Sajitha Madathil: ‘I thought only young women got inappropriate requests in the film industry until it happened to me’

A file photo of the members of Women in Cinema Collective with Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan.

You all at WCC have been fighting for so long and now that the Hema Committee report is out, what was the feeling, did you feel vindicated or victorious? How do you see its impact?

The initial feeling was that we were happy that it came out. Now you know the scale of it, the outcome of the Hema committee report and how women are reacting, coming out and talking about it and the industry is a little bit shaken, but if it had happened four years ago, a lot of women may not have been trapped in ways they have been in this lost time. The government must have taken some action even though it not was ready to release the report. That’s my feeling.

Outsiders say, how is this possible in a progressive state like Kerala, where women’s literacy is higher than the national average.

Look, when people say the Kerala [film] industry is bad, it’s not right, because in Kerala, there is a government which decided to come up with this committee to study the matter. It’s a government decision. And that’s a historical decision. No one can deny that.

But the report has redacted the names of the perpetrators…

As an organisation, we think it is okay for the time being, let the court decide on that. Because for us, whatever is out now, that gives us some kind of understanding about the condition of the industry. We (women film professionals) know the condition of the industry, but whenever I say that I or my friend or some other woman has gone through this, people won’t believe it. But now, the Justice Hema committee has written it, it is in the government record. So, nobody can deny it anymore. Earlier people would say, ‘these ladies, they have no other work. That’s why they are saying all these stupid things. They are projecting our beautiful industry badly.’ That is the normal thing that comes up whenever we discuss it. Now, they can’t deny it. Now, we have to work on systemic and attitudinal changes in the industry. We are looking for that.

Of course, sexual harassment is the one issue projected by the media all over, but there were a lot of things. Maybe you have read the whole report, you may be knowing that there are a lot of other things. Those have to be given importance also. This (sexual harassment) is an important thing, of course, but other things also have to be in place, then only will sexual harassment vanish from the industry.

True. There’s also the fight for equal pay, safe working conditions, toilets...

Regarding the working conditions, I want to tell you one more important story. It happened to me. One day, I was supposed to go for a movie shoot. They asked me to reach the spot, which was a little far away from the shooting location. There were two other actresses with me. We reached there around 11:30 pm-12 am, in a very interior place of Idukki district. I asked the production executive where the room was. He said everything is arranged but sounded pretty vague. Once we reached there, it was very dark. It was a newly built house which was still under construction. And the lady there said, here is the room. There was nothing in there. No bed, no clean bed sheet. I got so upset and angry. I called the production executive and said I’m going back. After that, they gave us one shoddy hotel room. But we managed. The next morning, there was no tea. It took us 2 hours to reach the location, a hospital. There was a caravan, one part of which was for six-seven ladies and the other part was for one man. It is always like this. We waited, with make-up on, until evening, when the first shot was taken and then some. I was really tired. This is the way they treat artistes. There is no proper system.

But I remember one director called Don Palathara, I worked with him (in Family, 2022). I acted in only one scene, but he sent the contract. Everybody [in the film] had contracts. We had to sign the contract. They gave the advance in time. They paid the balance money in time. And they even shared with me the hotel’s details. I knew, if people willed, things were very much possible.

The report mentions a ‘power group’, whose existence both Mohanlal and Mammootty have denied. These are men with influential power in the industry. Mohanlal’s resignation as the AMMA president was a cop-out. How do you gauge all this?

Look, for me, ‘power group’ is more like a conceptual thing. Conceptually, we know that it exists. I know that there are strong, powerful men there, under whose control is everything, who control the industry. The people may keep changing, but the control is there. Maybe that is what the Hema committee tried to say. They are the people deciding who should and should not be there. The industry functions more at a very personal [informal] level. There is no proper management. It’s not a systematic workspace. People will call you for work and, sometimes, they will say, ‘if you do some favour, I will give you work.’ Sometimes, they won’t give you work. So, naturally, a power group does exist.

Seven years, the WCC has really fought for this, and whatever it has achieved has been despite these powerful men, so, today, why what Mohanlal or Mammootty says should matter?

