Tollywood washes hands off its women

In the absence of an official framework to safeguard women from sexual exploitation in Tollywood, the victims often find themselves with no recourse.
Recently, Sreeja, a junior artiste in Tollywood, filed a complaint with the Nacharam police station against director Chand Pasha for allegedly cheating her. In her complaint, Sreeja alleged that Pasha had promised her a lead role in the film Love Syllabus, for which he worked as a dialogue writer and lyricist.
Sreeja also claims that Pasha made her invest `5 lakhs in a movie he was going to direct next, promising to make her a producer. A six months pregnant Sreeja now accuses the director of sexual exploitation as well. The police have arrested Pasha and his wife and are investigating the case. While the verdict isn���t out yet, the case raises some serious questions about the vulnerability of aspiring actresses in Tollywood.
This clearly isn���t an isolated case. In January, actress Kinnera was caught in a sting operation, explaining to a young actress trying her luck in the industry to be ���ready for everything like Vidya Balan in Dirty Picture������ implying willingness to offer sexual favours to filmmakers. While the existence of the casting couch in Tollywood has been an open secret for long, the absence of a mechanism for protecting the rights of aspiring actresses doesn���t inspire much confidence.
D Swamy Goud, President of the AP Cine and TV Junior Artist Union, says that they cannot be held responsible for the safety of aspiring actors because most of them aren���t even registered with them, and therefore, cannot really be considered ���junior artistes���. ���Most actors you see on screen, behind the lead actors, are not technically junior artistes because they are not registered with us. Not even Sreeja.
Filmmakers rope in amateur actors, irrespective of whether or not they are registered with our Union,��� he says. When asked what is done to safeguard the interests of women who are registered members of the union, Goud, says, ���In the past, whenever registered junior artistes have raised similar issues with us we have in turn, raised the same with the director���s council.��� However, when asked to elaborate on how the director���s council comes to the rescue of complaining artistes in such cases, he was evasive. Preferring to hide behind rhetoric, he says, ���Many a times, junior artistes don���t get paid for the films they work on, even after it has released.���
Even the Producer���s Council doesn���t seem to have any express guidelines for dealing with such issues. Burugupalli Sivaramkrishna, President, Telugu Film Producers��� Council is quite unabashed about the same, as he says, ���We are only concerned about the smooth progress of shooting, etc. We cannot get into personal issues of the actors and certainly can���t do policing.���
With sexual harassment and exploitation in workplace becoming a talking point these days, wonder what Tollywood has to say about the safety of its working women?