Swara Bhasker claims 'sexually harassed' by a director; actress recalls the horrific incident

Swara Bhasker, who has always been opinionated about the societal issues opened up about her life and the terrible experience she had at workplace, which she said took her six to eight years to realise.

"It took me 6-8 years to realise when I heard someone else talk about their experience of harassment at a panel discussion like this. I was like God, what happened to me 3 years ago was actually sexual harassment at workplace! I never realised it because, like you said, I escaped. Because the person did not touch me and I managed to ward it off," she said recollecting the incident.

Swara was speaking at a panel discussion on the life of Harvey Weinstein at &PriveHD's Prive Soiree. Actor Dia Mirza and documentarian Anand Patwardhan were also part of the discussion.

"I would just tell myself that this director is being... whatever, but that is not the full truth. The director was not being an idiot or an a**, he was being a predator," she added.

Swara Bhasker, whose Twitter bio describes her as a "troll destroyer, a right-wing baiter, a liberal hysteric and a Twitter warrior" also said: "There is so much of culture of silence, around sexuality in India, around the issue of sexual harassment, actually not just In India, everywhere around the world, that we are just going through our lives without recognising it properly. We just recognise the discomfort."

Swara's show It's Not That Simple, her Voot-original web series, also revolves around the the gender power dynamics in a working place. She said she slowly began to realise that she was just not recognising it because "we are so inured to handle and manage things. Since childhood, if anything happens there is no one to tell you that this is sexual harassment."

Swara, who has always been a target for trolls on social media has never been shy and has raised her voice on subjects such as politics, women empowerment, equality and others. Describing these things as completely inhospitable, she said a hostile society and a culture actively or subconsciously enable predators.

"We should use this moment to not just talk about the one predator that got caught. We should also talk about the culture that enables these predators to reach the position of power they do," she said, elaborating the need to make everybody aware of many things that go into legitimising predatory behaviour.