Farhan Akhtar stands up for women’s rights

The brutal gang rape of a medical student in the Capital on December 16 forced many people, including celebrities, to raise their voice against violence. Actor-director Farhan Akhtar is one of them.

The brutal gang rape of a medical student in the Capital on December 16 forced many people, including celebrities, to raise their voice against violence. Actor-director Farhan Akhtar is one of them. Farhan recently launched an initiative called MARD — Men Against Rape and Discrimination, which encourages men to oppose violence against women.

A source close to the 39-year-old says, “Farhan has vowed to spread awareness against gender inequality and rape through social media. His initiative MARD has been trending on Twitter since its inception. Bollywood stars such as Priyanka Chopra, Arjun Rampal, Sonam Kapoor and Shabana Azmi have been actively retweeting Akhtar’s posts that talk about the stuff real men are made of.”

In fact, recently, Farhan was performing at a college concert in Bengaluru and was spotted wearing a T-shirt with the MARD logo
on it. Ask the actor about this and he says, “It’s something I felt was needed to be done. The biggest sickness in
society today is the attitude towards women, and that seriously needs to change.”

Ask him how he plans to spread the word and he says, “I consciously chose not to go all out and do a public launch because then it would become like a typical event. I’ve been talking about this online extensively and want it to grow organically. The response so far has been amazing. There are a few other things planned which we will announce later.”