MUMBAI: Actor Adil Hussain has offered support to the growing group of female artistes who are asking the reason for women's absence from the Bollywood delegation of producers and actors that recently met Prime Minister Narendra Modi to discuss issues faced by the film industry.
On Tuesday, an 18-member panel, including Akshay Kumar, Karan Johar, Ajay Devgn, Siddharth Roy Kapur, Ritesh Sidhwani and CBFC chief Prasoon Joshi, met Modi to discuss how to take the entertainment industry to the next stage.
The meeting of the delegation came under fire on Wednesday for its exclusion of female representation with some activists and filmmakers pointing out that it was 2018 and asking, "Where are the women?" Adil took to Twitter to criticise the panel that met the prime minister, saying it has become the habit to exclude women from the decision making process.
"Guess, it is just a Normal. Patriarchal. Error. I mean, not intended but aaah. You know. But just being unaware. And aaa. It's the Habit of. You know, excluding the women folk in Decision making process. It will take time for the men folk to internalise equality (sic)," he wrote.
Earlier, actor Dia Mirza expressed her disappointment over the same and shot a question laced with sarcasm.
"This is wonderful! Is there a reason why there were no women in this room?" Dia asked while tagging Akshay in a tweet.
Her post was a retweet of the "Gold" actor's post in which he had thanked the prime minister for taking out time for the panel.
When a user asked why there is a need to compare women with men at all places, the actor shot him down saying the debate is "not about competition".
"It's such a fundamental thing.If we hope to achieve equality we must be included in all conversations! Of course women are doing well. We are doing well despite the fact that we are excluded. And doesn't that need to change?" she wrote.
Actor Sandhya Mridul also retweeted Akshay's post and rued, "Great. We women have no issues to discuss. Obviously."
In a year, where India stumbled upon its #MeToo moment leading to heated debates on skewed gender politics at workplace, including showbiz, filmmakers and directors such as Leena Yadav, Alankrita Shrivastava and Guneet Monga, among many on social media criticised the panel for exclusion of women.