The report is the result of a harrowing episode of abduction and sexual assault of a leading Malayalam actress in February 2017. She was returning from a shoot when a gang of men waylaid her car, forced her into another, and sexually assaulted her.

These events — the sequence of which is largely accessible to the outside world due to social media and some form of feminism that thrived despite patriarchal puncturing — happened at the tipping point of abuse, discrimination and injustice faced by the women in the Malayalam film industry. It was an unfettered can of worms that had been gorging on women's ambitions for decades. More recently, doctors across the country have demanded better working conditions, in the aftermath of another instalment of brutality which left a 31-year-old doctor raped and murdered in Kolkata.

The Hema committee identified nearly 17 kinds of exploitations, the basic ones including demanding sexual favours in exchange for being cast in a film (or "casting couch"), lack of basic amenities like toilets in sets, and the larger atmosphere devoid of professionalism. Two words that are repeatedly mentioned in the report are "compromise and adjustment". These violations of human rights and the body are not new to Indian women.

The committee's recommendations were also an eerie reminder of the circumstances that led to the formulation of the Vishakha guidelines against sexual harassment in the workplace. In the early 1990s, a social worker who attempted to stop a child marriage was brutally gangraped by the men of an upper caste community. Activists highlighted how the survivor underwent the ordeal because of the nature of her work and called for basic safety at the workplace, which was later granted by the Supreme Court.

Notably, performing arts practitioners are particularly vulnerable to violations of the body given the nature of their work. They are not alien to sexual advances. In industries like cinema, theatre and dance, the work is a product of the body itself. It is the site of the work, which makes it harder to voice consent. The survivor of an inappropriate remark or touch knows the degree of its violation, but the multiplicity of excuses, offered by the society, that render the remark or touch innocuous outweigh her feelings of frailty.

These instances in the performing arts also shame the survivors and victims, more because using the body as a worksite naturalises the body's "availability" to the male gaze. The intention of the perpetrator occupies the space of dialogue over the ordeal itself.

However, reformers taking steps towards the emancipation of women must examine these intentions fully. These intentions originate from myriad locations and are not limited to simplified notions of sexual arousal — jilted love, vengeance, anger, seeking validation, or simply to prove one's physical prowess and masculinity. These intentions fall under the umbrella of deeply bigoted, and fraught societal constructs of gender, caste and class.

Separately, the constructions of gender also impose notions of purity on the woman and envision her body as a jewel that needs to be secured inside a vault. Her skin preserves her modesty, and the only way to protect it is by covering up. And so, when the show business demands exposing that skin, it is presumed that the woman is gullible and her violation thus becomes easier. Women are forced into the quandary of picking between ambitions and victimhood.

A change is a far cry from where the working women stand right now. The everyday reports of sexual abuse, molestation, harassment, assault and even death have desensitised the citizens and the onus falls on the woman to keep herself safe. But it should not come to this. The countless victims and survivors should not have to break their bodies for a community to change — and this is not asking for a lot.

Nevertheless, these small wins, like the publishing of the Hema committee report, give us hope. They give us enough elbow room to exercise fundamental rights, at least until the next violation happens.

The views expressed are personal