members.
The SIT, which received an unedited version of the Hema Committee report, is now preparing to conduct face-to-face interviews with the actresses who alleged harassment in the report.
What's next?
Activists, already frustrated by the government's five-year delay in making public the Hema Committee report, are demanding that the names of the alleged perpetrators identified by the panel of experts be made public.
Devika said it was a “serious violation of the law of the country” to conceal their identities, adding that “it is not common for accused to be protected in this manner.”
She said more clarity was needed on how the tribunal recommended by the committee would work, warning against a mechanism that could undermine other institutions that deal with sexual harassment complaints.
“Top-down structures erode the credibility of those that already exist,” he argued.
Since 2013, Indian law has required all workplaces with more than 10 employees to have an internal complaints committee to address issues of sexual misconduct in the workplace. However, in practice, enforcement of this law has been patchy.
In 2022, the Kerala High Court ordered film production houses to set up such committees. According to Devika, some of the committees are weak and ineffective. But as per the law, complainants can also lodge their complaints with local complaints committees at the district level.
Despite their flaws, district and internal committees are often more accessible to women than a tribunal set up from above, Devika said. “The tribunal is conceived as a supranational body,” outside the film industry, she said. “Some of us feel that access to justice is being cut off. Fewer women are likely to complain if such mechanisms are set up.”
The need to create another tribunal despite existing mechanisms that are supposed to address cases of sexual offences in the workplace also raises a broader question, Devika said.
“As Indian citizens, how can we say that the current law does not protect women just because they work in films?”
The WCC has been posting what it sees as solutions and recommendations on its social media pages following the publication of the report.
Beyond naming and shaming
“After the report came out, the questions have been: ‘Who is the perpetrator? Who are these men? Why are they being protected?’” said Nidhi Suresh, an Indian journalist who covered the 2017 case in great detail for The News Minute.
She said actresses who have made public complaints following the publication of the report have lost work opportunities.
Anjali Menon, a filmmaker and founding member of the WCC, echoed this statement. According to the Press Trust of India news agency, she said: “It is true that we have paid the price of losing job opportunities when we spoke out, but over the last seven years we have consistently maintained our stance and now have immense support from the media, the legal community and the public.”
Suresh told Al Jazeera that he understood the risks involved. If the names of the alleged perpetrators are revealed, it will also be easy to uncover the identity of the victims, he said. “If the names of the perpetrators are revealed, it will have to be done in a very responsible manner,” he said.
Either way, Suresh said the movement that erupted after the Hema Committee report and subsequent accusations by other women was about more than just naming and shaming perpetrators. What is needed, she said, are structural changes in the way the film industry treats women.
“A conversation that’s been happening a lot here is that people have been comparing this movement to the Weinstein movement,” she said, referring to the movement that grew in 2017 when more than 80 women came forward and accused Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein of sexual abuse.
The #MeToo movement in the Kerala film industry is not just about exposing sexual predators in the industry, she said, but about reframing how the industry is structured and how it treats women.
“It's about trying to rethink the culture of a safer workplace.”
