Unsafe at any place: Hema Committee underlines distance to gender equality

Recent revelations in the Justice Hema Committee report on women in Malayalam film industry and events following the rape and murder of a medical student in Kolkata point to a disturbing regression

Over the past two decades, the Indian workplace has made noticeable progress in terms of gender inclusiveness. Women figure in far larger numbers than before in professions that were previously considered male bastions, from accountancy and finance, information technology to medicine, engineering, aeronautics, and defence. However, recent revelations in the Justice Hema Committee report on women working in the Malayalam film industry and the course of events following the rape and murder of a medical student in Kolkata’s R G Kar hospital point to a disturbing regression. Both incidents reflect the amplification of innate gender chauvinism into tacitly accepted violence against women.

The recent history of the report is a particularly egregious example of this persistent societal crisis. It took nearly five years after it was submitted in 2019 for the report to be released in the public domain on August 19 this year, after legal petitions that sought to delay the release on privacy grounds were dismissed. Remarkably, retired high court judge Hema, too, had urged the government in 2020 not to release the report to protect the confidentiality of the respondents. This may have been a warranted argument. Unfortunately, the draft recommendations by a panel formed in 2022 to enhance women’s safety in the industry were so risibly inadequate that demands escalated for the full report via multiple Right-to-Information applications. The panel advised that contracts in the industry be made compulsory, alcohol and drugs banned, basic facilities ensured for women, and people with criminal backgrounds be banned on sets. It also said stringent laws must be passed based on the recommendations of the report. As the subsequent takeaways from the report revealed, it will take much more than that to ensure that women in the industry are truly safe. The report spoke of a pervasive culture of sexual harassment, that fear of retribution precluded victims from reporting it, that an “all-male mafia” dominated the industry, lack of separate toilets and changing rooms made women vulnerable to attacks, and lack of pay parity between men and women. The immediate impact of the report resulted in an explosion of “me-too” revelations that caused the resignations of the president of the Association of Malayalam Movie Artists while its executive committee was dissolved. The chairman of the Kerala Chalachitra Academy has also resigned.

The report and collateral scandals raise serious doubts about the state of gender equity in other professions principally because of the apathy of the political class. Bollywood actors have long complained of “casting couch” practices without much being done about it. It took courageous revelations from a bunch of women wrestlers to expose the alleged persistent harassment by the head of the federation. Rape accusations often get caught up in competitive politics. A rare exception was in 2012. Public outrage at the gang rape and death of a medical student in Delhi produced more stringent laws against rape and workplace harassment. These have given women some confidence to come forward and report sexual abuse and harassment in larger numbers. The Hema committee report is a wakeup call. The fact that such an incident occurs in a state that has long boasted a 100 per cent literacy rate suggests that India has some distance to go to ensure that women, roughly half the population, can take social equality and security for granted.