Tannishtha Chatterjee isn’t the one to mince her words. Time and again, she has been vocal about the prevalence of sexual harassment faced by women in the Hindi film industry. Now she she believes that the Hema Committee Report that exposes the malpractices on women in the Malayalam film industry is a good step in resuming a conversation on change. She also lauds the women of Mollywood for raising their voices, uninhibitedly.
In an exclusive chat with News18 Showsha, Tannishtha says, “The other day, a very dear friend of mine expressed their surprise saying Kerala is one of the most educated states and that it has an evolved society! I told them that’s the only reason they’re being able to call it out.” The Justice K Hema Committee was formed in response to a demand by the Women In Cinema Collective, following the 2017 incident involving a female Malayalam actor who was sexually assaulted in a moving vehicle in Kochi.
But does she think Bollywood can have its own collective and committee addressing women’s safety at workplace? “In the Hindi film industry, we had the #MeToo movement where many women spoke up but it fizzled away. Many people who were named at that time are still working with absolute impunity. A lot of people in the Hindi film industry are supporting the movement in the Malayalam film industry. But it’s very difficult to talk about what consequences it can have here,” Tannishtha remarks.
In fact, the Parched and Angry Indian Goddesses actor is confident that what followed the Harvey Weinstein case in the West can never happen in the Hindi film industry. “It’s uncanny. Just two months back, I was watching the film, She Said, which is about the whole Weinstein case. In that film, they’re naming the biggest people. That’s very tough here because our society is very different. Everyone is scared,” she adds.
Tannishtha, who began her career in the early 2000s, shares that she too was at the receiving end of sexual advances by men in power back then. “When I first came to the industry, I faced it from some of the biggest names. I ran away from all that. I told myself that I’ll only work with casting directors who’re women and men who’re very professional. I started getting calls for auditions for international films where it was really about quality of working and whether you suit the part or not. But our industry has various levels of corruption,” she states.
As for stringent policies, according to her, won’t go a long way in scaring predators away. “It will take another two-three generations for better times to come. Women face all of it – one aspect is sexual favours and the other is under-the-table deals. But we can never name them. Whatever little work we’re getting, if we start naming, we’ll be completely out of work. The only choice we’ve is not to work with most people,” Tannishtha avers.
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