'Gandhi more revered in Atlanta than Gujarat'

Actress and social activist Nandita Das [ Images ] never shies away from controversy.

Addressing the American Association of Physicians of India [ Images ]n Origin's Women's Forum, Das pulled no punches when she discussed a range of issues from continuing abuse of women in India, the disrespect for Mahatma Gandhi [ Images ] in Gujarat, and her decision not to be enamoured with Bollywood and its surfeit of purely commercial movies.

"All of us tend to have these little worlds and so issues like rape, dowry and violence victims are often ignored as something that could strike close to our worlds," she bemoaned, arguing that this was a reflection of the failure of civic society.

"Take up any issue, and they affect the women the most -- AIDS, human rights -- and there are these two worlds, which tend to ignore those affected since it does not personally affect us. So, it is indeed a failure of civic society," she said.

She denied that she was 'anti-men' and implied that men were also victims 'since they were conditioned' from their young days to be part of the very 'paternalistic society' in India.

Das did not spare Gujarat either, saying that it was ironical that Gandhi was revered much more in Atlanta and hardly shown any respect in his birthplace in India. "It is a tragedy of our times that Gandhi is so disrespected in Gujarat. You go to Gujarat and they say he is irrelevant -- that he was the one who was responsible for the partition," she said.

The Forum also included an assortment of poets, women's shelter activists and India Abroad's 2003 Person of the Year Sonal Shah, a co-founder of IndiCorps, who spoke about her stints in government and forays in Bosnia, Africa, and of course, India, punctuated by her private sector assignments, including currently with Goldman Sachs as a vice president for corporate governance.