'Called Rajput women who chose fire over Khilji 'cowards': Swara Bhaskar slams Padmaavat, sparks massive backlash

Actor Swara Bhaskar is questioning Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s 2018 film Padmaavat, again. Speaking at an event organised by the India International Centre (IIC) in New Delhi, Swara questioned the film’s climax, in which Queen Padmavati, played by Deepika Padukone, commits Jauhar (Was a medieval practice of mass self-immolation committed by Rajput women to avoid capture, enslavement and sexual violence when defeat in war was considered certain) along with hundreds of other women to save themselves from the Mughal emperor and his army, who have captured the fort.

At the time of the film’s release, Bhaskar was among the A-listers who questioned the scene, and she even wrote an open letter to Bhansali.

Years later, Swara once again spoke about the film’s climax and questioned what the scene of these 800 women committing Jauhar conveys, as she questioned, ''Are we saying that rape is the end of a woman’s life?''

“I’m watching this, these 800 women committing jauhar, and I was like, if I had been, God forbid, if 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. Is that what you want to tell in a society like ours,

where I feel like there’s anyway a rape epidemic?” she said.

Further speaking, the Ranjhanna actress said that Jauhar is something that we want to tell our rape victims that they deserve anything else in their life.

She continued, “Is this what we want to tell our survivors, that you didn’t deserve to live?

That if you actually had been honourable and brave women, you would have killed yourself. Are we saying that rape is the end of a woman’s life?”

Talking about a shot showing a pregnant woman during the famous sequence, she said that the baby doesn't deserve to be born because she might be raped by a Muslim ruler.

“And then there was that one shot, it made me so mad, I was like, chiii, in the audience loudly. There is a close-up of a pregnant woman’s belly. And she is 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?” she said.

Soon after Swara's video from the event went viral, it triggered a massive backlash online. While several netizens saw it as an insult to Rajput women and their history, others accused her of viewing history through a 21st-century ideological lens.

One user wrote,''Women who committed Jauhar were cowards" Mentally disabled Swara has now become physically deformed too after Nikah, is giving such statements to come back into discussion.''

Another user wrote,''Judging Jauhar through a cushioned, 21st-century ideological lens is historical illiteracy wrapped in cheap academic posturing. If Jauhar were just an invention of Hindu patriarchy or misogyny, where was it during the centuries of internal battles between Hindu kings? It didn't exist, because they fought with a certain honor that included not targeting non-combatants, including women, in any way.''

Swara Bhaskar felt 'reduced to vagina' after watching ‘Padmaavat’

Bhaskar, who is known to speak her mind, in 2018, wrote an open letter for a news website as she condemned Bhansali for glorifying Jauhar in his film.

But the actress said that after watching Padmaavat,she felt she was reduced to a vagina. Swara wrote, “I felt reduced to a vagina–only. I felt like all the ‘minor’ achievements that women and women’s movements have made over the years– like the right to vote, the right to own property, the right to education, equal pay for equal work, maternity leave, the Vishakha judgement, the right to adopt children…… all of it was pointless; because we were back to basics.”