Nandita Das: “Feminism has no gender; anyone can be a feminist”

Nandita Das is an actor, director and human-rights activist.

“In South Asian societies, we genderise so early on,” says Nandita Das, actor, director and human-rights activist, about the causes for the inherent gender discrimination in South Asian societies.

Speaking at eShe’s South Asia Union Summit Led by Women, Das was among 50 eminent women from 13 countries who came together to seek solutions for peace, gender equality, social justice and a unified South Asia.

Das, who has taken up several issues including colourism and domestic violence, said: “In our societies, it is so important to instill in little girls a sense of confidence, freedom, and abandonment. Similarly, the boys have to be taught a sense of responsibility, equality, and respect for girls, but how do we do it when the adults who are teaching them are themselves so deeply prejudiced and discriminatory?”

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Das, who has acted in more than 40 feature films in 10 different languages, shared her views on how feminism has focused primarily on women who are victims and shared solutions.

“Feminism has no gender, anyone can be a feminist. The next chapter of feminism should engage with men, and a safe space should be created so that they can express their emotions and a true place of vulnerability is created,” suggested the award-winning actor, who has been twice on the jury of the Cannes Film Festival, and was conferred the ‘Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters’ by the French Government.

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Das has directed two critically acclaimed and multiple-award winning films, Firaaq (2008) and Manto (2018), and has authored a memoir Manto & I about the making of the film.

“I go through that dilemma often – is making films worth it? Especially the kinds of films we make – does it really create a change, and how slow is the change when the urgency is looming large?” she said during the introductory session of the summit titled “Building a Platform for Gender Equality” where she and her co-panelist Leslee Udwin, award-winning UK-based filmmaker, educationist and founder of Think Equal, discussed how a gender-equal and a more compassionate world can be created by intervening during the early-education phase, when the seeds of inequality are first sown.

“The seeds of (gender) inequalities and maladies are sown very soon after kids start growing up so the solution also probably lies there. That is when we have to create that sense of compassion and equality,” she stated.

She also regretted how educators and teachers are not given the value they deserve in society, “We have to correct our own perceptions of people who are caregivers, teachers and educators. We, as a society, need to elevate them and celebrate them so that they can create those transformations we are talking about. Teachers are so marginalised in the hierarchy of professions and yet we talk about education being so important without the educator being given due respect.”

South Asia Union Summit Led by Women is a nonprofit initiative by eShe and was supported by WISCOMP.