When FWICE banned or ‘issued a directive’ to ban Ranveer Singh in response to plea from Farhan Akhtar and his production company, CINTAA stood by the actor to ensure the ban was lifted.
Excerpts from the interview:
As an artist and a president, do you think Ranveer Singh was justified in offering compensations and apology?
Now see the details of that we don’t know, but we know that I am sure he would be a fair person and if he feels that he is, he is not the kind of person who will deliberately harm or hurt anybody and he has an excellent relationship with Excel. Yeah, he’s given two big hits with them. So, if there was any reason that he is not comfortable doing this film, could be for various reasons. And kudos to him that he offered compensation for losses incurred and paid back the signing amount. Many don’t even do that.
As CINTAA president, what are the basic guidelines you have formatted to protect the rights of the artists?
See, as a CINTAA president, I have not formatted new guidelines. CINTAA is an old institution formed in 1958. And the constitution was made at that time and it has been subsequently corrected and made up to date and the new issues. It was formed only for cine artists and character actors.
After that, the television angle came in, then television actors were incorporated. So, it is a dynamic constitution which keeps changing and you know, then digital came in and various things keep changing.
Instagram has come in responsibilities of an actor on the digital media and various things have come in. So, we have updated our Constitution time to time as and when required. So as a President, over the time in our period, tenure of the last, two years, we have made certain changes in the Constitution which needed to be done, which had not been done for a long time.
So every, I think, new executive team which comes in sees the situation and tries to improve and make sure that the safeguard the actors, as well as the responsibilities of the actors are taken into consideration and made a constitutional issue.
How often is CINTAA approached for intervention like something like this?
See, this has taken a lot of media space because a big star was involved, right? Yes, but there are lot of stars, in fact. I would say Ranveer Singh doesn’t need
CINTAA intervention as much because he is very capable. He can afford legal advice. Whereas there are lot of actors down the line who need us for guidance, for handholding, for approaching the producers, for you know. Negotiating and trying to get them their rights in place, whether its the payments which are not being made or a certain amount of working hours which are unfair. They are actors who have been made to work 18 to 24 hours in a day. So, it’s those kinds of unfair practices. That is where they come to us. So, they come to us very regularly.
How different is the role of CINTAA from FWICE and other associations?
FWICE is a Federation, which is having many associations as their voluntarily members. You affiliate with them because you feel they will help you in sorting out some of your issues and problems because they have many associations under them. They have around 40 to 50 associations. So, it is like strength.
As an artiste and as a president, do you think actors should take an active part in script, casting and other creative aspects, or they should just stick to their role and what they have to do?
Hello, they are intelligent thinking people, especially the lead actors. They have a say in a script because they are going to be the one who will be projected there. They will get the brick bats in the end if the film is not appreciated. So, you know they are today actively involved in a very positive way. I would say it should be in a positive way towards the betterment of a project.
So, you think that Ranveer is justified if he is not agreeing with the creative and therefore opting to step out?
As I said I don’t know what happened exactly, so I can’t comment on this, but…I definitely feel if an actor is not comfortable in a role, if he doesn’t believe in it, he won’t do justice to it. The only difference is what I feel is it should be done at the earlier stage. You know what happens is they friendship may be just accept a project… But you don’t know what is going to come out of it, right? You don’t know what it entails, what the details of the script are and the story. So, sometimes I feel that can cause problem because you’ve committed morally, but emotionally and practically you see that the project is not something which you are comfortable about.
And you say that CINTAA will always stand by both because both are your members — Farhan and Ranveer?
Yes. We will always stand by our members. If the artist is wrong, we will talk to them, and request them to sort things in a proper way. Yeah, but yes, we will fight for our actors when they have been wronged.. For us this came as a bolt from the blue. It was like a third party came in and declared a war. So we were shocked and I think that has only messed up things a little bit. I am sure issues have been talked about, negotiated, trying to be amicably resolved between the producer and the actor and of course friends. And I would say that we are really happy that this has been resolved.
As an artist yourself, what do you think is the biggest help that CINTAA can give an artist?
See, basically we are representing then actor. To producers is just one aspect. But we are also representing the actors, woes, and needs to the government. So since I have taken over as the president, I have gone to the I&B minister, I have gone to Labour minister in Delhi. Mansukh Mandavi Ji. I have gone to our Labour minister in the state, not once, but many many times. I have gone to the Principal Secretary of Labour in Maharashtra. We have gone to the commissioner’s office. So I have been doing the rounds and our main issues is representation of the actors issues.
And now in the new labour laws and the codes, for the first time, our Minister has made sure that audio visual workers are recognised. Till now, there was no category in which film workers could fit in. Earlier when I would go to the Mantralaya and speak to the Labour Department and to the Principal Secretary and he would say – “ma’am hamein help karna hai lekin ye help karein kaise? I don’t know which department to put you in because there’s nothing which covers a film actor!” Because we are not recognised. We didn’t fit any slot. We are not job holders, right? We don’t have a owner, we are not employer and employee relationship. So, we cannot demand those things because our employer changes everyday. An actor is working today, here, day after year, then we cannot fit into shop and establishment. We can’t fit into gig workers. Trust me, I have worked very hard to figure out how our actors can be the get the help and the facilities and the recognition they deserve and they need.
So, as labour, which category do we fit in? So that was becoming such a challenge. And when we met our minister in Delhi, I must say he is the first person who has actually understood, applied and said yes, we need a separate slot for audio visual workers. So, now for the first time in labour, this has been introduced. I would say this is a huge step forward that at least now we are recognised and department knows that audio visual worker bhee hote hai. So, that is I would say that is one of the most important role which I would say I have played or CINTAA has played. That we try and recognise an actor as a in a category which falls under the labour codes.