Hindu pride? Alienating Muslims by portraying Muslim rulers as meat eating, women raping barbar- ians? By wiping out the real his- tory? Perhaps for all of the above. Winning at whatever cost is crucial for BJP. BHANSALI’S KHILJI Frankly I cringed watching the trailer of Bhansali's Padmavati where Khilji is shown as a cruel, meat-eating barbarian: He is darkly clad with a ruthless demeanor in contrast to Shahid Kapoor’s digni- fied, regal looks, though a tad meek, yet tolerant and victimized! To be fair, Alauddin Khilji is a handsome and skillful warrior. His aim is to win, just as any king those days. The fact is that there was no united India in Khilji’s time. All land is game and whoever was skillful and cunning won; either Rajputs or Muslim kings, they were all fighting for their territories and mind you, with the aid and friendship of many Rajputs (who were on the side of the Muslim rulers) or Muslims. In ad- dition a lot of cross religion mar- riages and alliances were taking place resulting in mixed raced pop- ulation. This fact that Rajput kings gave away their women in marriage
Horror stories of Sati where women were drugged, tied and poked and forced down on the pyre with sticks to keep them burning live are well documented facts
is fictional and is the imagination of a poet 240 years after the rule of Alauddin Khilji. Then why is BJP fuelling this fire? To win Gujarat? To polarize Hindus (note that this is about Rajputs and Brahmins. Other Hindus don’t really care about kings as whoever rules from the top, the poor people destiny will remain the same, Hindu or Muslim) and Muslims? Furthering the idea of
A POLITICAL OPPORTUNITY IN THE GUISE OF PADMAVATI BJP, currently reeling under se- vere attack for its failed Demoneti- zation spin, GST, and several corruption charges involving the sons of Amit Shah and Ajit Doval found a life-saving buoy in the movie Padmavati- ripe with Hindu- Muslim power struggle juxtaposed with a solid angle of love Jihad! And the boys in BJP went berserk with it. While BJP leader (an ex-Harvard professor by the way) Swamy said the Pakistani terrorists could be funding the movie, other BJP lead- ers such as Uma Bharati, Sakshi Ma- haraj, Chintamani Malviya, Vipul Goel, Raj Purohit, Arjun Gupta clamored for a stay on its release. The center is keeping calm, slyly aiding and abetting the rage, push- ing the general public a little more, observing and testing grounds. Def- initely this fight is not about histor- ical facts as the story of Padmavati
Hindu right-wing groups protesting the release of Bhansali’s film in Rajasthan
9 www.indiaparentmagazine.org
November 2017
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