Gulshan Devaiah says ‘powerful’ people speaking about nepotism are ‘not sincere’: ‘They’re doing it for themselves’

Gulshan Devaiah said that the idea of talented people qualifying for roles is flawed as talent in the performing arts cannot be quantified.

Gulshan Devaiah recently starred in Dahaad.

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Gulshan Devaiah, who was recently seen in the Prime Video series Dahaad, spoke about nepotism in the film industry and pointed out that acting cannot be measured by merit, so the idea that people should be awarded roles on the basis of their merit is flawed. “People expect meritocracy. The arts cannot have meritocracy because you can’t measure it,” Gulshan told Chalchitra Talks.

Gulshan said that mathematics, race, weightlifting are all quantifiable because there is a unit to measure them but such is not the case with performing arts. “A performance or someone’s talent is not quantifiable. You can have an educated opinion at best but it’s still a subjective opinion. How can you expect merit? It is about majority consensus. You want majority consensus, that’s the game,” he said and added, “You want them to like you because that might lead to an opportunity.”

Gulshan said that one might feel that Rajkummar Rao is a better actor than him and someone might feel that he is the better one and “they are both right and they are both wrong.” The Badhaai Do actor said that the only aspect that can be measured is the collections of a film but “that’s such a fraud metric because that doesn’t apply to every actor, that only applies to like the marquee actors.”

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He added that nepotism is a privilege but most people who are pointing this out, are privileged as well. “Somebody who is begging on the streets may have the talent to be the next superstar of this country,” he said and added that finding talent is “endless process.”

The actor added that in the last few years, many successful actors in powerful positions have come out and spoken about nepotism but Gulshan believes that they are doing this to serve their own purpose. “There are some who are in powerful position who have jumped in because everyone is speaking about nepotism, they are doing it for themselves, they are not sincere about this,” he said.

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