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New Delhi: On August 31, when actor Swara Bhasker spoke at the “Woman, Life, Freedom” talk, held at the India International Centre (IIC) in New Delhi, she revisited her 2018 open letter to Sanjay Leela Bhansali after Padmaavat, and she was asked why she had written it.

Bhasker shared what the portrayal of jauhar in Bhansali’s Padmaavat meant to her, but instead of her comments provoking a discussion about cinema and sexual violence, they triggered protests, accusations of insulting Rajput women and misplaced demands for an apology.

Bhasker’s remarks during the recent public discussion, centred on the film’s climactic depiction of jauhar, in which women walk into a fire rather than face capture by an invading army. Recalling the sequence, Bhasker asked what it might communicate to a survivor of sexual violence watching the film. “If I am a rape survivor and I watch Padmaavat, I will think, ‘Am I a coward because I didn’t kill myself? Should I have killed myself to save my honour?’” she can be seen saying in a video of the day.

Her recent comments quickly circulated online, massively accompanied by the claim that Bhasker had called Rani Padmavati or Rajput women who committed jauhar ‘cowards’. BJP workers protested against her in Patna, while the Karni Sena’s women’s wing accused her of disrespecting the sacrifice of Rajput women. Its national president, Kirti Rathore, argued that jauhar needed to be understood as the sacrifice of Rajput women made within the historical circumstances of the period.

Bhasker later, in a video she put out, denied calling Padmavati a coward, saying her remarks had been distorted. Her criticism, she........

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