Dia Mirza: The biggest climate issue is egotistical men - BBC 100 Women, BBC World Service

I think the biggest climate issue is a bunch of egotistical men who refuse to change. Dia Mirza is a well-known Indian actor and film producer with a film career spanning over two decades. But she's also an outspoken advocate of the environment. BBC 100 Women is focusing on climate change and we talk to Dia Mirza about why she's speaking out and her hopes for the future of the planet. Hi, Dia. Hi, Vardna. Welcome and thank you for speaking with BBC 100 Women. How are you? I'm very well, thank yo

u. And I'm so happy to be talking to you. So let's begin. If we look back at your childhood, how would you describe it compared, for example, to your son's childhood today? Oh, my goodness. I think I grew up I mean, it was safe to say that I grew up in a time when nature was in abundance. I also grew up in a space that offered free flowing interaction with nature in a home that had big fruit bearing trees so climbing trees was a daily ritual which made my childhood so rich and so abundant and be

autiful. While you were growing up in the lap of nature, were there talks around gender equality as well in your family? There weren't any sort of say direct conversations about it, but I must admit that I didn't feel any different from my male cousins or, you know, let's just say there were no special or different rules for me while I was growing up. I was encouraged to do everything that my male cousins were doing. Actually, all of my parents felt and believed that I was able to, and was capab

le of doing, whatever I wanted and that I must, you know, pursue the full potential of my being in life. Even the school I went to didn't really segregate or differentiate between girls and boys. So we were all playing football with the boys. We were playing basketball with the boys. We were playing Kabaddi with the boys. And yes, when we became adolescents, there was talk about, you know, puberty and menstrual health and sex education, all of that was done. And I think that's the only time when

we realized, oh, our bodies are made differently from the boys in our class. But otherwise, we never felt any different. It is reported that at the start of your career you were told that you were too fair, you were too pretty, or maybe a bit short to be a model. How did this make you feel at that point of time? I think they always meet people who have a set idea of what it takes to do a certain job. And at the time, I suppose the person who was saying this to me or the statement that he was ma

king was in respect to the fact that at that time, the kind of women who did participate in say ramp shows and fashion modeling were very tall. I think his big problem with me was, you know, the fact that I wasn't tall enough, I wasn't 5ft 9in, 5ft 10in. And he thought I was too pretty because I think what he was trying to make me think about was move in the direction of cinema or go in that direction. Why are you wasting your time trying to be a model? I don't think I was as affected by what he

said as I was impacted by the fact that somebody who knew nothing about me was putting me in a box and was deciding for me what it is that I should or should not do. And I think that is more unfair than anything else. I think we’re all capable of defining our own roles and knowing for ourselves what it is which we can do or cannot do. One of your breakout moments was winning the Miss Asia Pacific title in the year 2000. How do you look at beauty pageants today? It was very different at that tim

e. But I also think that a beauty pageant is only as meaningful as an individual chooses to make it. I remember thinking to myself, if form can draw attention, what do you want to make of that attention? You know, when we see when there's a beautiful bird in flight or perched on a tree, you look in its direction. What does it have to offer you other than the fact that it's beautiful? There's so much that, you know, nature offers us. But as individuals, as people, what can we bring to that attent

ion that we get? And I think that kind of formed the centre of the process of participating and winning the contest. So in the year that I won Miss India, Lara Dutta and Priyanka Chopra both won and all three of us went on to winning our international pageants in the same year, making some kind of a record globally. And each of us kind of came back from those individual wins and have paved very authentic individual paths for ourselves. And I think a very, very big part of what we did with our li

ves was centred in that thought that, what do we make of this? How can we make a difference and how can we positively make a difference? And as we've grown and evolved and learned ourselves, and become the women that we are, we've thankfully been able to effect some positive change along the way. Because some men and women feel that beauty pageants are not empowering enough or some feel that they objectify women. Yes, they definitely objectify women, but empower they definitely do. I mean, it wa

s a paradigm shift for me. I was an 18 year old from Hyderabad who had who suddenly had unlimited access to various platforms, organisations, the world. I mean, I took my first international flight because of this contest. I got to meet women from 47 countries. That learning, that exposure. For an 18 year old to have that, it teaches you all kinds of things. It teaches you... More than anything else it helps you understand that the most powerful thing you can ever possess is truth in your own vo

ice. And when you learn to, when you discover that when you're that young, it makes a huge difference. So I would disagree in that aspect that it's only objectifying. I find that, at least in my experience, it was very empowering. It gave me access to things that I would have never imagined. And it really was a springboard at a time and a stage in my life when I really needed it. And I did feel objectified and I never allowed the system to make me do anything or be anybody that I didn't feel com

