Don't return awards, fight for your cause: Shekhar Kapur

Panaji: Filmmaker Shekhar Kapur feels the solution to the ongoing intolerance debate in the country does not lie in returning awards.

The 69-year-old director said he fails to understand the issue of censorship and fought for three years and even went to the Supreme Court for his 1994 film "Bandit Queen".

"40 per cent of the audience can't eat and your biggest concern is a kissing scene in James Bond, which has been cut short? I believed in 'Bandit Queen'. I fought at the Supreme Court for the film for three years. If you believe in your film, go ahead and fight for it and see how far you go," Kapur said on the sidelines of IFFI.

"Similarly if you really believe in intolerance, go out do something. Giving awards back is the easiest thing to do. Intolerance is not affecting you so much as the people who are living under the caste system."

Kapur said the debate of intolerance is valid as any changing and growing nation will have voices of conflict and it should be heard.

"Everybody has his own view. If a culture does not undergo change then there is no point. India is ongoing change right now and there is bound to be friction. But that friction is inherent in progress, inherent in change."

However, the director said the voice of the intellectuals should not be taken as the opinion of the whole nation.

"The problem is that intellectuals become the voice of the society and that is very less in terms of percentage and we should take everyone into account. There is a tendency of intellectuals to become a club and that arrogance of the club becomes oppressive. It is a burden on the society."