Few months earlier, the FEFKA (Film Employees Federation of Kerala), it’s an umbrella organisation of some 20-plus bodies. So, the leader (director and general secretary) of FEFKA, B Unnikrishnan, in his speech earlier to [FEFKA] members at a meeting talked about WCC. There is no reason to talk about us. He just wants to demean our work. He says, ‘these ladies are sitting in the caravan and writing on Facebook.’ Of course, groups like FEFKA are doing a lot, they are giving houses and insurance. They are collecting money as membership fee. WCC’s purpose is not that. We don’t have any membership fee; our work is different. We are trying to build a gender-sensitive workspace. We asked the government to conduct this study in 2017. Now, when the study has come out, the government was slightly confused because they realised that it’s a very heavy material. If it is out, it may affect the whole industry and the powerful men may intervene. But what actually happened is the Right for Information Act (RTI) has stopped the release of the [redacted names]. The media people, the women’s commission, including WCC, pushed for it, so, the report was released, with 63 pages out of it. We don’t know what is inside that. The court will take care of it. We are bothered more by the systemic change. There is a lot to be done. We are working on our bit of it.  Different sections have to work together to make this system perfect.

Could you suggest some tangible solutions?

For example, for hairdressers, they are mostly ladies, they are not given proper food. These ladies won’t get food in the hot case when they come back from work. The food may be spoiled. These ladies won’t get a safe environment. All the female members have to get a properly protected space, with toilets. And the basic thing is a contract. We don’t have any contact. Only the big artists will get contracts. Four or five artists in a production may be signing contracts. Others are not getting any kind of contracts. One is supposed to go and work. When one negotiates one’s remuneration, they are told the budget is low and then there are delays in payment. This is the way it’s been happening. The producers’ union already has a system but it is not working properly. They have a system that for those getting paid Rs 1 lakh, you have to sign a contract, on a stamp paper. And for those who will be paid less than Rs 1 lakh has to sign on a covering letter. But the production executives don’t carry these out. Nobody will question that either.

The WCC fought for ICC (Internal Complaints Committee). Women’s commission made a system that whenever a production registers, they have to have a proper ICC member list along with the registration. Everything is on paper, nothing is happening. It happened after Justice Hema submitted her report. It is WCC’s fight to bring the ICC into the industry. But nothing is happening. On every production set, there is an ICC. We are making sure that there is. But, say, if I am an ICC member, I’m not told that I am part of the ICC and no crew members have any idea that there is an ICC. And if you complain to the ICC, you will be out of the film, because if you say something, you are labelled as a troublemaker. So, the woman can lose her job/her role.

Vineeth Srinivasan came out in support of actor Nivin Pauly who was recently named in an allegation. Will this be a never-ending cycle?

Look, it’s not easy. All of a sudden it won’t change. How many years of work it took to build our film industry. It will take time. But I’m sure things will change. Maybe not in our generation. I am not getting movies these days but I’m not even bothered. I’m trying to do [TV] serials, I never watched serials in my life. But I have no other option, I need to live. I want to act, so, I decided, okay, let me do serials for one year, then I will see.

Sometime back, senior dubbing artist Bhagyalakshmi, a FEFKA member, slammed the WCC and the Hema committee report as not being inclusive, only catering to the actresses.

Actually, she was eagerly waiting and fighting for the Hema Committee report to be out. All of a sudden, she’s changed. We don’t have the time to talk about all of this because we have a lot of other work to do. We are working on the Hema committee report, we want a systemic change here.

You’ve also been a theatre activist. The theatre world is also an unorganised, informal sector and, there too, women in theatre do face similar issues. This year’s National Award-winning film Aattam showed how men sit in judgement when an assaulted woman complains.

Actually, these things have to come out. Like for the movies, if somebody is doing a big play, there should be an ICC.

The play that you wrote in 2016 and played the protagonist in, Kaali Natakam, directed by Kochi’s Lokadharmi theatre founder Chandradasan, also says the same thing about bringing out the inner Kali to behead the devil, about the injustices faced by women in a progressive society.

I wrote Kaali Natakam in 2016, the first performance was then. It was again about these kinds of issues. Women never do the Kaali character, and this lady (character) is from the Dalit community and she is playing Kaali, and the troublemaker is always a man, a village counselor, he’s from the Kaali performance family and he’s playing the Darika vesham (disguised as the demon). Somehow Kaali kills Darika. Why I have performed and written it at the same time is because of the Jisha case in Kerala that year. The 30-year-old Dalit law student was raped and brutally killed in her home by a migrant labourer (in July this year, the Supreme Court has stayed the Kerala High Court’s death penalty to the convict Muhammed Ameer-Ul-Islam).

