Bollywood actor Swara Bhasker reignited a social media debate with her comments on Deepika Padukone's 2018 film Padmaavat, sparking a fierce backlash after speaking out against the Jauhar scene at the Woman Life Freedom talk at the India International Centre in Delhi on August 31.

On her X account, Swara wrote a note that left many triggered, questioning the film's portrayal of women and survivors of rape. "I was watching it, and I thought that if God forbid, I was a rape survivor, what is this film telling me?" she asked, highlighting the scene where Rani Padmavati leads the women of the fort into Jauhar as a collective act of self-immolation to avoid capture.

Read More: ‘Tires’ Renewed for Season 4 by Netflix

"is that what you want

"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?" Swara questioned.

"Are we saying that rape is the end of a woman's life? This scene was so problematic," she added. "Then there was this one shot that made me so mad - a close-up of a pregnant woman's belly performing jauhar.

So you are telling me that fetus, which might be a female, doesn’t deserve to be born because she might be raped?"

Also Read: Badshah and Isha Rikhi announce divorce after 5 months

Swara revealed that she waited five days before checking her emotions and then wrote an open letter to Sanjay Leela Bhansali after Padmaavat's release in 2018.

The Jauhar sequence in Padmaavat comes towards the climax, following Alauddin Khilji's forces defeating the Rajputs and breaching the fort of Chittor. Deepika Padukone's Rani Padmavati leads the women into Jauhar, portrayed as a collective act of self-immolation to avoid capture.