Mewar royal to join panel to historically vet Padmavati

JAIPUR: The censor board has asked a member of the erstwhile royal family of Mewar to join a panel to help it certify Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s period drama Padmavati, which has stoked Rajput anger for allegedly portraying the queen in “poor light”.

Prasoon Joshi, chief of the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC), called Vishvaraj Singh of the Mewar royal family on Thursday with the request, the latter told HT on Friday.

Joshi did not respond to calls and a text message seeking comment.

The invite came after Singh wrote to the CBFC chief on November 11 and December 1 on the email ID mentioned of the board’s website to raise objections to the film. “The emails were not acknowledged or replied to,” Singh said.

He said he has now written to Joshi saying he will be able to accept the invite only after some clarifications on certain aspects of the film that stars Deepika Padukone as queen Padmini, considered by Rajputs as a symbol of the community’s tradition of putting honour above everything else.

A section of historians, however, doubt the existence of the queen and say she is a fictional character first portrayed in a 16th-century poem as having committed jauhar, the medieval practice in which female royals walked into funeral fires to embrace death over the dishonour of being taken captive.

Rajput groups had staged violent protests, allegedly over rumours that Bhansali included a romantic scene between the queen and Allauddin Khilji, the Delhi emperor who attacked Mewar’s capital Chittorgarh.

One of the clarifications Singh sought in his letter to Joshi is on the genre of the film.

“It has been reported to be a fantasy at some place and historical at others. We need clarity on under what genre the film is seeking certification,” he wrote in the letter, a copy of which has been seen by Hindustan Times.

“The reported involvement of historians in the process of certification so far establishes that the film is of historical relevance,” he added.