Actor Swara Bhaskar on Thursday, January 30, shared that her X account has been permanently locked, citing “copyright violations”. According to a post on Swara’s Instagram account, X claims a photo of her child holding an Indian flag and a well-known Hindi slogan on MK Gandhi “violated” copyright laws. Swara had made both posts in honour of Republic Day and Gandhi’s death anniversary, which fall on January 26 and January 30, respectively.
In the screenshots of emails from X shared online by Swara, she has been accused of "unauthorised use of copyrighted images”, “Removal of watermarks or attribution” and “possible misuse of protected content”.
“How can this possibly be a copyright infringement? Who has a copyright on my child's likeness? Both of these complaints are ridiculous and untenable by any rational, logical and objective understanding of any legal definition of copyright,” the actor said on Instagram. “If these tweets have been mass reported they are aimed to harass the user i.e. myself. And are aimed at suppressing my freedom of speech and expression.”
The slogan in question was: “Gandhi Hum sharmindaa hain, tere qaatil zinda hain.” (Gandhi, we are ashamed. Your killers are still alive. ) Swara—an outspoken critique of the Bharatiya Janata Party government—apeared to be referring to its ideological parent, the Rashtriya Swayemsevak Sangh (RSS). Nathuram Godse, who assassinated Gandhi in 1948, was an RSS member.
The other post, X has permanently locked her account for are photographs of her child waving an Indian flag. Swara had also hidden her child’s face with emojis.
In a second Instagram post on January 31, Swara said that her X account seems to have been hacked. Screenshots of more emails from X say that a ‘delegation invite’ from her X account had been accepted. The actor added that the X handle that had accepted this invite was unknown to her and that she is still locked out of her own account.