Siddique, actor and general secretary of AMMA
| Photo Credit: @actor.sidhique/Instagram
The Malayalam film industry has by and large reacted cautiously to the release of the Hema committee report on Monday.
The report of the committee, headed by the former Kerala High Court Judge K. Hema, constituted in the wake of the sexual assault of an actor in 2017 was eventually released, albeit partially, after protracted legal wrangling.
Actor and general secretary of Association of Malayalam Movie Artistes (AMMA) Siddique initially said that he was dutybound to respond to the findings in the report and will indeed respond but need time to study it as he was busy travelling. However, later in the day he did respond nevertheless.
“We just know that the committee report has been released. However, we don’t know the details,” he said. At this point, we have no idea how it would affect us and on what point we need to respond. All the actors are busy rehearsing for a show in Ernakulam and our focus right now is on that.
“We will come up with a response after studying the report in detail. We will discuss it with all stakeholders, including other industry organisations. We should respond only after studying the report as it deals with a very sensitive matter. We should be cautious about even uttering a word about the report as any slip of tongue by me or my colleagues would be of grave consequence. We will study the report in detail and will definitely meet the media after that,” said Mr. Siddique.
Asked about the harassment and discrimination faced by women artistes, including junior artistes, as revealed in the report, he said that corrective action should indeed be taken. But we need to know details like the kind of discrimination, who faced it and who complained, against whom the complaint has been raised, where it took place, etc.
‘Criminal activities’
When pointed out the experiences shared by women artistes like the knocks on their doors during odd timings, Mr. Siddique said that such actions cannot be condoned or justified by anyone and dubbed it as ‘criminal activities’ warranting action. He assured an honest and open-minded attempt to correct the mistakes, if any, pointed out. All film organisations will extent maximum cooperation to any potential action by the government.
Kerala Producers Association secretary B. Rakesh toed the same line and asked for time to study the report.
AMMA joint secretary and actor Baburaj cited the voluminous nature of the report while similarly asking for more time. Media has been showing only parts of it. Whatever needs to be done (based on the findings of the report) will have to be done to the maximum extent possible.
Dressing room facilities
If woman artistes are still not given proper dressing room facilities like in the past when artistes used to change dress with a makeshift screen of saris then it’s wrong. Now with the advent of mobile phones with cameras the insecurity is that much more, said Mr. Baburaj who asked for a week to study the report and come up with a response.
Actor-director Lal said that whatever issues being highlighted in the report need to be resolved. Hopefully, everything will be good, he said.
