Showing posts with label Swara Bhasker father. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Swara Bhasker father. Show all posts
Bollywood has always maintained good relations with whichever government is in power-Swara Bhasker
10:12 AM
Swara Bhasker talks about her mother’s classroom, the tweet that changed everything, and why celebrity worship culture will fail us every time
Jinit Parmar (MUMBAI MIRROR; July 26, 2026)
At 38, Swara Bhasker no longer separates her life as an actor from her identity as an outspoken citizen. She moved our interview forward so she could join Friday’s student-led education protest, a cause that, for her, begins at home. “This protest is very relevant to my family,” she says.
Bhasker grew up in Delhi between two forms of public service. Her father, C Uday Bhaskar, served in the Indian Navy for nearly four decades, while her mother, Ira, taught film studies at Delhi University and JNU for 43 years. “My mom always believed education should be public, government-funded, subsidised or free,” she says.
In fact, in 2017, many academics challenged the creation of the National Testing Agency, questioning why teachers were losing oversight of entrance examinations to a system driven by contracts and tenders.
Bhasker later studied English Literature at Miranda House and Sociology at JNU, trained in Bharatanatyam, and worked with N K Sharma’s Act One and the Indian People’s Theatre Association. “I have seen the guru-shishya parampara, modern Indian education and the progressive cultural movement,” she says. “I feel very blessed to have been a student in India.”
Cinema, cable TV and the cost of dissent
When Bhasker left Delhi for Mumbai in 2008, she imagined a career shaped by films rather than politics. Vishal Bhardwaj’s Omkara remains the benchmark. “Because I was a literature student, I had studied Othello, and then I saw what Vishal Bhardwaj had done with it. It was brilliant.”
Her love affair with cinema, however, began much earlier. “I always say Chitrahaar ruined my life,” she laughs. “My dad got cable installed, but I failed a maths test the next day, so he cut it in two days. I was obsessed with Chitrahaar and Superhit Muqabla. I wanted to be in that world.”
As films such as Raanjhanaa, Nil Battey Sannata and Veere Di Wedding raised her profile, her political voice grew louder. Bhasker insists there was never a conscious decision to become outspoken. “There was never one moment when I started being vocal,” she reflects.
“I came to Bombay during the Congress government and the Anna Hazare movement. India has a really vibrant culture of protest. So many actors used to write and tweet and give their opinion. It was just normal, part of being a citizen in a democracy. It was not an act of bravery. To share your thoughts or say this is the truth, all of this became an act of bravery only after 2014.”
After a series of posts following the 2014 general election – in which she’d pointed to the country’s socio-political fractures—triggered months of online abuse, she says the threats never altered her convictions. “You fight for what you love. I love this country, and I love the version of this country envisaged in our Constitution.”
The culture of industry silence
Her outspokenness has come at a professional cost, from the backlash over her open letter on Padmaavat to her opposition to the Citizenship Amendment Act. Bhasker says many colleagues choose silence after seeing what she has faced.
“A lot of my friends would say, ‘Let your art speak.’ But how can art speak when you haven’t left any space for it to be created? Honey Trehan did create art, Satluj, but it didn’t even last two days on Zee5 and wasn’t even allowed a theatrical release. There’s so much censorship. Even when I wrote that open letter to Sanjay Leela Bhansali, more than one big director told me I shouldn’t have done that.”
She is unsurprised that Bollywood rarely takes political risks. “A producer is ultimately a businessman. I don’t expect great acts of bravery from commercial cinema. Bollywood has always maintained good relations with whichever government is in power.”
“Celebrities will grow a conscience when society does”
Bhasker’s advice to those finding their voice is, thus, rooted in collective action rather than celebrity. “The only way you can speak up and be safe is if everyone speaks up. But people should not depend on actors. Celebrity worship has ruined our politics and our films. Celebrities are products of marketing, money and glamour. They will grow a conscience when society grows that conscience.”
She is equally uncomfortable being placed on a pedestal herself. “Don’t make me your hero. Someday I will probably let you down because I am human. Don’t attach those kinds of hopes to anyone.”
