Aamir Khan, who championed several causes in his TV show ‘Satyamev Jayate’, is gearing up for another major cause. The Bollywood actor has taken up the initiative of launching a contest to equip Maharashtra’s drought hit villages with water harvesting and other facilities to tackle the water scarcity and farmers suicide situation there. “Since I am from creative field, I connect a lot with the people and my interest in social issues increased,” says Aamir. The Perfectionist Khan received a lot of support from Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadanvis for ‘Satyamev Jayate Water Cup’. Keeping his celeb status aside, the actor opens up about the initiative and how he plans to rope in many more celebrities and VIPs to his list to do the charity work.
Excerpts from an interview…
Why did you take up the issue of water and why in Maharashtra?
When we did the TV program ‘Satyamev Jayate’, we saw that on ground it had a very strong and powerful results. We felt that we should take one topic and be with it until it is not solved. Water is a very important issue right now and we took it up in Maharashtra because I am born here. I think time has come to walk ahead on this path. This is a huge effort started by the CM and we have joined hands.
How do you plan to approach the drought situation?
There are a lot of institutions which are working to counter water related problems and are doing a good job. Most of the NGOs are investing in infrastructures, we believe that we want to invest in people. All of our resources and efforts will be to create an army of people who learn water harvesting and get them to do it for themselves. Empower, educate and encourage people – that is what we are trying to do. Our effort is to make ‘Satyamev Jayate Water Cup’ into a movement and that is where we would like to contribute, but by educating people.
What is ‘Satyamev Jayate Water Cup’ all about?
We will be writing to each village to come and participate in the ‘Satyamev Jayate Water Cup’ contest. People will have to decide to be a part of this contest and select five people whom we will train. They will then go back to their villages and implement the learnings, after which the winner will be selected. There are 80,000 villages so we have spread the knowledge across Maharashtra. ‘Satyamev Jayate Water Cup’ is just a beginning. We understand how the farmers suffer and hence we have taken this initiative.
Nana Patekar too has contributed to a cause recently. Do you plan to rope him in?
He is already doing a great work at it. Like Nana, more and more people need to come forward and contribute to this social issue. I think Nana has started this a year ago, it is really wonderful that he is doing such great work. He is showing sensitivity towards such an important cause.
Are you planning to include any other celebrities or your cinema colleagues in this initiative?
We are requesting a lot of Marathi celebrities, sports people and actors to become mentors, adopt villages and encourage them. I will not be the only face of it. I am planning to speak to a whole lot of people, so the more the merrier. Even if a person like Atul Kulkarni takes the round of a few villages, it will be a great boost of encouragement for them.
How will you be taking time out for the cause?
I do very less work. In the last one year I have only been working on one film. The team of ‘Satyamev Jayate’ has taken up this work and they are going to be working full time on this. While I will not stop doing cinema but my entire work involvement will be as much as I give to any film.
Will there be another TV show to promote ‘Satyamev Jayate Water Cup’?
It is a movement which will make use of 360 aspects of communication. One of it will be television. We will be planning advertisements which will communicate about this. There are also news and general entertainment channels (GECs) we may be working with. I want to bring everyone together on a single platform for this. I don’t want to restrict this to just one channel. This is an issue where everyone has to come together. We have to put our differences and competition aside; water should bring us together. Radio and digital medium are also going to be very important.
Keeping immense digitisation in mind, will there be a mobile application as well?
We want to create a digital platform (mobile app and others) and it is being worked on currently. It is meant to bring those people together who require help and also those who want to help. It will be a platform where you can look at the needs of the village and contribute if you want to, we will only be the facilitator. Interestingly, you can monitor the work and what it looks like visually. We would also invite people to work if they want to.
