New Delhi: Actor Karan Wahi has drawn criticism for his views on women and their independence, from saying they had the freedom to stay at home unlike men to suggesting they may not be as “loyal” in relationships.
The remarks were made during an episode of actor Chhavi Mittal’s YouTube podcast released on 9 April. The conversation resurfaced this week after clips from it went viral on social media.
Speaking about why marriage now scared him, Wahi said he believed he would be more likely to remain loyal in a relationship while a woman “in today’s time might just slip”.
“Ten or 15 years ago, if someone had asked me, I would have said, ‘No, we are the ones who are bad,’” he said, referring to men. “Today, I’m not saying all women are bad, but I think some women have taken the concept of independence in a very different way.”
Wahi, best known for his roles in the television shows Remix and Dill Mill Gayye, then compared women today with his mother’s generation.
“If my mother did not like something, she would remain quiet, do her work and sort it in her own way,” he said. “In today’s time, that woman says ‘f*** you’ and moves on.”
When Mittal asked whether he believed it was wrong for a woman to do that, Wahi said it was “neither wrong nor right”, but argued that people no longer had the patience to work through problems. He later clarified that he was not saying women should compromise, but suggested that the greater number of opportunities available today had made it easier to leave relationships.
The actor also argued that men and women were still judged differently for the choices they made. He said a woman could tell her family that she did not want to work and wished to become a housewife, while his own family would think he had “gone mad” if he said he wanted to become a house husband.
Wahi recounted going on a date with a woman while turning down an opportunity to meet someone else because he did not want to “become confused”. He said he later discovered that the woman was seeing seven people at the same time.
“I’m not judging you, but then how will you stop?” he said.
Explaining his fear of marriage, Wahi referred to the number of divorces among people he knew. “Eighty per cent of the guy friends that I know who got divorced have got divorced because their spouses found someone else,” he claimed, presenting the figure as an observation drawn from his personal circle.
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The resurfaced clips have been criticised by many social media users, who described Wahi’s comments as regressive and accused him of using individual experiences to make broad claims about women and relationships.
@DrRamapriya on X said “Well atleast now men will know what it’s like to be on the receiving end….for centuries,” while another X user @dexternvm said “sounds like he hates independent women.”
Others came to the actor’s defence. “Good to see that even actors are now speaking about the true nature of modern women,” posted @venom1s, a prominent voice in the so-called manosphere. Another user, @HimashuYadav07, claimed: “Karan Wahi cooked feminists so hard.”
That prompted a retort from @MiMi_24000: “He didn’t cook anyone. He just proved that he’s a crybaby… Only insecure men would be sulking that women have found their voice now.”
(Edited by Asavari Singh)