Now balancing motherhood with a quieter phase on screen, she is completing The Illicit Dreams of Mrs Phalani, in which she plays 16 characters. She has also made peace with the labels attached to her. “I fought that activist tag for many days, then I said, ‘Give it to me. I am not going anywhere.’ I just hope I’m remembered as a person who had good and clean intentions and integrity.”
Swara Bhasker moves into her 'new old house'; holds a seven-hour long griha pravesh puja
8:06 AM
Neha Maheshwri (BOMBAY TIMES; August 26, 2021)
They say home is where the heart is and Swara Bhasker set her heart on her dream home in 2016. However, it took her a few more years to turn this dream into reality. After living in the apartment for three years, the actress decided to overhaul it. This ensued a lot of planning, brainstorming on designs, and two lockdowns later, Swara has finally moved into her ‘new old house’. Talking about the whole process, she says, “I decided to renovate the house in 2019 and the process began in February. We stripped it down to beams and columns and redid the entire layout. Now the house is new, but it still exudes the old and familiar vibe. So, it’s my ‘new old house’.”
But wasn’t it too long a wait to move back to her home after over two years? Swara agrees but feels the wait was worth it. She shares, “Envisioning the new layout and designing it took time since I was also shooting. It got further delayed because the lockdown last year resulted in a six-month break, which was followed by a second lockdown in March this year. The pace of work also got affected when I went to New Delhi, my hometown. Besides, I am a control freak and need to select everything myself — from the desk knobs to bathroom fittings. And now, it looks just like I had visualized!”
The actress held a seven-hour long griha pravesh puja at her ‘new old house’. Talking about its significance, she says, “So much has changed in my life and in the world that moving back in was meaningful and special. I’ve never had a proper puja in my home. I remember every time we moved homes in my childhood, which was frequent since my dad served in the Indian Navy, my mom formalised the new abode with a puja and by boiling milk over in a manner that it spilled out of the container, which was symbolic of seeking abundance in the new home.”
Swara, who hails from New Delhi, has been living in Mumbai for more than a decade. “Mumbai has given me my identity and I cannot imagine working anywhere else. Although Delhi always felt like home because my parents live here, now I feel rooted in Mumbai, too,” she says.
What my failed lift satyagraha taught me about protests-Swara Bhasker
8:21 AM
Swara Bhasker (THE TIMES OF INDIA; November 1, 2020)
Between the ages of five and twenty, I lived in a defence services gated colony in central Delhi with my family. It was occupied entirely by the families of officers serving in the Indian army, navy and air force. Well, not entirely. There were also the ‘servants’ who lived in tiny quarters connected on one side to the officers’ houses via a balcony and, on the other, to a ‘servants’ staircase’ at the back of the building. The wider ‘officers’ staircase’ led to the main lobby on the ground floor, which also had two lifts. Each lift had a sign above the door. One said, ‘Officers and families’, while the other simply said, ‘Servants.’ Now, segregation based on hierarchy in the armed forces isn’t a new thing. In fact, hierarchy is what militaries are structured around. And like all Indian upper-middle class families, we had help at home inhabit our servants’ quarter. So hierarchy was the source of our comfortable daily routine.
But my ten-year-old self had watched the Amitabh Bachchan-starrer Mard on VHS and the scene where Bachchan’s character is disallowed from entering a club — because of a sign saying ‘Indians and Dogs Not Allowed’ — was rather fresh in my mind. We had also briefly studied the freedom struggle in school, and I knew that this was one of the features of a ‘gulaam desh’. In my child’s mind, our separate lift system with its signage seemed uncomfortably similar to the colonial clubs that didn’t allow Indians and dogs entry.
I began to notice that some of the ‘khadoos’ officers (the same ones who would yell at us if a ball from our cricket matches landed in their balcony, or if our improvised hide-and-seek game was too loud) would often scold the servants if they caught any of them using the officers’ stairs or lift. I would witness these scoldings sometimes and feel extremely awkward. Later, I’d make it a point to say hello to the servant yelled at — most of them would just stare at me, and ignore.
By the time I was thirteen, I’d learnt about the heinous institutionalized segregation in apartheid South Africa. The separate lift business was continuing and, I decided to confront my naval officer father, also a uniformed member of this discriminatory system.
