Beyond Mollywood: Did Telangana govt undermine report on sexual harassment in Telugu film industry?

The pervasive sexual harassment and atmosphere of fear in the Malayalam film industry revealed by the Hema Committee report has stirred a massive storm. The ripples of the report are being felt beyond Mollywood.

Now, calls for releasing a similar report on sexual harassment in the Telugu film industry have gained momentum. Several women film personalities from the Telugu Film Industry (TFI), including Samantha Ruth Prabhu and Lakshmi Manchu, have urged the Congress-led Telangana government to publish the findings of the sub-committee on sexual abuse.

Let’s take a closer look.

What’s happening?

Kushi actor Samantha Ruth Prabhu hailed Mollywood ’s Women in Cinema Collective (WCC) for its efforts which led to the findings of the Hema Committee report.

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Taking to Instagram, Prabhu on behalf of The Voice of Women, a support group for women in the Telugu film industry, wrote, “We, the women of the Telugu film industry, welcome the Hema Committee report and applaud the persistent efforts of the WCC in Kerala, which has laid the path to this moment.”

“We hereby urge the Telangana government to publish the submitted sub committee report on sexual harassment, which can help frame government and industry policies, to establish a safe working environment for women in the TFI,” she added.

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Actors Manchu, Anchor Suma and Jhansi and director Nandini Reddy have also called on the state government to publish the sub-committee’s report. Like Prabhu, they shared the statement by The Voice of Women on their respective social media accounts.

Kerala’s WCC had led to the formation of The Voice of Women in the Telugu film industry spanning Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.

How panel came to be in Tollywood

In April 2019, the Telangana government led by then chief minister K Chandrashekar Rao (KCR) set up a high-level committee to investigate sexual harassment and exploitation within Tollywood.

This came a year after actor Sri Reddy participated in a semi-nude protest outside the Telugu Film Chamber of Commerce in Film Nagar, Hyderabad. She had accused a producer of assaulting her at her Chennai residence.

The protest created a huge stir, leading to a larger movement on sexual abuse in the film industry. Many Telugu actors spoke about the practice of casting couch in Tollywood at the time, reported ThePrint.

As per Indian Express, the Women and Transgender Organisations Joint Action Committee moved the Telangana High Court seeking a probe into the exploitation of women in Tollywood.

The high-level committee, formed by the Telangana government, comprised filmmakers, producers, women and child welfare department officials, police commissioners, and representatives from the Telangana State Film Development Corporation, film industry unions and the television industry, according to the newspaper.

This panel created a sub-committee with more than 25 members from Tollywood, including the women development and child welfare department, police department, the labour department, and SHE teams, a division of Telangana Police dedicated to women’s safety, as per ThePrint.

ALSO READ: How Hema Committee report has left Kerala's ruling CPI (M) in a fix

What did the panel find?

The sub-committee’s work faced obstruction due to the COVID-19 lockdown and was finally completed in 2022.

In June 2022, it submitted the report titled ‘Sexual Harassment and Gender Discrimination in the Telugu Film and Television Industries’ to the KCR government to help formulate policies to make workplaces safe for women.

The sub-committee found people faced harassment in the industry over unequal wages, payment of salaries, lack of written employment contracts, and poor working conditions with many women complaining of no separate rest areas or toilets for them, reported Indian Express.

Several women interviewed by the panel did not detail the kind of harassment they were subjected to or name those who demanded sexual favours from them, noted the newspaper.

The KCR government did not make the report public. Speaking to Indian Express, former Telangana minister Talasani Srinivas Yadav claimed the report was “very vague”. “The sub-committee did a lot of work and interviewed many people but the report did not provide anything specific that required action,” he said.

Actor and television presenter Jhansi, who was a member of both the committees, told ThePrint, “There’s no sense of urgency, unfortunately. The report is waiting on someone’s desk, for a kick or a shove. 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.”

While the government sits on the report, many stakeholders have introduced redressal mechanisms, including creating WhatsApp support groups, to help women open up.

“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. 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," Jhansi told the news outlet.

With inputs from agencies