MeToo Wave: Tollywood's Own Hema Committee Report On Sexual Exploitation Awaits Release

The findings in the Hema Committee report have jolted the Malayalam film industry with female artists coming forward and levelling a sexual misconduct case against the prominent male members of Mollywood. The ongoing #MeToo movement in Mollywood has spread to other regional industries, including Telugu cinema, where actresses and WCC are demanding the state government to release the buried report about sexual harassment in the Telugu industry.

Here's all you need to know about the story behind the buried sexual harassment report in Telangana that Samantha Ruth Prabhu and WCC asked to be made public.

What led to the formation of the high-level committee in Telugu cinema?

On April 7, 2018, actress Sri Reddy held a semi-nude protest outside the Telugu Film Chamber of Commerce in Hyderabad, shedding light on the rampant sexual harassment in the Telugu cinema. Her protest triggered a huge public debate, prompting the Women and Transgender Organisations Joint Action Committee to approach the High Court with a plea to probe into the matter.

A year later in April, the then Telangana government of KCR constituted a high-level committee. It was established through GO Rt No. 984. The same year, the high-level committee formed a sub-committee, which conducted around 20 meetings with several people in the industry, including supporting actors, female junior actors, dance performers and side artists, to develop a legal framework to tackle the issue of sexual harassment in the industry. According to the committee, they were most vulnerable to sexual exploitation.

Meet the members of this committee

The high-level committee comprised police commissioners, film producers, directors, women and child welfare department officials, film industry unions and the television industry, among others. This committee then instituted a sub-committee which was led by Talasani Srinivas Yadav and Information and Public Relations Commissioner Arvind Kumar.

What was unearthed through 20 meetings held by the sub-committee?

Through these meetings the sub-committee learns about the harassment over payment of salaries, pay parity, poor work conditions and lack of written employment contracts. Some female artists also revealed that there were no separate restrooms or toilets for them. However, the subcommittee’s work was hampered by the COVID-19 lockdown and restrictions but continued it till 2022 by conducting interviews online.

Why Sexual Harassment and Gender Discrimination in the Telugu Film and Television Industries was not made public?

In June 2022, the committee submitted a report titled Sexual Harassment and Gender Discrimination in the Telugu Film and Television Industries to the then-BRS government led by K. Chandrashekar Rao. However, the state government chose not to make the findings public and shelved it.

When Congress came to power in December 2023, members of civil society reportedly made multiple requests to make the report public, but their requests went unheard.

#MeToo wave in Mollywood ignites fire in TFI once again

Seeing the #MeToo moment in Mollywood,  Telugu Film Industry (TFI) members, including Samantha Ruth Prabhu, Lakshmi Manchu, director Nandini Reddy, and others took to their social media handles to urge the state government to submit the Sexual Harassment and Gender Discrimination in the Telugu Film and Television Industries report.

They shared the statement of Voice of Women (VOW) on their Instagram that reads, “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 momentum," an excerpt from the post reads.