Kochi | Malayalam actors Revathy and Padmapriya have resigned from the film actors' body AMMA, saying the organisation had "failed" to ensure safety, dignity, accountability and equal treatment for its members.
The actors alleged that AMMA had increasingly become shaped by patriarchy and power politics, weakening the ideals on which it was founded.
"Walking away for us now is not defeat. It is self-respect," they said.
In a joint statement posted on Instagram on Monday, the two actors said their decision to resign from the Association of Malayalam Movie Artists (AMMA) was neither taken in anger nor prompted by a single incident.
"Today, we are resigning from our primary membership of AMMA. Not in anger, not in haste. Between us, we have given decades to this industry, and we care where it goes next, they said.
According to them, for years they raised a simple demand: safety, dignity, accountability and equal treatment.
"What we met instead was silence, and the slow realisation that this institution, as it stands, is not ready to change," they said.
The actors said Malayalam cinema would always remain their workplace and passion, irrespective of their membership in the organisation.
"This may look like one more chapter in the ongoing AMMA saga. It is not. Our resignation is not in haste and not about a single incident," the statement said.
The two said they had spent nearly a decade seeking safer workplaces, dignity, accountability and equal treatment.
"The price of asking, for us, has been silence and distance. From colleagues, from friends, from spaces that once felt like home. Still, we stayed. For hope has a remarkable ability to survive disappointment," they said.
Referring to the developments following the release of the Hema Committee report, which conducted an inquiry into sexual violence and gender inequality in the Malayalam film industry, they said, "The resignations after the Hema Committee Report were not an act of principle. They were an escape from accountability. Once the attention faded, the same old order returned."
"Power keeps finding new ways to protect itself. The faces change. The methods change. But the structures enabling inequality remain untouched," the statement added.
Expressing hope for reforms in the Malayalam film industry, they said they believed women should not have to fight the same battles faced by earlier generations.
"We will continue our journey as film professionals. For better storytelling, for our fellow colleagues, and for a more equitable industry," they said.
Revathy and Padmapriya are members of the Women in Cinema Collective (WCC), which has been campaigning for reforms in the Malayalam film industry following the 2017 actor sexual assault case.
Actor Dileep, who had faced prosecution in the case, was acquitted by a trial court last year.
The resignations come at a time when AMMA is witnessing internal turmoil.
Actor Swetha Menon has approached a court challenging the appointment of an ad hoc committee to run the organisation in place of the elected executive committee under her presidency.
The court later stayed the ad hoc committee's operations.
The AMMA general body meeting held last month also saw Menon walk out, while some women actors raised issues regarding the organisation's financial affairs.