Jodhaa Akbar: The communal angle

“Jodhaa Akbar banned in Madhya Pradesh". The news stared at me as I leafed through the morning papers. The hulla baloo has started since the film hit the screens. Posters have been burned in many places. Court cases have been filed.

The ostensible reason for the protests has been that history has been distorted in the film. Some say that Jodhaa Bai was married to Akbar's son, Jehangir, and not to the Mughal emperor himself. Others protestors say Rajput women in old times committed sati rather than marry Muslim kings.

All this betrays the fact that some Rajputs are finding it hard to accept history. It has been cleared said by eminent historians that the Akbar-Jodhabai marriage was to seal the alliance between some of the Rajput kings and the Mughals.

Them why this protests? It would be wise to accept historical facts. It is a fact that some Rajput kings (the main was Raja Man Singh; Rana Pratap opposed kowtowing to the Mughals till the end) had accepted Akbar's suzerainty. Then why this poster burning now?

Is it because a Hindu girl marries a Muslim man in Jodhaa Akbar? There were no such protests when a Muslim girl married a Hindu guy in Mani Ratnam's Arvind Swamy-Manisha Koirala starrer 'Bombay.'

The present controversy thus has a communal angle. Secondly, some sections of Kshatriyas find it hard to accept reality. It would be sensible to do so; the community with its new openness would only become stronger.

India has still many battles to fight before it truly matures into a secular country.

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