Swara Bhasker Calls Padmaavat’s Jauhar Scene ‘Cowardly’, Faces Sharp Online Backlash

Actor Swara Bhasker has reignited a long-running debate around Padmaavat after criticising the film's portrayal of Jauhar and describing the act as cowardly. Her comments about the Deepika Padukone-starrer have triggered strong reactions online, with several social media users accusing the actor of misunderstanding both history and the context of the practice.

Speaking at the Woman Life Freedom talk at the India International Centre in Delhi, Swara revisited her objections to the climax of Sanjay Leela Bhansali's 2018 period drama. She questioned what message the scene could send to women who have survived sexual violence.

What Swara Bhasker said about the Padmaavat Jauhar scene

Recalling her reaction to the sequence, Swara said, “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.”

She went on to question whether the scene suggested that a woman who survives rape has somehow lost her dignity. “Are we saying that rape is end of a woman’s life? This scene was so problematic,” she said.

Swara also spoke about a shot featuring a pregnant woman participating in Jauhar, saying it had particularly disturbed her. “Then there was this one shot, which made me so mad that I shouted 'chii' loudly,” she said, adding that the image made her question why an unborn child should be denied life because of the threat of sexual violence.

Swara Bhasker’s 2018 letter to Sanjay Leela Bhansali

The debate is not new for Swara. After watching Padmaavat in 2018, she waited several days before writing an open letter to Bhansali, explaining why the Jauhar sequence had deeply troubled her.

In the letter, Swara questioned what she saw as the film's glorification of self-immolation and its connection to patriarchal ideas around female honour and purity. Her argument was that a woman's worth should not be tied to whether she survives sexual violence.

Internet reacts to Swara Bhasker’s comments

Swara's latest remarks have drawn sharp criticism online. Several users argued that describing Jauhar as cowardice ignored the extreme circumstances in which Rajput women were believed to have faced capture, sexual violence and enslavement following military defeat.

One user wrote that Jauhar “was and remains an act of utmost bravery in the face of unimaginable brutality”, while another described Swara's interpretation as “willful intellectual blindness”. Others argued that while the historical practice can be debated, calling women who participated in it cowardly was unfair.

Directed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali, Padmaavat starred Deepika Padukone as Rani Padmavati, alongside Shahid Kapoor and Ranveer Singh.