BREAK BOLLYWOOD'S WALL OF SILENCE

IN late 2018, when Bollywood was in the grips of the MeToo movement, the Hema Committee was working towards bringing to light sexual harassment and discrimination against women in the Malayalam film industry.

- NAMRATA JOSHI

Since the committee's pathbreaking report was made public on August 19, there has barely been an acknowledgment of its gravity in one of the largest filmmaking industries.

Something seems rotten in the state of Bollywood when it comes to gender sensitivity. Instead of addressing the elephant in the room, the attempt has been to disregard it. "It's as if it's happening in another country, as if no parallels can be drawn here... How will the kettle call the pot black? It's like everybody is complicit and it keeps the business going," says screenwriter Atika Chohan.

Especially galling has been the blackout of the issue by celebrities. "The big names who identify as feminists could have brought it into the public sphere, but didn't do it," says journalist and author Karishma Upadhyay, who had made her own harassment known.

The tone deafness on the report stems basically from Bollywood having squandered the MeToo momentum. "Nothing changed... It's like MeToo never happened," adds Upadhyay.

What followed instead were attempts at diverting from and subverting the very essence of the movement. "Conversations around gender equality begin with defining feminism and not #NotAllMen. You start on the defensive. The issues and solutions are obvious. These feel like tactics to waste time and delay action," says Smriti Kiran, founder of Polka Dots Lightbox and curator of Maitri, a female-first collective.