THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Justice Hema Committee overcame many obstacles to prepare over 200 page report that brought to light the existing sexual harassment and male chauvinism in the Malayalam film industry. Even though many have raised skepticism against the report for its non-sensationalism and gentlemen approach Hema committee succeeded in bringing many unwanted elements to the forefront of the public discourse. Even in its all weakness the fact that it is the first of its kind of a report which investigated the dark side of the film industry.
The committee’s first meeting was held on 2017 December 19 in Thiruvananthapuram. After the Terms of Reference was fixed the committee published it in major dailies. However, none responded. Meeting a difficult position the committee decided to contact individuals in cinema personally and invite them for a meeting. However, contact details – address, phone number, email ids – of both men and women who the committee intended to contact were not available.
It had to spend considerable time to collect correct details and contact of individuals from the cinema field. When contacted most of them were not available in phone numbers or they did not answer the calls. When the committee decided to serve these individuals notice through post it discovered that the post of office attendant was not sanctioned. However, they took an office attendant on daily wages. When personal delivery was attempted it was found out that the required persons were not available in the address at that time.
There was no guarantee that those individuals would appear before the committee on the date and time required. Even though most of the film fraternity was living in Kochi where the office of the committee was also situated most of them were away from homes. It was after the 2018 and 2019 floods the sittings were held continuously. There were days when sitting would start at 10 am and end at 9 in the night. The committee extended gratitude for actors and others working in cinema who spent considerable time.
Even though the committee was getting reliable information that the female junior artists were having a lot of serious problems the committee could not get any one of them. The government’s letter asking the committee to look into problems of junior artists came as a breakthrough as the committee could contact the individuals who had submitted complaints to the government.
The major blow to the functioning of the committee was that it did not have a stenographer. As the information received was important, to prevent the leakage and controversy the three committee members were forced to type the report by themselves.