When Taapsee Pannu was recently asked to choose between Rahul Gandhi and Narendra Modi, she pointed at the current Prime Minister’s photo and cheekily remarked that she still wants to live in this country. In an industry that has mastered the art of nervous neutrality and sickly sycophancy, we are left with such tiny gestures of rebellion to sniff at, to feel a bit giddy about.
The clip surfaced while Pannu was promoting her latest film, Anubhav Sinha’s Assi, a courtroom drama on the worryingly rising cases of rape and sexual assault incidents in India.
The film, also starring Mohd Zeeshan Ayyub and Kani Kusruti, deals with gender violence through a feminist lens and by default that has riled up the particular demographic that includes angry internet incels and misguided right-wing men who firmly believe more women lie about assault than are actually assaulted.
Going Against the Saffron Grain
This interview snippet of Pannu has landed at a time when Bollywood’s most powerful stars routinely line up for photo-ops with the establishment; from clicking “relatable” selfies with the Prime Minister and attending Ram Mandir inauguration in Ayodhya to attending the RSS’ centenary celebrations like these aren’t the very same institutes riling up the masses to rebel against freedom of speech and existence in our nation.
So, at a time when the rest of the Bollywood brigade is happy to line up and participate in a political theatre of chaos and division for the sake of good optics, Pannu’s one-line cheeky dig is enough to enrage the saffron stans.
But this is not the first time she has actually said something that would have that effect.
In 2019, when asked what she would say to PM Narendra Modi if she met him, Pannu replied that she would speak about mob lynchings and how definitions of nationalism and being human has been “shaken.”
Mob violence has left people dead but everytime it shows up in the headlines, it is treated as a fringe issue. But Pannu’s statement framed the issue as a leadership responsibility rather than a fringe problem.
She has also spoken about why actors hesitate to comment on politics. “Actors are believed to have low IQ…especially if it is a woman,” she said in an interview. In the same interview, Pannu had also pointed out how public figures like actors are held to dubious standards whether they express their political opinions or not. Stay silent and you are accused of cowardice. Speak and you are told to stay in your lane, which is never a good reason to remain mum or cosy up with oppressors especially if you are an artist, more so if you are afforded a platform for it.
Pannu's 'Pink' Politics
Unlike most of her peers, Pannu, thankfully does not pretend that art exists in a vacuum. She has repeatedly pushed back against the idea that films are apolitical entertainment. Her career choices make that stance harder to dismiss as branding.
Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury’s Pink (2016) confronted the nuances of consent at a time when “no means no” was still debated as if it were a philosophical riddle. Anubhav Sinha’s Thappad (2020) insisted that a single slap is not a trivial issue to be buried within the dark confines of an oppressive marriage.
Another Sinha-Pannu artistic collaboration, Mulk (2018) dealt with the suspicion cast on Indian Muslims. These films were entrenched in political commentary and shaped public discourse around their release.
An actor choosing to speak about mob lynchings, or to centre consent in a courtroom drama, or to mock the expectation of blind allegiance, is making a political choice. It may be calibrated but it is still a daring choice.
When even film communities try to police what its artists can or cannot say about wars or authoritarian government policies, they justify it in the name of neutrality. Wim Wenders and the Berlinale establishment have been criticised for their recent remarks about Palestine not being an issue to be discussed at film festivals. The fantasy they peddle that art is apolitical can float separate from power structures is comforting for institutions. It is less convincing for artists whose bodies and identities are read politically on sight.
Pannu has never branded herself as an activist. Her politics appears mostly through her art or in flashes, sometimes with an impertinent joke, sometimes with a pointed comment on mob violence or a simple tweet that needles industry hypocrisy.
In the aftermath of Sushant Singh Rajput’s death, Kangana Ranaut positioned herself as the lone warrior battling for justice against the nefarious “movie mafia”. Ranaut also lashed out at Pannu and Swara Bhasker, calling them “B grade” and “chaaploos outsiders” who only have a career thanks to nepotism and her single-handedly reinventing the parallel cinema movement in Bollywood. Pannu responded with her signature sarcasm, questioning whether her career existed because of nepotism or Ranaut’s personal heroics. She later clarified that she would not exploit someone’s death to settle personal scores, distancing herself from this manufactured feud.
Celebs vs Artists: The Indian Ethos
Of course, Pannu has acknowledged that star kids benefit from networks outsiders do not have. She has also said that these networks function like any other professional circle. This argument of hers may not be quite as critical of the structural imbalances within Bollywood but as an outsider these are not for Pannu to be held accountable for anyway. What remains consistent with Pannu is that she still speaks on what plagues the industry (and the nation) as someone who started working in Indian films without a family legacy cushioning her fall.
She also acknowledges the dirty politics of it all. Bollywood’s hierarchy is, in no small part, maintained through access journalism, planted stories, and strategic leaks. Naming that ecosystem risks alienating the very people who control casting and coverage. But she has done it.
There is a reason why so many Indian stars prefer staged solidarity with power to open disagreements like we often witness in the West. From tax concessions to open boycott calls, a stray comment from them can spiral into a television debate where anchors shout about “anti-nationalism” like they are announcing the freshest fish in the wet market. Silence is safe and smiling in compliance is safer.
Pannu has had hits and flops. She has carried films and disappeared in others. Her career is not insulated by superstardom. That makes her willingness to needle authority more interesting. Her currency is credibility among a certain urban audience that values sharpness over spectacle. She does not have the box office leverage of the Khans, who have also had to pay the price for polite dissent.
In a culture where actors are expected to pledge loyalty and kowtow or stay out of the limelight altogether, even taking the middle ground can feel subversive. So, it would be naive to paint Pannu as a revolutionary. She attends industry events. She promotes her films within the same commercial circuits as everyone else. She calculates like any working actor in a precarious market. But within all that Pannu has somehow managed to leave room for friction. In doing that she has time and again behaved like an ordinary concerned citizen, who has not yet forgotten her critical thinking ability. And that is something.
(The author is an independent film, TV and pop culture journalist who has been feeding into the great sucking maw of the internet since 2010. This is an opinion piece. The views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)