After refusing to accept poorna kumbham offered by temple priests as a token of respect, actor turned politician Kamal Hassan has made a controversial remark about Hindu deities’ vigrahas now. Hassan, in a recent political meetings-cum-campaign for the upcoming assembly elections, spoke about women empowerment. He started off saying the main issue women face today is sexual harassment and rape. He said that males try to blame it on women by saying that “women dress provocatively” and that men force themselves upon women even though they know the boundaries and they cross them intentionally.
To prove his point about males being the ones at fault here, he made a crass comment about the idols of Hindu deities. He said “Even idols wear revealing clothes. Heck! There are some that don’t wear any clothes at all..but how can one feel that way (to harass sexually) about my elder and younger sisters if he doesn’t feel that way there (about the idols).
Kamal Hassan who likes to portray himself as an atheist likes to pass derogatory comments about Sanatana Dharma, its Bhagwans, and practices as it has been made a norm by Dravidian organizations. But it always surprises the public as Kamal Hassan is a Brahmin, the community which is revered for its devotion and spiritual service towards the deities and temples.
The actor’s past provides a glimpse into what could have made him thus. Kamal Hassan, when he was trying to get into the cine field through dance programs met with an accident and lost his career for a brief period. At that time he needed both an earning and a window to get back to the field.
Enter the ever subtle yet determined in its efforts, the church. He got to know someone from the Christian community who suggested that he join the Christian arts and communication center. He followed the advice and propagated Christianity in his own words as he said to Karan Thapar in an interview.
The reminiscence of the same thing could be seen in another video where he spoke at an event at IIT. He revealed that he believed in Christianity as much as he believed in his own religion and that he started looking at his religious beliefs in retrospect with the beliefs associated with Christianity.
In another casual interview tv program with his niece Anu Hassan, he nonchalantly compared having intercourse and wedding night with a person’s religious beliefs. He said religious beliefs should be limited to one’s house like sex. He also claimed that people were dying due to Ganesh Chaturthi visarjan as it has become a pompous affair now and made fun of Ganesha.
Kamal Hassan’s elder brother Chaaru Hassan went a step ahead and acted in movies propagating Christianity and sharing the gospel. The movie was produced to target the Brahmin community and Chaaru Hassan was used to claim that the supreme power talked about in the Vedas is Jesus Christ. There are instances where he said that the two great itihasas Ramayana and Mahabharata shouldn’t be taught in educational institutions.
Hassan’s eldest brother Chandra Hassan, a Christian convert, was buried as per Christian practices with a proper funeral service held in a church. In the service, his daughter Anu spoke that “he was always a British at heart” and that “he never gave up his British citizenship”. He is buried somewhere in England.
Coming back to Kamal Hassan, in his cine career, as a budding actor, he was well known for his choice of movies that were beyond just vulgar for that time period. At first, he married his co-actor and dancer Vani Ganapathy with whom he lived for ten years.
Then he started having a relationship with fellow actress Sarika while being married to Vani and they married only after their first daughter Shruti, now an actress herself was born. Both women stopped acting after marriage and worked with Kamal as his costume designer and in his production company.
Hassan filed for divorce from Sarika in 2002 and started living-in with Gautami who was his co-star in many movies. This was at the time when both of their kids were teenagers. Gautami also separated from Kamal stating that “she had to do it for her daughter’s welfare”. It is rumored that Kamal misbehaved with Gautami’s daughter which caused the separation.
Apart from this, he had an amorous relationship with many women and fellow actresses unofficially. Recently during the #MeToo movement, he was accused of kissing the lead actress Rekha without her consent in the movie Punnagai Mannan. She was 16 then and revealed later that she wasn’t informed about the kissing scene and felt uncomfortable during the shooting. She was told by the associate directors to think of it as “a big king kissing a small child”. Kamal Hassan is yet to reply to this charge.
With such a past and background that Hassan had the audacity to speak for women empowerment by comparing and casting a lusty eye on the vigrahas of Hindu deities, Tirumeni as they are so lovingly called in Tamil literally meaning ‘the respectable body’, is but a travesty and as the wise would say an effect of Kaliyuga.
(Featured Image Source: Times Now)
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