'Rebel' Kangana Ranaut has shown Bollywood's 'suffer in silence' artistes the way forward

When we see and hear so much being talked and written about Kangana Ranaut nowadays, we feel the women of Bollywood have come of age. No amount of praise is enough for the 31-year-old actress who has taken on a male-dominated system and refused to part ways with her courage and conviction despite all the threat and trauma. Her candid talks in Aap Ki Adalat (AKA) where she spoke in details about her forgettable experiences and that how she decided not to let it go without a fight speaks volume about Kangana's big heart. Critics might yet say Kangana is doing all this for her film's publicity or that she should not wash dirty linens in public, but the actress's straight words can't just be brushed aside.

The most glaring part of the Kangana story is that she has taken on the industry and a number of its top male members. At the moment, she is confronting the Roshans, the Pancholis, the Sumans as well as ace director Karan Johar and there is no iota of a sign that Kangana is in a mood to relent. She stands convinced and doesn't hesitate in clearly declaring her emotional attachments with so and so and how she was "betrayed".

Kangana's specific cases of conflict also co-exist with her take on the industry in general. She openly says that the award functions in the film industry are fake and that some directors are egoistic. These revelations are enough to put an individual, who also earns a livelihood in the same industry she/he is criticising on several grounds, at a disadvantage but Kangana cares little about it. She doesn't forget to call herself "successful" and makes it obvious that she is proud about her own feats in the film industry.

For the women in Bollywood, this is not very common to see. The list of Bollywood actresses facing trouble in their personal lives is not short but how many actresses do we see speaking out on it openly? Kangana certainly has set up a precedent which her colleagues and juniors would certainly relish and try to imitate at other times.

Kangana Ranaut reminds one of Parveen Babi

Kangana's relentless fight against the odds reminds one of the late Parveen Babi. The latter, who passed away in oblivion in Mumbai in January 2005 at the age of 56, was no less a rebel figure of her time. As ace filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt had said after Parveen's death: "She was a rebel who had lived on her own terms, died on her own terms." Bhatt, who had confessed of having a brief relationship with the popular actress of the 1970s and 1980s, said the latter had died twice – once she had a mental breakdown and second time when she met the physical death.

When Kangana said in AKA that she needs a phase of peace in her turbulent life, one senses a similarity between the lives of her and Parveen. Like the latter, Kangana has also seen the dark sides and gives the damn to what elements feel and talk about her.

However, Kangana is perhaps luckier because she has a whole lot of media resource at her disposal to launch a counter attack against those who continuously target her. But as far as the courage is concerned, the two glamour women of Bollywood were never far from each other.

Kangana is delivering performance even while fighting her battles

For those who think that Kangana is throwing tantrums because she wants publicity, the line of thought is flawed. If one compares the filmographies of the actress with those of the likes of Hrithik Roshan, Adhyayan Suman and Aditya Pancholi, the difference is nothing short of that between chalk and cheese. Kangana has done full justice to her acting prowess while carrying on with her battle and hence accusing her of making noise to attract publicity lacks merit. Kangana Ranaut has grown into one of the best and successful actresses in India and the success has come because of talent and hard work.

Kangana's fault is she is a woman?

Kangana's main fault is that she is a woman. The way she has defied the unwritten laws of the male-dominated film industry and brought up issues that even the greatest of macho heroes have not over the years, there was bound to be repercussions. She perhaps has presented forward her logic as an outsider who did not find the film industry a happy place to be in from Day 1 and had to struggle to climb up the ladder. But to attack her for expressing her straight viewpoints is something not right.

If we are okay with Modi as outsider, why not with Kangana?

Our current prime minister, Narendra Modi, too is an outsider in Delhi's power corridors but we often take great pride in his story of storming the central throne, hailing it as the true success of our democracy. Why is then the same reaction missing in case of Kangana Ranaut? Like in politics, India's film industry has also been democratised in the last 70 years and we have voices like Kangana who refuse to suffer in silence like many of their predecessors and instead call the spade a spade. It is high time we value these rebellious voices for they help bring the much-needed churning and the subsequent progress in our society.