Anurag Kashyap on male mentality: Friends would tell me, ‘Ladki mana bhi kare toh haath pakadna hai’

Filmmaker Anurag Kashyap feels that marginalising a woman and controlling her is “subconsciously” ingrained in men.

“Everybody needs to look within themselves,” says filmmaker Anurag Kashyap during our conversation on the sexual harassment allegations in entertainment industries across the globe. “Times are changing, and it’s good that these kind of things (victims calling out on their abusers) are happening. Better late than never. But it is a universal thing; not restricted to the entertainment industry. One needs to look within oneself and evaluate what kind of a human being I really am,” he adds.

Filmmaker Anurag Kashyap’s last film Mukkabaaz released in January.

Ever since Hollywood actors Ashley Judd and Rose McGowan revealed that they were sexually harassed by disgraced producer Harvey Weinstein, celebrities across the globe have come out and accused some of the biggest stars in the entertainment industry of sexual harassment.

Kashyap believes that marginalising a woman and controlling her is “subconsciously” ingrained in our minds. “When I was in college, my friends would tell me, ‘Ladki agar mana bhi kare toh haath pakadna hai (even if the girl says no, you have to ignore that and still hold her hand). My driver is from north India, and every time there is a woman driving a car in front of him, he says things like, ‘Why do women drive when they don’t know how to drive?’ So [this notion] is across the board and across the globe. It has been taught to us and it works on a very subconscious level. Men feel they have to control women because it’s in their subconscious,” he says.

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