Raveena Tandon: It boils my blood to see no action being taken

Raveena Tandon thoroughly believes that it’s high time that the laws governing criminal offenses tighten up and the offenders should be given a punishment which should be of equal severity as the crime committed.

In an interview ahead of the release of Maatr, Raveena Tandon gave a few thought-provoking answers to a few questions that you will find below:

What is your role?

My role is that of a middle-class lady who has a small family, a husband and a daughter. The metamorphosis in her life is what the story is all about.

Why did you choose this character?

It’s not about the character, why did I choose this film is what I would like to answer first. Every second day, there are reports of incidents of violence and crime against women in the papers and I feel somewhere we all are becoming numb towards it. The number of such incidents is only going higher with each passing day. Laws have been made but a lot of criminals also get away. Criminals are not afraid of the law anymore because the law is not strict enough or harsh enough. There are incidents where a criminal gets away after raping a girl and comes back to threaten her and rape her again. I am also a mother and hence the character is very close to my heart. It boils my blood to see no action being taken and criminals getting away. We need to take real aggressive steps; stern harsh sentences need to be given.

How can the Indian society’s perspective towards women change?

Somewhere the entire society’s mindset has to change. Until and unless that happens, these kinds of incidents will continue to happen. Why was the victim wearing jeans or why was she alone there at night— these are the shameful comments that you hear from some of the religious leaders and political leaders. Instead of turning around and saying that ‘we are sorry, we couldn’t protect our sisters and daughters and we’ll see to it that something like this never happens’ they blame the victim! This is really sad and needs to change. Right from childhood, we need to teach our children to respect, to protect anyone who is weaker— be it male or female. A majority of the hardened criminals start young. It needs to be nipped in the bud because these children grow up psychologically taking pleasure in other people or animals’ pain. They get a sadistic pleasure in doing this. It is also our responsibility as mothers to teach our children these things.