PM Modi Meeting With Male Bollywood Delegatories, But Wait, Where Are The Womens Panel?

On Tuesday, an 18-member panel that included some big names from Bollywood like Ajay Devgn, Karan Johar, Akshay Kumar and CBFC chief Prasoon Joshi met the Prime Minister to hold a discussion about taking the movie industry to the next stage. This was the second meeting since October. The agenda of the meeting was clear, an overview of the potential growth of the entertainment and media industry would be presented and lowering of GST rates would be pitched.

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But something was missing here, yes, you're right- WOMEN. Not a single woman was a part of the panel, some even started to call it a manel (all male panel). The industry today isn't one where men rule it, but women also play a very significant role as directors, producers, actors and writers. Did this not deserve some representation in the panel?

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

PM Modi even tweeted a picture of the whole panel where not a single woman was present and ended up receiving a lot of flak on social media.

"He (PM) acknowledged that our films are being recognised internationally and agreed that filmmakers are no less important than nation-builders", stated one of the panellists. But women are no film-makers, right?

Some women took to twitter to address the same.

Would be great to have female representation in these delegations. It is 2018. https://t.co/HoxGbptgwX

— Alankrita Shrivastava (@alankrita601) December 18, 2018

And there's NOT a single woman film-maker, director, writer, actress in this frame. The Boys still rule Bollywood. #bollywood https://t.co/2l3e1FjwYM

— Mistress of Vices (@cyclopsee) December 18, 2018

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Even the MeTooIndia Twitter page spoke about it.

Where are the women of the industry? https://t.co/KGMcg8J2J9

— #MeTooIndia (@IndiaMeToo) December 19, 2018

When the October meeting took place, the big faces of Bollywood like Aamir Khan and Rajkumar Hirani represented the fraternity and it was speculated that the discussion of the #MeToo movement would take place in the next meeting. But isn't it very ironic that sexual harassment cases against men would be discussed in a panel which only comprised of men?

Talking about 'Global Power' and Indian industry's role in it in the meeting- it was a very discriminated panel. Bollywood has so many women who would be worthy enough of attending the discussion, not like we don't have our women. Ekta Kapoor is as good as grabbing audience as Karan Johar. Nandita Das, Zoya Akhtar, Alankrita Srivastava, Shabana Azmi and the whole ocean that's filled with women- we could have had them on the panel.

So, dress her up, make her look good, walk around in fancy dresses and that's a full stop to it. Because representation never equaled women. Even in films, you want the man to protect her because she can't protect herself. When finally, the time came and we started making movies like Mary Kom, Dangal and Highway - we face this. No change from October to December, not even considering that maybe women should also be on the panel?

So much of 'Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao'? To all the men, we're still here, doing our work. Only point being, we're going to fight now and fight harder this time.