Trolls hound actor Sai Pallavi for comments on Indian Army in old interview; some see Bollywood hand behind campaign

CHENNAI: The trawl-and-troll script is all too familiar, nauseatingly so: Rummage through the infinite depths of the internet, plumb to any depths possible, and find something remotely interesting about a public personality. Then slice, dice and manipulate it to present a different picture. And start trolling him or her – mostly the latter.

The latest to face this is popular actor Sai Pallavi, who is now being targeted as an anti-national for a comment that she made during an interview to a regional channel way back in January 2022.

In the interview, reportedly given ahead of the release of a Telugu film in which she acts as a Naxal, Sai Pallavi was asked about playing the role of a person who uses violence as a tool. She explained how people in Pakistan look at Indian Army as a force that uses terror, while Indians think the same of that army. “So, the perspective changes. I don’t understand violence,” she said.

Nothing controversial, nothing disrespectful. But cut to now, two years and nine months later, some influential rightwing handles took to social media to share a clip of the interview to variously claim that Sai Pallavi called Indian Army terrorists and/or that she equated Indian Army with Pakistan Army, she is anti-national, she is fundamentalist Islamist preacher Zakir Naik’s disciple, etc.

Incidentally, the clips that were circulated was either cropped carefully to capture only the Indian Army – terrorist portion or without subtitles so that most of the non-Telugu speakers would not understand what she is saying.

The dogwhistle worked, and like the well-oiled machine that it is, the hordes landed outside her (social media) door. They amplified it, terming her a ‘Hindu hater’, attacking her for lack of gratitude for the army, demanding action against her, and asking her to go to Pakistan.

And then some of them asked her to be removed from an upcoming film in which she is playing the role of Sita.

That last bit is where this story has taken a twist.

A popular actor with a sizeable following of her own, Sai Pallavi received support from her fans and, evidently, anti-rightwing folks on social media who may not even have seen her films. Many of them posted the longer version and even the full version of the interview to counter the allegations.

And then came another group who alleged that the whole controversy was a PR hit job by a Bollywood actor, who was bitter after not bagging the role of Sita in the film. The whole malicious campaign unleashed against her was part of the scheme to oust her from the role, they claimed.

This is not Sai Pallavi’s first run-in with the rightwing. Earlier, she equated the militants attacking and murdering Kashmiri Pandits to the ‘Gau Rakshak’ vigilantes, which riled many from that camp, leading to protests and police complaints.

In the midst of all this, social media was being social media, where random handles spotted #SaiPallavi trending and started using it for random posts. Some of them posted photos of skimpily clad women with that hashtag, some had posts about Raveena Tandon, and others Disha Patani. All of them trying to catch the wave, even if that is a swirling wave of faeces being flushed down a toilet bowl.

Meanwhile, Sai Pallavi is awaiting the release of her latest Tamil film, Amaran, in which she is playing the role of Indhu Rebecca Varghese, the widow of Major Mukund Varadarajan, who died in combat while battling terrorists in Kashmir in 2014. The film is slated for Deepavali release on October 31.