Aamir Khan

Zainab Salbi: Hello everyone. I'm Zainab Salbi and I have the great honor to be on stage with the India's biggest movie star, Aamir Khan. Thank you. I mean, we are talking beyond the actions movies of James Bond and Daniel Craig. We are talking beyond the romances of Richard Gere.

We are talking beyond the charms of George Clooney. We are talking, ladies and gentlemen above and beyond all of that, a man who has been acting since the age of nine, who has conquered the hearts of 600 million, yes, 600 million Indians.

This is half of the Indian population. This man has done it. Unbelievable. And in 2012, he surprises India, he surprises the world with launching a new TV talk show, Satyamev Jayate.

Jayate. That tackles social issues, taboos, heads on. I mean, you just put yourself out there. What inspired you to do that?

Aamir Khan: Well, a very good evening to everyone here. I think, it started somewhere when I was a very small child, and it began with my mother, I think.

My mother's been a big influence on me, and I'll narrate an incident of my life which stayed with me all along, and that's, I used to play a lot of tennis when I was a kid, and competitive tennis, you know, state level, national level.

And I was pretty good at that time, and she knew how anxious I was about the game, how much I loved the game, and every time I had a match, she'd be waiting for me to come home, and when I would come home, she'd ask me, "Did you win? Did you lose?" usually I would win, so my answer would be, "I won."

And then after about five minutes, the first time she did it really shook me. After about five minutes, she would come and say to me, "You know, the boy who lost to you today, he would have reached home about now, and his mom would have asked him the same question, and he would have said he lost. So his mother must be feeling really bad right now."

And the first time she said that to me, it, like, really hit me. I mean, her ability to think for another, a woman she's never seen, never met, really, hit home to me. And I don't think she was meaning to tell me or teach me anything, that's just how she is.

And I think a lot of what I am is a result of her. I think the second person who's had, been a big influence on me is my friend Satyajit Bhatkal, who happens to be the director of the show. Satyajit and I were in school together.

He was a topper in the class. I was the backbencher. And he was brilliant, so he had the world at his feet.

He could do what he wanted. But after we passed out, he decided to work for other people. So he didn't become an engineer or a doctor or a chartered accountant, which he could have been, or an MBA, whatever he wanted.

He decided to spend his life, you know, working for people who were, less privileged than he was. I got into films and got into acting, and my career took off, and I was, So each time I would meet him, I'd feel really guilty.

Mm. I mean, I wasn't doing anything wrong. I was doing what I loved doing. But every time I met him, I used to feel, man, this guy is living for others, and I'm.

I wish I could do half of what he's doing. And that kept troubling me. So I think a lot of all this finally resulted in what happened as MJ, Satyamev Jayate.

Television also grew strong in India at that time, and I reached a point in my career where I had earned a fair amount of goodwill, and I kept thinking that, how can I contribute? You know, you wake up in the morning, you read the papers, and you read about injustice, you read about poverty, you read about people who are less privileged than you and you want to really do something about it.

I think most of us feel that way, and we don't know what to do. And I felt that for a number of years. And then I realized that I should do what I know best, and which is storytelling.

And I should use the strength of storytelling to try and change minds and try and you know, enrich perhaps the discussion on certain issues that we face as a society. And I saw that no one's really doing it on that kind of a scale, on a public platform. And I thought if I combine the strength of TV with the goodwill that I've earned, and you know, we try and.

Actually combine journalism, investigative journalism, and storytelling. So we really research each topic and then bring it to the country of India and share what we have learnt with the people and hope that we can transform, minds, hearts. You know, I always felt that there are two ways of bringing about change.

One is top-down, when you make laws and you tell people to follow them, or you make policies and you expect people to follow them. And the other way. And sometimes it works, but sometimes, a lot of times it doesn't.

I think the other way is a longer route, but I think that is what we've chosen to do, and that is to reach out to people's hearts. Not with anger, but with love. And and you know, try and transform minds at a young age.

Yeah. Zainab Salbi: Now what, that was your first show. That is not an easy topic. What triggered you to choose this one?

Aamir Khan: Well, I'm not quite sure why we chose this one in particular. But I felt that, Initially we had, researched four topics. One was female feticide, and one was, public health, the other was child sexual abuse.

