In October 2018, a woman actor in Malayalam cinema had reported sexual harassment at the work place and complained to the Association of Malayalam Movie Artists (AMMA). AMMA executive committee members however did not respond to the email in which the woman wrote about a knock on her hotel room door late in the night during the shooting of a film in 2006. The complainant sent a reminder on August 20, 2024, the day after the Hema Committee report was published by the Government of Kerala.
Actor Siddique, the general secretary of AMMA, acknowledged this during a press conference held by the organisation on Friday, August 23. The press conference was convened to provide a delayed response to the Hema Committee report, which was released on August 19 and highlighted the challenges faced by women in the Malayalam film industry.
Siddique, while claiming that no complaints of sexual harassment have been made to AMMA, made vague references to the 2018 email, saying that he had somehow missed it so far.
The first email, which TNM has a copy of, was sent in October 2018, soon after a press meet was conducted by AMMA members Siddique and the late KPAC Lalitha, claiming that no complaint of sexual harassment had ever come to the organisation. This was also the press meet during which Siddique had ridiculed the formation of the Internals Committee – mandated by the POSH Act or the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013.
The woman, in her email, said that someone had knocked on her hotel room door late in the night three or four times. She had called up the reception and found that it was the director of the film. Her mother then got a co-actor's help to have her shifted to another room. After the incident, the director had been rude to her on the sets and her dialogues and shots were cut short, she wrote in her email. At the time there was no grievance committee for AMMA and she did not know whom to report the issue to. It was also a time when women were ashamed to speak out about harassment, she wrote.
She further wrote about the "compromise" that production controllers asked to make when they called for new projects. These are the same phrases that women who deposed before the Hema Committee also mentioned - if they would be ready for "compromise" or "adjustment" before the film shooting even began.
The complainant woman had also raised in her email, the issue of incomplete payments for two films. She wrote that though she had spoken about the issue to the Secretary of AMMA, she was asked to not raise a complaint about it. She was told that no producer would cast her in future.
To her August 20 email, sent as a reminder of the 2018 complaint, she said, “No-one in Amma organization took a heed to sexual harassment or remuneration not being fully paid. I mentioned back in 2006 or in 2017. Are you all still going to be in this make-belief palace of "all is well" amongst us? The Hema committee report has said that other 50+ victims suffered similar or much more brutal experiences than mine. Hence all is not well here. Please open your eyes and address the issue; change is inevitable. Ignorance is NOT bliss. (sic).”
A woman member of AMMA responded to this email apologising for not having seen it before. She also said that the organisation did not have an Internal Committee anymore. The only time an IC was formed – was in 2022 – and it did not last beyond a short period. All the members quit after AMMA refused to take any action against a member accused of rape.
Siddique, in the press meet that AMMA called on August 23, said that the organisation could so far not act on any complaints of sexual harassment since none of these have been raised before it. Vice president Jayan R, another actor, also repeated the claim till the end that they would know about instances of sexual harassment only if anyone had reported about it.
Siddique’s repetitive assertions in the press conference that AMMA will stand by any woman who faces sexual harassment and that the organisation prefers an investigation sound hollow when neither he nor any member of the association had even shown the courtesy to acknowledge an official complaint, until now.