• Valson Thampu

The world of cinema is to a society what the kitchen of a five-star hotel is to its dining hall. Hiding the former is basic to customer enjoyment in the latter. It was against this logic that Justice Hema Committee was appointed. But it didn’t take long thereafter for that logic to assert itself.
If the mandate involved really mattered, a Commission, not a Committee, would have been appointed. Be that as it may, at least the working of the Committee would have been adequately facilitated. Going by the Report, that doesn’t seem to be the case. Not even due secretarial assistance, it seems, was not provided. It was not as if the appointing authority wasn’t aware of the odds against which the mandate was to be accomplished. Who doesn’t know that the graver the injustice, and grosser the depravity in a domain, the more intractable its players are apt to be? Surely, the ministry concerned would have approached the matter differently, if it were serious enough in clearing the Augean stable of cine-world aberrations.
As a society we are as sex-obsessed as we are justice-indifferent. The Report brings to light the appalling forms and scales of injustice inflicted on the lesser mortals in the industry. The plight of the hairstylists and the junior artists that the Report brings out is heart-rending. It is a shame not only to the industry, but also to the Kerala society as a whole. The injustices and atrocities in vogue can put to shame the crudest feudalistic social order that ever existed. But, have you heard a single reference made to it in any of the TV discussions and media interactions since the publication of the Report? Why not? Well, to us the plight of the wretched of the earth does not matter. Underpaid, uncared for, and sexually exploited, they exist, even by the prevailing laws of the land, as de facto bonded labourers. Their human rights, as per the Report, are violated with impunity. It is as if the film-industry has to sink our fellow human beings deep into slavery in order to cook and serve our entertainment. As Aristotle said, the slavery of some is necessary for the freedom of the rest.
It is not as if the Report has brought to light what we never knew. No, not at all! We knew nearly all of it all along. But we didn’t care; simply because we assumed that the film-world would be ‘like that only’. Its business is to farm entertainment for us. To have a full measure of enjoyment, we need to keep moral scruples at bay. After all, we go to cinema halls to enjoy what otherwise might not be; not to be improved in our morals and manners. We expect to find, in the reel-world projected to us, ingredients that we dare not afford in the real-world. Can a film prove a box-office hit if it does not have rebellious sex and potent violence? (We will be disappointed, for example, if the hero’s blow on his adversary is not audio-enhanced!) Are we not delighted when filmy heroes fly in the face of the rule of law, and entertained by the immoralities on display? Who goes to a cinema hall for a ‘vegetarian’ fare!
Over-arching all this is our craving for glamour, of which an outlandish lifestyle is a necessary accessory. We have chosen for years to be blind to the shocking state of affairs in the film industry because we are famished for glamour. The Report reveals the dominance of a mafia in the industry comprising, as is reasonable to assume, its iconic individuals. A handful of them exist as the Pol Pots of the industry. Their writ runs. (And we have the erstwhile president of AMMA tell us that he knew nothing of this!) No one can survive in the industry, if they happen to incur their displeasure even unwittingly. Everyone -actors, directors, producers, and the rest- are bond slaves to them. Not even an actor of Thilakan’s seniority and standing could survive after falling out of their favour. The physical and sexual brutality inflicted on a popular woman actor -allegedly masterminded by a member of this mafia- is well known. Remember the orchestrated attempts made for months on end to hide the mafia character of the event from the public view? A spill-over of film-world criminality into the social space of Kerala, it will be instructive to see what justice the court metes out to the victim in this case.
That is what our craving for glamour does to us: it deafens us to the cry of justice. It makes us blind to the injustices inflicted on the lesser mortals in our midst. Can we claim we don’t know that the astronomical rewards heaped on the matinee idols would necessarily imply that thousands of their fellow workers are exploited and their human rights violated, as the Report reveals? As a society we are indifferent to the criminal underbelly of this world of specious glamour. We are willing and eager to condone and co-exist with extreme inhumanities and immoralities, if only to vicariously enjoy the glamour of these gilded specimens of humanity.
From time immemorial our species has known that sensual indulgence will corrupt our moral sense and human sensibilities. The duty to be disciplined stewards of the sexual impulse is well-recognized in every spiritual tradition in the world. There is, besides, the challenge to refine our modes of enjoyment. Enjoyment in which only the body gyrates is bound to be crude and vulgar. Humanly enriching enjoyment must appeal to the whole person: body, mind and soul. The film-industry, and the culture it promotes, have become, alas, a domain of bodily crudities which is a cultural, ethical and spiritual throwback to savagery. That is the wider sense in which the Hema Committee Report must be seen and acted upon.