Rahul Gandhi candidly chats with actor Kamal Haasan about films, Gandhi and China

New Delhi: Actor Kamal Haasan had a candid chat with Congress MP Rahul Gandhi, where they discussed politics, Chinese aggression, and films. They also talked about Kamal Haasan’s film ‘Hey Ram’. The actor had earlier joined Rahul Gandhi in the Bharat Jodo Yatra in Delhi.

The conversation started with the film ‘Hey Ram’ and Kamal Haasan’s idea of Mahatma Gandhi. He said that his father was Congressman but he was a ‘bitter critic’ of Gandhi. He added that later he discovered Gandhi and became a fan. He told that he made ‘Hey Ram’ with the idea of saying sorry and in the film, he played a parallel assassin who later decides to not kill Gandhi. Rahul Gandhi added that hatred is ‘blindness and misunderstanding’, to which the actor replied that assassination is a ‘cheap’ form of criticism.

Rahul Gandhi asked him about the violence spread in the country, to which he said it is manufactured, like in Karela, there is amity unless someone doctors violence. Talking being Tamil, he said that it is about language chauvinism. Rahul stated that Tamilians have a passion when they greet someone to which Haasan replied that it is part of culture as the state has seen wars while learning from Buddhism and Jainism.

Talking about world politics, Haasan said that India is at par with the USA and China and asked Rahul Gandhi about the China issue. Rahul said that in the 21st-century one has to have a global view of security and there is where the government is lacking and is not responding to China. He added that Russians did not accept Ukraine’s relations with the West and the Chinese are applying the same principle here.

Adding further, Rahul Gandhi said that in production the West cannot take on China, only India can. Kamal Haasan said that developing a skillset is the next ‘satyagraha’ in India. They further discussed Haasan working for Khadi and how it has been affected by GST.