The inanity of Swara Bhaskar

In a function in Delhi on 31st August 2026, former film actress Swara Bhaskar, referring to the Hindi film ‘Padmaavat ‘ called the women who did ‘jauhar’ ( self immolation ) as cowards. She asked whether women who are raped should commit suicide ? Does their life end on being raped ? Should no rape survivor live ?

A lot of controversy is presently going in the Indian media about this.

The problem with these statements is that they ignore the context. Torn out of context, it must of course be said that a rape survivor has a right to continue living.

However, the position becomes very different when we see the context. When Sultan Allauddin Khilji’s army stormed Chittorgarh fort ( after an 8 month siege ) in Rajasthan in 1303, which was then occupied by Rajput men, women, and children, the Rajput soldiers were defeated and most killed, leaving the women defenceless.

 If these women were captured, they would not have been just raped by Khilji’s soldiers, they would have been carried away by them, and then either sold in some slave market, or kept as concubines in some soldier’s harem, suffering rape over and over again, and enduring whatever ill treatment their tormentors hand out to them all their lives..

There is a world of a difference between a one time rape of a woman, and then her return to a respectable and normal life on the one hand, and living a life of continuous horror and repeated rapes all one’s life, on the other. The Rajput women refused the latter, obviously because if they had been captured they could never have returned to a normal life again, but would have been repeatedly raped and dishonoured throughout their lives, like slaves.

In the Bhagawad Gita Lord Krishna tells Arjun :

  सम्भावितस्य चाकीर्ति मर्णादतिरिच्यते  

i.e.

” For a self respecting person, death is preferable to dishonour ”

This is why the self respecting brave Rajput women committed jauhar, something that the thick headed and fatuous Swara Bhaskar does not understand