6-Degrees: Hindu Nationalists Burning Hillary Posters, A $1.5 Million Bounty for a Dead Deepika Padukone, and Ivanka Trump Rolling Into India
/
On this first morning in post-Roe America, Bollywood star Deepika Padukone is on my mind. She occupies my brain space — not because of her recent appointment as a Louis Vuitton ambassador and not because she “stole the show” in Cannes in early June, appointed as a member of the 2022 Cannes Festival nine-person jury.
Vogue India Interview
Padukone acknowledges in her Vogue India May 2022 cover story — a conversation between the actor and Faye D’Souza, edited and excerpted by Sadaf Shaikh — that she was pleased to be honored as a TIME 100 Impact Award 2022 recipient.
She’s here to talk her casual, tomboy style preferences — Red Carpet glam nights not included. Padukone shows us how the first Indian Louis Vuitton ambassador chills, styled by Megha Kapoor in the all-Vuitton fashion story lensed by Vivek Vadoliya [IG]. / Makeup by Tina Monzón; hair by Noelia Coral
Casual looks are deceiving in the Vogue India fashion story. For the first time in history, a fashion brand — Louis Vuitton — has entered the rarified air of the world’s top 10 global brands, as ranked by Kantar BrandZ Most Valuable Global Brands 2022 report
Louis Vuitton and Deepika Padukone make a good team.
Previously honored by TIME in 2018 on its annual ‘100 Most Influential People’ list, Padukone’s new award was for the actor’s work in the Indian film industry and how she uses roles to advance a more expansive and progressive view of human relations.
Related: Deepika Padukone Stars in Launch of Cartier “Le Voyage Recommencé Collection” May 2023 AOC Jewelry News
Deepika Padukone on Mental Health
Issues that matter deeply to Padukone — 1) being a changemaker in Bollywood on progressive topics and especially women’s lives and 2) understanding the complex topic of mental health and its impact on individual lives and society — currently live in a harmonious, activist-oriented space in her mind.
Padukone wants to dig beneath the surface of issues in films made in Bollywood and also Hollywood. She’s not interested in “checking boxes” on any topic from diversity to women directors.
Yes, the actor chooses roles that will hopefully advance topics like mental health, but she refuses to pay lip-service to them. Because Padukone herself has dealt with depression and spoken openly about her own challenges, she insists that roles explore challenging topics with depth, understanding and empathy.
Change isn’t only required in how women’s roles, the role of a mentally-ill person, an outcast in high society — all topics that invite the viewer to relate with the actor — are portrayed. Padukone believes that change is required on the movie set itself. She says:
If an actor were portraying a character with a physical ailment, for example, they would do their research and due diligence in order to discern exactly how to depict their condition. The same courtesy needs to be extended to mental illnesses. Actors, writers and directors shouldn’t be winging it. We should afford the same honesty and authenticity to characters with mental illnesses as we do to biopics. Cinema is such a powerful medium of understanding. If mental health is depicted in the right way, it can have far-reaching consequences for a country like India, where the conversation around mental health has only just begun. Similarly, one wrong depiction could set us back by years.
Roles impact an actor — and especially if it’s one with depth and psychological-emotional challenges. Both as an actor and a producer, Padukone hopes to see a therapist on set in the future. “We have a doctor on set, so I don’t see why we can’t have a mental health professional too.”
Challenging Movie Roles Often Stir Up the Actor’s Own Inner Balance
Padukone had a personal therapist on set, as she played the role of Malti in ‘Chhapaak’, a 2020 Indian Hindi-language biographical drama about real-life, acid-attack survivor Laxmi Agarwal. Playing Malti for so many months took a toll on Padukone’s own psyche, causing her to have panic attacks and to feel claustrophobic in her daily acting roles as Malti.
Now the Bollywood heavyweight wants to see a therapist on the set for the entire cast. As a rock-star producer today, the actor is in a position to make these changes happen.
