As a result of nationwide lockdown, there are numerous families across the globe who are forced at home with their abusers and suffer greatly in this time of anxiety and chaos.
In an attempt to safeguard vulnerable members of the community, many Bollywood celebrities are up in arms against the abuse and are rallying around an all-encompassing campaign to help curtail its spread.
According to a video put together by Women in Films and Television India (WIFT), celebrities are reminding individuals to not tolerate any kind of abuse.
Richa Chadha is one of the members of the advisory board for the WIFT and she headlined a campaign which features artists including, Kalki Koechlin, Amyra Dastur, Mallika Dua, Pulkit Samrat, Adil Hussain. During these videos, the artists speak about how they have taken to dividing chores around the house, for eg Kalki revealed that while she makes breakfast for herself and her partner, he takes the dogs out for a walk in the meantime.
The video has since circulated in massive loops all across social media and has been joined by a number of large voices along the way.
Richa believes, “The agenda of the video was to highlight the emotional stress people are going through and how that often leads to several things including domestic violence. This is a problem across the world and a campaign like this effectively speaks to a wide audience. Women could possibly be trapped and locked down at home unable to muster the courage to report crimes against them. The elderly could be feeling particularly hopeless in such a situation. We urge anyone going through trauma to take to counselling on the helpline numbers available.”
The videos are not only recorded in Hindi or English, rather in the celebrity’s native tongue as well. Richa feels this diversity has paved the way for a major step in the right direction.
She was quoted saying, “India is a diverse, fragmented society so if a message has to reach everyone, it has to be done in multiple languages. Involving artists of different states was consciously done to be able to create a larger impact and reach everyone across different cultural and socio-economic status. People should be able to understand the language to absorb the message.”
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