And so for some reason, I think we instinctively stuck with female feticide as our first episode. I also feel it, somewhere it's, it's a huge problem in India, first of all, and it also, connects with people on a very gut level. We chose to put the show forward not as a woman's problem, but as a mother's problem.

You see, what we try to do is when we get the information that we have, we try and put it to people in a manner that, you know, gets them emotionally. So I don't start the show by saying, "You know, today we're gonna talk about female feticide." I start the show by saying, you know, "I've often asked people who the most important person in their lives is, and usually people say, 'My mother.'

And I feel the same." And I talk about motherhood and get people into a certain emotional state, and then I say, "Well, let's take a look at how we're treating our mothers today." And we meet our first guest, who is a mother who's been through, eight abortions in six years, forced abortions by her mother and in-laws and husband.

And so when you're looking at her and you're hearing her story, you're, you're looking at a mother and what a mother goes through, and then of course what a woman goes through when she's, you know, forced to go through an abortion. So I think that kind of really got people.

You know, the first episode itself, has a very strong emotional connect, is what we felt, and that's why I think we chose female feticide as our first episode. And you'll be happy to know that, you know, in 2011 was when the episode aired, and before that, the census that was carried out had a certain numbers.

It was, the national average was 914 girl childs against 1,000 boys born every year, and it was sliding. It was sliding alarmingly. And certain states, like Rajasthan and other states, Maharashtra, were very bad.

890, 880, you know, per thousand boys. You'll be pleased to know that these two states have revealed their numbers Hmm. After three years, Rajasthan and Maharashtra, and in both these states, the ratio has gone up by 50 to 60 points.

So it's now around 950 to 1,000 boys. Wow. Wow. Wow. And I believe, I believe it's a combination of the show, which is reaching out to millions of people and talking to them, you know, emotionally, and it's also, the governments, the Rajasthan government and the state government of Maharashtra really acted very dynamically.

Hmm. And it's a result of all of this, I think, and people actually reacting to it and deciding that they don't wanna do this anymore, a lot of them. Zainab Salbi: Now, it is illegal in India. Aamir Khan: Well, abortion is legal, but sex-selective abortion is illegal, and that itself is strange.

I mean, in the US I don't think there's a law in which you cannot ask your doctor, what the sex of the baby is going to Mm-hmm. Because in the US the doctor doesn't expect you to go and abort the child if it's a girl. So you don't need a law over here which tells you that.

So in India, we have a law where you cannot ask the doctor what the sex of the child is, and the doctor is not allowed to tell you so both the doctor and the parents could be in jail if they ask the question and that question is answered. Now, this law is actually. It tells us what we are.

This law is needed for us, unfortunately. Mm-hmm. Otherwise, you know, in other societies, you don't need this as a law. Zainab Salbi: Usually you celebrate, "I have a girl."

Aamir Khan: Yeah. There's another law we have in India where as a criminal you can't stand for elections. You need a law for that. I mean, it's, it's sad.

What I'm saying is sad. It's, it's. You It's sad. It's like black humor because if a criminal stands for elections anywhere in the world, he won't get a single vote.

But in India, we have to have a law because as Indians, we've in the past seen that we do end up voting for for, criminals. So we need to have a law which tells us you know, you can't stand for elections if you're a criminal.

So you see, these laws actually tell us also a lot about what we are. Contextualize it for people who live here in the US, I would imagine about 90 to 95% of people in India have either given dowry or taken dowry or both.

Mm-hmm. So when you're communicating to the huge majority of the country and telling them that what they have been indulging in perhaps is not the best thing to do, and most probably the TV that they're watching your show on has also come in dowry. So you have to.

Which is, which is why it is so important for us to communicate this with love, and we had this discussion very early on with the, with the core team. I said, "Why are we. I mean, with what driving emotion are we doing this show?

Are we doing this show with anger? Because then our conversation is different." And I'm not doing this with anger.

I'm doing this with love because I really feel that only with love can you actually, you know, affect a person and bring about change. There are so many things that we need to. And we have to look inward, and I'm included in that.

I'm not excluded in that. Mm-hmm. We have to look inward, you know, at ourselves. Zainab Salbi: But did it make people uncomfortable that you touched on these very.

I mean, how did they respond? Aamir Khan: Well, you know, by and large, the huge majority. The very positive thing I wanna tell you is that, the huge majority of Indians has just loved the show.

