Muslim actress: I am leaving Bollywood because it threatens my faith

18-year-old Zaira Wasim is a famous star of Indian cinema.  Being in the spotlight would have "dragged me away from faith, along a path of ignorance".  Muslim activist: "Pressures from society.  She pays the price of being a female, Muslim, Kashmiri and actress ".

New Delhi (AsiaNews) - Zaira Wasim, a famous Indian actress, is leaving Bollywood because acting "threatens" her Islamic faith.  The 18 year old movie actress from the state of Jammu and Kashmir, with a Muslim majority, entrusted her decision to social media sparking widespread debate in India where the subject of religion is highly sensitive.

Zakia Soman, co-founder of the Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan (Bmma), the association of Islamic women who is fighting to eliminate the triple talaq practice (verbal divorce), tells AsiaNews: “It is wrong to attribute anything to religion.  Everyone has the right to work and earn a living, including Muslim women ".

In the long post on her Facebook profile, the actress explains that she leaves the set because being an actress is incompatible with the Islamic faith.  According to the girl, the acting would "damage" her relationship with Allah.  "This sector - she writes - has brought me a lot of love, support and applause, but it has also led me on a path of ignorance, because in a silent and unconscious way I moved away from the Imaan (faith)".

Then she continues with an awareness: "This journey has been exhausting, to battle my soul for so long,".  Finally, the admission: "As I had just started to explore and make sense of the things to which I dedicated my time, efforts and emotions and tried to grab hold of a new lifestyle, it was only for me to realise that though I may fit here perfectly, I do not belong here".

Zaira Wasim is the idol of many young people.  She started acting at the age of 13 and became famous in 2016 thanks to her participation in the colossal Dangal, a biographical film inspired by the story of former wrestler Mahavir Singh Phogat, in which she played one of the wrestlers daughters.  The young woman has won numerous awards for films that have been box office hits.

According to Zakia Soman, the diva embodies all the thorniest issues for Indian society: "She is a woman, a Muslim, from Kashmir and an actress".  The activist believes that her decision depended on social pressure: "Even if Zaira lives in Mumbai or elsewhere, she is from Kashmir, her roots are in Kashmir and her family lives there.  I cannot speak on her behalf, but there is the possibility that her family has received threatening phone calls or other types of harassment from radicals ".

She then adds that "social media can be brutal" and anyone in the spotlight, as in her case,  "may be subject to trolling [provocative messages on the net, ed].  They told me that I am an agent of the Hindu paramilitary group Rss (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh), since I married a Hindu man. "

According to the activist, it is not religion, but the right to work: "The Islamic religion states that men and women must be paid equally.  To think that art or entertainment are not allowed by Islam, is a wrong interpretation.  There is beauty in the figurative arts and where there is beauty, there is God ".

Nadeem Khan, a Muslim leader of "United Against Hate", reports that "last week an actress and a parliamentarian, both faithful of Islam, married partners of different religions.  Zaira Wasim's decision is a personal choice ".  "We have so many other issues in India - she concludes - that are much more relevant, like the Muslims who are lynched to death".