Swara Bhasker has responded to the backlash over her remarks about the Jauhar sequence in Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Padmaavat. The actor broke down an open letter she wrote to Bhansali eight years ago, and her comments didn’t sit well with a section of users on social media.
Her comments soon sparked a debate on social media. Swara has now shared a video to clarify what she meant. She said her remarks were being misinterpreted and that she never called Rani Padmaavati or the women who committed Jauhar “cowards”.
Swara Bhasker clarifies her ‘Jauhar’ and ‘Padmaavat’ remarks
On Tuesday, September 1, Swara shared a video on Instagram. She addressed a viral clip from the Women | Life | Freedom event in Delhi from August 31.
“This morning, a clip of mine has been going viral on social media. It was from an event yesterday, where I was asked why I had sent an open letter to Sanjay Leela Bhansali after watching Padmaavat. While explaining what my issue was, I said something that is now being completely mistranslated and spread falsely, claiming that I had said that Rani Padmaavati and the other women who committed Jauhar were cowards.”
Swara then explained what she had actually said while discussing the film’s climax.
“Main clearly kehna chahti hoon, maine aisa bilkul nahi kaha ki Rani Padmaavati Kayar thi yaa Mahal ki baaki aurtien Kayar thi Jo log mujhe gaaliyan dena chahte hain, dijiye par sahi cheez pe dijiye. Maine kaha tha jab main climax dekh rahi thi, mujhe laga, bhagwan naa kare agar main rape peedita hoti toh main kayar mehsoos karti ki maine aapni jaan kyun nahi li, Ki main balatkar ke baad Zinda Bach gayi toh main kayar hoon (I want to make it absolutely clear that I did not say that Rani Padmaavati was a coward or that the other women in the palace were cowards. Those who want to abuse me, go ahead, but at least abuse me for the right thing. What I had said was that while watching the climax, I thought, God forbid, if I were a rape survivor, I would feel like a coward for not having taken my own life — that if I had survived after being raped, I would feel like a coward).”
Why Swara objected to the Jauhar scene
Swara said her concern was about the message the scene could send to women who have survived sexual violence. She argued that rape has become alarmingly widespread in society. She also referred to a recent gang-rape case in Delhi, in which a girl was allegedly assaulted inside a vehicle.
“Yeh asliyat hai humare desh mein. Kya hume aisi filmein banani chahiye jahan yeh sandesh jaa raha hai ki aurat ki pavitrata uski zindagi se jyada mulyawaan tha? Kya hume rape peedita ko yeh btaana chahiye ki tumhari jaan hi chali jaati, toh sahi rehta, tum Bach gayi toh yeh buri baat hai? (This is the reality of our country. Should we be making films that send the message that a woman’s purity is more valuable than her life? Should we be telling a rape survivor that it would have been better if she had died, and that surviving the assault was a bad thing?).”
Swara also brought up the Nirbhaya case. She said people should never forget the courage shown by the young woman who fought against her six attackers until her last breath. She also stressed the importance of a woman’s will to live.
What did Swara say about Padmaavat’s Jauhar scene that courted controversy?
In a video from an event on August 31, Swara can be heard explaining why the Jauhar sequence affected her. “I’m watching this and it shows all these 800 women committing jauhar which is the story. Watching it I was thinking that ‘God forbid, I was a rape survivor, what is this film telling me? I would feel like a coward. That I didn’t kill myself to save my ‘honour’.”
She questioned whether such a portrayal could affect survivors of sexual violence. “Is that what you want to tell women in a society like ours where I feel like there’s any way a rape epidemic. Is that what we want to tell our survivors that you don’t deserve to live? That if you had actually been brave and honourable women, you would have killed yourself? Are we saying that rape is the end of a woman’s life?”
Swara also recalled another scene from Padmaavat that she found problematic. She spoke about a close-up of a pregnant woman’s stomach during the Jauhar sequence.
“There was like one shot that made me so mad. I was like, ‘Chhee!’ There is a close-up of a pregnant woman’s belly and she’s going… So, you’re saying that a foetus that might be female doesn’t deserve to be born because she might be raped by a Muslim ruler? I was so mad and then I came out and I was like, ‘This is terrible’,” she recounted.
On the work front, Swara Bhasker was last seen in the reality TV show, Pati Patni Aur Panga, with her husband Fahad Ahmad.
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