fortable doing or being. So that, therein lies the difference and whenever I’ve had the opportunity to mentor young girls who are participating in beauty pageants I've always told them that I don't allow anyone to make you do anything that you find uncomfortable. And also don't try and fit into somebody's else's, you know, glove. So from beauty pageants and modeling, you move to the movies. What sort of roles are you interested in playing now? I veer towards characters with intentionality, chara

cters that help us view ourselves differently or compel us to spend some time in introspection, empower individuals, sometimes even heal. And I'm really fortunate that in the last decade or so, I've had the opportunity to be a part of such stories and play those characters that truly help cause a positive shift, you know, in some way or the other. Though things are changing, but there was a phase in Indian cinema when women beyond a certain age were not offered the lead roles as men would be off

ered. Oh, absolutely, Vandna. So we've just released a film called Dhak Dhak, which is a beautiful story about four women from four different age groups who take a bike ride from Delhi to Khardung La. And one amongst us is Ratna Pathak Shah, who's 64. And she was saying to us the other day, “I have never even imagined that at age 64 I'd be front lining a story and that I would be on the poster of a film as one of the key characters”. That’s so sad. It is. It's tragic. But it's also only taken th

e Indian film industry 110 years to tell a story like this. And I’ve waited 23 years to play a part like this. So change is happening. It's slow. And I feel it's been slow because we have been underrepresented. There are still so few women that are writing, directing, editing, you know, are cinematographers or songwriters. And stories define us in so many ways and they shape our choices. And when we have better representation and we have more representation and more than anything else, when we h

ave more feminist storytellers, things will change. From cinema to climate change. How did your journey as a climate campaigner begin? When I first started working with civil society organisations, very early in my career, I realised the connection between human health and just deteriorating environmental health. I worked with cancer care, and that's when I realised that the percentage was rising amongst child cancer and women's cancer in the country. And a very, very significant, you know, part

of that percentage was attributed to polluted food, polluted soil, polluted water, polluted air. And I think what I felt at the time was a sense of despondency. Nobody was talking about it. And I was like, this has to change. We have to really bring this discourse into the centre of focus and and with every passing year that understanding has been, you know, supported by access to wonderful people and organisations, but also justice, urgency and a despondency that one feels from the reality tha

t climate is changing. We are losing biodiversity. Pollution is continuing to create havoc in our lives. And unfortunately, the larger part of the world that needs to create the shifts and make the changes isn't doing enough. What do you think are the biggest climate issues of today? I think the biggest climate issue is a bunch of egotistical men who refuse to change. There was a time when there were climate deniers, but now the polluters know irrevocably what their choices are doing. They’re ki

lling our planet and our people. So there are really no excuses anymore for them to not change and not bring about the shift that is required to, you know, protect our planet or what was missing in the world for a very long time was conscience and empathy and sensitivity. And the climate crisis will only be solved with empathy and sensitivity. And we need more and more people to rise up and, you know, stake claim on these things, because otherwise we're not going to see the change that we need t

o. We're talking about a 2.7 degree rise as we speak, and that is going to make it uninhabitable. It's already become uninhabitable for so many people in so many parts of the Earth, including India. I don't know why it is so hard for people to understand that we actually don't have another planet to move to. We're taking a living planet and killing it, and we are suffering as we speak in this moment in this day. And things are going to get progressively worse in the next few decades if we don't

act on climate and we don't fix the problems and they can be fixed. What gives you hope? Because people get overwhelmed with, you know, when they see the state of the climate and you spoke about so many facets you have seen already. I'm terrified when I think about a world where my children will have limited or no access to water or will be or are breathing toxic air every day. It's terrifying as a mother. And what gives me hope is young people, their actions, the work that they're doing and put

ting in every day, Vandna, to make the difference, to hold elders accountable and to push for the kind of shifts we need. Today, we have more and more companies choosing to be sustainable. And this is not just greenwashing. It’s a genuine effort to build patterns of, you know consumer patterns that are Earth conscious, that are environmentally conscious, that are health conscious. Integrating all of that, helping more and more people understand the importance of individual action and choice. And

