[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Congress, BJP want the Deepika Padukone-starrer to be banned in Gujarat or its release deferred till elections are over, say distortion of history shouldn’t be allowed

Even as the Congress and BJP engage in a high-pitched diatribe against each other in poll-bound Gujarat, here’s an issue that seems to have united the two political parties – Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s opulent multi-starrer Padmavati.

With doubts being raised on whether the film stays true to the “historical facts” of the siege of Chittor by Alauddin Khilji, the BJP and Congress both fear that any “distortion of history” by the makers of Padmavati might rile the Rajput community of Gujarat and cause a law and order situation. The Deepika Padukone-starrer film is slated for a December 1 release while Gujarat is scheduled to go for a two phase election on December 9 and 14.

The BJP has demanded that the Election Commission must intervene in the issue and either defer the release of Padmavati to a date after the Gujarat polls or ban the release of the film in the state. The Congress on the other hand has said that the film should be banned if it “distorts history”.

The demands by the BJP and the Congress – both parties are eyeing to capture the state’s substantial Kshatriya/Rajput vote which holds the key to winning around two dozen of the state’s 182 assembly seats – comes days after former chief minister Shankersinh Vaghela (a Kshatriya leader) threatened “violent protests” across the state if the film was released in Gujarat without being pre-screened for Hindu, and specifically Kshatriya, community leaders and being approved by them. Vaghela, who had quit the BJP over two decades ago to join the Congress but quit the grand-old party earlier this year, has announced a ‘third front’ to take challenge the Congress and the BJP in the largely bi-polar state.

Gujarat is a prestige battle for the BJP which has ruled the state for the past 22 years. It is also the home state of www.apnlive.com/topic/narendra-modiand the party’s national president Amit Shah. With Modi no longer the chief minister of Gujarat and the incumbent Vijay Rupani government facing an uphill electoral battle due to anti-incumbency and agitated Patel, Dalit, Adivasi and Minority communities, the Congress is hoping to finally end its exile from power in the state. In such a situation, every seat and every endorsement by members of different castes who comprise the Gujarat electorate counts.

While on the face of it, the BJP and Congress’ opposition to Padmavati may seem trivial, but in its backdrop lies a greater political battle for the two political parties.

Expectedly then, the state BJP’s spokesperson IK Jadeja said that his party “would prefer that Padmavati is either banned or its release.” A Kshatriya leader himself, Jadeja said: “We have received representations from Khastriya, Rajput communities opposing any purported distortion of history and character of Rani Padmavati in the movie.”

Senior Congress leader and also a chief ministerial hopeful, Shaktisinh Gohil echoed views that were strikingly similar to his political rival though he did seek to put the BJP in a spot too. “With elections round the corner, a minister from the BJP has written to the Election Commission seeking a ban on ‘Padmavati’ till the elections are over. It is your (BJP) government, write to the PM (sic),” Gohil said. The Congress leader added: “Postponing the release of the movie will not assuage the feelings of a community. We demand that if there has been distortion of history as some people have claimed, the movie should not be released at all.”

What is hilarious, though also disturbing, about the controversy over Padmavati is the fact that the “historical accuracy” that opponents of the film have been talking about is itself highly suspect. Several noted historians have rubbished the claims put forth by a section of self-anointed Rajput and Hindu scholars with regard to the siege of Chittor and the characters of Rani Padmavati (depicted in the film by Deepika Padukone) and Raja Rattan Singh (portrayed by Shahid Kapoor).

The character of Rani Padmavati was a creation of the 16^th Century Sufi poet Malik Muhammad Jayasi who is known for his epic poem Padmavat. Written around 1540 AD, Padmavat introduced the character of Rani Padmavati to history. The legend that Alauddin Khilji got smitten by the beauty of the brave and immensely beautiful queen Padmavati and laid siege on Chittor to capture her was Jayasi’s creation – it was written over 200 years after Khilji’s actual conquest of Chittor in Rajasthan. In the years after 1540, the legend was strengthened by Hindu and Kshatriya scholars to establish Rani Padmavati as a ‘real historical character’ though her existence doesn’t really find any mention in the texts of the time when Chittor was actually conquered by Khilji.

Yet, the theatrical revival of the legend of Padmavati has caused a flutter in India today, leaving radical Hindu and Kshatriya groups riled. While Bhansali himself was attacked by goons of the Hindu right-wing outfit Karni Sena in January this year during the making of the film, in October members of the same fringe outfit destroyed a Surat-based local artist’s painstaking 48-hour-long effort at creating a ‘rangoli’ depicting Deepika Padukone as Padmavati.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]