Sufi poet Jayasi made up the story that later got legend status, so Bhansali can’t be threatened for taking creative licence with the tale, say historians

Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s upcoming film, Padmavati , is a story about a story. It is based on a 16th century literary saga by Sufi poet Malik Muhammad Jayasi, a romantic fiction about Delhi sultan Alauddin Khilji’s sack of Chittor which itself had occurred over 200 years earlier, in 1303. In Jayasi’s allegorical poem, a Rajput queen of Chittor chooses to immolate herself rather than submit to the sultan.The myth, written in Avadhi in 1540, 30 years before Tulsidas began his Ramcharitmanas, has ended up being taken literally as history. It created, out of whole cloth, the legend of Padmini or Padmavati, the Ceylonese princess turned loyal queen —there is not a shred of historical evidence that she existed. And because of the popularity of the epic, the actual Alauddin Khilji, destroyer of the Mongols and one of India’s most able administrators, is only remembered as a thwarted lover-boy, whose obsession and lust for another man’s wife leads him to destroy a kingdom.The legend has been passed down as popular history for years and used to demonise Islamic empires. And now, custodians of that made-up ‘history’ have used it to attack another cultural work — storming the sets of Bhansali’s forthcoming period drama Padmavati, at Jaipur’s Jaigarh fort.Vigilantes of the Karni Sena, self-appointed defenders of Rajput honour, allegedly slapped and intimidated the director into changing some material. Narayan Divrala, the district president of Karni Sena, was quoted as having said, “We have learnt that the filmmakers are portraying the film as a love story between Alauddin Khilji and Padmini, which is a blatant distortion of history.”Bhansali’s film unit was forced to leave Jaipur, and the fracas has led to predictable battles on social media, between those who condemned the bullying and those who applauded their action. Some Twitter warriors even claimed that Bhansali was funded by Pakistan’s ISI to make a “profane and offensive” movie to hurt Hindus and ridicule their history.But what was the Delhi-Chittor conflict about? “A campaign of conquest has multiple historical causes, which may or may not include the personal preferences of a ruler. Chittorgarh was coveted by the Delhi sultans for strategic and commercial reasons. With the passage of time, events became imbued with cultural meanings, which have more to do with politics and less with history,” says Delhi University historian Anirudh Deshpande.Did Jayasi himself claim to be chronicling history? According to the Imperial Gazetter of India, 1909, “In the final verses of his work, the poet explains that it is all an allegory. By Chittor he means the body of man; by Ratan Singh, the soul; by the parrot, the guru or spiritual protector; by Padmavati, wisdom; by Alauddin, delusion, and so on.”It explains the ideals that animated Jayasi’s noble epic: “Throughout the work of the Musalman ascetic, there run veins of the broadest charity and of sympathy with those higher spirits among his fellow countrymen who were searching in God’s twilight for that truth of which some of them achieved a clear vision.” In other words, the Sufi poet was using his creative licence to convey a philosophical message. And that creative licence is exactly what Bhansali is now being punished for.Bhansali had earlier been criticised for a supposedly “inaccurate” portrayal of Peshwa Bajirao in his film Bajirao Mastani. But when has a Bollywood movie been strictly faithful to the facts? K Asif had also taken major liberties with his monumental epic Mughal-e-Azam , which portrayed Salim’s rebellion against Emperor Akbar, a prince’s straightforward lunge for power, as a poignant story about the legendary Anarkali. More recently, Ashutosh Gowariker’s Jodhaa Akbar also “distorted” history to tell the story of a Mughal emperor and a Rajput princess.All too often, these movie-myths become hugely popular, to the point that historians complain that actual history is sidelined. “Images leave impressions,” says Ali Nadeem Rezavi, professor at Aligarh Muslim University. For instance, he says, as an Akbar scholar for decades, he finds it hard to undo the Prithviraj Kapoor role in Mughal-e-Azam, whenever Akbar is mentioned. “Take Bairam Khan, who tutored Akbar — he was a cultured and scholarly man, but because TV serials depict him as a ruthless savage, that is the impression my daughter has formed of him.”But it’s not just Bollywood that makes evil cartoon villains out of Muslim rulers, TV serials and animation for children also do the same. Says Aligarh historian, Syed Ali Kazim: “I watch Chhota Bheem episodes keenly with my kids. To my shock, one of the episodes showed a typically Muslim-looking group dressed like soldiers of the Abbasid Empire descending upon Dholakpur on camels. To an innocent mind, it was a subtle message: beware of bearded men in Muslim attire. The poor camel also got associated with Islam.”In Deshpande’s view, history as entertainment is different from academic history. “A society needs to be liberal, enlightened and have a sense of humour to enjoy its mythical past as an interesting story,” he says. India is not that society, or not yet. But with the Bhansali incident, the pressing question “is not of poetic myth and historical fact, but the value of freedom in a democracy,” he says. “The Indian state simply has not acted strongly against the enemies of open society”.