When Ali Fazal Said There’s Nothing Like Casual Racism And Richa Chadha Was Asked About Working With a Certain Community

Ali Fazal has proved time and again that he is an actor whose full potential is yet to be utilized. He can play just about anything, one just needs to hand him over the character. He had not just sought after in Bollywood, but has also made his presence felt in Hollywood. In fact, he had the opportunity to share the screen with none other than Judi Dench in Victoria and Abdul, which was directed by Stephen Frears. The film released three years back in 2017 and while promoting the film, he had talked about racism.

Yes, even three years back, the actor felt that racism was at its peak, not just in the world but also in the country. He openly spoke about how it would be more straight forward back in 1880s maybe (when the film was set), but it still exists with more politically correct words. In an interview with Desimartini during the promotion of the film, we had happened to ask him a question about casual racism. He straightaway said that unfortunately, there’s nothing called ‘casual racism’, it is just racism and it still exists, as much as we would want to deny it. He said, “There is nothing like casual racism unfortunately. I wish there was because it is hard to remove racism from any age. There has always been racism and probably there will always be. I feel across the globe, and even in our country, there’s racism at its peak in so many ways. That racism is of course disguised in many other ways today while it was straight on your face back in the 1800s. All it took was someone to say, “He is Indian so he is less. He is a Muslim so he is even lesser”. But now we have more politically correct words.”

He was also quick to add that he was fortunate enough to be around some of the best people from Hollywood, around whom he did not have to face this issue. He had said, “But that being said, fortunately the kind of people and the artists I was working with were very progressive in nature. Judi Dench and Stephen Frears are experienced, but they made me feel absolutely comfortable.”

Well, this does not come as a jolt that he had probably faced racism. In fact, in at the HT Tourism Conclave 2019 that was held in New Delhi, Ali Fazal’s girlfriend, Richa Chadha was outright asked by a gentleman what she feels about working with ‘Mohammedans and South Indians’, despite the presence of director Aishwiny Iyer who happens to be a Tamilian. (scroll to time- 29:34)

Richa Chadda had given a befitting reply. Later, she had candidly spoken about how she was pretty sure that the 'gentleman' had no idea that her boyfriend's name is 'Ali Fazal' and then wondered if he knew and still posed that question. Whatever it might be, it was an eye-opener of sorts about the current situation of racism.