And that speaks a lot for what India is today. It speaks a lot for the fact that India wants to change, India is ready for change. I mean, I would have imagined, none of us had imagined a show which is picking such heavy topics would be so Yes.

Across the country. And the fact that it is so popular really speaks well for us as Indians Mm. That we have issues, we have problems, but we want to leave them behind, we want to come out of them, and we really want to move ahead, and improve ourselves.

I think that's what the success of the show tells us. Zainab Salbi: Has there, like, how do you come up about choosing the subjects? I mean, Aamir Khan: We have a lot of fights.

Zainab Salbi: And I mean, are there subjects where you say, "We're not gonna touch that"? Aamir Khan: No. So far, that's never been the case. We've picked, really difficult topics as well.

One of the really difficult topics was untouchability, which is a big issue in India. The Constitution of our country, says that we're all equal, but in reality, that's not so yet. It's a journey that we have to, it's still a journey that we are on to reach there.

Sure, equality is an issue in a lot of societies, I think, but in India, because of the way the caste system is, it just makes it, a lot more complicated. So, and that's a very touchy topic as well. It's a topic that people feel very emotionally about.

Mm. So, and 15% of India, roughly 15% of India is Dalit, which is the untouchable, caste. And so therefore, 85% is not Dalit, and we are communicating with the 85% of country, speaking to them about I mean, are we what are we doing? What we're doing, is it, is it right?

Is it, are we comfortable with it? You know, So Zainab Salbi: how did you go about that? Aamir Khan: Well, I mean, we in all our shows, in all our topics, we're just honest, but we do it with a lot of love.

We do it with a lot of love, so that people. Let me say this much, that while the majority of the people have loved our Mm. There has been a minority, probably in every topic, that doesn't like us.

Like, there are a couple of men's organizations which hate me. They keep writing to me emails about men's problems, and why don't you take up men's problems? So we did, in fact, in our last, season, we picked up masculinity.

What is, what is it to be a male? Because we figured that unless we re-look at and hopefully redefine what a man is, you know, things are not gonna change. So women have, you know, women have changed, women are changing, but men, don't manage to change

By and large. By and large, Well, we act we are a stubborn lot. So we thought we'd look, we'd look at, you know, what is a real man?

Is a real man someone who goes and beats up people? Is a real man a person who's a protector? Is he the, is he the guy who's going to, you know,

So what's a real man? Is he. So we we I mean, we I mean, I strongly feel that we have to, from the time that the child is born, you have to treat both children equally, whether it's a boy or a girl, and you have to allow the boy child to cry. You have to allow him to cry, because the first thing we tell a boy when he cries, "Don't cry.

Are you a girl? Why are you crying?" So he grows up feeling that I'm not supposed to cry, and when you tell a child not to cry, you're actually removing him further and further away from his emotions.

He's feeling something, and you're not allowing him to feel that, so you're distancing him from his emotions. Mm. And then you're surprised why he's beating up his wife, because he the fact is that you when you tell the child that it's perfectly all right to cry, it's perfectly all right to feel terrible, it's perfectly all right to feel scared. Most boys are told, "Hey, you can't feel scared.

You're a boy. Are you scared of the dark? Come on, go on. Go to the roof alone."

You know? So boys feel scared, and we have to tell a small child of four that it's all right to be scared, you know? And so that boys can grow up more sensitive. Right now, we are, we are, we are creating boys, or we I mean, we are working towards creating boys who grow up to be insensitive.

There's a portion of the show which, in which I'm told by another man, he says that, you know, in India, real men don't Mm. And real men don't hold their wives' hands. The wife walks two, three feet behind.

Now, you must understand India is a large country, so when I'm saying this, don't take it literally. This is mostly in rural India, and there are, there are a lot of extremely progressive people in India as well, so I don't want to give you all the wrong impression. But this is an issue.

There are villages in India that, in rural India where this is the belief, this is how they've grown up. So on the show, I did say, I said, "You know, in, based on all of these definition of what a real man is, I'm completely not a real man because I hold my wife's hand all the time. I hug my children."

You're not supposed to hug your children. If you're not supposed to show affection to your child as a male, a true male. So I hug my children all the time.

I cry all the time. I was crying just before I entered the stage. Zainab Salbi: That's true. It is true.

Yes. I was, I We were both crying, actually. Aamir Khan: I was listening to, what's her name? Sayeda? Zainab Salbi: I guess we yeah.

