Aamir Khan’s attempts to create social awareness has not only helped the society at large but has also helped the actor’s prevailing popularity multiply manifolds. After donning the cover of TIME magazine and giving a personal interview to CNN International about his work as a crusader of sorts and how Satyamev Jayate was the most crucial work of his career, Aamir and Uday Shankar, the CEO of Star India, have both been honored with an award by the National Commission for Scheduled Castes. The episode on manual scavengers was received very critically from all stratus of society and it mostly helped in educating people by making them more aware of the social realities of the Indian Society.
Satyamev Jayate which was Star TV’s most popular reality show this year, helped in creating awareness against social stratification and social discrimination. Aamir who is known to shy away from award ceremonies was present in person and was quite emotional about it. Aamir has single mindedly worked on the show and had withdrawn his advertising campaigns and had also stalled work on both Talaash and Dhoom:3 because of ‘Satyamev Jayate’. ‘Talaash’, which was due to release in the earlier part of the year will now release next month.
This award came as a tribute from the Scheduled Caste community to Aamir for focusing on his show about the 3 lakh manual scavengers in rural India, who even in this era of Rising and Shinning India clean human excreta with hand and are looked down upon as societal outcastes and untouchables. This particular episode was very close to Aamir’s heart who was shattered and disheartened to learn that even after 66 years of independence we are still not socially united rather discriminative in our approach. Aamir gave the credit to his entire research team who had worked first hand at gathering information about the issue and chalking it out into a lucid structure.
For Uday Shankar, this award was an incentive and appreciation of the risk he took to launch a show as controversial as Satyamev Jayate which raised issues which would rather be buried in a social closet. Television was a medium way greater than entertainment and Satyamev Jayate was a deliberate and honest attempt to make people more aware through television.
Also present at the function was Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde, Delhi Chief Minister Shiela Dixit and Information and Broadcasting Minister, Ambika Soni. This award was an absolute honor for Aamir Khan and will work a moral booster for the publicity of his upcoming film ‘Talaash’ which stars Rani Mukherjee and Kareena Kapoor Khan as well and is set to release in late November this year.
