In a recent interview to the media platform The Lallantop, the actor Tamannaah Bhatia was asked about the representation of female bodies on screen, and in particular about my article published in The Hindu Businessline in 2015 under the headline “The Rape of Avanthika”.
ICYMI: “The Rape of Avanthika” was a critique of a scene in S.S. Rajamouli’s Baahubali: The Beginning in which Avanthika (played by Bhatia) attacks Prabhas’ character in reaction to his incursions on her body portrayed in the preceding scenes.
This encounter is depicted as a dance, during which he strips her of her practical warrior’s attire and alters it into a flowy outfit, unties her hair against her will, and forcibly applies makeup on her face. At the end of this passage, she is no longer fighting him – instead, she is mesmerised by her own transformation, and in love with him.
I had described the scene as a symbolic – and romanticised – representation of the violation of a woman’s consent in sexual relations.
“The Rape of Avanthika” was about Baahubali the film, not about Bhatia the individual. In her recent interview, though, she characterised the article as an attack on her.
“When people can’t control you, they use shame and guilt as a technique to make you feel that you must feel ashamed of whatever you do. Because when they make you feel shame, they can gain control over you,” was how she began her answer to the question about the article.
She then spoke at length about sexual repression in our society.
Attributing my article to this sexual repression, Bhatia made the following personal remark about me: “If you show someone the purest thing, but if that person thinks sex is a bad thing or your body is a bad thing or your entire system is a bad thing, then that’s all they will see.”
When “The Rape of Avanthika” was published, I was flooded with responses from readers who said it resonated with them, including a large number who told me they had, until then, assumed they were alone in their discomfort with that scene in Baahubali. Simultaneously came a spate of communal and misogynistic online attacks, in addition to vulgar, sexually explicit abuse.
Having faced those attacks, I still say that Bhatia’s latest interview is the most inexplicable and absurd response to the article I have received in these 10 years.
The article was concerned about the romanticisation of sexual violence in a film. Bhatia has somehow interpreted that concern as an aversion to sex.
I wrote about what I saw as a symbolic, prettified representation of rape. Bhatia has somehow interpreted that as my attempt to control her.
Why would I want to control a stranger to whom I have no personal ties?
This is not about me though.
The issue here is the deep-seated internalised misogyny that prompted Bhatia to defend a portrayal of stalking, harassment and violence as courtship, and the normalisation of sexual violence in a film.
According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) 2022 report, India records 51 cases of crimes against women every hour. (Source: Times of India)
Women in India suffer acid attacks, rape and have even been killed by men who are socially conditioned to ignore or avenge rejection.
That scene in Baahubali showed a woman initially enraged at the repeated violation of her bodily integrity by a man, but eventually making love to him. It is dangerous because it echoes what our society tells boys and men: that when a woman says no, she means maybe or yes; that true love or genuine attraction means persisting even after she rejects your advances; and that it is up to a man to “make her realise” (to quote an oft-used phrase) how beautiful she is.
In such circumstances, I don’t care about Bhatia’s demeaning comments aimed at me, or her pretence that she does not know me or of me – we have met, and even spent time together. Besides, she has clearly devoted lots of time to thinking about my article for an entire decade.
I genuinely don’t care about the act she put on though.
I care that she, a celebrity with the power to positively influence minds if she wishes to do so, publicly made false allegations about “The Rape of Avanthika”, and intentionally conflated sexual violence with sex to confuse the audience at an interview. In doing so, she has supported the patriarchal status quo that causes great harm to women, and ultimately harms men too.
I feel compelled to write this rejoinder although I am short of time and bogged down by work, because sections of the media have unquestioningly quoted Bhatia’s interview in articles, without pointing to the regressive mindset she displayed and the falsehoods in her comments.
I am a middle-class individual without the massive PR machinery and management team that a millionaire movie star like Bhatia has working for her. This means I do not have the resources to amplify this rejoinder, and can only trust that individual members of the public and the media who share my values will amplify it for me.
I repeat: this is not about me, it’s about Bhatia’s dangerous messaging. This is not about Bhatia either: she is a mere instrument, a mouthpiece, for an oppressive system that seeks to subjugate women and non-conformist men; a system that some women, sadly, play along with in the interests of career advancement.
The link to “The Rape of Avanthika” is here and here.
Please share this statement not just on the platform on which you are reading it, but in the e-groups, WhatsApp groups and other networks that you are a part of, so that it leads to a conversation that conservatives and misogynists like Bhatia do not want us to have. (Ends)
