Swara Bhasker Explains Her Controversial Comments On Padmaavat Jauhar Scene

Swara Bhasker posted a video on Instagram on Tuesday insisting on the specific context of her remarks about the Jauhar scene from Sanjay Bhansali's 2018 movie, Padmaavat, made at the Woman, Life, Freedom talk at the India International Centre here on 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,” she said.

Swara Bhaskar Clarifies Padmaavat Comments

Swara Bhasker hit out at the critics and wrote in another post, “It is WILD that so many people are triggered (women included) by the basic idea that rape survivors have a right to life after rape!”

At the August 31 event, Bhasker had condemned the depiction of Jauhar in Padmaavat, questioning the message conveyed by the climactic 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. Is that what you want to tell in a society like ours where I feel like, anyway, there is a rape epidemic? Is this what we want to tell our survivors that they don’t deserve to live, that if you actually would have been an honourable and brave woman, you would have killed yourself. Are we saying that rape is the end of a woman’s life? This scene was so problematic.”

Bhasker's remarks had met with backlash.

One user wrote, "Madam #SwaraBhaskar, jauhar was not some impulsive response to a single incident of rape. It was rooted in the fear of capture, enslavement, sexual violence and the loss of dignity after defeat. And please don't presume to speak for rape survivors or decide for them what is 'worse' - rape or death. That is an intensely personal trauma, not a moral calculation you get to make on their behalf."

In an open letter to Bhansali in 2018, Swara Bhasker wrote that she "felt reduced to a vagina" after watching Padmaavat. She had waited for five days before putting up the letter that was published on The Wire.

She also called out Bhansali for glorifying acts - jauhar and sati. "Women have the right to live despite being raped, sir. Women have the right to live, despite the death of their husbands, male 'protectors', 'owners', 'controllers of their sexuality'... whatever you understand the men to be," she had written in her letter.

Directed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali, the film was led by Ranveer Singh, Deepika Padukone and Shahid Kapoor.