Death over dishonour: What the Padmavati furore is about

As citizens of a democracy we should unequivocally oppose banning books, movies, and other cultural and creative works. Banning belongs to despotic societies and insecure regimes. Those who try to use state power to enforce their views on others do not understand either the benefits or responsibilities of democracy. The state should not kow-tow to them, even if electoral losses are involved. Thus, calls to interdict the as yet unreleased Padmavati are misplaced, if not misinformed. As to announcing bounties on actors or directors, such acts are criminal and should attract the relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

Having said this, we must properly understand what the Padmavati controversy is really about. Is it about history, as some people cry? Only partly. Was Padmavati a historical figure? We don’t know for sure. But what is pretty much uncontested is that Alauddin Khilji did lay siege to Chittorgarh and capture it in 1303 after eight months of stubborn endurance by the Guhila Rajput ruler, Ratan Singh. The earliest account of this military feat is Amir Khusrau’s Khaza’in ul-Futuh. Khusrau, one of the founders of Hindavi literature, better known today for his Sufi songs dedicated to Nizamuddin Auliya, was Khilji’s courtier. What is more, he actually accompanied the Sultan on this campaign.

In Khusrau’s account, there is no mention of Padmini, the subject of Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s film, nor of the terrible jauhar, mass immolation, committed by her and the ladies of the fort before it fell into Khilji’s hands. What Khusrau does state is that 30,000 Hindus were “cut down like dry grass” on Khilji’s order. Would Khusrau not have written about Padmini or the jauhar led by her? That is unlikely because he does mention that during Khilji’s earlier conquest of Ranthambore, the ladies of that fort committed mass-immolation rather than fall sexual prey to Khilji’s marauding hordes.

Whence springs the legend of Padmini then? The answer is from Malik Muhammad Jayasi’s Padmavat, an Avadhi epic written by Malik Muhammad Jayasi in the bardic style.  The poem was composed in 1540, over 200 years after the siege of Chittor. Jayasi, moreover, lived in what is today’s Uttar Pradesh, not in Rajasthan. So how could he tell this story? Again, the likely answer is that he combined the legend of Padmini, which was already prevalent and popular, with known literary texts, and added his own imagination to make the story rich and powerful. In Jayasi, Padmini does commit jauhar to repel Khilji. But the whole story, like the Illiad and the Ramayana is really about the conquest of a territory to gain a fabled beauty. Padmini, like Helen of Troy and the abducted Sita of Ayodhya, is the trigger for Khilji’s imperial lust. It would seem that Bhansali’s Padmavati, which most of its supporters and opponents have not yet seen, is based on Jayasi’s fictional rendering. Why then should it bother us so much, threatening to tear apart the social fabric?

The reason is that Padmavati is not about history or Rajput pride or Hindu anxiety or glorification of sati (self-immolation). It is really about solitary and splendid exemplars of resistance. The Muslim conquest of India was as brutal as it was bloody. It also involved temple-breaking, large-scale looting, decimating and enslaving subdued populations, and, yes, predatory sexual violence and captivity. No attempt to whitewash this history or mitigate its trauma will succeed. I say this not to ask for retributive corrections; that would be absurd and unfortunate. The wrongs of history cannot be mitigated by the rights of present politics. History, instead, calls for deep, contextual understanding, combined with corrective self-reflection so that the errors of the past are not perpetuated into the uncertain future.

What it comes to Padmini, the legend is more important than history. Padmini, like Rana Pratap, both associated with Chittor, symbolise resistance to the Muslim conquest of India. Why are such stories important? Because they show that one part of the Hindu psyche remained undefeated, unvanquished. Indeed, throughout the 800 or so period of Muslim rule, there were always pockets of resistance, some like Chittor, Vijaynagar, the Marathas and Sikh empires, quite glorious and successful. What obtained in India is thus quite different from the other territories of Islamic conquest, whether in Arabia, Iran, Africa, and Central or South East Asia. In all these places, there are hardly any accounts of such resistance, let alone of jauhar. Padmini is worshipped to this day because she symbolises that die-hard refusal to submit.

I began by saying that I was against the politics of the ban. But that doesn’t mean that Hindus, if they are offended by the movie, shouldn’t boycott it. Perhaps, that will hurt where it hurts the most. On the other hand, the movie may actually be beautifully evocative of the undying legend of Padmini and of Rajput heroism.

The author is a poet and professor at JNU. Views expressed are personal.