"No right to get offended, if unaffected by rape inside a temple": Swara Bhasker on controversy over kissing scene' in A Suitable Boy

Swara Bhasker reacted to the outrage over a now-infamous kissing scene in Mira Nair’s miniseries A Suitable Boy. The scene in question shows Lata and Kabir, played by Tanya Maniktala and Danesh Razvi, kissing on the premises of a temple. Responding to the backlash faced by streaming giant Netflix and calls to boycott it, Swara wrote on Twitter, “If the actual #Kathua gangrape of an 8 year old child inside a temple didn’t make your blood boil and soul shrivel; you have no right to be offended about a fictionalised depiction of a kiss in a temple. #fact #ASuitableBoy #BoycottNetflixIndia.”

If the actual #Kathua gangrape of an 8 year old child inside a temple didn’t make your blood boil and soul shrivel; you have no right to be offended about a fictionalised depiction of a kiss in a temple. #fact#ASuitableBoy#BoycottNetflixIndia

— Swara Bhasker (@ReallySwara) November 25, 2020

एक #ओटीटी_मीडिया_प्लेटफॉर्म पर "A Suitable Boy" नामक फ़िल्म जारी की गई है। इसमें बेहद आपत्तिजनक दृश्य दिखाए गए हैं जो एक धर्म विशेष की भावनाओं को आहत करते हैं। मैंने पुलिस अधिकारियों को इस विवादास्पद कंटेंट का परीक्षण कराने को निर्देशित किया है। pic.twitter.com/oYSiizJxCQ

— Dr Narottam Mishra (@drnarottammisra) November 22, 2020

In 2018, an eight-year-old girl was allegedly bound, sedated and gang-raped inside a temple in the Rasana village of Kathua before she was killed. Swara had joined the silent protest and shared a picture of herself holding a placard which read, “I am Hindustan. I am Ashamed. #JusticeForOurChild. 8 years old. Gangraped. Murdered. In ‘Devi’-sthaan temple. ”In a video shared on Twitter, Madhya Pradesh home minister Narottam Mishra called the kissing scene in A Suitable Boy extremely objectionable and said that he has directed the police to look into the matter and apprise him on what action can be taken against the streaming platform and makers. A Suitable Boy, based on Vikram Seth’s bestselling novel of the same name, also stars Ishaan Khatter, Tabu, Ram Kapoor and Rasika Dugal, among others.