<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Cultural assault</b> (Pioneer)
Lookback: Udayan Namboodiri
Jodhaa Akbar is not a historical film, yet its makers are unapologetic about reopening old wounds by claiming it happened.<b> Mischief, not love, is its central theme and it's time the Government did something about this odious trend</b>
Setting off a pre-launch riot is a wearisomely familiar ploy deployed by Bollywood moghuls to ensure front-page space for products that would normally make only the Friday film column. It's as if nothing enhances a film's box office prospects more than a bus burnt or smashed furniture in a Legislative Assembly or, best of all, a bleeding boy in Baroda.
<b>Jodhaa Akbar belongs to this perverse genre. </b>The director must have known early enough that people from the martial castes of Rajasthan have issues with the hoary tradition of Akbar's "marriage alliances" with some 16th century Rajput potentates. Since conforming to facts is sacrilege in Bollywood, <b>all that Gowarikar needed to do was use his artistic licence to flesh out the storyline with the Rajput perspective which, undoubtedly, would have set the cash registers ringing in the core market. </b>And, if that was too much for his abilities, all that he could have done is introduce the words "the following film has no relation with historical facts".
<b>Instead, the maker of Lagaan went gung-ho with crudity.</b> The film's official web site, www.jodhaaakbar.com, has this to say about the storyline:
"Set in the 16th century, this epic romance begins as a marriage of alliance (sic) between two cultures and religions, for political gain, when King Bharmal of Amer giving his daughter's hand to Emperor Akbar. When Akbar accepts the marriage proposal, little does he know that in his efforts to strengthen his relations with the Rajputs, he would in turn be embarking on a new journey -- the journey of true love. From the battlefield where the young Jalaluddin was crowned, through the conquests that won him the title of Akbar the Great, to winning the love of the beautiful Jodhaa, Jodhaa Akbar traces the impressive graph of the mighty emperor and his romance with a defiant princess."
In this Saturday Special focus, BB Kumar (main article) and Anand Sharma (The Other Voice) have comprehensively eliminated the fiction about "Jodhabai" from whatever transpired in the sensuous corridors of Akbar's zenana in Fatehpur Sikri, which in the heyday of Mughal imperialism, was home to some 5,000 inmates. This is no 'saffronisation' -- even self-styled 'eminent' historians like Shireen Moosvi have gone on record with their disapproval with the culture of parodying history. <b>Everybody who is semi-educated in Indian history has the right to feel a little disgusted by a Bollywood entertainer's sleight of hand for the truth.</b>
<b>Before long, the murmurs of protest already expressed in the Rajput community would spill over into the streets of Rajasthan's cities.</b> There would be lathi-charges, cracked skulls and, who knows, even a martyr or two.<b> Nothing, it would seem, would gladden Gowarikar more.
</b>
Apologists -- and there would be many before February is out -- would claim that much is sought to be made out of a little "oversight". There was no Jodhaa -- so what? Who can deny there was a marital alliance? Fine, but why make the admission after the damage caused by the original sin has caused so much trouble? Was it too much to expect Gowarikar to insert a qualification about Jodhaa Akbar's historical veracity? After all, KA Abbas had done as much in Mughal-e-Azam because contemporary historians had objected to the depiction of Anarkali as a historical figure.
<b>It is strange that accumulated experience has not taught our Governments the necessity of protecting history as sacred. </b>In the United States, nobody can make a film on any war fought by America without clearance from a department in the Pentagon whose sole job is to evaluate scripts. <b>Even the Government of India has such a rule, but it pertains only to foreign filmmakers.</b> The Censor Board should evolve a mechanism by which anticipated points of controversy are at least debated by the right people prior to certification. In Jodhaa Akbar's case, all that was necessary was to summon Gowarikar before a grand jury comprising Rajput community elders, the Rajasthan Government and historians, and ensuring that a minor adjustment or two is inserted. The scissors should be used only as a last resort.
<b>The problem with India these days is its hyperbolic media. Generation of controversy is the summum bonum of self-preservation in this business. </b>Suggestions of reining in artistic licence for maintaining public order are enough to send one shrill media madam into a rage over "cultural policing" and her competitor ranting blue murder over "Hindutva". In Jodhaa Akbar's case, watch out for more of the latter in the coming weeks. Secularist bombast is, after all, the leitmotif in media slogans raised to protect a MF Husain today, a James Laine tomorrow.
In 1990, one of the first acts of P Upendra, the Information Minister of the VP Singh Government, was to cancel the permission given by the Rajiv Gandhi Government to Roland Joffe to shoot City of Joy based on Dominique Lapierre's novel by the same name. The reason? Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, his counterpart in Calcutta, had decided that the book was racist; it degraded Calcutta which, contrary to the book, was such a 'socialist haven' and, generally, showed Indians in poor light.