‘Papa, remember how there was apartheid in South Africa?’ ‘Hmmm,’ he replied, only half-attentive.
‘Well, we have our own kind of apartheid in Sangli Apartments!’ I carried on, animatedly.
My father put down the newspaper he was browsing through. ‘Really? How?’ he asked.
‘The segregated lifts! Isn’t it wrong to have separate lifts for servants and officers? It’s inequality!’
‘Well, it is,’ he replied carefully. ‘It’s a certain hierarchy that the armed forces have institutionalized and well, frankly it’s prevalent in other ways —’
‘Yes, but isn’t it wrong?’ I interrupted.
My father smiled. ‘Well, if you think it’s wrong you should do something about it.’
‘Like what?’
‘Protest. That’s what they did in South Africa. That’s what we did in India, to get our freedom.’
The possibility that I could do something in this case had not presented itself to me. I wrote a letter, scribbled in my best handwriting on a page torn out of my mother’s college attendance register, demanding the end of the lift and stair segregation policy. My father suggested I get some other children — my friends — to sign it but they seemed totally stumped. A few said they would ask their parents, a few refused outright. It didn’t even strike me to ask the ‘servant children’.
The next day when I went to present the letter to the secretary of the apartment complex, a recently promoted brigadier, it had two signatures — one was mine and the other was ostensibly my brother’s (forged by me).
The brigadier took the letter and frowned.
‘These are the rules, beta.’
‘Yes, uncle. But it’s not fair.’
‘Why isn’t it fair?’
‘Because it’s not equality.’
‘What’s not equality? Officers have a lift, servants have a lift. We have a staircase, they have a staircase.’ I was unprepared for such bland logic.
‘But their lift and staircase are dirty,’ was somehow the only reply that came to mind.
‘Then they should keep it clean.’ And he bid me goodnight.
I felt deflated. My parents consoled me.
‘It’s more important that you tried.’ ‘But nothing changed.’ ‘Well why not start with making a change in your personal habits, like Gandhiji did with khadi.’ My protest now took on a new form. I started hanging around the lobby in my free time. Each time I saw a servant approaching, I’d jump into the lift and invite them in. Then I would personally take them up, and ride back down to the lobby. It felt thrilling — like a surreptitious elevator-civil disobedience movement. Two days later though, one of the khadoos officers caught us and scolded both me and the servant I was trying to escort. I tried to argue but the servant — a thin wiry man — apologized, glared at me and scooted.
I decided to change strategy and began my elevator-satyagraha. Every day, I began to use the servants’ lift. Initially, I tried to get my friends and brother to follow my example but that didn’t last more than once. And I knew why. The lift had a filthy stench. It was also dirty — there were always gutka packets and cigarette or beedi butts strewn around, and the walls of the lift had unidentifiable stains. I decided to use the servants’ staircase instead, which was as dirty if not more. I grew tired of rushing up the stairs while holding my breath and the families living in the servants’ quarters stared at me as I went up and down.
When my father learnt why I had abandoned my elevator-satyagraha, he suggested that I start a community cleanliness drive but by then, my idealism was exhausted, and my indignation was dulled. Perhaps finally, the comfort of the cleaner officers’ lift had seduced me into just following the discriminatory rule. It was so much more convenient!
Or perhaps I had learnt a harder lesson, one whose full meaning was not apparent to me then. I had learnt not just that sometimes protests don’t succeed in achieving their aims; but, more importantly, that sometimes when fighting for a cause one has to confront some unsavoury truths about one’s own reality and one’s own complicity in the ‘oppression’ we are fighting against. But most importantly, I wondered, do protests that lack the participation of those who are ‘affected’ tend to fizzle out?
