Nationalism is the most infamous word today, says Kangana Ranaut in her conversation with the spiritual leader, Sadhguru. During the conversation, Kangana talks about ideologies and politics with Sadhguru and narrates an incident from her upcoming film Manikarnika, a biographical film based on the life of Rani Lakshmibai of Jhansi.
Amidst talk of spirituality, Kangana and Sadhguru even discuss the issues India is currently facing. Speaking of today’s society and the need to be organised, she says that in reality what we face is completely different. Narrating an experience she had while shooting, Kangana says that the protagonist, Rani Lakshmibai is saving a calf. She says that the crew had a huge discussion and during the shoot, the crew was of the opinion that she (Rani Lakshmibai) cannot be shown saving a calf, it has to be a lamb “because we don’t want to look like cow-saver”, she said.
She called out the prejudice people have and said that because of this, one feels very protective of “who you are and what your values are and you want to save all the animals. Why just cows? But you definitely want to save the cow because the prejudice is really agonising”. She speaks on the mob lynchings which have taken place in recent times over cows and takes on the so-called liberals saying that when such an incident takes place, they immediately jump on the other side which is always criticising (gau rakshaks) and never wanting to protect cows. She says she insisted that since Rani Lakshmibai saved a cow, her character should also be depicted as saving a cow instead of having the discussion.
To a cheering crowd, Kangana, who admits of having learnt English recently, says she has to refer to a dictionary for a lot of words. So when she looked up the meaning of liberal, it said, liberal is someone who has acceptance for people, opinions, thoughts. She says the so-called liberals won’t take you in their group unless you hate the same people as they do. She further says that if hating on something is better for the country, she doesn’t mind. “If it is better for the country, you don’t mind hating on the BJP. You don’t mind believing that everything is run by Amit Shah. But what I don’t get is, what is their agenda and plan of action for bringing this country out of the pit.”
Kangana Ranaut has been on the receiving end of bouquets and brickbats for speaking her mind. She got hailed as a hero when she took on the powerful people in the film industry by her statements on nepotism and how some people, especially Karan Johar amongst others have perpetuated nepotism in an industry which should ideally run on talent. While the so-called liberals had hailed her as a hero, the film fraternity did not take it lightly and feathers were ruffled. Kangana was hailed as a feminist icon. However, recently when she spoke in favour of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and said that he is the most deserving candidate of democracy the same so-called liberals and pseudo-feminists turned against her with editorials being written on Kangana’s fall from grace. This just proves her point that Indian liberals are liberal and will hold you close in their group till the time you hate the same set of people they hate.
She speaks of the liberals and those in the film industry and says how people from her fraternity say why should they be bothered about wars since they are artists. She says this demotivates the army men who protect the border. She evokes the Kathua rape case and the chicanery surrounding it. She says,
“A rape takes place in Kashmir and they say ‘Hindustan raped our daughter’ and pointing fingers at each other when the country is so vulnerable and trying to break into a civil war. Is this what liberals do? A more sensible thing seems to be a sceptic. But a sceptic doesn’t know where he is going. So right now we need a definite direction to go into. We cannot be stuck in the unfortunate loop of to be or not to be.’
Speaking on the issue of illegal immigrants, Kangana poses a question which conflicts her conscience that while our own children are dying, how practical is it to absorb neighbouring country’s people and denying them the same seems even worse. To that, Sadhguru says that ‘we are trying to project our inefficiency as compassion’. He says that we have a porous border and unless we know how many are Indians and how many are not, it is difficult to run a nation. In a lighter vein, Sadhguru suggested that if people are talking about inclusiveness (of illegal migrants), Bangladesh could join India and we could treat it as a union territory and the people would be free to roam around.
