Bollywood actress Janhvi Kapoor had surprised netizens when a few months ago, she had said in an interview that she would like to see a debate between BR Ambedkar and Mahatma Gandhi. The actress recently revealed that she was shocked to see people's reactions and stated that some even claimed it to be planted by her PR team.
During a conversation with Mashable, Janhvi said, "Is it so hard to believe that a young female actor can have an opinion? I was so shocked."
She went on to narrate how her team actually wanted to get that part of the interview deleted, on contrary to what netizens believed. "I remember people said that the entire conversation was a 'PR plug'. I said it very normally, while having a conversation with the interviewer. But after the interview got over, I asked my PR if I had said something wrong, and they said, maybe people might pick up on the Ambedkar vs Gandhi debate point. I started panicking because I did not want people to get it wrong and hamper the movie's release. My PR team then called the organisation that did the interview and asked them if they could chop that part, but they refused. So the irony is that my PR actually wanted to get that part removed completely, but people believed that it was planted by the PR," she recalled.
She went on to say that her curiosity about the subject got triggered after spending time with filmmaker Neeraj Ghaywan, who belongs to the Dalit community.
"I was like I am a part of this society but I know so little about it. I live on the street named after Ambedkar and even then I know almost nothing about his history. I should be ashamed," she stated.
Janhvi said that it was then that she read the book, Annihilation Of Caste, and watched multiple videos on the subject. Urging the youth to read up about our history, she added, "As the youth of this country, it is very important to make informed decisions for the society with knowledge about the past."
For those unawares, in May, during an interview with Lallantop, Janhvi had opened up about her views on casteism and had said that she would want to see Gandhi and Ambedkar debate over their views on the subject.
.jpg)
"Ambedkar was still very clear and stern from the start what his stand was. But I think Gandhi's view kept evolving as he got more and more exposed to casteism," she had said.
She had also asked the interviewer to not question her on the same further since her views may not go down well with the audience.
