The much-awaited Justice Hema Committee report, which was made public on Monday, August 19, has brought to light some of the horrific issues faced by women in the Malayalam film industry. However, some observations in the report, made by Sharada, a veteran actor and member of the committee, were problematic and regressive.
The committee formed by the Kerala government is headed by retired Justice K Hema, former bureaucrat KB Valsalakumari and Sharada.
While acknowledging that sexual harassment exists in the film industry, Sharada, a three-time National Award-winning actor, took the old-fashioned and rather regressive route of blaming women’s dressing for being part of the problem. She observes that the way women in the industry are dressed these days is “not correct.”
“More than concealing, their style of dressing exposes their body parts. In the olden days, there were no conversations with sexual double meaning in the sets. Similarly, there were no sexual assaults on the sets, like touching or squeezing the breasts of actresses, junior artists, or technicians,” claims Sharada.
While Sharada claims that there were no issues of sexual assault on film sets in the past, she goes on to say that “casting couch existed in the olden days too.” According to the actor, casting couch was something that took place with “mutual consent.”
However, it is widely accepted that the ‘casting couch’ issue in the film industry is a display of power dynamics, where a popular and powerful actor exploits those who are new to the industry by forcing them into sexual relationships.
Sharada also talks about how the current crop of actors is “influenced by Western culture.”
"Hence, everybody mingles with each other quite openly. Girlfriends and boyfriends are very public now. The relationship between men and women was different in the olden days. The culture of the new generation is different. “Adjustment" and "compromise" are open these days, whereas it was not so open then,” she says.
The formation of the Hema Commission was triggered by the shocking abduction and sexual assault of a top female actor in Kerala in February 2017. The crime was executed by a gang of men who were allegedly hired by superstar Dileep.
In December 2019, they submitted the findings to the Kerala government, but the report was not made public. On July 6, the State Information Commission (SIC) passed an order directing the Kerala government to issue the committee report to RTI applicants before July 2, after redacting information that could identify individuals mentioned in the report, as prohibited under the Right to Information (RTI) Act.