|
 Deepika Padukone stood silently behind students chanting
anti-government slogans at New Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru
University on Tuesday evening, surprising many in a country
where top film stars typically avoid politics.
Her act of solidarity came after masked men wielding sticks and
rods stormed the JNU campus on Sunday, injuring some 30 people.
Students at JNU, regarded as a left-wing bastion, have protested
for months against an announced fee hike as well as a new
citizenship law, which critics say discriminates against Muslims
and erodes India's secular constitution.
Students and some faculty blamed Sunday's assault on a student
union with ties to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu
nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party. The student union has denied
these allegations, blaming left-wing groups for the violence.
Pictures circulating online showing a solemn-faced Padukone
standing behind an injured student leader, whose head was
covered in a bandage, set off social media storm, raising calls
for a boycott of her film "Chhapaak" (Splash), which is set to
be released on Friday.
"#BoycottChhapaak" was Twitter's top trending topic in India on
Wednesday, with more than 350,000 tweets on the subject. The
film is based on the true story of a woman who survived an acid
attack and re-built her life.
"What a brazen & cheap tactic to promote a film!" wrote one
Twitter user about Padukone.
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"She chooses JNU where leftists who want to break India
dominate!" tweeted another.
|Some outspoken Bollywood figures lauded Padukone though, and
vowed to support "Chhapaak."
"Let's all those who stand against the violence go to @bookmyshow
and show them," tweeted director Anurag Kashyap.
Padukone, who starred in the 2017 action film "xXx: Return of
Xander Cage" with Vin Diesel, does not appear to have made any
statement on Tuesday. She was not available for comment on
Wednesday, her spokeswoman said.
The protests sweeping India in the last weeks have posed a
dilemma for Bollywood, which has some big-name Muslim actors but
is sensitive to the sentiments of the country's Hindu majority.
"The reason why a whole lot of stars back away from making
statements is because they are afraid of the consequences it
will have on their films," said brand consultant and columnist
Santosh Desai. "To do this so close to a film is certainly
risky.".
(Additional reporting by Zeba Siddiqui; Editing by Alexandra
Ulmer)
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