DC Edit | Kerala awakens to #MeToo, hopefully steps will show the way

It is a fact that the Kerala government sat on the report of the Justice Hema Committee, which also included a veteran actress and a retired female IAS officer, for about four and a half years. That the report exposed the truth behind the inhuman practices in the film industry with the help of the victims of such acts who narrated their first-hand experiences after being assured of anonymity, did not move the government for reasons that only it can make peace with. That the committee also recommended a series of measures that would end the exploitation of women and make the industry a workplace governed by modern precepts of human dignity and equality, was not implemented by a Left government, defies all logic. It took the determined efforts of the Women in Cinema Collective, a grouping of bold women personalities in “Mollywood”, to bring the report to light.

However, the government seems to be making up for these shortcomings. The special investigation team that the government formed with four women IPS officers to probe cases of sexual harassment on film sets has made some progress. As it stands, the SIT has booked over a dozen cases against senior actors and technicians based on complaints received. Like the Justice Hema Committee, it approached the women who made the allegations, interviewed them extensively and decided whether to register a case or not. Among those now facing cases for criminal assaults on women are an MLA of the ruling CPI(M) and the secretary of a powerful actors’ association. The government must now take the cases to their logical conclusion by prosecuting all those who used their position in the industry as a license to hunt down women who were pursuing a career in films.

A monumental failure of the Left government in the state is that it wasted precious time in introducing legal measures to humanize the film industry. The government, led by parties that swear by the working class, has remained silent all these years on the measures suggested in the report, including the setting up of a tribunal to regulate the industry. It must now at least take action on the recommendations. While punishing perpetrators of crimes is one aspect of the clean-up process, setting up legal and regulatory mechanisms alone cannot accomplish the difficult mission. The state government must realize that the film industry in several states has been demanding that similar committees be set up to study their own problems. The success of the Kerala experiment will determine the fate of these demands, but it is women who must lead the way.