Hema Committee report took 5 yrs to come out. Telugu film industry’s version still under wraps

Telugu film industry looked poised for MeToo moment in 2018-19 as a govt committee began looking into sexual exploitation of women. Final report, submitted in 2022, is collecting dust.

Illustration: Prajna Ghosh | ThePrint

New Delhi:  A red drop box sits in the hall of the Film Chamber of Commerce in Hyderabad’s Film Nagar. It’s where women go to submit anonymous reports of sexual harassment in Tollywood.

As the details in the Hema Committee Report rip through Kerala’s film industry, exposing the pervasive fear and structural sexual harassment that women face, other film industries in South India, including Tollywood—the Telugu industry spread across Andhra Pradesh and Telangana—are bracing for impact.

Tollywood looked poised to have its MeToo moment in 2018, when actor Sri Reddy took part in a nude protest after she was allegedly assaulted at her Chennai residence by a producer. The protest had drawn eyeballs and snowballed into a larger movement on sexual exploitation within the film industry. The Movie Artistes Association banned Reddy after her protest, while the National Human Rights Commission sent a notice to the Telangana government, asking for a report on Reddy’s allegations.

Much like what’s transpiring now in Kerala, several Telugu actors had come forward back then to say that the casting couch was not a myth. A government committee was formed in 2019 to look into cases of sexual harassment and exploitation within Tollywood, similar to the mandate of the Hema Committee.

But the final report, submitted in June 2022, is now collecting dust.

“There’s no sense of urgency, unfortunately. The report is waiting on someone’s desk, for a kick or a shove,” said actor and television presenter Jhansi, who was a member of both the high-level committee and the sub-committee formed to look into the issue. “Our systems need to work on need-based issues. But the push is lacking from within the fraternity and the bureaucracy. The only people pushing for the report to be published are the activists, associations, and feminist NGOs, who were part of the committees.”

The sub-committee comprised over 25 members from within the industry, the women development and child welfare department, labour department, police department and SHE teams, a division of Telangana Police dedicated to women’s safety.

Frustrated that the report is still under wraps, various stakeholders have taken matters into their own hands and installed redressal mechanisms like the red drop boxes to encourage women to open up. Besides WhatsApp support groups, they’ve even set up an official sexual harassment redressal panel within the Film Chamber of Commerce to address complaints.

“While we’re putting systems in place, we’re also sending out a strong note to habituated offenders, who ask for sexual favours, that what they’re doing is a crime,” said Jhansi emphatically. “After the fallout of the Hema Committee report in Kerala, we believe that now everything will start to shake up in Tollywood. And we are here for the women who want to speak up.”

Tollywood’s version of Hema Committee

The glimmer of a MeToo movement in Tollywood was quickly outshone by the fact that the industry unseated Bollywood as the largest film industry in India by box office revenue in 2021—even larger than Kollywood, the Tamil film industry.

It has produced big budget hit after hit, often serving as a launching pad for South Indian stars into national media. Many of the actresses who come to Tollywood are from outside the industry, which is also why many are vulnerable to differential power equations within Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.

“The structure of the Telugu film industry is different from others because it’s in the hands of large film families and their relatives, who have so much capital that you need their support to be successful,” said Dr. A Suneetha, independent researcher and member of the All India Feminist Alliance, who was also a member of the sub–committee.

The Telugu film industry is a vast and powerful business, raking in 19 percent of India’s total box office revenue in 2023, second only to Bollywood, which retook its crown as the country’s largest film industry in the same year.

The vast size of the industry wasn’t lost on the high-level committee and sub-committee working on gauging the levels of sexual harassment. The sub-committee even expanded its scope to look beyond film into television and entertainment journalism, covering the entertainment industry in total.

It was sparked off by Sri Reddy’s protest, after which the Women and Transgender Organisations Joint Action Committee filed a public interest litigation at the Telangana High Court to look into the exploitation of women.

A high-level committee was then formed in 2019 to study sexual harassment and issues of gender disparity within the larger entertainment industry. The committee then formed a sub-committee to collect testimonies and make recommendations with guidelines on how to address these issues.

The sub-committee met over 20 times between 2019 and 2022. They met stakeholders from every part of the industry to understand working conditions and looked into everything from instances of sexism to the terms of work contracts.

Interrupted by the coronavirus pandemic, the subcommittee finished the report in 2022.

“The Hema Committee report came out because women at every level in the Malayalam film industry fought for it at every step of the way,” said Suneetha. “Many don’t even know that a similar report was submitted in the Telugu film industry. And unless this report comes out, nothing will change it.”

Describing the details in the Hema Committee report as “shocking”, Annapurna Studios CEO and executive director Supriya Yarlagadda said that the real solution is to push for parity. 

“There is some movement now in terms of asking for action from authorities to implement policy and rules, with proper understanding of the nature of the industry,” said Yarlagadda. “Work parity and safety for women in this industry has to be implemented through structured action plans with deadlines, not just lip service.”

 

Redressal mechanisms

Since the Hema Committee report came out, around 17 official complaints with allegations of sexual assault have been filed with the Kerala Police.

But the report had languished with the government for nearly five years, and the industry—with the Women in Cinema Collective (WCC) at the helm—had to readjust to create its own internal support systems for women who had been ostracised for speaking out.

Tollywood had to do the same.

“After Sri Reddy’s allegations, lots of stories came out about people who solicited sexual favours,” said Jhansi. “Big names supported them. They continued to work. But the women who spoke against them couldn’t.”

To address these concerns, many women within the industry came together to set up a sexual harassment redressal panel, which was functional by 2020. Pushing for an internal complaints committee would prove difficult in an industry where most workers are employed on a contractual basis, and so, the panel has union representatives from all sectors of the industry, from writers to junior artists to camerapersons.

Some women in relative positions of power—like Jhansi and Yarlagadda—formed a support group with the help of the WCC to address issues of harassment. Counsellors and therapists were brought on board, as were lawyers.

The red drop box was one step towards encouraging women to speak up. Another strategy was to put up posters on make-up vans and film set equipment to say that such a support group exists.

“It’s the first industry to have a sexual harassment redressal panel. It’s only a baby step, but at least it’s a step,” said Jhansi, adding that the panel has received immense support from the Film Chamber of Commerce so far, and that some change is taking place to address these issues, even if the report is still under wraps.

But many worry that the fear, and the impunity for men, is pervasive, and therefore, the report is unlikely to come out.

“We’ve all been sitting on these issues for years,” said Suneetha. “We kept at it to put together this report. We tried every possible method, and we made sure we had a documented, thorough process so no questions could be asked. Now it remains to be seen if the government will follow (Kerala’s cue) and do something about it.”

(Edited by Mannat Chugh)