Casteist India Protests against ‘Akbar Jodhaa’
Posted : February 19, 2008 at 7:06 am [IST]
I don’t know what must be the cost of one full-page in Times of India. February 18 issue covered one full page of material with two headlines: ‘ Protests against ‘Jodhaa’intensify across country’ and ‘Vaishyas not happy over exclusion of their hero’. For quite some time now, the print and digital media are agog with the news of protests against ‘Jodhaa-Akbar’. Even some reputed historians are adding fuel to that.
With Mrs. Nagpal’s kirtan cancelled, Yamuna asked me to go for the movie ‘Akbar Jodhaa’. Aroras also accompanied us to new Adlabs Multiplex in Great India Place. There is nothing unusual in the film. The royal families used to marry their daughters for expanding their influence and avoid war. Even Chandragupta Maurya married a Greek princess. There was nothing strange if the king of Amer married her daughter to Akbar, the Great. However, many local Hindu kings, Rana Pratap of Chittorgarh being the main, never liked this marriage.
However, the protest is not about the communal marriage. It relates to the name and culture. According to Rajputs, any princess of Amer’s king by the name of Jodhaa never existed. Rather one Jodhaabai was the daughter-in-law of Akbar. ‘In the sixteenth century Rajput girls never came out of their homes’. They allege that the film hurts the sentiment of the community and play jokes on their culture. And now Vaishyas, the business community, charge the filmmaker with sordidly handling the story of Hemu, the warrior-ruler who not only went on a spree of conquests over Mughals but also ascended to Delhi’s throne in 1556 under the name of Vikrmaditya.
Why does all this happen? And why does it get so much prominence? Why don’t Kshatrya Manch and Vaishya Sabha take up some important issues of the communities? After seeing the movie I felt the director has dealt the story in poor way in some places. How could Akbar, the Emperor decide to fight with his brother the way the director has shown? But Akbar in this film is just a hero of a Hindi film. However, the film has carefully taken care of further the amity between the Hindus and Muslims.
- Indra
Category: Religious/Social issues |
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