The May 2022 Vogue India interview doesn’t delve into Padukone’s experience with the film ‘Padmavati’. But her challenges around the film have lived front and center in my own mind for multiple reasons.
The term ‘six degrees of separation’ is in play with most of life’s experiences, especially if one leads an expansive live, is well-informed or both. Connecting the dots becomes a daily experience if one is empathetic and alert.
For better or worse, I am very good at connecting dots. In today’s world, most events are interconnected.
Religious Zealots Wanted to Kill Deepika Padukone
Deepika Padukone’s role in ‘Padmavati’ nearly got her killed by Hindu nationalists.
The $1.5 million bounty on Padukone’s head — demanded by the frenzied Hindu nationalists screaming for her death by beheading were not triggered by their love of Donald Trump. But Trump is a hero to many of them.
And just as we are watching the January 6 hearings on TV, hearing and seeing Trump supporters chanting “Hang Mike Pence” and calling for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi so that they could find her and kill her, Trump’s buddies in India wanted the head of Deepika Padukone, without even knowing the actual facts of the ‘Padmavati’ movie.
Rumors alone fueled the demand for her death
The same Hindu Sena [aka Shiv Sena] right-wing zealots who support Trump today and demanded the beheading and $1.5 million bounty for Deepika Padukone’s murder, were also gunning for Hillary Clinton.
Trump Courts Hindu Sena Right-Wing Nationalists In NJ As They Burn Hillary Posters In India AOC She
AOC has written about these guys on multiple occasions, lastly when they were in 2016 burning images of Hillary Clinton in New Delhi. The angry men set the street on fire with Hillary posters, calling her a “horned demon” on a “witch hunt” for India's then and now Prime Minister Modi.
November 2017: Under $1.5 Million Bounty for her Beheading by Hindu Nationalists, Deepika Padukone Cancelled Her Appearance with Ivanka Trump
In November 2017, U.S. presidential adviser and daughter Ivanka Trump was jetting off to India to launch the Global Entrepreneurship Summit. The event would serve as an example of the world’s grave misunderstanding of her father’s views on women’s rights.
Seriously, Big Daddy Trump believed in women’s rights — as he allowed them to exist. The fault was ours for not understanding his absolute commitment to women’s rights — as he nominated three anti-choice supreme court justices — the last one a month before the 2020 presidential election, overturning Mitch McConnell’s refusal to allow a vote for President Obama’s nominee Merrick Garland, almost a year out from the 2016 election.
Enter Deepika Padukone with a $1.5 million bounty on her head who was supposed to be front and center with presidential daughter Ivanka in India.
Those same Trump-loving, right-winger guys who were burning Hillary posters in the streets of New Delhi before the presidential election, now wanted to kill Deepika Padukone.
For security concerns that Deepika Padukone would be murdered right before Ivanka Trump’s disbelieving eyes, our new Louis Vuitton ambassador with a steel spine and rebellious heart [and good parenting she tells Vogue India] withdrew from the event.
Trump Nationalists and Justice Samuel Alito Love Playing with Fire
This was the narrative, the memories that came back to me this morning, as I woke up in a post-Roe America. I skipped the part about Republican party’s obsession with witches and demons — like the Hindu Trump guys were yelling about Hillary, as they set fire to the presidential candidate’s posters.
Burning witches in the Salem Witch trials in America — at a time when abortion was widely performed in the colonies — is obliquely referenced in the new US Supreme Court opinion striking down Roe. Justice Alito and his crew have a deep love for the good ‘ol days when women were burned at the stake.
These people are out for blood — whether they are the Hindu nationalists, the Taliban or Trump’s MAGA zealots in America.
In 2015, 7634 women died due to dowry harassment. They were doused with kerosene and burned alive. The trend has lessened at bit in 2021, but it remains incredible to know that Indian women are being burned alive.
On a positive note, the practice of widow burning or sati has improved in India. Women were indoctrinated to believe that their destiny lay in committing their lives to their husbands even after death.
You have been warned. ~ Anne
