Nandita Das: Why don’t we speak up?

Interview

04 Oct 2008, NewAgeIslam.Com

Nandita Das: Why don't we speak up?

JYOTHI PRABHAKAR ,TNN 4 Oct 2008, 0000 hrs IST,   Actress and now director, Nandita Das, has recently come home – to Delhi – and to a very shaken Delhi after the blasts.   But with characteristic candour, she tells it like it is and says that cowing down before terror will only compound the situation. "I've been away from Delhi for a long time now – almost a year. My shoot and post-production for my next, and then Firaaq, has taken the life out of me.   I've been in Delhi only for the past couple of weeks or so. It's scary because this is the city that I have grown up in. Not that we haven't had riots or fears of this kind before, but it's suddenly become bigger because it's everywhere in the world, and suddenly you see, oh God, this is closer home.   We are such strange people that till it isn't, we never seem to get affected by anything. When things happen all around, we keep thinking ke woh toh wahan ho raha hai," she says. "But what also is really scary is the growing prejudice. When there is an encounter, I don't know if we should be so quick to conclude who it is, and thereby create prejudice against a whole community, against people who are the biggest sufferers because probably they have nothing to do with the terrorists. They're probably cursing the terrorists much more than you and I are. Because apart from feeling all the fear you and I feel, they also have to bear the stigma, to hang their heads in shame without having done anything," she adds with feeling.   However, ask if her if that's made the city insecure and she shoots back, "Women ke liye yeh city hamesha unsafe raha hai. I'm sure that if we count the casualties of rape and molestation, the numbers will be far, far higher than that of a bomb blast...   But when it's a blast, because it is part of our general collective fear of what is happening in the world, it becomes much bigger. But violence is also happening in many different forms."   Nevertheless, she's not the type to allow insecurity to take over, she says. "But how do you live with this kind of fear? Will we stop going out on the streets? Every time a bomb blast happens, we will be scared till the time the memory fades, and then again we'll go back. There's no way to keep the entire world safe in any case. Theek hai, in airports and other areas you can do checks, check our laptops... in the US, for instance, they even ask you to take off your shoes. But what about the other places? Subways, malls, markets, stations? What about schools, colleges? There is no dearth of targets. So if we go into a phobia trip, we'll go crazy. Because if a handful of people want to create that kind of fear and panic, they can do it any day, anywhere, anytime. But if we can truly investigate, go to the root cause, then maybe we will come closer to the solution. Because just doing more and more stuff on security is not going to really make us any secure. We'll be totally phobic by the end of it."   But Nandita is afraid that we've begun to be more fearful, and so more unwilling to say what needs to be said.   "The decision on Sec 377 – it's completely crazy. I'd thought we were coming closer to doing away with it. Even Ramadoss had spoken against it. We are living in fearful times and it's not just about terrorism – people who would otherwise speak out are now afraid. Everyone's scared ke main yeh kahoonga toh it would offend the sentiments of someone. We are almost tolerating more and more intolerance. We are becoming regressive by the day instead of progressing as a nation. A nation doesn't progress by the number of billionaires in the country. We need to be really progressive, in giving freedom of thought, expression, and giving space to everyone to live the way they want to live. There are so many horrible things happening around us. We don't come out on the streets to protest against all of that. Female foeticide – Delhi has the most number of cases of female foeticide. Are we coming out in protest? Is it agonising to us? Is it agitating us enough? It isn't. Dowry death cases are increasing – mostly among the educated classes. And we don't want to repeal an archaic law like 377?" she asks incredulously.   It's a cause that's close to Nandita's heart. "I was quite shocked by the verdict. I had signed one of the petitions for it. But these kind of struggles have to go on. In every field, voices will be suppressed. But those in the public domain must speak up." jyothi.prabhakar@timesgroup.com  http://www.newageislam.org/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=844