Edited excerpts from ‘Inquilab: A Decade of Protest’, a collection of speeches and articles by India’s most famous dissenters with permission from HarperCollins
Ever since I started speaking out on social media, my parents live in a state of terror-Swara Bhasker
2:07 PM
Farzana Patowari (PUNE TIMES; May 10, 2019)
Swara Bhasker never shies away from speaking her mind. On social media, she is one of the handful celebs who makes it a point to comment on the political and social happenings in the country. That, however, has had an effect on her life as well. In a chat with us, she explains how. Excerpts:
‘THE SOCIETY WE LIVE IN ISN’T SAFE. THAT’S WHY B-WOOD DOESN’T SPEAK UP’
Swara has been actively showing her support for the leaders she believes in during the Lok Sabha elections, but she says she doesn’t support any particular party or candidate. Instead, she’s standing behind certain causes and manifestos.
“People in this country don’t understand that we are not Americans, and we aren’t voting for our president. We are voting for the members of the parliament and we need sensible people who take sensible decisions. Putting forward candidates who are accused of heinous crimes is something I think is unacceptable,” says Swara.
Before and through the polling process, many celebs were vocal about the parties they support. Is that a sign of change, we ask Swara, to which she replies, “This is happening now, because the society wasn’t as polarised before. In these five years, everything has become very aggressive and there is a genuine feeling of intolerance. There is a feeling of shutting the other person down. It’s a reflection of the state of our political affairs.”
Many from the film fraternity have been on the opposite sides of the political debate, with a certain level of hostility brewing in the industry. Has that affected work equations? Would Swara work with someone who is on the different end of the political spectrum? These questions have a ready answer from Swara too.
She says, “I have to trust the director. Ultimately, films are a director’s vision. Now, if you will talk rubbish, making stupid statements, defame people and spread fake news, then that is not good. A normal person will say that rape is a heinous crime and wouldn’t defend it. If you do, then you are weird and I am using very soft words. If you are not trustworthy, then I don’t know what you will have in the film. As an actor, I am serving your vision and I don’t trust your vision.”
While talking about Bollywood celebs who chose to remain apolitical, the actress says, “The statements which we make or post not only lead to trolling, but also have a lot of real-life repercussions. Some even lead to death threats. The society we live in is not safe, and that is why no one will speak their mind. Not just Bollywood, but all of us are at fault here.”
‘MY PARENTS KEEP TELLING ME TO NOT TWEET ANYTHING’
“Ever since I started speaking out on social media, my parents live in a state of terror,” says Swara, adding, “They are always worried and terrified because of me. My father is always on alert and keeps sending me messages saying ‘This has happened in the country, please don’t tweet anything’. Sometimes, he sends screenshots of what I have said and tweeted, and says, ‘Let us discuss this’. That is when I know that I will get a good jhaad from him. My mom keeps requesting me to get off Twitter. But both of them agree with me to a large extent, as they know what I am saying is right.”
Swara has repeatedly battled vicious trolls, who often cite a particular scene from her movie Veere Di Wedding (in which her character is shown to be masturbating) to target her. Most recently, the same reference was used with regard to voting.
To that, Swara says, “These people forget that it was acting, and not real. Now, even if I post a picture of a flower, people will say, ‘Oh, you picked this up with your finger’.”
However, she says that she often fails to find the method to the madness of her trolls. “For me, when a person starts using gaalis in a conversation, it means that the person is left with no logic. I now have tactics to deal with it,” she shares.
Along with her team, she has sent legal notices to five websites who were circulating fake news about her. “I don’t look at my mentions at all. And if something bothers me, then I give it back, then and there,” she adds.
For me the armed forces represent the kind of integrity that I have seen in my father-Swara Bhasker
10:10 AM
Anshul Chaturvedi (BOMBAY TIMES; August 15, 2018)
Swara Bhasker has been in an intense love/hate relationship with social media over the past year. Some see her as an outspoken defender of free speech and liberal values. Her critics slam her as an extreme leftist ‘anti-national’. A tweet by her has led to sedition cases in multiple courts. Ahead of 15th August, we ask her to explain what a ‘seditious’ JNU-ite who is also the daughter of a Naval officer has to say about being charged with defaming the uniformed forces.
Controversy and you aren’t strangers, Swara, but even by your benchmarks, sedition cases being filed is a new benchmark. How did you manage that?
