Deepika Padukone’s Presence At JNU Protest Draws Both Ire and Support

Earlier this week Deepika Padukone startled the news as she attended the protest against attack on Jawaharlal Nehru University students. So far Deepika is notably the biggest celebrity to publicly support the JNU students and that too at a crucial point in time as her movie Chhapaak releases this week.

The move, of course, did not go down well with extremist Indian groups and allies of BJP who called for Chhapaak’s boycott for Deepika supporting “anti-national” JNU students. This resulted in hashtag #BoycottChhapaak with many coming forward to cancel their tickets to the movie.

However, this did not stop Deepika supporters and vocal Indians – who lauded the actress for her participation in the protest – from extending their supports to Deepika and her movie.

Under the hashtags #ISupportDeepika and #ChhapakDekhoTapaakSe, sane Indian voices were raised on Twitter with some even offering to sponsor tickets to Chhapaak.

“100 tickets for Chhapaak for any NGO working with underprivileged kids.” The tweet was ‘liked’ more than 26,000 times,” wrote a Twitter user.

And so many more like this came forward.

“I will sponsor 10 tickets for #Chhapaak first day all shows, for NGOs or group of girls.. No, I will not be joining with them, I will go with my family, in my time.. DM me for details.. #ISupportDeepika,” another said.

“Will be sponsoring 20 tickets for my regular fruit and vegetable vendors and their families. Checked what show timing they prefer. Just cause no one is given permission by me to tell me who to watch or boycott,” tweeted another sponsor.

On the other end, some also criticized Deepika for doing g publicity stunt and attending the protest to promote her upcoming film. Among those was Indian journalist Arnab Goswami.

“Bollywood stars like Deepika Padukone don’t know anything about the issue, they may know the abbreviations, but beyond that, in detail, they actually know nothing,” he tweeted.

However, Indian author Aniruddha Guha had a befitting reply for him.

“Cynics who think Deepika Padukone’s appearance at #JNU is a publicity stunt, remember this: The right-wing publicly threatened to chop her nose off, and delayed her film’s release, only 2 years ago. Don’t pretend like she isn’t aware of the stakes,” he tweeted.

Chhapaak is a story of acid victim-survivor Laxmi. The movie will release tomorrow January 10, 2020.