Akbar was a secular, liberal king who respected all religions. Likewise, Mohenjo-Daro was a city with this very name back in 1500 BC. Also, Padmavati was the “love interest” of a King who was a repentant lover. However, the controversies that successfully delayed the release of Padmavati and ensured massive edits has enforced one thing that the tolerance towards fables being passed on as history is decreasing with every passing day as it rightly should.
Bollywood has been the prime mover of the agenda of the left leaning intelligentsia and has continued passing on concocted version of history as real history (with illegible disclaimers).
Akbar who made a victory mound of 30000 innocent peasants is portrayed as an angel incarnate. The memories of Akbar in the popular memory are that of a six feet tall muscular handsome man which is nowhere close to how Jahangir describes him in his memoirs. Jahangir describes him as close to five feet seven inches tall with neither a very strong built nor a very rotund built. Does Hrithik Roshan fit the bill? The answer is a No.
Cut to the controversy around Padmavati now. The main concerns were regarding the descriptions of all the three principal characters.
The confidence of the people associated with the film can be gauged from the statement of Deepika Padukone who said that no one can stop the release of Padmavati, but the superiority complex of the Bollywood had to bite the dust.
As things stand now – The name of the film has been changed to Padmavat, the trash composed by Malik Mohammed Jayasi. Sanjay Leela Bhansali had written an opera on Padmavat, that too presented Alauddin Khilji as a lost lover which he even showcased in London.
Ever since Padmavati got mired in controversies, Bhansali as well as the crew had been parroting the same line that Deepika and Ranveer who play the role of Padmavati and Alauddin Khilji respectively don’t share even a single frame in the film. The film makers even avoided sending the two together for the promotions of the film.
This was when rumors were abuzz in the market initially that there is a romantic dream sequence between Padmavati and Alauddin in the film. Bhansali reportedly had to change the story as well as the crew, as the voices of dissent gained traction. The initial choice for the role of Rawal Ratan Singh, Fawad Khan was replaced by Shahid Kapoor.
Rajputs led by Karni Sena left no stone unturned and the coming together of several Hindu organizations ensured that Padmavati got banned in several states namely, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh for hurting the sentiments of the Hindus.
This was unprecedented as Hindu sentiments were hardly taken into consideration, when it came to depiction of revered historical figures in movies and other artforms. Hindus were the Guinea pigs on which all experimentation were done in the name of creativity.
This was for the first time that Hindus raised voice for themselves and struck the Bollywood where it is going to hit them the most, i.e. their cash swollen bellies. Hindus have shown that they will not take the misrepresentation of deities and historical figures lying down and now they know how to come together when their threshold is breached. It is this togetherness that people showed in opposing Padmavati must have scared the anti-Hindu Bollywood which is notorious for passing off false narratives completely devoid of any factual backgrounds as History.
Actors with chiseled bodies and manicured beards, muttering forced dialogues, putting up forced performances, walking around on Larger than life Sets and romancing gorgeous female leads have created heroes out of villains who were if anything, fratricidal in nature. Many of them were rapists, most of them marauders, who forced Hindu women into committing suicide rather than falling prey to their lustful designs. Unnecessary glorification of such villains leads to the absolving (even rationalization) of their heinous crimes which are absolutely unpardonable in nature.
Bollywood has been forced to accept its wrongdoings, the Hindus are still unrelenting which they rightly should be. Bhansali and his types have learned a lesson and it must serve as an example for the rest of the lot. We have stopped tolerating falsity.