Yes, controversies are something that I’m used to, especially of the kinds that originate on Twitter. But honestly, this particular one, I had no idea what was going on because I’m on a month long trip in Europe. I had done a series of tweets with #ButLiberalsAreFanatics. I suppose sarcasm is lost in the world of hashtags. But I was just trying to be sarcastic about it and wry. So, I put out this tweet which was in reference to the Una case of the Dalits being tied to a jeep and flogged, and how that was recorded and circulated, and I mentioned ‘big caste pride’ and of course it’s a case I feel very angry about and I used an expletive, I said ‘a**holes’, and I thought that it was pretty evident because I’d mentioned the word ‘caste pride’, and ‘tying to a jeep and flogging’, and I tweeted it.
And because I was travelling I didn’t even look at my Twitter, and then my father actually, who’s himself a retired Naval officer, called me the next day and said, listen, have you tweeted something because there’s this news that you abused the army. And I was like, what?! And even at that moment, I didn’t realise that it was this tweet that was being talked about. And then I went back to it and realised oh, this is being interpreted in this wrong way. And I didn’t know if it was willfully being interpreted in a wrong way or people were just making mischief, and then of course I was like, oh my God. So then I put out a clarification saying that obviously I was talking about Una and read the papers or use your brains or don’t, whatever. And then I thought okay, I’ve clarified, and I forgot about it. And then again, the next day a friend sends me this article from a factchecking agency, and when I read the article I realised that ministers had tweeted about it, like of course all these fake news sites had picked it up. I was just like, wow. I mean there’s a Twitter storm going on but I’m sitting by the beach in Portugal and I had no idea. Of course, I never said that, I don’t know how they assumed that I was talking about the army. Frankly, it shows their lack of faith in the army. My father is an armed forces officer and I’ve grown up in that whole culture. Nobody can have more faith in that institution than the people who’ve grown up within it, and who know it in a personal sense.
My poor father, he said I think you should put out a clarification, which I had done anyway. And he said — my father is very mild, he’s not dramatic at all — he said, well, as an aside, thanks to you, I get a lot of spite on my Twitter timeline. Poor guy (laughs), I felt so bad because my identity on Twitter and all my social media activism has led to my father being in the line of fire a lot. So, I told him that maybe you should change your account and not let people know that I’m your daughter, but I suppose it’s too late for that. And he was like, no, no, this is the good fight, and I think he thought it was kind of, I think all of us now realise that it’s a very odd time we live in where even the smallest things can — everything is inflammable, almost, you know. Even the smallest, most innocently made statement, most unpremeditated statement can be misinterpreted or can be wilfully twisted to mean something else. Of course that’s something that happens to me repeatedly. We’re living in a culture where it is so polarised and everyone is trying to discredit the other person or the other side in whatever way possible. Frankly, I do feel that liberals are under attack.
But I think it’s quite ridiculous, because the tweet nowhere implies anything at all like it has been twisted to mean. I know that I have nothing to defend on this because it didn’t even strike me, literally that thought didn’t even come into my mind, I didn’t even associate it with the Major Gogoi incident in Kashmir, till these people started tweeting. I think my father knows very well that obviously I did not mean that and would not ever say that, so he was — apart from making a wry comment about the spite that he receives on my behalf on Twitter, poor guy — has been very supportive. My mother did tell me though, to watch my language on social media and I got a bit of a lecture over there.
Is the JNU/fanatical liberal branding necessarily the same as being hostile to the men in uniform? What do the uniformed forces mean to you?
Firstly, I think that all these brandings, you know whether it’s JNU, or ‘tukde tukde gang’, or ‘libtard’ or ‘AAPtard’ or ‘sickular’ or ‘presstitute’, I think that all these brandings and all the stereotypes that come with them, I don’t buy into them. Frankly, they are hollow and coming from a very toxic place and coming from a place that is trying to discredit people and therefore, discredit their opinions. And to me, it’s a very undemocratic kind of a stand already. So, I don’t buy into that, either JNU branding or a liberal fanatic branding. Thing is, I’m an actress, so I have to hear all kinds of things from all kinds of sides. So if you say something, you’re either publicity hungry, or some group will say you’re a liberal fanatic, I’ve been accused of all kinds of things. So I don’t buy into these brandings. To me, JNU is an institution which is a very precious institution, it is one of the most stellar institutions of this country and the most valuable thing about JNU is that as a centre of learning, it has — it had, at least when I was there — an atmosphere where nothing was considered too outrageous to ask. Because the whole idea is that you can only learn in an atmosphere where questions can be asked without fear. And I think that that critical mindset, and that mindset towards critical questioning, is a very important thing for a democracy to have and to preserve.
