Bollywood told to bring down the curtain on sex harassment

IN A rare rebuke, an Indian minister yesterday 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.

In the letter, which was sent to major industry players, Ms Gandhi said: “The aim of this law is to ensure that no woman is sexually harassed at her workplace. It is to be followed in letter and spirit by all organisations in the country. 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 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, those employed in the film business in India were unconvinced that there would be a #Metoo moment in Bollywood.

“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.

“It is always very subtle,” she said this week. “People try to insinuate that there are 10,000 girls for one role – so what can you do?”

Last month, Ms Gandhi launched the online Sexual Harassment electronicbox (She-box) to register sexual harassment complaints in the workplace.

Women’s rights activists maintain that only 10 per cent of rape and other sexual harassment cases ever get reported in India.