When fire catches and cookie crumbles
Once we made sure that we had roti, kapda and makaan, we quickly moved on to the next frontier—opinion — only to learn that we can’t have enough of it. With the rise of media and the spread of social media, opinions are more or less institutionalized today. Everybody has it and everybody else flaunts it. Like an insurmountable plague, it’s everywhere. No wonder we pretend to share a surreptitious relationship with it. Not having an opinion on something has become worse than not knowing something.
Welcome to the 21st century.
I consider myself an opinionated person. If I weren’t, I wouldn’t be bothering myself with this blog post. It’s a different story that I am not fond of discussing anything at length. In the back of my head, nothing is sacred. We are flawed and so are our ideas and intentions. Which is why I wait for things to simmer down. Unlike 7–10 years ago, I avoid jumping to conclusions when an event erupts or a controversy breaks. During such times, I wouldn’t dare comment about what I know negligible of. I’d rather retweet those who have a better understanding of the subject.
Which brings us to a dear American friend of mine who asked me what are my thoughts on the Padmaavat (2018) row. Had she done so when the news was fresh, I wouldn’t have parsed. Now that the political dust has settled and the BO collections, registered, I can break down the events into mini-summaries.
1. The uproar was initiated by a fringe Rajput group (Karni Sena) in Rajasthan who disrupted the shooting of the film last year; they manhandled the director and ransacked the set. They did so based on the rumour that the film undermines Rajput legacy. Now, historically speaking, Rajput consider themselves as a brave martial tribe. And Karni Sena was convinced that a Bollywood film will definitely create a love story between Khilji (a ruthless invader) and Padmini (a figure the Rajputs admire for her feisty nature) like Bollywood is known for doing. Remember Jodha Akbar (2008)? That movie coincides with the birth of Karni Sena. The violent group was seething when they saw that the movie showcased a Rajput princess falling in love with her “conqueror”. A misplaced sense of history and admiration.
2. Speaking of which, the line between history and fiction is very thin and cinema is not an ideal place to trace it. Forget Bollywood, which has a pathetic record when it comes to tacking historic subjects, even Hollywood is strewn with movies that are not just historically inaccurate (Dunkirk, Schindler’s List, etc) but almost farcical (Argo, Amistad, etc). For the Rajputs, Padmini existed. For the historians, mostly the left-leaning ones, Padmini is a figure of speech. Why so? Because, according to the historians, there are no written records for Padmini except a poem celebrating her valour nearly 2 centuries after her supposed death. By this yardstick, there are very few things we can consider to be true. History, for the most part, at least in the Indian subcontinent, is either oral or pure legacy. Written history has a very weak flame here. And by this yardstick of authenticity, none of the original manuscripts of Shakespeare’s 20+ plays exist; only their adaptations do. Does that mean Shakespeare is invalid?
3. As is the policy with uproar (offline) and outrage (online), things are charmingly political in nature. In this particular case, the Rajput fringe groups held on to the controversy knowing very well how popular Bollywood is. The Rajputs believe that the Jats and Bishnois — two of the competitive Rajasthani groups — captured public imagination in the recent past and thus became politically viable compared to the Rajputs. So, piggybacking on a ₹215 crore film sounded like a foolproof idea.
4. When the film finally released, some liked it and some hated it and some found the movie to be anti-women as it promoted jauhar. This is where the discourse gets conveniently murky. By any measure, cinema is not exactly the correct medium to gauge the legitimacy of history. But at the same time, it should be encouraged to fiddle with fiction. That’s what art is all about. And in this spirit, it’s incorrect to suggest that Padmaavat promotes jauhar because if it does, then all Tarantino movies promote violence and all Lars von Trier movies promote sexual deviancy. The simple retort to this nonsense being they don’t. A movie is just that — a movie. Nothing more. Nothing less. For the record, sati/jauhar was banned in India more than 150 years ago and there hasn’t been a single incident of it in the 21st century. If anything, Padmaavat highlighted the poetic expression of consuming death instead of a servile life. Something that could remind you of the Bushido code. Or honour as a cinematic concept the registered patent of men alone? If not, do The Last Samurai (2003) and so many Kurosawa movies promote suicide when the heroes perform seppuku? The answer is, again, no.
5. In conclusion, the whole controversy was a wannabe controversy — fueled by varied parties hoping to gain whatever they can. The fringe political groups harvested publicity and held the state to ransom. The respective governments waltzed with these loonies instead of siding with the public whose lives were being disrupted for no reason. The movie gathered publicity too but it came at a big price as it wasn’t released in several places citing law and order issues. The mass media and new media plucked high-hanging TRPs and clicks. This was a modern desi circus reminding us how depraved we are and out of genuine topics we are.
