Between the lines: ‘Profoundly ashamed of Gujarat carnage’

Indian actor Nandita Das speaks at The Last Word.

LAHORE: Emotions are universal be it Vladivostok or Durban, said Indian actor Nandita Das on Monday.

She was in conversation with academic Mira Hashmi at The Last Word. Hashmi said she had first become acquainted with Das’s work years ago at a film school in Montreal. Hashmi said this was when the release of Fire (1996), a Deepa Mehta film, had stirred a hornet’s nest. She said Das was noted for her performances in Earth (1998), Bawandar (2000), Provoked (2006), Ramchand Pakistani (2008) and I am (2010). Hashmi said it was impossible for anyone who had seen Firaaq (2008), helmed by Das, to remain unmoved.

Das said Firaaq, which explores the ramifications of the 2002 Gujarat carnage on the everyday lives of people, would unfortunately be relevant for a long time. She said stories emanating from the state in the wake of the violence had left her profoundly disturbed. Das said her need for a catharsis and the desire to reach a wider audience had compelled her to make the film.

She said the response to the film’s screening at film festivals across the world had been heartening. “Emotions are universal be it Vladivostok or Durban,” Das said. She said the film’s limited release due to political machinations had left her crestfallen.

“Gujarat (in the wake of the carnage) was a skewed reality. I had to show things as they were,” she said. Das said she was profoundly ashamed of the violence. She said what distinguished the Gujarat carnage from the 1984 anti-Sikh riots was the profound divide created in the aftermath of the former. She said the gulf was yet to be bridged.

Das said an ‘innocuous letter’ signed by dozens of people associated with the Indian film industry exhorting the public to elect a secular party in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections had generated a great deal of conversation. She said many signatories had declined to speak about it in public. “Some of them believed that I had it easy on this front due to my enduring association with activism,” she said. Das said some iconic actors had counselled her time and again to desist from being vociferous about social issues.

The actor said she had become the face of the Dark is Beautiful Campaign, a movement against fairness products, by default in 2013 as she was the only dark-complexioned actress in cinema. “All other female actors seem to have become progressively lighter over the course of their careers,” she said.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 18^th, 2015.