Swara Bhasker says ‘bring down Bollywood brigade’ is running an industry of its own: ‘They are profiting from it’

Actor Swara Bhasker has never minced her words. Talking about the trend of ‘Boycott Bollywood’, the actor recently said that the trend is being promoted to harm the film industry which, she believes, promotes secularism.
In an interview with NDTV, when asked about the social media trend of ‘Boycott Bollywood’, 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 this move is political in nature and to bring down the three Khans – Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan and Aamir Khan, Swara decoded the agenda behind the social media trends.
She said, “It is driven 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 linguic 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.”
In the last few months, many film and movie stars have faced the ‘boycott’ trend on social media.