Katrina Kaif receives the Smita Patil Memorial Award!

Union Minister Nitin Gadkari honoured Katrina Kaif with the award.

Katrina Kaif has been facing a lot of negative criticism online, after news broke of the actress winning the Smita PatilMemorial award for her contribution to the Bollywood film industry. Critics strongly opposed this win, saying that there were many other actresses who were 'more deserving' of the award. Netizen feel 'Nil Battey Sannata' actressSwara Bhaskar and 'Parched' star Radhika Apte fit the bill for the award. However, in a column, Swara hit back at haters and lauded Katrina's win, and even went on to say that 'if Katrina is as successful as she is today, then she worked damn hard for it'.

In her column, Swara writes, "Whether or not Katrina Kaif is a good actor notwithstanding, there is no denying that she is a hugely hard-working, disciplined and diligent person. It reflects in her work. And any artist of any field will tell you that hard work is something to be respected."
She adds further that the Indian audience's fascination towards 'fair-skinned beauties', cannot be held against the actress, as her films with superstars prove to perform well at the box office. She says, "If Katrina Kaif captured our collective imagination the way Aishwarya Rai had done a generation earlier, that's not her fault, like it was not Ms. Rai's back then. If Indians are captured by a certain kind of fair-skinned beauty and Indian audiences apparently do not need their heroines to act or speak the language that they purportedly act in, that's not the actor's fault or problem."
Swara even went on to question if Katrina was at the receiving end, only because she is an 'easy target'. She writes, "Is Katrina Kaif an easy target because she is a beautiful, hugely successful woman, who speaks with an accent, reeks of elitism and snobbery (though many who know her swear that she is by personality type intensely private, as a person), seems impermeable and most importantly, just does not quit?"On the work front, Katrina will be seen next in 'Tiger Zinda Hai' opposite Salman Khan. Rumours buzzing around town also state that she has bagged the leading lady's role opposite Shah Rukh Khan in Anand L. Rai's next.