02-23-2008, 04:04 AM
From TOI
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->LEADER ARTICLE: Power Of Imagination
23 Feb 2008, 0046 hrs IST,
SHARMISTHA GOOPTU
Jodhaa Akbar, the love story of emperor Akbar and his Rajput queen Jodhabai, has been decreed non-historical by historians. That's no great surprise: the love story of Jodha and Akbar as a Bollywood film would necessarily need to be 'created' by the director. No history book in the world provides much insight into, whether Akbar had, or had not, ever married a Rajput princess named Jodhabai.
One does not need to be an expert of Mughal history to spot discrepancies in the film's period reconstruction. For instance, would a Mughal queen step into the shahi (royal) kitchen and cook a meal for her husband, or would she actually make an appearance before his courtiers to serve him lunch, with the queen mother looking on? Possibly not. The film is most clearly a work of fiction built on a skeleton of history, with some characters who are 'real', others imaginary.
The greater part of the controversy around Jodhaa Akbar has, however, centred around the figure of the Rajput princess Jodha, who in the film is married to Akbar as part of a diplomatic arrangement between the Mughals and the Kachwaha king of Amer. According to historians of the period, Jodha was never married to Akbar. The Rajput princess known as Jodhabai or Jodh Bai was in all probability given in marriage to his son prince Salim, later emperor Jehangir.
On the other side of the spectrum, however, is a powerful popular imaginary centring Jodhabai. Known to have been allowed to retain the practice of her religion even after her marriage to Akbar, the name of Jodhabai stands as testimony to the Mughal emperor's greatness and tolerance. Thus, the tourist guide at Fatehpur Sikri would invariably point out to you the palace of Jodhabai popularly known as Jodha Mahal, and tell you how in the time of Akbar the chime of temple bells from the palace would mingle with the sounds of the azaan emanating from the emperor's quarters. In the popular imagination, Jodha's name is almost as inextricably linked to Akbar's as the legend of Mumtaz Mahal is to Shah Jehan. Jodhaa Akbar largely draws upon that popular imaginary. Faced with questions about the film's historicity the director has acknowledged that he has drawn upon the most popular usage in this context, that of Jodha as Akbar's Hindu queen. In Jodhaa Akbar, the Hindu-Muslim angle becomes the peg for a contemporary audience to consume the love story of a Mughal emperor and his Rajput queen. Historians of the period have pointed that this Hindu-Muslim peg in the film has been the superimposition of a more contemporary perspective on the 16th century, when identities were formed not so much in terms of the Hindu-Muslim binary, but rather in terms of caste, clan and lineage.
For the Rajputs, therefore, matrimony with the Mughals would not be a matter of reservation principally on religious grounds. Matrimonial relations among the ruling classes of the period were mostly determined by considerations of rank and stature, and by political exigency. Marriage between the Hindu and Muslim ruling classes was therefore known even in pre-Mughal days, though it became a more institutionalised practice under Akbar and Jehangir. If at all Jodha was married to Akbar, such an alliance would not quite have been the bolt from the blue that it is in the film, where Jodha confronts her father, Raja Bharmal of Amer, for promising her in marriage to a man who would not even know the significance of the sindoor.
Here, of course, 'communalism' or the Hindu-Muslim binary that has structured Indian history in the 20th century and thereafter becomes transposed on an earlier period for it to be more comprehensible to a contemporary audience. The period trappings apart, it is not greatly different from, say, a film like Mani Ratnam's Bombay, with its Hindu boy-Muslim girl love story and message of national integration. While all of this clearly spells incongruity so far as the film's 'authenticity' is concerned, it also upholds the vibrancy of a popular text in its capacity to interpret the past in terms of the present, and to inscribe greater life into the past.
Other such 'discrepancies' in the film could be likewise ascribed. In the film, Jodha is a feminist figure who speaks in terms of 'her' rights, whether it is when she asks for an audience with her future husband, the emperor of India, where she lays down her conditions of marriage, or, later, when she refuses to be wooed back by her husband who had suspected her integrity.
While such episodes in the film are anachronistic, it is more enabling to look beyond their obvious incongruity. Jodhaa Akbar is as much about Jodha as it is about Akbar; a very contemporary perspective constitutes this love story, for without it there would have been no love story, only perhaps a documentary on Akbar the Great, right out of the history books. This love story has no historical basis, but it is also important to note here the dynamic of a popular medium, its power to make the past relevant to the present through the mechanics of pleasure and the imagination. And can even historians discount the imagination in our interpretation of the past?
