It's been eight years since actor Swara Bhasker wrote a searing open letter to director Sanjay Leela Bhansali criticising the alleged glorification of jauhar and sati in his much-debated film Padmaavat.
At the time, the letter divided the Internet and the film industry, and the actor's defence of her letter also made headlines.
At a recent event in Delhi, Swara Bhasker revisited her open letter and explained what made her so "mad" about the jauhar scene in the film, fronted by Deepika Padukone who played the role of Rani Padmavati opposite Shahid Kapoor's Rawal Ratan Singh.
Swara Bhaskar speaks about her letter to filmmaker Sanjay Leela Bhansali on the scene of Jauhar in the movie Padmavat pic.twitter.com/6X4Z0SvFtC
— Yeshi Seli (@YeshiSeli) August 31, 2026
In a video going viral on social media, Swara Bhasker is heard saying, "I'm watching this and it shows all these 800 women committing jauhar which is the story. Watching it I was thinking that 'God forbid, 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'."
The Tanu Weds Manu actor then goes on to ask, "Is that what you want to tell women in a society like ours where I feel like there's any way a rape epidemic. Is that what we want to tell our survivors that you don't deserve to live? That if you had actually been brave and honourable women, you would have killed yourself? Are we saying that rape is the end of a woman's life?"
Swara Bhasker said Padmaavat had many things that were "just so problematic".
"There was like one shot that made me so mad. I was like, 'Chhee!' There is a close-up of a pregnant woman's belly and she's 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? I was so mad and then I came out and I was like, 'This is terrible'," she recounted.
The actor, who is known for being vocal about her opinions and politics, also dispelled a common perception about her. She said she waited for five days before penning down the open letter that was published on the website The Wire.
"Normally people think I do these things (expressing an opinion) in a rage but I waited for five days. I was like 'Let me check if I still feel like this. At the end of five days I wrote this letter," she added.
In the 2018 letter, Swara Bhasker wrote that she "felt reduced to a vagina" after watching Padmaavat.
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.
Also Read | Swara Bhasker On Not Chasing Films After Becoming A Mom: "I Would Like To Still Do Stuff, But..."
