Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently had a meeting with some Bollywood personalities at Raj Bhavan in Mumbai. Apart from actors Ajay Devgn and Akshay Kumar, director-producer Karan Johar, Rakesh Roshan and producers Ritesh Sidhwani, Bhushan Kumar, Sidharth Roy Kapur, CBFC head Prasoon Joshi attended the meeting.
Had an extensive and fruitful interaction with a delegation from the film and entertainment industry.
The delegation spoke about the strides being made by the film and entertainment industry, and gave valuable inputs relating to GST for their sector. https://t.co/ulQMtxTJQj pic.twitter.com/n4Dn38EJLr
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) December 18, 2018
While Modi’s efforts of looking into the matters of the entertainment industry are no doubt, being appreciated but the lack of diversity in the representatives from the industry has disappointed the netizens.
Akshay Kumar’s tweet mentions that the meeting was called ‘to hear us at length, discuss issues pertaining to our industry and assuring positive consideration of suggestions’.
Heartfelt thank you to the honorable Prime Minister @narendramodi ji for taking out time to hear us at length, discuss issues pertaining to our industry and assuring positive consideration of suggestions. pic.twitter.com/ShGfr0Jlvu
— Akshay Kumar (@akshaykumar) December 18, 2018
However, the presence of no women or regional representatives has enraged the internet.
While Modi has been at the receiving of criticism for his ‘non-beti’ Bollywood meeting, some of the celebrities like Gul Panag, Alankrita Shrivastava, Neha Sharma among others have also come forward to share their take on the incident.
1. Same here, Gul!
🙏 Hope the delegation includes some women next time 🙏 https://t.co/w7fMulu4sF
— Gul Panag (@GulPanag) December 18, 2018
2. No female representatives in the panel have disappointed several women
Would be great to have female representation in these delegations. It is 2018. https://t.co/HoxGbptgwX
— Alankrita Shrivastava (@alankrita601) December 18, 2018
3. Zero regional representatives as well.
18 men. zero women. https://t.co/Bm0Jx7IaG0
— Neha Sharma (@mmiinniii) December 18, 2018
5. Because women are easily forgettable?
Remarkable that even in an industry which actually has enough women, no woman in this delegation. https://t.co/vOai0UQGhU
— Ruchi Gupta (@guptar) December 18, 2018
6. Another person called it a tone-deaf idea.
How tone deaf do you have to be in the current climate and given recent issues to have such an interaction with ZERO women representing the industry (at least according to this photo)? Amazing. #MeToo https://t.co/MfBR4m29hi
— Ananth Krishnan (@ananthkrishnan) December 19, 2018
7. Beti bachao, beti padhao, par beti ko meetings me mat bulao!
Hope there is female representation next time.
— Anindo Chatterjee (@anindo_c) December 18, 2018
8. Sarcasm, you see!
https://twitter.com/autumnrainwish/status/1075281098073096193
9. Exactly, as half of the industry is actually running because of women!
How come there are no women in the delegation. 🤔🤔 without women it is only “half” the inputs , the PM would have got .
— N SOOD (@NSOOD6) December 19, 2018
10. Southern states which have given us blockbusters like Bahubali, 2.0 and everything in between!
Dear Sir,
Please also bear in mind that the 4 Southern states, Bengal, Marathi etc etc together produce more films than Bollywood does. Sabka Vikas must apply here too.— Mohan Raman (@actormohanraman) December 18, 2018
While, women like Deepika, Alia, Ashwini Tiwari Iyer, Meghna Gulzar among others and women-centric films like Raazi took front seats in B-town, an important discussion without any female presence from the industry has turned out to be a huge disappointment. It, certainly, deserves the backlash it is receiving, isn’t it? What are your thoughts on this?