Amitabh Bachchan did not answer a question on Tanushree Dutta’s allegations against Nana Patekar while promoting Thugs of Hindostan.
Poor Amitabh Bachchan. People just expect too much from him.
Think about it. Zanjeer was 1973. That’s 45 years ago.
How can you expect poor Amitji to still keep the anger at the same boiling point? He’s not some perpetual anger machine. Once he could rail at the establishment on screen. Now he is the establishment. The angry young man has aged, become a grandfather, a Twitter superstar, and we keep wanting him to get angry and be the fiery conscience of the nation while he just wants us to breathe the khushboo of Gujarat and buy Kalyan jewellery.
There he was, trying to promote his new film Thugs of Hindostan, and the media ambushed him with a question on actor Tanushree Dutta’s allegations of harassment against Nana Patekar. “Neither my name is Tanushree nor Nana Patekar. So, how can I answer your question?” Bachchan replied.
A few months ago, while trying to promote a song for his film 102 Not Out, Bachchan was asked about the rapes in Kathua and Unnao, and what he thought about sexual attacks on women that just keep happening over and over again.
“Please don’t ask me about this issue, as it disgusts me to talk about it,” Bachchan replied. “It’s terrible to even talk about it.”
It’s just so unfair. The media seems to forget that he’s promoting Thugs of Hindostan now, not Pink. That was in 2016. And didn’t Amitji do his baritone best for the cause back then?
His on-screen persona, grumpy old lawyer Deepak Sehgal, drilled ‘Consent 101’ into us, a speech hailed as groundbreaking in Bollywood. “No ka matlab no hota hai. Use bolne wali ladki koi parichit ho, friend ho, girlfriend ho, koi sex worker ho ya apni biwi hi kyu na ho. No means No. And when someone says so, you STOP.”
When producer Shoojit Sircar brought the idea of Pink to him, Bachchan told The New Indian Express, “the topic was so strong that in minutes I told him that we will work on this”. He did not know enough about his role or who would be directing it. But he was ready to serve. Doesn’t that speak volumes about his commitment?
If we need even more clinching proof, there was his moving video letter to his granddaughters. “They will tell you how to dress, how to behave, who you can meet and where you can go… Don’t let anyone make you believe that the length of your skirt is the measure of your character.” Cynical naysayers commented snidely that it was timed to the release of Pink, but perhaps that was because those issues must have been weighing heavily on his mind at the time, after he got into the skin of Deepak Sehgal. Now, Badumbaaa, he must be thinking about other pressing issues like ‘Baap COOL, Beta OLD SCHOOL’, yet the media just wants him to reprise Pink all over again.
No wonder he does not want to talk about it anymore. He must be tired. Perhaps he has been talking non-stop about these issues since Pink. It’s the media that must have not been paying attention.
At that time, a few carping critics wondered what it meant that even a film like Pink needed a knight in somewhat rusty armour to rescue the partying damsels in distress. They were told they were being over-critical. If that message had to resonate with the “lock kiya jaaye” impact, it needed to come with the gravitas of an Amitabh Bachchan. The likes of a Shabana Azmi declaiming those lines would have been just too predictable, and caused those who really needed to hear it to tune out, even if, in real life, a Deepika Singh Rajawat is taking on the Kathua rape accused at great risk to her own life and liberty.
Some will think it’s peculiar that a man who is the brand ambassador for the ‘Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao’ campaign should be so disgusted by these stories of rape that he cannot even entertain a simple question about it. They would say it could have been a powerful moment to underscore the urgency of a campaign called ‘Beti Bachao’.
But the word from the top now is that rape is apparently being politicised. What if a superstar expressed outrage and then got awkward follow-up questions like whether Christine Lagarde, chief of the IMF, should have said “what has happened (in India) is revolting” and Prime Minister Modi “should pay more attention”?
After the 2012 Delhi gang rape, Bachchan put out an anguished tweet saying he had penned a few words in Hindi for ‘Nirbhaya’, ‘Amanat’, ‘Damini’, telling us that though the candles in the candlelight march would melt, the fire lit by nirbhayata or fearlessness would keep burning in our hearts. Just because he does not want to take questions about it anymore does not mean that fire isn’t still burning fearlessly.
But then why pick on poor Amitabh Bachchan? There are many other candles checking which way the wind is blowing these days. In 2012, Smriti Irani had demanded the Congress-led UPA convene a special session of Parliament to “assure the people of this nation that in this time of grief we stand united in our resolve and rise above our words to initiate action”. This time, when journalists first asked her about the incidents, she just drove away. Later, she said, “Don’t victim-shame and politicise.”
Mr Amitabh Bachchan is a wise man. That is why he is the great survivor. We should all learn from him. He knows when to speak and when to let his silence speak. Remember how, in the first days of the uproar after the Kathua episode, so many of the government’s voluble ministers, the ones who had demanded the death penalty for rapists in 2012, became eerily silent. Like Mr Amitabh Bachchan, it must have disgusted them so much they were unable to talk about it.
Both Mr Modi and Mr Bachchan know that the price for being eloquent is that uncharitable people will try and read all kinds of nonsense into their silence. But all those criticising him today should remember the silent ghin or disgust of a Shahenshah must surely be worth 100 tweets if you listen with your heart.
As he told us long ago in Trishul, “Sahi baat ko sahi waqt pe kiya jaye to uska maza hi kuch aur hai, aur main sahi waqt ka intezaar karta hoon. (It’s a different kind of joy when the right thing is said at the right time, and I wait for the right time.)”
It is clearly not the sahi waqt right now.
Sandip Roy is a journalist, commentator and author.
(An earlier version of this was published on 20 April, 2018)