News Leak Centre

No Fear No Favour

We need a healthy Nepotism debate in the Bollywood industry, not an ugly war of words

By Udisha Shrivastava

The debate on Nepotism in the Bollywood industry has existed for quite a good amount of time. With calculated risks and politically correct answers, time and again, many Bollywood celebrities have already addressed this pertinent question. However, there are some celebrities who have been constantly raising this issue and Bollywood actress Kangana Ranaut is one amongst them. 

Well, one can carve out a timeline of controversies sparked by Kangana Ranaut along with her voicing on the issue of nepotism. While some of the points and the inside view of the industry have been convincingly raised by her, some contentions have been executed in an unsettling manner, both from the perspective of the audience and the individuals in the industry itself. 

On a recent note, a clip of Kangana Ranaut’s interview given to a broadcast news channel is doing the rounds on social media. In this clip, the actress is seen taking digs at the female Bollywood celebrities Taapsee Pannu and Swara Bhaskar referring to them as “needy outsiders” and “B-grade actresses”. However, she also adds that both, Taapsee and Swara are better looking and better actresses compared to Alia and Ananya who hail from the industry itself. 

She said, “I only have to lose here because tomorrow they (referring to the Bollywood mafia) will get some 20 needy outsiders like Taapsee and Swara Bhasker who will say ‘only Kangana has a problem with Karan Johar, but we love Karan Johar.’ If you love Karan Johar, why are you both B Grade actresses” .Kangana, however, got her share of criticism and response, both from the actresses concerned and from the netizens.

Last year itself, in 2019, when Taapsee Pannu retweeted Ekta Kapoor’s post sharing the Judgemental Hai Kya movie trailer, it didn’t go well with Kangana. In her post, Taapsee wrote: “This is so cool!!!! Always had high expectations out of this one n this looks so worth it!” Kangana contended that Taapsee didn’t acknowledge and gave credit to her work in the movie. The argument burst enough heat that Bollywood director Anurag Kashyap had to step in. 

In simple words, nepotism is prevalent in every other industry. However, the question is, can we really ignite a healthy debate on nepotism if some of the prominent faces of the industry are willingly engaging or are forced to engage in the ugly comments hurled against each other? Well, any logical and rational mind can easily measure the stakes of a productive conversation here. 

What we need is sane voices from individuals inside the industry as well as the audience who are not just interested in boarding the bandwagon of controversies and participating in the trending hashtags just for the sake of maintaining a social media presence. Evident enough, mud-sliding and a war of words won’t help.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *