The actor with a conscience

THE ACTIVIST INSIDE ACTOR PRAKASH RAJ EMERGED AFTER THE BRUTAL MURDER OF HIS FRIEND GAURI LANKESH

In Kochi, a 70- year- old man walked up to Prakash Raj and told him, “Thank you for speaking out.” On a bus, a woman sitting in seat number 23 D wrote him a letter and sent a child to give it to him. “I like you more than an actor now for standing up and speaking out,” the letter said. Prakash Raj talks about these incidents that give him confidence to keep doing what he has been doing these past few months — speak out against atrocities by people in power on people without it.

Raj started on this journey. ever since the killing of a dear friend—journalist activist Gauri Lankesh. Post the traumatic incident, the actor became a different person altogether. While we have recently heard him speak, very calmly and patiently, about the attacks by the ruling Hindutva parties on the defense less but on the personal front he has always been against such atrocities. “I use to talk about it earlier as well but it is true that I became more vocal after her (Ga uri’ s) killing.” He says these killers became more desperate and tried to silence people by inculcating fear. But this only made Raj more vocal. He is not afraid, he says, because he has people supporting him everywhere. Like that 70- year- old man and the woman on the bus. “As more voices come up, the more desperate they become and the more hideous crimes they commit,” he says. And that’s exactly what has been happening in this country, he says, there are protests everywhere — by students and women — it is not just him alone. “They’ll speak through a mandate, that’s a voice too. Everyone need not be able to speak up. Some will speak through their films, some through their art or their literature. I will be happy to be a part of such a cinema,” says the actor.

But he repeats what he had been saying for a while, that it is not important that he enters politics. He is into political awareness — political, social and economic awareness. “My job becomes more effective when I speak as a citizen,” he adds.

In his newly found voice of a citizen, he says, “We as citizens of this country, as the people who are fighting for the soul of this country… we are hurt, we feel helpless at what’s being unleashed on us.” Looking back at the recent brutal incidents — whether it is a rape or a killing — it cannot be looked at as an act of lust or an act of a human being who has lost his conscience. “These acts have been supported, given the freedom to be committed with an agenda of silence, an agenda to impose a narrative, which will destroy this country’s ethos. And that's what I’m more worried about.”

Recently a few BJP MLAs had tried to silence him. He told them not to try and threaten him. Because when they try to silence him, his voice grows louder. He knows what their agenda is, what he is fighting for. “I don’t want to change the Constitution not because I know what the Constitution is, but I am what I am because of the Constitution.” He looks at his mother as an example, who, as a 12- year- old girl, was an orphan with a few siblings, living at the Divine Providence Orphanage in Belgaum. “No one asked what their religion was. They had access to an education. Nobody judged them because of their minority status. I want this possibility of horizons to reach others too.”

The actor believes that it is not important to join politics to raise his voice against a problem. He can do so more effectively as a citizen

WE AS CITIZENS OF THIS COUNTRY, AS THE PEOPLE WHO ARE FIGHTING FOR THE SOUL OF THIS COUNTRY… WE ARE HURT, WE FEEL HELPLESS AT WHAT’S BEING UNLEASHED ON US — PRAKASH RAJ, ACTOR