Swara Bhasker’s ‘Padmaavat’ remark spark social media backlash, actor says her words mistranslated

Actor Swara Bhasker says her remarks criticising the Jauhar scene in Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s 2018 film Padmaavat were “completely mistranslated” on social media and she never called Rani Padmavati or other women who committed Jauhar “cowards”.

The actor has been at the receiving of social media ire over comments, made during an event on Monday, where she said the film glorified ‘Jauhar’, the practise among some Rajput communities, in which women committed mass self-immolation to avoid capture, enslavement or sexual violence when defeat in war appeared imminent.

In a video, posted on X on Tuesday night, Bhasker explained the context of her remarks.

“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,” she said.

“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 (While watching the climax, I felt that, God forbid, if I were a rape survivor, the film might make me feel cowardly for not taking my own life and for having chosen to survive after the assault),” she added.

Padmaavat, directed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali, was a period drama loosely based on the 16th-century epic poem Padmavat by Malik Muhammad Jayasi.

The film follows Rani Padmavati of Mewar, played by Deepika Padukone, and her husband Maharawal Ratan Singh, played by Shahid Kapoor, whose kingdom comes under siege from Sultan Alauddin Khilji, portrayed by Ranveer Singh.

The story culminates in Padmavati and the women of Chittor committing jauhar to avoid capture following Khilji’s invasion.

At the time, Bhasker had written a letter to Bhansali to express her discomfort with the scene.

Referring to the recent gang-rape incident in Delhi in which a girl was allegedly assaulted inside a vehicle, Bhasker, in her video, said there is a “rape epidemic” in the country.

“This reflects a reality in 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 survivors of rape that it would have been better if they had died, and that surviving is somehow a bad thing?” she asked.

At the August 31 event, Bhasker had criticised the depiction of ‘Jauhar’ in Padmaavat, questioning the message conveyed by the film’s final sequence.

“I was watching it, and I thought that if God forbid, I was a rape survivor, what is this film telling me? I would feel like a coward that I didn’t commit suicide to save my honour.. Are we saying that rape is the end of a woman’s life? This scene was so problematic,” she said.

The video from the event went viral on social media with many users criticising the actor for her comments.