It’s been almost two months the discussion about nepotism and favouritism began to spread virally in the film industry, on the heels of the untimely demise of actor Sushant Singh Rajput. But what followed has been a familiar blame game and name calling, says Adil Hussain who believes that artistes should be above "all this pettiness."
Hussain says that having a conversation around these issues is important, but the way it is happening is "unfortunate."
"We must discuss nepotism, but what is happening in the industry now is that somebody is blaming the other group; the insiders are blaming outsiders; the media is on top of somebody else. Why are we not talking about the essential problem that we have issues as human beings and how did we get here? This is an opportunity for all of us to discuss. Ideally, it should not be happening in the film industry because we are supposedly the practitioner of the art. And, art practitioners should be above all this pettiness, but we are not.
"For me, art plays the role in a society to elevate people to see the macro picture, not push them into the dirty mud-slinging fights of the micro. The word 'Abhineta' means that you are the transporter of the audience to a higher plane so that they can see everyday life as a play and can enjoy it; look at it and learn from it. That's the job of an actor in the Indian sense of the word," he says.
Hussain is of the opinion that these issues need to be pursued at the grassroots level, starting with India's "flawed" education system.
"Nepotism and favourtism exist in every sphere of society. It's a very human tendency to sort of separate yourself and those who you know and feels comfortable working with from the other. I am not justifying their behaviour. It should always be dependent on merit but then we are far from being perfect beings. Therefore, we see nepotism in bureaucracy, politics, education...
"Likewise, the people from the film industry have not landed from Mars. They are from here. They are the product of the society that has educated them like that. We keep saying, 'you have to be a go-getter as it's a cut-throat industry.' Can you imagine the analogy of cut-throat? It's such a violent analogy. If somebody takes it a little further, he'd actually cut somebody's throat to get ahead. This is how we have been taught. The spirit of our education system is not wisdom but just to become a bread earner. This is the greatest flaw in our education."
The actor, whose extensive career stretches back to 1994, is currently receiving rave reviews for his exceptional performance as Bucchi Paswan, a rickshaw puller, trying to educate his son in Prakash Jha's Pareeksha.
On collaborating with Jha for the project, Hussain says, "The truth has its own strength and beauty and the truth of this character appealed to me. When there is a true story being told, it is a story of godliness in our Indian culture. Also, Prakash Jha generally works with A-listers so when I was offered the lead role, I was pleasantly surprised. He narrated me the story and I really liked it even though he never told me that he was wanting me to play the lead. He just wanted to see whether I liked the story or not. And, I loved it.
"The fact that it's based on a true story and a huge number of people in India are in that particular marginalised section of society and deprived of education, I think it's a very important story to be told."
Pareeksha is currently available to stream on ZEE5.
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