The controversy over Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s film Padmavati tells us a lot of things. Rather, it falls into a set pattern.

In the world of arts, disputes erupt when a large section of the populace objects to a work of art, be it a book of fiction or a historical work or a painting or film. The protesters exhort the government to ban the work to assuage their feelings of outrage. Usually, a much smaller but very vocal group counters the protesters and urges the government to ignore the protests and stand for artistic freedom.

The debate on the validity or otherwise of the arguments of protesters is carried out in the public space. The media, particularly the electronic media, has a field day. Everybody has an opinion on the issue, while the government dithers and procrastinates.

Artistic freedom includes taking liberties with scholastic accuracy when dealing with historical works. The extent of deviation from historical facts is allowed more for films than for novels and plays.

The cinematic classics of yesteryear, such as Lawrence of Arabia, Cromwell and Khartoum are examples that can be readily recalled, as can Mughal-e-Azam. The makers of these films took considerable liberty with historical facts while making the films.

In the case of Padmavati, the argument for deviation from the accepted version of events involving the queen is that Rani Padmini is not a historical figure. If artistic freedom allows deviations from historical truth, then the freedom to deviate from legends and folklore should be greater.

The first outcome of this line of argument has been generation of a debate on whether Rani Padmini is a historical figure or not. The naysayers argue that the queen first appears in the work of Malik Muhammad Jayasi three centuries after the sack of Chittor by Alauddin Khilji. Also, historians of the time such as Ziauddin Barani or Amir Khusrau of the Tughlaq era do not mention the Rani. However, British writer James Tod mentions the queen and the jauhar but names her husband as Bhimsi and not Rana Ratan Singh.

Sometimes, however, folklore has history at its core, and the example of excavations that established the location of Troy comes to mind. Also, the claim that a delay in the written account of an event completely denies its historicity is not entirely admissible.

Mauryan history was first established from Plutarch’s account of Alexander’s exploits and then after James Prinsep cracked the Brahmi code. So we are talking here of a gap of several centuries. However, without belabouring too much we can at this point concede that Rani Padmini was a figure of legend and folklore.

If Padmini is folklore, then what is the history that surrounds this folklore? Khilji is history. Rana Ratan Singh is history. The sack of Chittor is history. And what does that history have to do with Rajput pride? Why should a rout in a battle be a point of pride for the defeated?

Here the legend intersects with history. Khilji attacked Chittor because he coveted the beautiful Rani Padmini. More so when he got a glimpse of her reflection in a mirror. He won the battle, sacked Chittor but could not get the queen. For she, along with other women, committed jauhar. So Khilji did not realise his objective, thanks to the courage of the beautiful queen. Viewed in this fashion it became a defeat for the conqueror at the point of his conquest.

This being so, any alternate and less dramatic folklore will dent the pride of the conquered. Or rather the successors of the conquered, the Rajputs of Mewar region.

So, is the current film doing this by creating an alternate narrative of the oft-repeated tale? Surrounded by authentic historical figures, does the folklore amount to creating an alternate surrogate history? It will be difficult to opine as the film is yet to be viewed.

However, the protesters are citing two instances in the film that they find extremely offensive and came across at the time of shooting of the film – when the queen performs the Ghoomar dance, and a dream sequence where she seems romantically inclined towards Khilji.

Figures who are conferred the status of legends, historical or purely fictional, are more often than not deified. There are no imperfections, particularly in the moral plane. So for the Rani to dance, when her whirlings would reveal the contours of her lower limbs, is undignified and unacceptable.

The more serious transgression is that of artistic licence allowing the exploration of the dark recesses in the psyche of a legend and speculate on her fascination for the aggressor who has evil intent towards her. Those who deify the legend would find this exercise in celluloid tasteless and repugnant. They are bound to protest and in the strongest of terms.

Unlike western countries, we are a heterogeneous society with each citizen anchoring his identity on religion, region, language and caste. Intrusion into these areas that govern identity has to be carried out with a lot of care and circumspection. If not, the reactions will be uncompromisingly hostile.

The reaction to MF Husain’s painting of goddess Saraswati unclothed is an apt example. On a similar vein, the book The Satanic Verses was banned as was the staging of The Last Temptation of Christ in Kerala in the eighties, as they were treading upon the religious sentiments of a community.

Whether Rani Padmini is historical or an imaginary being, she is an important icon representing extreme courage and the extent to which a woman would go to protect her honour and fidelity to her husband. In the eyes of the lay public, this elevates her and her companions to the status of goddesses or at least to the level of other iconic legends of Hindu womanhood like Sati Savitri.

It would be interesting to see whether the film admits that the Chittor women led by their queen committed jauhar when the kingdom was sacked. For if it does not or does so with a lot of caveats, then it may be a long haul for director Bhansali.

It is now time to let the cat out of the bag. There has always been an undercurrent of religious divide between the two major religious groups in this country. We after all share an uneasy historical past. This uneasy historical past is an important ingredient in the current phase of religious polarisation in the country, particularly in the political arena.

The theme of the film lends itself very easily to be used as a tool to serve this polarisation. Khilji, the aggressor, was a Muslim king. Rani Padmini, the aggrieved, was a Hindu queen. The aggressor completely abandoned the code of chivalry associated with warfare in medieval times and instead behaved licentiously and dishonourably.

The current religious polarisation simply extrapolates the attitudes of the aggressor and aggrieved in this incident to present times. There are therefore people with vested interests who would not like an easy resolution to this controversy. For understandable reasons, they would prefer the issue be kept simmering.

One recalls how deftly director Mani Ratnam handled the release of his film Bombay when similar squawks involving the religious divide were raised against the film by fringe hotheads. He went and talked to the supremo, accepted the suggestions for some minor cuts and everything was smooth sailing from then on. In contrast, Bhansali chose to react to a fringe group which would never climb down. They would rather always up the ante as that is what would elevate them from their fringe status to an organisation that carries weight.

In such situations, one engages with the power centre, not the periphery. And since this is a case of religious polarisation in politics, it is unnecessary to name the power centre.

The type of artistic freedom available in today’s west, where nothing is sacrosanct, may never be available here. For unlike the countries there, we are an extremely heterogeneous society. A nation of many peoples or rather sub-nationalities.

As late PM Narasimha Rao put it, we are a federation of caste and religious groups. So how should this federation, represented by a parliamentary panel recently set up in this regard, react to this controversy?

The controversy regarding Padmavati would in all probability be resolved through a few hefty cuts and lengthy disclaimers. However, a parliamentary panel is bound to lay down some principles for avoidance of such controversies in the future, which the Censor Board would readily absorb and operationalise. It might therefore be interesting to speculate on the principles that are likely to emerge.

Not surprisingly, the vocal sections of all identity groups would opt for leaving legends and folklore inviolate. Maintaining status quo would be their refrain. The reason is simple. If your icon gets dented today, it paves the way for my icon getting bruised tomorrow.

The problem is that a status-quoist position is a death knell for artistic advancement and freedom. There are no easy answers but perhaps in the area of films, a middle road can be worked out.

The panel may opt for a restricted space for manoeuvrability or rather artistic licence for commercial films or releases where the theme of the film is such that it is tied up with the identity of a social group. Whether history or folklore, distortions may be kept to the minimum so that strong sentiments do not get affronted.

This restriction may be balanced by allowing a high degree of artistic freedom to explore beyond the historical and ahistorical for art films or cinema where viewing takes place in film clubs and like bodies consisting of more liberal audiences.