Several international celebrities have come forward to talk about the allegations of sexual misconduct against a few men in Hollywood. As the raging debate continues, Shah Rukh Khan in his interview with HARDtalk on BBC World News, reflected on gender inequality in Bollywood and the cultural differences in India during. A copy of the transcript was submitted to IANS and King Khan said some wonderful things which deserve to be read & shared across.
Here are a few excerpts:
At a level when I’m making films or working in films, we are very clear about the attitude to women. Even the smallest aspects, of the names coming first in title, which is not going to do anything, but the kind of respectability. Even this small thing needs to be done just to bring about the equality… Just see what we’ve reduced ourselves to, you know, to put a girl’s name in front just to show what little guys we are, thinking of them as equals. And that is sad and that is strangely dichotomous when you’re talking about creativity, and you have boys and girls working together.
Has he ever witnessed any sort of inappropriate behaviour with women on his film’s sets?
I have never personally, first hand and nobody, if I may say, nobody dare misbehave with a woman on my set, I am very clear on that.
He also spoke about the inter-communal tensions and divisions in modern day India:
There will be dissent for everything and I think, like you would also believe and we all believe, there has to be a discussion on it. I think you can have a discussion and then you can talk about it in our country – we are the biggest democracy – and if you are the biggest democracy, dissent is a part and parcel of that and as much is discussion.
I cannot stress enough on how much we need men with a similar thought process to come forward and talk in order to spread the message. SRK #FTW