Indian minister warns Bollywood heavyweights over sexual exploitation
In a rare rebuke, an Indian minister on Thursday warned the country’s Bollywood film industry to comply with strict measures to combat sexual harassment, following the Harvey Weinstein scandal.
Maneka Gandhi, India’s federal Minister for Women and Child Development, took the unusual step of writing to 24 powerful Bollywood film producers, demanding they comply with Indian sexual harassment legislation to ensure a "safe, secure and inclusive work environment” for all employees.
The letter was sent to major industry players, such as actors Aamir Khan and Shah Rukh Khan, as well as director Karan Johar.
“The aim of this law is to ensure that no woman is sexually harassed at her workplace,” Ms Gandhi said in her letter. "It is to be followed in letter and spirit by all organisations in the country," she added. "Bollywood filmmakers are ethically and legally accountable for the safety of not only their direct employees but of all outsourced and temporary staff as well."
It is understood that more letters will be sent to other film producers.
Bollywood remains hugely male dominated, with men making up the vast majority of directors and veteran stars. The small handful of female directors are mostly confined to regional cinema.
After the Weinstein allegations broke, people in the film business in India were unconvinced they would have a #MeToo moment.
"What can we do?" Mukesh Bhatt, who co-heads production house Vishesh Films said. “We cannot keep moral cops outside every film office to see that no girl is being exploited.”
Alankrita Shrivastava, director of critically acclaimed film Lipstick Under my Burkha said a women's protest movement was unlikely to happen in conservative Indian society. “The way men are being called out in Hollywood right now, I don’t know if it can happen in India.”
“In terms of how our psychology is, how patriarchy functions, it is much more entrenched,” she added.
However, Ms Gandhi's stark warning gives women in Bollywood hope that their concerns will be heard.
Last month Bollywood actress Swara Bhaskar told a Mumbai tabloid she had been turned down for "several roles" as she did not give in to "unwanted advances" by producers and directors.
Ms Bhaskar, 29, urged aspiring actresses to turn down roles rather than resort to the so-called "casting couch" to exchange sexual favours to advance their careers.
Thousands of young Indian girls and boys gravitate to Bollywood every year with the aim of becoming actors.
They are vulnerable to sexual exploitation, not only by unscrupulous agents promising them roles which they never get, but also by lesser known stars, producers and directors making similar promises.
Hopefuls are fearful of reporting inappropriate behaviour in case it ruins their chances of breaking into Bollywood.
“It is always very subtle,” Ms Bhaskar said this week. “People try to insinuate that there are 10,000 girls for one role – so what can you do?”
In the wake of the #MeToo scandal, actresses including Kalki Koechlin and Richa Chadha called on Bollywood to improve its record in standing up for victims of sexual harassment and exploitation.
Sexual harassment legislation was passed in India in 2013, in response to the fatal gang rape of a 23-year old medical student on a bus in Delhi in December 2012.
In November Ms Gandhi launched the online Sexual Harassment electronic-Box (SHe-Box) to register sexual harassment complaints in the workplace and to ensure the implementation of the 2013 law.
She also urged all company directors to report sexual harassment cases, but activists said many victims were hesitant to register their complaints, afraid their future careers would be curtailed.
Women's rights activists maintain that only 10 per cent of rape and other sexual harassment cases ever get reported in India.
