People Hate Swara Bhasker So Much That They Boycott Anything She Endorses

Swara Bhaskar always finds herself in the line of a social media storm. She has developed a group of haters online for her fierce and bold stance on social issues.

Swara has been one of the very few people from Bollywood who had taken a strong stance on issues such as Kathua rape. She had earlier drawn flak for her masturbation scene in “Veera Di Wedding”.

A while ago, Swara had tweeted out an endorsement post for Amazon India. Some people ganged up together to turn it into a massive outrage holding up Amazon to remove Swara as a brand ambassador, threatening to boycott Amazon.

Some went to the extent of tweeting #BoycottAmazon asking them to remove the actor who hurt the religious sentiments of Hindus.

The question here is, should brands boycott celebrities who hurt sentiments of Hindus? Does it only apply to Hindus, not other religions? No Hindus got hurt after the protest for Kathua rape accused, which was propelled by the accused to bring communal colour to gain support and prevent themselves from being prosecuted.

We all protested against Nirbhaya rape incident without raising any finger. We knew that they were criminals, and that they had to be prosecuted as per law. We never saw any community group supporting the accused. How is it different in the Kathua rape incident then?

This shows that people hate Swara so much that they are willing to boycott a brand, irrespective of how much that brand makes their life better.

This is not the first time that a woman with a strong opinion had to face backlash. Harindh Kaur, known for her strong stance on women empowerment issues, had faced hatred before. She had to deactivate her account when a close friend of hers took advantage of his position to exploit teenage girls, which she said she was unaware of.

This is not about Swara or Harnidh. It’s the inability of a group of people who can’t tolerate a strong, independent woman with an opinion.

If these ‘guardians of Hinduism’ can threaten a brand to boycott a celebrity, they could also be consultants to brands on deciding who they should choose for endorsements.