Swara Bhasker opens up about Boycott Bollywood trends: ‘It’s like an industry on its own’

Actor Swara Bhasker, who is known to voice her opinions fearlessly, once again opened up about the ongoing ‘Boycott Bollywood’ trend.

In an exclusive interview with NDTV, the actor said, ‘A lot of negative hysteria has been generated around Bollywood and a lot of it is lies. I like to say that the ‘bring down Bollywood’ brigade is actually running a small industry of their own. They are profiting from it. All these Twitter handles. It’s like an industry on its own.’

When asked if these Boycott Bollywood trends have political motives just to put down the three Khans – Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan, and Aamir Khan, Swara responded, ‘It is driven by an agenda for sure. The larger part of it has been that in 109 years, Bollywood has been one of the most popular vehicles of Indian secularism. Look at the kind of films we have made, we have always given the message that everyone is equal, love is greater than societal divide. Look at the credit at the end of the Bollywood film, every regional and linguistic identity of India is always represented there. It’s an industry which was spearheaded in its early days the Parsi and Muslim communities, it’s an industry which has popularised Urdu poetry and easy to digest Sufi concepts and is very diverse in an organic way. That is a problem for an agenda that wants to push a saffron kind of majoritarian identity in India. So, you have to discredit and delegitimise the most popular vehicle for Indian secularism if you want to discredit Indian secularism. That’s why Bollywood is being targeted.’
Over the last few months, many films faced boycott calls on social media and met a tragic fate at the box office.

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