“If you want to be like Priyanka Chopra, be fierce, fearless and flawed.” said Priyanka Chopra as the audience roared in an applause. Chopra was speaking at the 11th edition of The Penguin Annual Lecture at Delhi’s Siri fort auditorium on Tuesday, 26 December, and as usual, she left us impressed with her wit and positive energy as she spoke on the topic of ‘Breaking the glass ceiling and chasing a dream’.
Chopra is indeed one of Bollywood’s most fierce and fearless actors. However, when it came to supporting her Bajirao Mastani co-star Deepika Padukone and director Sanjay Leela Bhansali in the Padmavati controversy, she came up short.
When NDTV’s Sonia Singh asked PC about the Padmavati controversy, she said:
I spoke to Sanjay Sir and Deepika and told them that you always have my support in everything that you stand for and I hope that this film will be seen and everything gets sorted out.Priyanka Chopra to Sonia Singh
When Singh asked the Bollywood actor why is she not voicing her opinion publicly, like most of her Bollywood counterparts, the actor carefully ducked the question by putting the onus on the politicians.
“It doesn’t matter. I am not afraid but it (the controversy) follows me everywhere. Because when you put my name as a media house, or of any public figure from the Indian film industry, on your ticker, people watch it and we are used. So it’s not on me or not on us. It’s on you. When you see all the polarisation happening not just in terms of religion but also issues like gender equality, why not ask this question to the politicians or the government who is actually responsible for this, the ones who really matter. What can an actor or a filmmaker do to change what is happening in the country? I am as much a part of the civil society as you or them. I can have an opinion but I can’t be pushed in a corner to give it,” she said.
While we give it to her for the intelligent way in which she steered out of controversy, we expected Priyanka to strongly stand for what is right, as she always claims to be doing.
It is even more disappointing when she says that her voice is not the one that matters and that she, as a Bollywood celebrity, cannot do anything to change what’s happening in the country. However, isn’t that the reason why she is speaking at an event where the previous line-up of speakers included personalities like the Dalai Lama, Amartya Sen, Amitabh Bachchan, Ruskin Bond, Dan Brown and many others?
For someone who is said to be inspiring an entire generation, Priyanka can definitely do a lot more than she thinks. If you think you aren’t the voice that matters in changing what’s happening around, are you even supposed to be on the pedestal you’ve been put on? So much for being ‘ fierce, fearless and flawed’.
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