I truly hope that the impact and the change and the effectiveness that young people have in bringing about the kind of shifts that we need in consciousness will lead to a more long lasting, transformative change that we require. But do you think the small steps that individuals take actually can help tackle the problem of climate change as compared to you know, big companies and government? I'm not naïve. I recognise the fact that this change requires top down approach. It's not going to work b

ottom up because we don't have the luxury of time, you know, because it takes decades for human beings to change. So we can't expect everyone to stop using single use plastics. We can't expect everybody to segregate their waste, or be more responsible about, you know, the items of consumption that they're using in their everyday lives. Yes, it will require governments to ban certain things, to change policy. But most importantly, I think it does require very, very strong political will. And clim

ate has to become a part of mainstream political discourse because we all know what the lobbies are that, you know, push political leaders and governments to respond a certain way or do what they're doing. That has to change. Coming to your personal life, can you tell us a little bit about your wedding? There was a female priest at your wedding and you broke tradition by saying no to the ritual of kanyadaan. Can you explain what this ritual is and why it was important for you to say no. So the f

emale priest was, you know, a deep desire and a wish to experience the spiritual depth that I had experienced at a friend's wedding. I was just so moved by Sheela Atta who was the priestess at our wedding, when she was performing a friend's wedding. I was just so moved by her. And the way she conducted that wedding, the way she recited the mantras, the way she led the entire process. And when we were getting married, I asked whether she would be willing to perform our wedding, and I was over the

moon when she agreed. And she doesn't do this all the time. Just that choice led to such important discourse that no job in the world should be confined to a particular gender. Everybody's capable of doing every job, including being a priest at a wedding. And there are more and more weddings now being, you know, conducted and solemnised by women, which is great. And I'm so, so happy for it. I actually didn't realise it would lead to such a big debate on gender and the kind of positive conversat

ions it led to. - It was a big talking point. - Yeah. And I think that's wherein lies the effort to make the change at home, you know, in your individual choices and in the kind of spaces and conversations we're able to create at an individual level. If you can explain what the ritual of kanyadaan is. So the kanyadaan is something that my grandfather refused to perform for any of his daughters when he was getting them married. So it's something that my mother first said that I would not allow. A

nd she said my father didn't do it and I will not do it. It's a ritual that basically is about giving the daughter away. And a daughter is nothing to be given away. A daughter will always be your daughter. And the concept or the idea that a daughter is somebody elses... a nice way to say family member. Therein saying that, “Okay, you don't remain a part of my family after you are married”. I think it's a concept that fails our girls and our women at many levels and has over centuries and in fami

lies that understand and care about women, I think, are now more progressive in their thinking. They may view this as just a customary gesture and not make a big deal about it and say, “Of course our daughter will always be our daughter”. But for families that don't understand that difference, by perpetuating it, by continuing to participate in that practice, we are perpetuating the idea that girls and women are, in fact, not our own and that you give them away when they're married or they are s

omebody else's responsibility or somebody else's family once they're married. Did you face everyday sexism while working in the industry? I mean, I can give you some recent examples. “You're so lucky that your husband is so accepting of the fact that you go to work and you travel so much.” It's such a simple comment, right? But it's not so simple. Or, you know, “How do you feel about having all these responsibilities and roles that you have? You go out to work, you do all these things”. “Do you

feel guilty about leaving your children and your husband at home?” These are a few examples of everyday sexism. Are female actors in India now paid the same as male actors? Firstly, I think we need to get real about this. The pay parity exists because there's an entirely different system at play here, right? It's called the star system. There are no, okay, so there are only a set number of people who are perceived superstars because of their box office, the kind of revenue that their films colle

ct or make at the box office. And that's what determines their salary. Most often it's not even a salary. It's a percentage of the, you know, the earnings or the money that the film makes. So there can't be any pay parity when it comes to that. It's exciting to see that there are more and more women who are demanding or are commanding, rather, the kind of price that some of their male counterparts are in that space. But having said that, I feel the gaps are wide. There is, like, there are only a

certain set of people that make a majority of the money and the rest of it percolates to the rest of a very, very vast industry. Do you think you have lost out on opportunities in films because of your activism? Maybe when I was younger. Not so much now. I feel that it is my activism that has given people the opportunity to see me beyond just the way I look and has thereby led to the thinking parts that I have been offered. Because unfortunately, again, it's something that women tend to get ste

reotyped by or boxed by, you know, your physical appearance. Another crazy thing that people say, “beauty with brains”, and that's actually one of the most horrific things anybody can ever say for a woman. But most people perceive it to be an exceptional complement for a woman, right? So thankfully, thanks to social media and all the advocacy work and the work that a person is able to do, or the fact that people are able to discover your mind and your thoughts, that has, I think, led to better o

pportunities for me. I feel as an individual in storytelling and cinema. Do you face any backlash because you speak up on gender and climate change? Absolutely. Very often. On social media. But even, I mean, activism is used as an abuse in many circles. It still continues to be used, “Oh, activist are they”. It's not viewed as something that is a prerequisite to being humane. You know, we all need to be active participants of society. There is nothing wrong with being an activist, but most often

people view women with a point of view as an aggressor. As somebody who is inconvenient to the story. When you challenge the status quo, you question what is right or question what is wrong. People find it inconvenient. Dia Mirza, thank you so much for speaking with BBC 100 Women. Thank you.