As far as what the uniformed forces mean to me, as I said, for me, the uniformed forces — like at the very earliest part of my childhood — have meant to me my father. I always look at the armed forces through the lens that my father was in the armed forces. I have almost a sentimental, and a very emotional kind of a nostalgic outlook towards the armed forces. I have grown up listening to stories of my father’s experiences in the forces, in his training in the NDA, stories about his friends, his colleagues. My father always made it a point to say that the armed forces as an institution are loyal to the constitution of the country and not to any one government or political party. So in that sense, the armed forces are an institution that owes its allegiance to the Constitution of our country. And I think this is a really important point to make. I think we live in a very, it’s almost like this Kafka-esque kind of time where you don’t know what is right, you don’t know what is wrong, now there’s so much fake news you don’t know what is the truth, you don’t know what is fake. So to me, at this point, for me the armed forces represent the kind of integrity that I have seen in my father, and he always made it a point to tell me that the armed forces were very disciplined, they were very secular, they believed in the spirit of fraternity along with discipline, and more than anything they believed in the spirit of empathy and humanity and justice. So even if you have shot an enemy in a war situation, you will treat that dead body with respect because it is the body of a soldier, even if he’s from a different country, and you will lay them down with proper rites and with the respect that is due to a soldier — even if that soldier doesn’t belong to your country. This is my association with the armed forces.
The cliched question — how is your interpretation of Independence Day different from that of your trolls and critics? Are you a cynic or a proud Indian? Can you be both or is it an either / or?
Of course, I’m a very proud Indian, and I was never a more proud Indian than when I was the narrator of this TV series called Samvidhaan, which Shyam Benegal sir had directed, because it really made me understand what a valuable and precious document that is, how our political forefathers were not just far-sighted, but also so empathetic, so humane, so progressive in their thinking, the vision that they laid down in that document. And the fact that in 1947, without a doubt they were able to give equal rights, the promise — at least the vision — of equal opportunity to all the citizens of the country, to women, to Dalits, to the backward castes, to minorities. I think we really have something very special in our Constitution and it’s something that we must respect and love and believe in. I also feel that true love is one which is not blind. True love is one which would be very disturbed when you see the one you love going down on a dark path. If you see a friend or your child going on a very dark path, or doing wrong things or becoming a bad person, if you love them, you will stop them. And you will make them realise that what they’re doing is wrong. It’s the same thing with your country. If you see the social ills in your country or if you see something wrong, or injustice or oppression taking place in your country, and you’re silent in the face of it, and you don’t step up to correct it or call it out, you actually don’t love your country. And I think that you can be a very proud Indian and you can equally be an aware Indian citizen who is also active and who keeps calling out the wrongs that happen around her or him. And an Indian citizen who engages with the democratic process and keeps calling out the government every time the government does something that seems to be not in the spirit of the Constitution. I think that is the greatest sign of being a citizen who loves her country. And so, whoever shot at Umar Khalid — I’d say that is an anti-national action. An act that does a huge disservice to our country.
Which is the one movie you’d sit down to watch on August 15?
I think that I would, my friend gave a very good suggestion, that on the 15th of August, all of us should sit and watch Samvidhaan again, Shyam Benegal sir’s show which I hosted. That’s a great thing to watch and feel proud of our country. I’d watch Chak De! India, Shah Rukh sir’s film, because I think that showed the spirit of patriotism, but also equally looked at the problems in our country in a very nice way and brought it all together very nicely. I’d also watch Amar Akbar Anthony, because, as nostalgia for what the vision of India was, and what perhaps at one point it was, and what it should be and could be.
A young Swara Bhasker at The Garhwal Rifles Regimental Centre in Lansdowne
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