Aamir Khan has always stood out from the Bollywood crowd in his choice of subjects, his risk-taking, his controversial opinions and his refusal to do the things that other stars do (he refuses to endorse consumer products, for example).
Khan keeps surprising and his television debut has proved to be equally original: every Sunday morning Satyamev Jayate (Truth Alone Prevails) takes one of India's worst social evils into people's homes.
If anyone ever doubted the power of celebrity, they should see the public reaction to the first episode on female feticide. Some of the comments have described the show as making 'television history'. It has been called 'a movement for social change' and a harbinger for 'revolution'.
Khan interviewed three women who had been forced by their in-laws and husbands to commit female feticide. The stories, heard by a studio audience, are powerful. Khan, 47, supports them with statistics and suggestions for how viewers can stop the crime.
'Our standard response is to blame the police or the government. I'm asking people to do what I am doing myself, which is to look within and ask what am I doing about it. Female feticide is a crime planned in our bedrooms and we cannot have the police in the bedrooms to monitor us,' Khan told Outlook.
He is the first to admit he is not offering new information. For decades, most Indians have known their country has a skewed sex ratio. They know this is the result of 20 million female fetuses being aborted in the past few decades. They know doctors and radiologists are complicit in the practice.