The Indian film world’s predators are getting their comeuppance thanks to a survivor’s persistence and the delayed results of an official probe
In 2017, popular TV anchor Johnny Luckose asked Mohanlal, superstar of south India’s ‘Mollywood’ (the nickname for the Malayalam film industry, located in Kerala), about the top gossip of the day: that the actor had celebrated after sleeping with his 3,000th woman. Mohanlal sarcastically brushed it off, saying the number was more.
Misogyny and patriarchy are regularly portrayed and accepted in Indian movies. And it was widely suspected that sexual exploitation was rampant in the film industries all over India; but no one ever spoke out about it publicly. Until Mollywood actress Karthika Menon, aka Bhavana, finally pricked the industry’s bubble of lies and bonhomie.
Assaulted in a moving vehicle in February 2017, Bhavana complained to police. Her colleague Dileep (56), a popular but mediocre actor obsessed with stardom, was arrested. The immunity celebrities enjoyed disappeared, rewriting Mollywood’s history.
Kerala’s Left Front government formed a seven-member police team to probe the atrocities faced by women in Mollywood. Bhavana’s colleagues would not relent and formed the Women in Cinema Collective (WCC) in 2017.
Under pressure from the WCC, the state government appointed a committee to probe the sexual exploitation of women actors. Headed by retired High Court judge K Hema, the all-women committee included veteran actress Sarada and retired bureaucrat KB Valsala Kumari.
The committee finalized a 235-page report that was submitted in 2019 but only made public, after being redacted, on August 19 this year, almost five years later. It led to sensational headlines last week, and to several heads rolling in Mollywood.
This was the first time that the casting couch – a global euphemism for demanding sexual favors in exchange for entry into the industry – was put on record. India’s films are produced in more than 20 cities and regions, in more than 30 languages, but one thing that they all have in common is that no one talks about the casting couch. It is only evidenced by the way their movies glorify patriarchy and misogyny.