Act against casting couch in Bollywood: Maneka to directors

Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi has  asked leading film producers and directors from Bollywood to act against casting couch in the industry.

In a letter to at least 25 film producers and directors, including Subhash Ghai, Mahesh Bhatt, Aditya Chopra, Ekta Kapoor, Vinod Chopra and Pritish Nandy, the Union minister urged them to comply with provisions of the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition & Redressal) Act, 2013, at their production houses.

"Provide a safe, secure and inclusive work environment for women (in the film industry). As leaders of your organisations, they are ethically and legally accountable for the safety of not only their direct employees, but of all outsourced and temporary staff as well,"  a WCD ministry official quoted Maneka as saying in her letter.

Karan Johar, Anurag Kashyap, Bhushan Kumar, Shahrukh Khan, Aamir Khan, Sooraj Barjatya Bhavana, Ritesh Sidhwani, Farhan Akhtar, Anil Dhirubhai Ambani, Ajit Andhare, Sajid Nadiadwala, Vijay Singh, NP Singh,, Shobu Yarlagadda, Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra, Ashutosh Gowarikar, Manish Mundra and Sanjay Leela Bhansali are other Bollywood heavyweights whom the minister has written to.

Maneka's letter to the film producers and directors comes after several Bollywood actors talked about the incidents of sexual harassment that they faced in the industry.

Speaking to the UK's The Guardian  newspaper, Bollywood actor Swara Bhasker said that she was fairly new to the industry when one director began wooing her.

"It soon escalated to requests for intense one-on-one meetings. He started saying he needed to fall in love with my character. He would always call me on the pretext of discussing this lovemaking scene – and I'd go and he'd always be drinking," the newspaper quoted the actor as saying.

The issue of casting couch has recently created ripples in the Hollywood after several women accused American film producer Harvey Weinstein of sexually harassing, assaulting, or raping them.