PADMAVATI ROW: A RENAISSANCE IN MAKING
R. N. Misra
Defeated people don’t write their history (or not capable of writing) at least during the period of subjugation. The victors normally steal the show and manipulate history the way they like. If they are a bit true, they mention a few facts of the vanquished but avoid many others just to please the rulers. This is the normal course of history. For decades or centuries, the defeated communities or nations don’t find a reasonable place or occasion to vent their voices, sensibilities and acts of heroism shown in defending their honour and dignity. And if some sporadic attempts are made to narrate them, nobody takes them at face value or cares to understand what they are writing about. During the course of a long gap of centuries, the history of the vanquished is forgotten or defused to the extent that even the existence of the fact is questioned. The unwritten history then assumes the shape of folklore, oral stories and ballads because that is what the defeated people can do. This has what exactly happened to the historical image of Padmini/Padmavati - the queen of Mewar.
The theory of history has some limitations. It needs to justify the fact, event or happening through evidence, written material or archaeological surveys and findings. And if these are not available, the historians ignore it or at the end, term it as fictitious. But why the half-truth is included and finds a historical interpretation? Historians who fail to mention elaborate and truthful accounts create doubt in their own integrity. If they do not mention any such account or narration owing to the fear of rulers, it does not mean that the event did not happen. Amir Khusrau, during Khalji Sultanate, was the royal historian with a purpose. Alongside his poetic genius, he had an insight and a sharp imaginative mind. In his writings of history compiled as Khaza’in-ul-Futuh, he had not gone beyond what Alauddin Khalji wanted him to write and he never displeased the ruler. Khusrau lacked the deep acumen and neutrality of a ‘war correspondent’, though he had accompanied Khalji and his deputies in several expeditions in north and south of India. When the highest form of sacrifice – Jauhar – took place in Chittor, why did Khusrau fail to mention the names of the leading ladies who had organised it? Jauhar was not an ordinary happening and those who had organised it were the queens having developed larger than-life-image in the minds of the people and known to everybody by their names. Even the charred or unburnt bodies and royal ornaments would have revealed some strong stories. But Amir Khusrau, who had accompanied Khalji in the battlefield, avoided going into the details, as he did in many other battles, cutting short facts, happenings and events that took place during his time, including the details of the Mongols’ attacks from the north-west of India. This makes Khusrau a controversial reporter, rather half historian and half poet. Unfortunately, contemporary historians like Ziauddin Barani and Isami also ignored to give any reference to Padmani. However, 16th Century historians Firista and Haji-ud-Dabir were among the earlier writers who mentioned Padmini as a historical figure but their accounts differ with each other and with that of their contemporary, the poet Jayasi (1540 CE). All the later historians taking the clue from folklores and ballads accepted Padmini/Padmavati as a historical figure but by the time they followed history, it had already taken the shape of a legend.
The time-gap in history is a dangerous precedence. The writing of history is a continuous process as every time or age has something real and factual to tell which provides the solid evidence to form history. Unfortunately, nothing was done in case of Padmavati and her sacrificing life for two odd centuries to come after the battle of Chittor (1303 CE). We were left to believe folklore, local stories and bardic material to form the image of the great queen Padmavati who sacrificed her life to save the honour of womanhood as supposed by the Hindu women in general and the Rajput women in particular during that time. One wonders how the gap of more than two centuries was created by not mentioning the existence of Padmavati. It may be a hidden policy matter or a historical conspiracy nurtured during the rules of Muslim invaders from khalji Sultanate to Sher Shah Suri reign (1290-1545 CE) or beyond. The legend attached to the name of Padmavati may be sorted out by the people of that community to establish a realistic image of the queen taking the sensitivity of the matter into account. When history gets mixed with the fiction, we have to work out on the basis of the collective consciousness of the people. History has to be written or reshaped and gaps have to be filled if facts were distorted and defused at the time of actual events.
Malik Mohammad Jayasi (1540), like Amir Khusrau, was a poet but more imaginative and fanciful in his approach to writings. History provided him just a plot or the story and he took all sorts of poetic liberty, almost bringing Padmini into a form of the fictional epic poem known as ‘Padmavat’, and the queen of Chittor could never get out of that fantasy even after several centuries that lapsed after her death. Jayasi created the mess of history in his own way or perhaps the way his past and present rulers would have liked it. He was a frequent visitor to Rajasthan and collected bardic material to serve his purpose. His flight of imagination made his character of Padmini unrealistic. It was neither Rajasthani in spirit nor queen-like in majesty. Padmini was reduced to a phantom of delight for those who loved poetry of a sensuous nature. She was the material of a love-story but depicted in a different form, more accurately a lust-story to be enjoyed by the commoners written in their own language. This lustful imagery of the poet became so popular among the Mughals that at least 20 odd renderings of the text of Jayasi’s Padmavat found its place in Persian and Urdu languages. It was much later and perhaps with some changes in original usage of words and construction, that Ramchandra Shukla, a great Hindi critic, writer and historian, found it and established it as the masterpiece – Mahakavya – or a great epic poem of Hindi/Awadhi language in later half of the 20th Century and Padmavat got a respectable place in the literary world of India. In the epic, Jayasi described types of women the same way as Vatsayan depicted them in Kamasutra and Jayasi’s physical observation and presentation of women is no less artistic and fanciful than that of the sculptures of Khajuraho. Jayasi’s imagination enjoys poetic liberty as a closed set of vectors, but is no less objectionable than Leela Bhansali’s open visual material. Jayasi has imagined lustful scenes in Padmavat, exhibiting Padmini’s boob like well-shaped oranges and nipples over them like the proverbial worm (Bhanwar/Madhukar) sucking the Juice. Jayasi is supposed to have unlocked the master bed-room imagery quietly in the mid-night like an uncensored scene of a Bollywood movie. What type of Padmini was being imagined by Jayasi? Was that the face of Padmini that launched Jauhar along with thousands of her female companions? Nothing worst and lustful imagination, as it was, could be depicted of a honourable Chittor queen whom the whole of Rajasthan revered like a goddess. Leela Bhansali, on the other hand, imagined Padmavati as a dancing lady who turned and twisted her waving waist on the tune of the director. Padmavati never danced like this and imagining her dancing girl was even more derogatory than what Jayasi made her a dream girl.