The movie, made later after the right deals were struck, slipped into oblivion. But the need to recall that episode is important today. <b>For, today's battleground for the descendants of Rana Pratap is the television studio. And they could use this bit of history as a useful incendiary to hurl back at the Liberals.</b>
<i>-- The writer is Senior Editor, The Pioneer</i><!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Lookback: Udayan Namboodiri
Jodhaa Akbar is not a historical film, yet its makers are unapologetic about reopening old wounds by claiming it happened.<b> Mischief, not love, is its central theme and it's time the Government did something about this odious trend</b>
Setting off a pre-launch riot is a wearisomely familiar ploy deployed by Bollywood moghuls to ensure front-page space for products that would normally make only the Friday film column. It's as if nothing enhances a film's box office prospects more than a bus burnt or smashed furniture in a Legislative Assembly or, best of all, a bleeding boy in Baroda.
<b>Jodhaa Akbar belongs to this perverse genre. </b>The director must have known early enough that people from the martial castes of Rajasthan have issues with the hoary tradition of Akbar's "marriage alliances" with some 16th century Rajput potentates. Since conforming to facts is sacrilege in Bollywood, <b>all that Gowarikar needed to do was use his artistic licence to flesh out the storyline with the Rajput perspective which, undoubtedly, would have set the cash registers ringing in the core market. </b>And, if that was too much for his abilities, all that he could have done is introduce the words "the following film has no relation with historical facts".
<b>Instead, the maker of Lagaan went gung-ho with crudity.</b> The film's official web site, www.jodhaaakbar.com, has this to say about the storyline:
"Set in the 16th century, this epic romance begins as a marriage of alliance (sic) between two cultures and religions, for political gain, when King Bharmal of Amer giving his daughter's hand to Emperor Akbar. When Akbar accepts the marriage proposal, little does he know that in his efforts to strengthen his relations with the Rajputs, he would in turn be embarking on a new journey -- the journey of true love. From the battlefield where the young Jalaluddin was crowned, through the conquests that won him the title of Akbar the Great, to winning the love of the beautiful Jodhaa, Jodhaa Akbar traces the impressive graph of the mighty emperor and his romance with a defiant princess."
In this Saturday Special focus, BB Kumar (main article) and Anand Sharma (The Other Voice) have comprehensively eliminated the fiction about "Jodhabai" from whatever transpired in the sensuous corridors of Akbar's zenana in Fatehpur Sikri, which in the heyday of Mughal imperialism, was home to some 5,000 inmates. This is no 'saffronisation' -- even self-styled 'eminent' historians like Shireen Moosvi have gone on record with their disapproval with the culture of parodying history. <b>Everybody who is semi-educated in Indian history has the right to feel a little disgusted by a Bollywood entertainer's sleight of hand for the truth.</b>
<b>Before long, the murmurs of protest already expressed in the Rajput community would spill over into the streets of Rajasthan's cities.</b> There would be lathi-charges, cracked skulls and, who knows, even a martyr or two.<b> Nothing, it would seem, would gladden Gowarikar more.
</b>
Apologists -- and there would be many before February is out -- would claim that much is sought to be made out of a little "oversight". There was no Jodhaa -- so what? Who can deny there was a marital alliance? Fine, but why make the admission after the damage caused by the original sin has caused so much trouble? Was it too much to expect Gowarikar to insert a qualification about Jodhaa Akbar's historical veracity? After all, KA Abbas had done as much in Mughal-e-Azam because contemporary historians had objected to the depiction of Anarkali as a historical figure.
<b>It is strange that accumulated experience has not taught our Governments the necessity of protecting history as sacred. </b>In the United States, nobody can make a film on any war fought by America without clearance from a department in the Pentagon whose sole job is to evaluate scripts. <b>Even the Government of India has such a rule, but it pertains only to foreign filmmakers.</b> The Censor Board should evolve a mechanism by which anticipated points of controversy are at least debated by the right people prior to certification. In Jodhaa Akbar's case, all that was necessary was to summon Gowarikar before a grand jury comprising Rajput community elders, the Rajasthan Government and historians, and ensuring that a minor adjustment or two is inserted. The scissors should be used only as a last resort.
<b>The problem with India these days is its hyperbolic media. Generation of controversy is the summum bonum of self-preservation in this business. </b>Suggestions of reining in artistic licence for maintaining public order are enough to send one shrill media madam into a rage over "cultural policing" and her competitor ranting blue murder over "Hindutva". In Jodhaa Akbar's case, watch out for more of the latter in the coming weeks. Secularist bombast is, after all, the leitmotif in media slogans raised to protect a MF Husain today, a James Laine tomorrow.
In 1990, one of the first acts of P Upendra, the Information Minister of the VP Singh Government, was to cancel the permission given by the Rajiv Gandhi Government to Roland Joffe to shoot City of Joy based on Dominique Lapierre's novel by the same name. The reason? Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, his counterpart in Calcutta, had decided that the book was racist; it degraded Calcutta which, contrary to the book, was such a 'socialist haven' and, generally, showed Indians in poor light.
The movie, made later after the right deals were struck, slipped into oblivion. But the need to recall that episode is important today. <b>For, today's battleground for the descendants of Rana Pratap is the television studio. And they could use this bit of history as a useful incendiary to hurl back at the Liberals.</b>
<i>-- The writer is Senior Editor, The Pioneer</i><!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->