At the climax of “Anaarkali of Arrah,” the new Bollywood film about a folk artist who specializes in suggestive dances and bawdy songs, the brash heroine calls out a powerful college chancellor for groping her during a performance. “She tells him, ‘Whether she is your wife or a whore or less than a whore, don’t touch a woman without asking,’” says 29-year-old Swara Bhaskar, an established star in the Indian film firmament whose portrayal of the unapologetically sexual Anaarkali has drawn praise from film critics and feminist commentators throughout the country. Featuring a female protagonist and delivering a clear message of female empowerment, “Anaarkali of Arrah” “is among a wave of women-centric films sweeping Bollywood, by some measures the largest film industry in the world.

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