James Tod (1829-32) has his own narration of the history of Chittor. Unlike Amir Khusrau, who accepted the line of the Muslim invader – Alauddin Khalji, Tod tried to reshape the history and renamed the rulers of Chittor during the first decade of 14th Century. But one thing seemed to have evolved as a common thread that Rani Padmini existed and the battle between the armies of Alauddin Khalji and king of Chittor was fought owing to the legendary beauty – Padmavati. James Tod, an imperialist historian, believed that he could make or unmake history of Rajasthan in his ‘Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan’. Neither the Muslim invaders nor the British imperialists gave the true account of history during the period of Rani Padmavati. However, Tod was much realistic as far the sources of history were concerned and he had made the use of manuscripts, inscriptions, persons, and the material which he could get from the local bardic legends, songs and folklore. A conclusion can emphatically be drawn that Padmavati existed and she was not a fictitious character as many of the pro-British and pro-Muslim historians of our time believed including Prof. Irfan Habib. Historical references are now available that the army of Khalji had marched to attack the Chittor Fort on Monday, 28 January 1303 CE and after strategically surrounding the fort a fierce fighting took place which intermittently lasted for eight months and on Monday, 26 August 1303 CE Chittor surrendered in an open final war. Just the same time all the females inside the fort along with the queen Padmini, who organised them in a group, launched the final battle to die - Jauhar - so that they might not be caught by the Muslim invaders and could save their honour and dignity.
We can base the story of Padmavati primarily on the above analytical facts by accepting her existence as a queen of Chittor and showing her valour and determination to sacrifice her life for protecting the honour of Rajput women in the final attempt to embrace Jauhar. Such an elevated soul must be shown in a dignified way by those who write a report of events, compose an epic (poem) and produce or direct a feature film. Padmavati’s persona stands for heroism, piety and sacredness. She is no less than a goddess to a Rajput and the people of Rajasthan would never compromise with her dignity if it is ignored, disgraced and debased. Amir Khusrau, Jayasi and Bhansali are on the same line of distorting, defusing and deforming history in the name of a historian, a poet and a film maker respectively.
The row over Padmavati is not a simple affair. It has developed into a movement. It is a process of renaissance to establish true historical values in the society, art and culture of which Bhansali may also be a part of a creative filmmaker. He must rise above commercial considerations and subdue exhibitionism through the choreographic presentation in the film which he is fond of. Other sensuous scenes hurting the sentiments may be avoided. He must stoop to conquer the hearts of the people. Audacity in art does not pay. Art for art sake is meant for museums and archives to store. What the society needs is the art of a living phenomenon which generates vitality and force to enrich itself vis-à-vis the society. It is for Bhansali to choose. It is easy for a director to make Deepika dance but tremendously difficult and historically out of tune to make Padmavati dance. Jauhar and dance don’t go together. Our revered Sita, Savitri and Draupadi have never been shown dancing in the films. These characters don’t demand such a story and so is the case with Padmavati. Bhansali’s Padmavati is full of fantacy and fraught with severe ills. It hurts the collective sensitivity of the community, society and nation. We are shaping a renaissance where old values have to give space for the new to establish. It requires greater understanding and new interpretation of history. We have had enough of Jodha-Akbars; enough of degradation of our Gods; enough of distortion of history. Artistic creativity does not mean to make fun of our accepted values. There is a limit to such liberty.
The other day an eminent and experienced judge had opined that freedom of expression is a ‘negative’ right. It can be interpreted in different ways. We can use our freedom of expression by establishing the truth which may hurt somebody. But our constitution does not allow hurting anybody. This is a negative right. Ravan had this negative right of expression against Ram and this led to conflict. So the right of expression is not absolute. One cannot hurt the collective sensibilities of the people, be it a small or bigger group. Our fundamental rights are bounded by a reasonable limit. The Padmavati row is a fight between the collective sensitivity vs individual liberty of expression. But you cannot establish truth without hurting somebody. Padmavati row is an expression of collective consciousness of the people. It is a precursor of a renaissance being brought about in India today. It is a long drawn battle to be fought nationally and internationally to establish truth and create new awakening among the people to protect honour and self-respect.
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