When I read that news, I started writing the play. At that time, we all had the feeling that the migrant worker was not the real murderer. In the play Kaali Natakam, Kali kills Darika in a trance. When the police come to question her, the bhaktas (believers) said, ‘no, no, you can’t question her because she’s Kaali. Whatever she’s done, she’s Kaali.’ Later, we realise that she did it with the purpose of killing him because he actually raped another girl and killed her and somehow escaped the case. To stop the arrest of Kaali, her believers build her a temple but she refuses to be a deity since she’s a real person and leaves from there.

Has the issue of women’s rights been a predominant theme in your plays and activism?

Yes. Earlier also, I wrote a play called Matsyagandhi. It is translated in English and other languages. It is about a fisherwoman. The [one-act] play is questioning the trawling issue. Her husband is killed by a foreign fishing vessel. She’s a widow who’s talking about the market, how trawling has changed their life [for the worse], how the new harbour that is coming up would impact their life. These are the political questions she’s asking through the play.

Recently, you spoke to the media about your own experience of sexual harassment.

That was a few years ago, in 2019. That’s a very interesting story. During that period, after I left Sangeet Natak Akademi, I was focussing on movies, and I’d get many calls from Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam film industries. One day, I got a call from an associate director on a Tamil film. He said, there is a very interesting character in the film for me. I told him to send me the one-line synopsis and details about the production and I will think about it. I wasn’t all that excited to go all the way for a movie, I’m a more relaxed person. So, the next day, he said, ‘madam, I’ll send you the details. But I have a question: is it okay for you to adjust?’ I never thought that he would ask me such a question. We think that such questions would never come to us, it may come to the youngsters in the industry. He said, “yeah. You know you have to adjust for the producer and director, one or two people only.” I had heard about it a lot, but when it came to me, it was difficult for me to understand. I was in my late 40s, and had started doing movies, and I got the [Kerala] State Award for my movie (Joy Mathew’s Shutter, 2012), and I had been in the Sangeet Natak Akademi. So, the next morning, I wrote a post saying: ‘There is a very good opportunity. One movie offer has come and this is the details about it. Whoever wants to act in it, please contact on this number. The only problem is that you have to adjust with the producer and the director.’ So, people started contacting him and he called me to say sorry.

You’ve been in the Sangeet Natak Academy in Delhi as well as in the Kerala Chalachitra Academy. In the latter, a lot of its women staff have been quitting in the recent time owing to internal politics. What are the systemic problems in such government bodies which are not favourable for women?

When I was working in the Chalachitra Academy, Bina Paul was the artistic director. There was a very good team. And we tried to develop a small but good team of women there, in the clerical staff, etc. There are all male members [in decision-making positions] now.

Fellow WCC co-founding member Parvathy Thiruvothu has said how she was paid much less than the other two male actors (Fahadh Daasil and Kunchacko Boban) in Take Off (2017), which was a heroine-led film. You also spoke about the pay gap between female and male artists.

That is always there. Another important thing we should discuss is casting calls, how people are casting. There should be a talent agency, at government level or private level. These one-to-one calls should be done away with. Then they should have some kind of ICC, if something goes wrong, they will intervene. If a talent agency is sending a woman for acting, if she feels uncomfortable, the talent agency will stop the work and inquire into it. This is the way Bombay agencies are working. We are asking the government to do similar things. We are thinking that there should be some kind of registration. If something goes wrong, the persons involved should have a police verification. Now the drivers are getting police verification because of the Dileep [rape] incident. But all the members should have some kind of police verification. Gender sensitisation workshops are required. Those things are very important.

What steps are WCC now taking based on the committee report?

We are studying the report and trying to work on a Cinema Code of Conduct. We are sitting and reading the whole report and are trying to prepare the recommendations out of it. What things the industry can do, what things the government has to do. We are working on it. We will submit the details to the government and the industry. We will also be part of that discussion. We will try our best to bring them up. You can’t just talk and go, we will work to make it happen.

In your personal capacity as a playwright, are you planning on doing something?

I am thinking about writing a play this year. A two-woman play. And I wrote an autobiography which is going to be published this year.