Prakash Raj called out Mohanlal for the latter’s recent comments on #MeToo, and said Mohanlal should have been more responsible and supportive of the movement.
Prakash Raj said in an interview that Mohanlal’s recent labelling of the #MeToo movement as a trend was a carefree comment, and that the actor should have refrained from doing. Terming the movement as the need of the hour, he said that men should give the movement its due sensitivity.
Prakash Raj, who considers Mohanlal as a responsible actor and a nice, soft-spoken man (the duo had previously worked together in Mani Ratnam’s 1997 political drama Iruvar) said that he knew the actor and was sure that it couldn’t have been his intention to trivialize the matter. But as a person wielding power (he is the chairman of the Malayalam actor’s association, A.M.M.A), people looked up to him and hence the Pulimurugan star ought to have shown more responsibility.
Prakash Raj also touched upon the Sabarimala issue that has seen the Hindu public and the state government up in arms against each other. An atheist, he said he was surprised at the ease with which a religious issue managed to create a wedge between the people who had come together during the floods that happened recently. Striking a middle ground, the actor said the state government ought to have taken the sensitivity of the issue into account and taken more time from the Supreme Court to implement its order.
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He said that people who didn’t believe in the temple shouldn’t cite the Supreme Court judgement allowing women of all ages to enter Sabarimala as an excuse and consider it ‘activism’ or a ‘fashion’ to visit the temple now. “The political parties are exploiting the beliefs and disbelief of the people,” he said. Quoting how the other state MPs and MLAs who had no business were flocking to Sabarimala now, he said people of the state should be able to see through the agenda of the political parties.