Padmaavat and the death of ’history’

Large mobs bringing down film posters, vandalizing cinemas and roughing up cinema workers and owners are nothing new in India. Nor are protestors burning effigies of filmmakers and even actors because of “hurt sentiments.” In the year 2008, the film Jodhaa Akbar witnessed unprecedented protests by upper-caste mobs, incensed over the alleged desecration of the memory and legacy of Jodhabai, Emperor Akbar’s Rajput queen. The image of a Muslim emperor making love to a Hindu woman was apparently too abhorrent for these relatively young, presumably unemployed men (and a few women) to view, let alone accept. None of the protestors – in 2008 – had actually seen the film at the time of the protests. Nor have those crying foul over Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s latest film – Padmaavat. In the news since the beginning of the shooting schedule – the sets were attacked in Rajasthan – Padmaavat was initially titled Padmavati and claimed to tell the fictional story of the sacrifice of Rani Padmavati (also known as Padmini) of Chittor, wife of Maharawal Ratan Sen (Singh) in the 13th-14th century. Several mentions of the legend of the courageous queen are found in 16th century documents, the most prominent of them being the epic poem Padmaavat, written by the Persian poet Malik Muhammad Jayasi.

To begin with, let us apprise ourselves with the literary lineage of the work itself. Jayasi – born in Amethi in Uttar Pradesh and schooled in the philosophy of Vedanta and Kabir’s couplets, composed a masnavi (epic poem) which he ended with the words “I have made up the story and related it,” and which narrates the story of Padmavati – the beauteous princess of Singaladweep – who subsequently marries Maharawal Ratan Sen of Rajputana. The masnavi drew heavily on an earlier source – Nayachandra Suri’s Hammira Mahakavya which is based on the gallant defence of the Chittor fort by the 14th century Chauhan king – Hammira Mahadeva against an attack by the Sultan of Delhi Allauddin Khilji. Following several inconclusive skirmishes, Khilji offers to take his daughter’s hand in marriage – a proposal that is anathema to Hammira who does not wish to give away his daughter to an “unclean mlechcha.” The rebuff leads to a final assault in which Hammira dies fighting bravely, even as the womenfolk commit mass-suicide or jauhar by jumping into the fire to safeguard their honour against the marauding invaders. Even though Jayasi drew heavily from Suri’s work, he took inspiration from the political climate in the 16th century when Maharawal Ratan Sen was the king of Chittor, therefore fundamentally altering the story of Hammira Mahadeva. The daughter metamorphosed into Rani Padmavati and a grandiose tale of valour and honour was born. The poet constructed a glorious paean to Rajput bravery by mythologizing the figure of Rani Padmavati as a resplendently beautiful, proud woman who committed suicide in line with the existing practice of jauhar.

Bhansali’s Padmaavat is neither historically accurate, nor does it reasonably conform to Jayasi’s poem. I say this because of the following reasons. First, the narrative seems to be entirely fictional even as the characters are portrayed as part of India’s bloody history. While the poem states that a talking parrot from the palace of Ratan Sen named Hiraman relays the news of the existence of a beauty beyond description in the kingdom of Singaladweep – the princess Padmavati, the film inexplicably alters the narrative to depict a hunter-princess falling in love with an injured Ratan Sen – on a quest to obtain a rare pearl – in Singaladweep. It is, therefore, preposterous to even suggest that the film is based on history;it is rather a hyper-nationalistic, mythologized form of “Hindu” history. Bhansali’s film fails the test of the literary epic and there is nothing in the narrative to suggest any conjunction with history, Hindu or otherwise.

Secondly, the film grossly misrepresents the Sultans of Delhi who belonged to several slave dynasties, beginning from the Mamluk dynasty (1206-90) to the Khaljis (or Khiljis) (1290-1320), the Tughlaq dynasty (1320-1414), the Sayyids (1414-51) and the Lodhi dynasty (1451-1526). The problem with popular perception remains that it reduces everything to uncomplicated half-truths, taking away the complex nature of historical events, facts and periods. Hence, while a historian attempts to explore the intricacies of events of the past, popular cinema, TV shows and the angry mob on the street characterise an age or period as golden or dark, rulers as uniformly weak or strong, liberal and benevolent or cruel and dogmatic. According to historian Harbans Mukhia, Allauddin Khilji’s major feat as a general and a ruler was repelling five out of six Mongol invasions. He is also credited with having built the Hauz Khas to ensure the supply of water in the eventuality of an invasion. The film waxes eloquent on the treachery of the sultan because he murdered his uncle and father-in-law Jalaluddin Khilji to claim the throne. The question to be asked is this – was it unusual to capture the throne by killing the incumbent – anywhere and in any period of history? The unequivocal answer to the question is a resounding No! Rulers assumed the throne by various means possible even if it meant destroying entire clans and dynasties – Emperor Asoka committed mass murder of almost all of his family in order to assume the throne and the title of Samrat. Ziauddin Barani, a historian and a contemporary of Khilji, states that the sultan put an end to a two-tier tax system that had developed throughout the sultanate and subjected everyone to a uniform tax regime. He termed it a practice that “impoverished the Hindus”. Far from it, argues Mukhia, all it did was cut out the middlemen – overwhelmingly Hindu who were making a quick buck at the expense of the poor farmers. Khilji instituted a tight price control system – albeit with a bloody caveat of cutting off flesh from the haunches of the merchant who tried to cheat. Instead, the film depicts Khilji as a raving madman! If, therefore, anyone should be grumbling about the misrepresentation of “history” it should be the historians!!

