ransacked while shooting a scene for his latest venture Padmavati , hell broke lose in both Hindi film industry and outside of it. This assault, led by a local Hindutva group, was based on the assumption that Bhansali was shooting a romantic dream sequence between the char- acters of Padmavati and the Sultan of Delhi, Alauddin Khalji. The problem to them was that as Padmavati was a “noble and honorable” Rajput queen (she is actually from Sri Lanka, in the poem) who preferred to commit Jauhar than succumbing to Khalji, it would be dishon- oring her sacrifice and courage if such a romantic song, even as a dream, is shot between them. In addition, any romance between them would be, according to the protesting Hindutva group, a “distortion” of history. There are, however, two indisputable facts contradict- ing the above disputable misguided narrative: One, Rani Padmavati is a fictional character, a hero- ine in a poem written in 1540 (See boxed item for her storyon pg 67), a solid 237 years after Alauddin Khalji’s Chittor campaign of 1303. This fiction is a tale of the cel-
or alliance to powerful Muslims in exchange to political freedom and security is a well-known historical fact and that always bothered the current generation of “pride-filled” Rajputs. To a casual observer, it would seem horrific that in this age and day we are fighting to celebrate the pride of a woman who was literally forced to self-immolate to save her honor. Instead of blaming the culture that forces women to do so, we should be condemning it, making sure such cultures are not glorified. Maybe instead we should glorify the ac- tions of Rani Laxmibai instead for three reasons: One, she was REAL, not fictional. Two, she actually fought the British, who was in true terms an outside force, bleeding India. And three, most importantly, as a widow, she did not commit Jauhar, to save her so-called modesty. She FOUGHT as a true hero. Can celebrating Jauhar (a mass Rajput ritual of self- immolation where in several women and children kill themselves to save their virtue from conquerors when defeat in an invasion seem imminent) in 21st century as pride, honor and bravery of women be justified as
Depiction of Jauhar
Hindu culture? As a woman, and as a mother of two, I would definitely say no, definitely not in this 21st cen- tury nor in any bygone era. When director Sanjay Leela Bhansali (of Dil De Chuke Sanam, Devdas, RamLeela, Bhajirao Mastani fame) got slapped, pushed around and his set in Rajasthan
ebration of a Rajput queen’s willingness to die rather than give herself over to a “tyrant (sic),” who coveted her. The fiction, titled Padmavat, was told in a long Awadhi-language poem by the 16th century Sufi poet Malik Muhammad Jayasi. It has as its central characters Padmini or Padmavati the queen of Chittor, her
November 2017 Contʼd on Pg 12: See Padmavati
10 www.indiaparentmagazine.org
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