Ranvir Shorey calls Swara Bhasker ‘utterly shameless’ over Padmaavat's Jauhar scene remark: 'Where’s the connection?’

After her critical remarks on Padmaavat's Jauhar scene, Swara Bhasker faced significant backlash. Actor Ranvir Shorey labelled her comments as shameless.

Bollywood actor Swara Bhasker recently grabbed headlines after her remarks on Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Padmaavat Jauhar scene. The actor called the scene "problematic", inviting backlash on social media. Now, actor Ranvir Shorey has also criticised Swara's remarks, calling her "utterly shameless".

Ranvir Shorey slams Swara Bhasker's remark on Padmaavat's Jauhar scene.

Ranvir Shorey slams Swara Bhasker's remarks on Padmaavat's Jauhar scene

Ranvir took to X to criticise Swara for her remarks and questioned the connection she drew between Jauhar and rape survivors. He wrote, "I still don’t get it! Comparing Jauhar (suicide by fire in defiance of inevitable and endless rape, violence and even necrophilia!) to rape survivors? Where’s the connection? They’re two completely different sets! The only intention can be to malign one group of people while trying to whitewash the other! Utterly shameless!"

What did Swara Bhasker say?

Swara had written an open letter to Sanjay Leela Bhansali after the release of Padmaavat. When asked about the letter, Swara made a controversial remark about the Jauhar scene during a Woman, Life, Freedom talk at the India International Centre in Delhi. She 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. Is that what you want to tell in a society like ours where I feel like, anyway, there is a rape epidemic? Is this what we want to tell our survivors that they don’t deserve to live, that if you actually would have been an honourable and brave woman, you would have killed yourself. Are we saying that rape is the end of a woman’s life? This scene was so problematic."

She added that one particular scene made her extremely angry. She recalled a close-up shot of a pregnant woman's belly as she performed Jauhar, which left her shouting, "Chii" in disgust. She questioned the idea that the unborn fetus, which could potentially be a girl, did not deserve to be born because she might be raped by a Muslim ruler. Swara said she was deeply upset by the scene and waited for five days to see if she still felt the same way before writing the letter.

The actor faced backlash for her remarks, with many criticising her interpretation of the Jauhar sequence and arguing that the historical practice should not be described as cowardice. Later, Swara took to Instagram and shared a video message explaining that she did not call Rani Padmavati "coward". She further questioned whether films like Padmaavat should be made if they "send the message that a woman’s purity is more valuable than her life?"

She added, "Should we be telling a rape survivor that it would have been better if she had died, and that surviving the assault was a bad thing?"

After Swara's remarks, Padmaavat writer Prakash Kapadia came out in support of the scene. He called the Jauhar sequence the "reality of those times" and said that while he had not been following Swara's comments, the controversy felt unnecessary to him.