Writing a New Script

Written by Dipti Nagpaul | Updated: October 31, 2018 12:02:31 am

Its a Saturday afternoon and the conference room at the Screenwriters Association in Mumbai is a full house. The past few weeks have presented an unprecedented set of challenges for the recently-elected committee. The elections to select the new board took place while the industry was in the thick of the #MeToo controversy and in the three weeks since, the association has received several cases of sexual harassment from its members.

“The first such case came to us even before we formed an internal committee (IC) based on the Prevention of Sexual Harassment (POSH) Act. That made us realise that we need to move fast on this,” explains filmmaker Bikas Mishra, one of SWAs board members.

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Among the seven members in the IC is external member, Anagha Sarpotdar, and filmmaker-activist Sridhar Rangayan, as its LGBTI representative. Sarpotdar is the chairperson of the Mumbai city district local committee constituted by the government of Maharashtra to look into cases of sexual harassment at workplaces. The SWA has also created and widely circulated the email id ic@swaindia.org exclusively for members to file cases of sexual harassment. “Several members have reached out to file their complaints. These complaints are fewer than 10 but certain members, who are not sure if they want to register a formal complaint, are also consulting us for support and guidance,” Mishra explains. Of the complaints received, one is a case where a male writer has complained against a man.

On October 27, however, the SWA staff is huddled together in the conference room to attend the first in a series of workshops that the association is organising in the wake of the #MeToo movement. Being conducted by Sarpotdar, the session looks at how SWA can tackle such complaints. Its also aimed at helping the IC frame their internal policy on sexual harassment cases.

Talking about the other complaints, Mishra says that the women have spoken about being harassed by men in positions of power. For instance, in one such case, the girl is a film school graduate who was approached by a content head offering her a job, following which he tried to breach the boundaries. “However, in most of these, the complainants do not expect much beyond an apology for being mistreated,” Mishra explains, “And the nature of support they seek is sometimes as basic as their request that they be accompanied to file an FIR against their predator because they are too scared to do it alone.”

While SWA has been busy tackling these cases, other film associations that formed their respective committees, including Producers Guild of India and the Cine & TV Workers Association, have not come across new cases apart from the ones in the public domain. Talking about why that may be the case, SWA IC President Ketki Pandit says, “SWA has for years had an efficient dispute settlement committee that looks into copyright infringement, payment issues and so on. The members are by now aware that the association takes ownership for them and will address their grievances at the earliest. That perhaps gives them the confidence to reach out for sexual harassment cases too.”

The SWA IC is, however, aware that this is merely the beginning and extending basic support to the complainants may go a long way in addressing sexual harassment in the film industry. But the members of the association board are optimistic. “In most of the cases when we have reached out to the respondents for a hearing or a meeting, they have, let us say, displayed a willingness to engage. Thats a positive first step for us,” says Pandit.

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