With the release of Hema Committee report on the Malayalam film industry generating a wave of #MeToo allegations, a collective of women actors in Tollywood has urged the Telangana government to publicise a similar report from 2019 on workplace sexual harassment in the Telugu film industry. The demand was raised by Voice of Women (VOW), a collective of women Tollywood artists, similar to the Women in Cinema Collective (WCC) in Kerala.
A high-level committee consisting of police commissioners, SHE teams, film producers, and directors was constituted in April 2019 to probe the prevalence of workplace sexual harassment in the Telugu cinema industry. Ram Mohan, who was then the chairperson of the Telangana State Film Development Corporation (TSFDC), was appointed to chair the committee. A sub-committee, tasked with making recommendations that would help the government implement guidelines to curtail sexual harassment in Tollywood, was also formed the same year.
Though the sub-committee’s report was submitted to the state government in 2022, the contents still remain a secret.
VOW now wants the state government to publish this report. In a statement released on August 30, VOW said, “Taking cue from the WCC, The Voice of Women, a support group for women in the TFI [Telugu film industry] was created in 2019. We hereby urge the Telangana government, to publish the sub-committee report on sexual harassment, which can help frame government and industry policies, to establish a safe working environment for women in the TFI.”
VOW also added, “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 moment.”
While the Hema Committee was constituted following the outcry over a horrific incident—the orchestrated rape of a woman actor—the government sought a report on sexual harassment in Tollywood after a semi-nude protest by television anchor-turned-actor Sri Reddy in April 2018 exposed the prevalence of sexual harassment in the Telugu film industry. The protest prompted the Women and Transgender Organisations Joint Action Committee (WTOJAC) to approach the High Court in Telangana and the State Women’s Commission (SWC) to demand action. At the time, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) had also taken cognizance of the issue.
The High-level committee was formed after the intervention of the SWC.