Yeah. Aamir Khan: I was listening to her speak, and I was in tears. So I cry all the time. Zainab Salbi: Have you cried on movies, on TV?

Aamir Khan: On TV, every episode of mine, yeah. Excellent Not a single episode goes by when I don't cry. And it's not only during the show itself, it's even when I'm researching it, you know?

When you're researching these topics, it takes days for us to go through all the material we collect, and invariably, in every topic that we've picked, we go through, we go, we get to a point where me and Satya and Swati and all of us get so disheartened. I'm looking at an interview and I'm weeping, and we kind of shut it off and we're like, "You know, why are we doing this?

Nothing's gonna change." You suddenly feel very disheartened. But then you come across a person who is working in that and has got so much strength, so much resilience, so much grace, and such dignity that it brings you back to your feet, you know? In these five years that I have researched Satyamev Jayate, I've seen the worst in mankind and I've seen the best, and the most beautiful in mankind.

I've come across people who are such amazing and inspirational people. You know, I spoke to this lady whose son had been murdered, in, his, her son had got married to a girl from a different religion, and so it is an honor killing. Mm. This lady spoke with such dignity and such grace, and with such forgiveness in her heart, I just couldn't get over it, you know?

It was such an, it was so amazing to listen to her speak. She's talking about her son who's been killed and you know, I don't know where she finds the strength from to still look for love, you know, in people. I was speaking to these two women.

We often assume in India that women who are from rural India are uneducated, and therefore not as strong as women from cities, et cetera, et cetera. So these two women who, in the same episode, where, of honor killings. The, one woman's son and the other woman's brother was killed, and they were ostracized from the village.

They were targeted. They were not given, they were not sold anything. Nobody spoke to them in the village. Mm. So the ashes are taken in what is called a kalash, like a pot.

That pot was not sold to them. That's the kind of segregation they faced in the village. And then they did a police complaint and all of that, so the case was going on.

They were threatened, they were offered money, they were, there was political pressure put on them. Every kind of pressure was put on them, but they didn't take the case back, and they fought the case and they won the case, and those men are now convicted. Now, what I'm trying to say here is that these two women are from a small village in India, and the kind of courage they show.

In a city like Mumbai, when a political party announces that tomorrow is Mumbai Bandh, which means nobody dare go out of the house, we're gonna stone every car that goes out. Some kind of protest that they're doing. Nobody leaves the house.

In a city like Mumbai, which is a large city, nobody even knows who I am. We're all strangers in the city, but we're frightened to step out of the house because someone has announced that we can't. Here, these two ladies are specifically targeted, they're still staying in the same village, and they still have the courage to stand up and say, "No, we don't want money.

We want justice." Mm. Where do they get this courage from? So it'You know, it's really amazing.

Unbelievable. So I've met such wonderful people in this journey of five years. Zainab Salbi: It's hard to sort of escape the fact that you lost weight, or gained weight. And you sort of were thinner in here, I'm the same weight.

I understand it's because, you're, you're in a movie right now. You're Yeah. In the midst of shooting a movie.

Has it Aamir Khan: Well, I'm actually, I'm actually getting ready for this film that I'm playing, a older man who's an ex-wrestler, so I'm putting on a lot of weight, which is fun. Zainab Salbi: But has it changed So, has it changed your, choices of stories as a, as a star, as a movie star?

Aamir Khan: Not really. I wouldn't say it has changed my choices as an actor, but quite naturally, I get attracted to films because of who I am. So this film that I'm doing, for example, it's called Dangal, which means wrestling, and it's, the story is about, this wrestler who has a dream to win a gold medal, an international gold for his country.

He can't fulfill his dream because he doesn't have money, he has to give up wrestling. And so he decides that his son will fulfill his dream. Mm. And then he proceeds to have four daughters in the next 15 years.

So the story is That's pretty sure. His daughter fulfills his dream. Oh. Yeah. Zainab Salbi: And exactly.

Well, Aamir, you could have easily rested in the, in the limelight, and yet you took. I mean, with courage and with integrity and with love and inspiration, you just went ahead and inspired, you know, half of India's population. This is a huge deal, and inspiring all of us here in America.

So, chapeau to you. Thank you. Good luck. Keep going. We are all behind you.

Thank you so much. Thank you thank you.