Swara Bhasker Defends 2018 Padmaavat Letter Criticising Jauhar Scene
· Entertainment · Indian Express, Times of India
Actor Swara Bhasker has revisited the controversy surrounding her 2018 open letter to filmmaker Sanjay Leela Bhansali, defending her criticism of the jauhar (mass self-immolation) scene in Padmaavat. Speaking at an event hosted by the India International Centre in New Delhi, Bhasker said she wrote the letter after watching the climax and worrying about the message it sent to rape survivors in India. She questioned whether the depiction implied that survivors of sexual violence who did not choose death had failed to protect their honour. Padmaavat, which starred Deepika Padukone, Shahid Kapoor, and Ranveer Singh, was based on Malik Muhammad Jayasi's 16th-century epic poem and released in January 2018 after months of pre-release controversy. Bhasker noted that public discussion of her letter focused on one phrase rather than the broader argument she had attempted to make.
Why it matters
Bhasker's remarks reignite a longstanding cultural debate over how historical practices like jauhar are depicted on screen and what those depictions communicate to survivors of sexual violence in India.
Read the original report — Indian Express
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