Cinema is an art. It entertains you, elevates you. But why must it disturb and rankle. Has it touched a raw chord this time?
Ajay Bhardwaj
Why is it that in the name of creative freedom artistes would so often play exclusively with Hindu sentiments? Is it to run down the glorious cultural and historical legacy of the Hindus and to show them in a poor light or is it to play prank on them in the name of art ?
The current controversy raked up by Sanjay Leela Bhansali”s ‘Padmawati’ is not a case in isolation. The International Film Festival of India in Goa had a brush with Sanal Kumar Sasodharan’s S Durga in Malayalam. The movie was initially named as “Sexy Durga”, but after the Censor Board”s objection, it was renamed as “S.Durga”. Though the film has not evoked public protests on the scale of Padmavati, it did cause a commotion among the devouts of Goddess Durga. Must a title of the film blatantly allude to a Hindu deity? It goes without saying the film director would not have dared name his female protagonist on a female deity of any other religion.
Denigrating Deities
Not too long ago, we had a scintillating number in Karan Johar’s flick Student of the Year alluding to Radha saying “Radha likes to dance on the floor, Radha likes to party, Radha likes to move a sexy body”. Unlike Padmavati, It did not cause any violent flutter on the streets. Nor did it evoke any protests, but it did make Lord Krishna’s worshippers squirm in discomfort.
Did naming Radha in the song for a floor dance and the rest, make the younger generation draw more thrill out of the number? Or was it to chastise the quiet Radha worshippers of Vrindavan? Is’nt it a silent assault on the culture?
One cannot doubt that with talented artistes like Alia Bhatt and Varun Dhawan on the screen the song would have still been no less scintillating had the name been Tinky, Pinky, Shinky etc.
One would rather not believe that our film directors are naive. Will it be stretching a bit if you take a pick on a recent film, “Badrinath ki dulhaniya”, as well? It is no gainsaying the fact that Badrinath is one of the four most revered “dhaams” of the Hindus. But to trivialise it in the minds of devotees, and even in the minds of the younger generation, is not a comfortable feeling for sure because it is a matter of faith and belief which may not strictly fall within the realm of logic and reasoning. Is denigrating the Hindu culture an in-thing in Bollywood?
The case of “Padmavati” also falls in the same class. There have been umpteen arguments about Padmavati being a character of fiction, who finds its first ever mention in Mohammad Jayasi’s work, Padmavat, in the 16th century. That Jayasi produced the work almost 200 years after Alauddin’ Khilji’s attack on Chittorgarh has made many believe it to be a work of imagination.
Over the years Chittorgarh has become a symbol of Rajput valour and dignity, a symbol of chivallary and sacrifice that characterised the Rajputs even in the face of the gory bloodbath that the Mughal emperors unleashed. All this was in due course was epitomised in Rajput icons like Maharana Pratap or Rani Padmavati, even as it became a part of collective consciousness.
When one starts believing a thing for years and centuries, the logic of it takes a far too back seat. The symbols of any culture are built over the centuries, and to test them on reasoning every other time is going against the basic grain of human beings as they are.
So it does not matter whether Padmavati really existed or not, in the Rajasthan’s imagination she has come to acquire a space of pride and honour. Any perceived compromise on that count would ruffle the feathers, not
quietly. In the Rajasthan tradition, Padmavati does not dance publicly, nor Khilji beholds her publically. Depicting it on the screen would be hurting the sentiments of the Rajputs.
The fact that uproar over the film has spread wildly even before it is released, is deplorable indeed, but the manner Sanjay Leela Bhansali has been twisting the stories in the past, be it that of Jodha Akbar or Devdaas surely evokes but little confidence among the stakeholders. His proclivity to twist was also demonstrated in his 2013 film, Goliyon Ki Raasleela Ram-leela with a song “Ram chahe leela…..” where his “creative pun” on Ram does fall in the line with the tendency to trample religious sentiments. Yet it does not allow fringe and vigilante groups to run amock and mete out life threats in their war against Padmavati.
Pakistan Hurt?
In this raucous, a phone call threat from Pakistan to Karni Sena leader Mahipal Singh adds another dimension to the raging controversy and gets us around the depiction of Alauddin Khilji as a ferociously morbid character, who verged on debauchery, as testified in the history books.
How will it hurt the sentiments in Pakistan if the film runs into storm due to the ongoing protest by the Karani Sena? One wonders ! Karni Sena’s Rajasthan chief Mahipal Singh Makrana allegedly received a call from a Pakistani number threatening to kill Lokendra Singh Kalvi, the chief of Karni Sena. “The call from Pakistani number threatened to kill Kalvi with a bomb,” said Mahipal. “He asked me to stop the protest against Padmavati and reminded me of the 1993 bomb blasts,” Mahipal claimed.
That Alauddin Khilji subjects Chittorgarh to violent torments for his proclaimed fascination for Padmavati, spells mayhem and reckless massacre to claim Padmavati might be music to some ears. Added to it is subjugation of Chittorgarh king Maharaval Ratan Singh and “Jauhar” of Padmavati in the face of Khilji’s gory bloodbath that he unleashes. Senior BJP leader Subramanian Swamy, however, portrays it as a calculated attempt to present Muslims kings as heroes in movies and Hindu women eager to enter into a relationship with them. He sees an international conspiracy in it, though.
Though Deepika Padukone, who is in a lead role in the film, is appalled at the outrage being expressed against the film and even wondered if we as a nation have regressed, the moot question would be how should popular religious and cultural sentiments of a community be handled by creative fraternity?
Will they trample on popular sentiments the way, ages ago, MF Hussain had done by painting particularly Hindu Goddesses nude while respectfully keeping in mind the Muslim sentiments in drawing pictures of Prophet Mohammad.
Does creativity among artistes find flourishing expressions only by disturbing the Hindu sentiments? Traditionally, it has been a very tolerant civilisation, allowing divergent viewpoints to co-exist. Even while expressing an opposite viewpoint care was taken to build a “samvaad” (dialogue), not to ignite “vaad-vivaad” (arguments and counter-arguments). We have people who believe in Goddesses, also those who don’t, but they hardly cross swords because it is no offence to hold a divergent view. A deliberate attempt to run down a culture or a civilisation in the name of art is certainly reprehensible, if not abominable.