The writer is working on her PhD thesis on Indian film at the <b>University of Chicago.</b>Â
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<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->LEADER ARTICLE: Power Of Imagination
23 Feb 2008, 0046 hrs IST,
SHARMISTHA GOOPTU
Jodhaa Akbar, the love story of emperor Akbar and his Rajput queen Jodhabai, has been decreed non-historical by historians. That's no great surprise: the love story of Jodha and Akbar as a Bollywood film would necessarily need to be 'created' by the director. No history book in the world provides much insight into, whether Akbar had, or had not, ever married a Rajput princess named Jodhabai.
One does not need to be an expert of Mughal history to spot discrepancies in the film's period reconstruction. For instance, would a Mughal queen step into the shahi (royal) kitchen and cook a meal for her husband, or would she actually make an appearance before his courtiers to serve him lunch, with the queen mother looking on? Possibly not. The film is most clearly a work of fiction built on a skeleton of history, with some characters who are 'real', others imaginary.
The greater part of the controversy around Jodhaa Akbar has, however, centred around the figure of the Rajput princess Jodha, who in the film is married to Akbar as part of a diplomatic arrangement between the Mughals and the Kachwaha king of Amer. According to historians of the period, Jodha was never married to Akbar. The Rajput princess known as Jodhabai or Jodh Bai was in all probability given in marriage to his son prince Salim, later emperor Jehangir.
On the other side of the spectrum, however, is a powerful popular imaginary centring Jodhabai. Known to have been allowed to retain the practice of her religion even after her marriage to Akbar, the name of Jodhabai stands as testimony to the Mughal emperor's greatness and tolerance. Thus, the tourist guide at Fatehpur Sikri would invariably point out to you the palace of Jodhabai popularly known as Jodha Mahal, and tell you how in the time of Akbar the chime of temple bells from the palace would mingle with the sounds of the azaan emanating from the emperor's quarters. In the popular imagination, Jodha's name is almost as inextricably linked to Akbar's as the legend of Mumtaz Mahal is to Shah Jehan. Jodhaa Akbar largely draws upon that popular imaginary. Faced with questions about the film's historicity the director has acknowledged that he has drawn upon the most popular usage in this context, that of Jodha as Akbar's Hindu queen. In Jodhaa Akbar, the Hindu-Muslim angle becomes the peg for a contemporary audience to consume the love story of a Mughal emperor and his Rajput queen. Historians of the period have pointed that this Hindu-Muslim peg in the film has been the superimposition of a more contemporary perspective on the 16th century, when identities were formed not so much in terms of the Hindu-Muslim binary, but rather in terms of caste, clan and lineage.
For the Rajputs, therefore, matrimony with the Mughals would not be a matter of reservation principally on religious grounds. Matrimonial relations among the ruling classes of the period were mostly determined by considerations of rank and stature, and by political exigency. Marriage between the Hindu and Muslim ruling classes was therefore known even in pre-Mughal days, though it became a more institutionalised practice under Akbar and Jehangir. If at all Jodha was married to Akbar, such an alliance would not quite have been the bolt from the blue that it is in the film, where Jodha confronts her father, Raja Bharmal of Amer, for promising her in marriage to a man who would not even know the significance of the sindoor.
Here, of course, 'communalism' or the Hindu-Muslim binary that has structured Indian history in the 20th century and thereafter becomes transposed on an earlier period for it to be more comprehensible to a contemporary audience. The period trappings apart, it is not greatly different from, say, a film like Mani Ratnam's Bombay, with its Hindu boy-Muslim girl love story and message of national integration. While all of this clearly spells incongruity so far as the film's 'authenticity' is concerned, it also upholds the vibrancy of a popular text in its capacity to interpret the past in terms of the present, and to inscribe greater life into the past.
Other such 'discrepancies' in the film could be likewise ascribed. In the film, Jodha is a feminist figure who speaks in terms of 'her' rights, whether it is when she asks for an audience with her future husband, the emperor of India, where she lays down her conditions of marriage, or, later, when she refuses to be wooed back by her husband who had suspected her integrity.
While such episodes in the film are anachronistic, it is more enabling to look beyond their obvious incongruity. Jodhaa Akbar is as much about Jodha as it is about Akbar; a very contemporary perspective constitutes this love story, for without it there would have been no love story, only perhaps a documentary on Akbar the Great, right out of the history books. This love story has no historical basis, but it is also important to note here the dynamic of a popular medium, its power to make the past relevant to the present through the mechanics of pleasure and the imagination. And can even historians discount the imagination in our interpretation of the past?
The writer is working on her PhD thesis on Indian film at the <b>University of Chicago.</b>Â
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