One of the major flaws of the narrative of Padmaavat is the attribution of sexual depravity, treachery, disloyalty and fratricide solely to Khilji and members of his family. It appears – watching the film – as if these and other murderous qualities are the preserve of the Muslims whereas the Hindu Rajputs are pure, pristine, loyal and virtuous. This binary is shamelessly constructed throughout the film, ending in the mass suicide of “pious” and “pure” Hindu women to escape the clutches of “lustful” and “dirty” Muslim invaders. What is more, the film depicts Khilji as a barbarian (bordering on a cannibal) – he is shown chomping on meat while the “pure” Rajput Ratan Sen consumes “pure” vegetarian food. The narrative smacks of such barefaced distortion of facts, borne out by the automatic imputation of sexual deviance to the Muslim. The Hindu nationalist discourse thrives on the construction of the myth of a “sexually aggressive Muslim male” – a danger to the purity of chaste Hindu women. Padmaavat establishes the myth on screen and unabashedly attempts to further it as a given. Harbans Mukhia has stated - “chasing women was not one of his (Khilji’s) passions”.

The portrayal of two other characters in the film deserves some discussion – Malik Kafur and Amir Khusrau. Kafur – a eunuch – was Khilji’s slave who rose to prominence as a successful general and military commander after having led expeditions which garnered wealth and riches. He has been variously described as a Hindu convert to Islam who was captured as a slave because of his great physical beauty. Little is known about his relationship with Khilji but some accounts describe Kafur as his “lover”. Padmaavat – in a heavily homophobic turn – caricatures Kafur in the most factually incorrect and objectionable manner depicting him as almost a court-jester or court clown who dances and sings for the king. The film’s complete lack of accuracy on the personality of Kafur (and Khilji) – again – is representative of the Islamophobia of the narrative. A doyen of the Hindustani lingua franca and a revered Sufi poet, Amir Khusrau is reduced to a sidekick of the sultan who does his bidding and is a bumbling courtier. Such blatantly ignorant depiction begs the question – did Bhansali get this wrong because his research team was incompetent or is he pandering to the Hindu nationalist gallery, wanting to be on the 'right' side of the caste army running amok in North India because of the film?

Coming to the final point of dissonance in the film – the glorification of mass suicide or jauhar, which is nothing but another name for honour killing. Those who term jauhar as honourable inadvertently support honour killing. This is a fundamentally disturbing portrayal of a gender-biased practice that reflects all that is wrong with our patriarchal, male-dominated societies where the honour of a community or clan is vested in the woman while the man is free to go about committing the most dishonourable acts. Why must a woman carry the burden of honour in any community or clan? Depicting an age-old, fundamentally patriarchal practice as glorious and hence replicable or even correct is pernicious and insidious. Rani Padmavati says to her husband, Ratan Sen, “I can’t even die without your permission.” I find it hard to believe that women (or anyone for that matter) do not consider this revolting and repulsive. In fact, Rajput women in Rajasthan and so on have vowed to commit jauhar if the film is released in their state! Is it so hard to understand that a woman’s honour does not lie between her legs?

All Padmaavat therefore does is further a notion of Hindu goodness and superiority while heavily distorting the source of the story as well as facts of history particularly in its representation of Allauddin Khilji. The appropriation of the “nation” as “Hindu” is not lost on anyone. The anger of the Rajputs over the film is hence absolutely misplaced and appears to be politically motivated with an eye on the consolidation of the Hindu vote for the upcoming general elections. I watched the film in the Netherlands – amongst diasporic Indians and communities of Indian origin. A large majority of the audience emerged teary eyed from the exhibition, having witnessed an act of purported valour and honour. It is utterly troubling and at the same time disgraceful that this grossly problematic piece of propaganda is being passed off as history!!