Ever since Panipat has released in the theatres, Ashutosh Gowariker is once again in the news, but this time for the wrong reasons. The director is now being criticized for wrongly portraying the Jat ruler Maharaja Suraj Mal, showing him as a corpulent, opportunist buffoon, who is extremely greedy as well. The Jats of both Rajasthan and Haryana are demanding a ban on the same in the respective states.
For those unaware, Maharaja Suraj Mal was an influential Jat ruler, who had a significant influence in north-central India. One of the few rulers to support the Marathas, he was the only ruler who knew how to counter the war tactics of the Rohillas and the Awadhis well. He offered a practical solution to the Marathas against their war with Ahmad Shah Abdali. However, he was turned down by the commander of the Maratha forces, Sadashiv Rao Bhau.
However, the way Ashutosh Gowariker portrayed Maharaja Suraj Mal in the Panipat movie was simply offensive, to say the least. As such, even Bollywood actor Randeep Hooda expressed his displeasure over the way Maharaja Suraj Mal was portrayed.
To quote him, “To glorify one community, one doesn’t need to show others down.. it mostly has an adverse effect… hoping for a more mature understanding in the future. To the offended – it’s just a movie; don’t attach your ancestors’ legacy to a piece of pure entertainment #MaharajaSurajmal”
To glorify one community, one doesn’t need to show others down.. it mostly has an adverse effect .. hoping for a more mature understanding in the future. To the offended – it’s just a movie, don’t attach your ancestors’ legacy to a piece of pure entertainment #MaharajaSurajmal
— Randeep Hooda (@RandeepHooda) December 9, 2019
The message was clear, it is not necessary to insult one community to praise another. Unfortunately, this is something not many of our filmmakers understand. In order to praise the minorities, they often bash the majority community, i.e. the Hindus, and often on absurd grounds to be precise. However, this is not the first time when Randeep Hooda took such people to the cleaners.
When the controversial placard campaign by Gurmehar Kaur went viral in 2017, Randeep Hooda had laughed over a parody post by Virendra Sehwag. He was attacked by Rana Ayyub for the same, to which he responded in an unapologetic way. However, he was hounded brutally by the left-liberal ‘Thought Police’, and he was forced to apologize for an innocuous post.
However, Randeep Hooda has refused to bow down to such people, and continuously calls them out as and when necessary. He is well within his right to school Ashutosh Gowariker for misrepresenting history, and Ashutosh Gowariker should now do a self-introspection if he really wishes to continue any further in the Indian film industry.