Trigger warning: Mentions of sexual harassment
Three years ago, while she was working as a hairstylist for a small-budget Malayalam film, Lavanya (name changed) was allegedly molested by a makeup assistant on set. She shouted at him that day. “I was in tears. I warned him in no uncertain terms that he should not dare do this again. I told him I knew how to give him a tight slap, that I had come here to earn a living and to leave me alone,” she told TNM.
Her husband soon contacted a senior makeup artist, an office-bearer of the All Kerala Cine Makeup Artists and Hairstylists (AKCMH) union, and informed him of the assistant’s misbehaviour. The AKCMH is one of 21 unions affiliated with the Film Employees Federation of Kerala (FEFKA), the apex body for the welfare of professionals and technicians working at various levels of the Malayalam film industry.
However, nothing came of the call, Lavanya said, and within days, the man who had molested her allegedly transgressed again.
After the Hema Committee report put a spotlight on the power abuse and appalling working conditions for women in the Malayalam film industry, many had hoped that the moment of reckoning had arrived. Several women, including Lavanya, shared their traumatic experiences with the media, optimistic that a long-overdue systemic change was finally on the horizon.
But even in their moment of vulnerability, what they faced was ostracisation from FEFKA—the trade union that was supposed to protect them.
On August 28, nearly 10 days after the release of the report, FEFKA issued an official statement saying it would extend legal and psychological support to any survivor who required it. The union also said it hoped that the mass resignation of the executive committee of the Association of Malayalam Movie Artists (A.M.M.A.) “would be the beginning of a revolutionary course correction of the organisation.”
But over the following days, FEFKA changed course. On September 12, FEFKA general secretary B Unnikrishnan held a press meet criticising the Hema Committee report for the way it selected its respondents. Although several FEFKA members, including Unnikrishnan, had deposed before the committee, he demanded to know why the general secretaries of FEFKA—the largest trade union federation in Malayalam cinema—had not been included in the consultation.
That wasn’t all. A few days earlier, in a meeting with several women union members on September 1, FEFKA’s leaders accused the makeup artists and hairstylists who had spoken to the media of “conspiring to destroy” the union. They questioned why the women had gone to the media instead of directly approaching the police when the harassment incidents occurred.