Writer T. Padmanabhan slams Kerala govt for sitting on Hema Committee report

Noted writer criticizes government for withholding Hema Committee report, calling for transparency and accountability in Malayalam film industry.

Coming down heavily on the Left Front government in Kerala for failing to act on the Hema Committee report for four-and-a-half years, noted writer T. Padmanabhan said on Thursday (August 29, 2024) that the ‘first sin’ was committed when what should have been a commission headed by former High Court judge K. Hema was reduced to a committee with powers just to make recommendations.

He was talking on the subject ‘Wails on the Silver Screen’ at an event organised by the Sabarmati Study and Research Centre of the Ernakulam District Congress Committee, in the wake of the Hema committee report.

Mr. Padmanabhan said that while a commission had suo motu powers to take up a case and hand out punishment, a committee could only make mere recommendations to the appointing body -- the State government in this case. The government could either act on it or sit on it, and it chose the latter, though the committee did a commendable job.

One could not side with the hunter and the hunted at the same time. Though the government claimed to be with the hunted, in effect it seemed to be with the hunter, the writer observed.

Mr. Padmanabhan mocked the statement by Culture Minister Saji Cherian that he had neither seen nor read the Hema Committee report as an ‘innocent statement of truth.’ The writer observed that the names of many big fish remained hidden despite the release of the report. Even more pages were lost when the report was released on the direction of the State Information Commission.

“Idols have fallen after those few pages were released. Many of them had an intellectual and heroic aura in the hearts of the people,” said Mr. Padmanabhan, while quoting the famous line, “We must not touch our idols, the gilt sticks to our fingers,” from the acclaimed French novel Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert.

Every day, one woke up to a flurry of cases and people dashing to courts for reprieve and speculation on more idols about to fall, he said.