Raj Kapoor wondered why he was ‘accused of exploiting women', argued with censor board for Zeenat Aman's portrayal in Satyam Shivam Sundaram: ‘If Fellini shows a nude woman…'
Raj Kapoor is still remembered as one of the greatest filmmakers of Indian cinema but in his later films, many viewers started pointing out that women in his films were presented with a certain male gaze that seemed exploitative. Raj was aware of this criticism but he believed that was seen as exploitative by others, was his way of showing a woman's beauty. Almost all of his films after the 1970s, including Bobby, Mera Naam Joker, Satyam Shivam Sundaram, Prem Rog and Ram Teri Ganga Maili presented a lot of its female characters in a sexualised way and Raj addressed the same in the book presented by his daughter Ritu Nanda.
In the book, Raj Kapoor: The One and Only Showman, Raj spoke about the time that he had a conversation with the CBFC (Central Board of Film Certification) regarding his film Satyam Shivam Sundaram. The film starred Zeenat Aman in the lead role and her costumes in the film created quite a stir in those days. Raj shared in the book, 'We are shocked by nudity. We must grow up. In a country that has produced seven hundred million children, people are shocked by partial nudity! Why are we so hypocritical? Children don't grow on trees. They are made in bed. And what is immoral in showing a beautiful girl? Take cinema to the villages, give them entertainment. The only entertainment they have now is brewing alcohol, drinking it and producing children.'
Raj then spoke about showing Satyam Shivam Sundaram to the censor board in India and shared, 'When the film (Satyam Shivam Sundaram) was complete, I asked the censor board, 'Which is more harmful, this or what you are permitting? You see the banners and posters all over India. Everybody is holding a gun or a sword or something with which to kill, in a country that propagates non-violence! Can't you understand that that is what is harmful?''
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Raj insisted that he respected women, and did not understand why he was accused of exploiting them. He said that when a director like Federico Fellini showed women in the nude, it was seen as art, but when he tried something similar, it was seen as exploitation. 'I respect women and I cannot understand why I am accused of exploiting them. If a Fellini shows a woman in the nude, it is considered art. If I show off a woman's beauty, it's called exploitation,' he wrote.
Women in Raj Kapoor's films weren't always shown in the same way as there was a significant shift after the 1970s. He acknowledged that and wrote, 'What influenced my work of the early 1950s is not necessarily what will influence the work of the 1980s. It is not that idealism has been lost. I have taken up themes in which women are perhaps more active than men or are more subjected to emotional tyranny by society.'
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