{"id":33940,"date":"2018-10-30T15:02:09","date_gmt":"2018-10-30T09:32:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=33940"},"modified":"2018-10-30T15:02:09","modified_gmt":"2018-10-30T09:32:09","slug":"an-absurd-canvas-on-padmavati","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/an-absurd-canvas-on-padmavati\/","title":{"rendered":"An absurd canvas: on Padmavati\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/opinion\/editorial\/an-absurd-canvas\/article20539604.ece\"><b>An absurd canvas: on Padmavati<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n<p><b>Context<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The group formed against the screening of <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Padmavati<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, a big-budget period drama, is growing more violent and absurd by the day.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is done to raise anxiety about the film\u2019s scheduled release on December 1<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">st<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>The coalition<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Uttar Pradesh state government has joined hands with the Karni Sena, a self-styled Rajput organization that uses vigilante methods to uphold its notion of caste honour<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Lucknow has written to the <\/span><b>Union Information and Broadcasting Ministry <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">requesting that the Central Board of Film Certification be alerted of the \u201cpublic sentiment\u201d about distortion of \u201cfacts\u201d in the film.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The release of Padmavati , could disrupt law and order in the State, especially with the administration\u2019s energies focussed on the municipal elections in end-November, the U.P. government has said.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>What is it endorsing?<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As the Supreme Court observed in <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">S. Rangarajan vs. Jagjivan Ram<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, a mere threat to public order cannot be a ground to suppress freedom of expression.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Such statements by Government, on the question of \u201chistorical facts\u201d in connection with a film based on a work of fiction, make them appear as endorsing random groups.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Over in Rajasthan, a Minister, Kiran Maheshwari, has intemperately railed against the film. And the Karni Sena, which vandalised the sets on location in Rajasthan earlier this year and also blocked entry into the Chittorgarh fort where the story is set.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Artists especially Deepika Padukone, its lead actor have been receiving death threats to the life and well-being of those associated with <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Padmavati<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, especially.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sanjay Leela Bhansali, the film\u2019s director who is known for his lush sets and high emotion, has been at pains to give an assurance that he has not distorted history.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>The story behind Padmavati<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The story of Padmavati draws from a 16th century Sufi poem, \u2018Padmavat\u2019, and has over the centuries been retold across north India, and that there is no historical record of Padmavati\u2019s existence.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The firmness on demanding accuracy in period dramas is acts as an infringement on creativity. Fictionalizing the past has been an ancient way of understanding it, from K. Asif\u2019s <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Mughal-e-Azam <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">to Oliver Stone\u2019s <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">JFK<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The anxieties that are driving the Karni Sena and members of the Sangh Parivar are evidently different.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The narration according to them is that, Alauddin Khilji, the Delhi Sultan who wages war in the story to try to win the beautiful Padmavati, could be humanised obviously disturbs the Hindutva narrative about \u2018evil invaders\u2019.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The visuals of the heroine singing and dancing evidently militate against the latter-day patriarchal telling of Padmavati\u2019s story, in which she is dutifully bounded by notions of purity and honour. In this, it is not just that the film is fuelling such worries: the film is being used to heighten such anxieties and consolidate a regressive and intolerant world view.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An absurd canvas: on Padmavati Context The group formed against the screening of Padmavati, a big-budget period drama, is growing more violent and absurd by the day. It is done to raise anxiety about the film\u2019s scheduled release on December 1st. The coalition Uttar Pradesh state government has joined hands with the Karni Sena, a&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/an-absurd-canvas-on-padmavati\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">An absurd canvas: on Padmavati\u00a0<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-test-1","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1704890217},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33940","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33940"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33940\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}