Bay Area embraces Bollywood drama that is under fire in India.
Bollywood drama based on epic poem is a trigger for Rajputs
An Incredible India tourism campaign seemed to have hit the lobby of the AMC Mercado 20 movie theater in Santa Clara recently. Indian women in blazing red, orange and pink twirled around a turbaned drummer, dancing to the hit Bollywood song “Ghoomar.”
“The ladies wanted to have a good time and celebrate the grandeur of Bollywood cinema,” says Bay Area engineer Sunil Kakkar, whose wife, Sarini, was one of the organizers and dancers. It was for a good cause: They raised about $2,500 for the India Literacy Project.
But “Padmaavat,” the Bollywood film they were celebrating, has sparked quite a culture war in India. So this was more than the usual Bollywood song and dance. “They celebrated solidarity between women as shown in the movie,” says Sunil. “They led from the front and exercised their freedom to enjoy cinema.”
That freedom has been hard-won in India.
“Padmaavat” is based on a 16th century epic poem about a 13th century Muslim sultan in Delhi who covets both the beautiful queen and her kingdom in the desert state of Rajasthan. The queen might or might not have existed in real life. But as the story goes, when her own husband dies in battle, she commits suicide with the other women of the city, jumping into flames, preferring death to dishonor.
In the film, a costume drama spectacular, the bloodthirsty Muslim king, a sort of maniacal Indian Wolverine, snarls,
swaggers and tears hunks of meat off bones. The Hindu Rajput princess stands tall, a Lara Croft with pearls and brocade. Her prince is a lion-maned Ken doll, but bursting with gallantry and pride. There’s no doubt who is good and who is evil in “Padmaavat.”
But in a twist worthy of Bollywood itself, the film has come under violent and sustained attack, not from those who are portrayed as fiendish villains, but from those depicted as the valiant heroes.
Many Rajputs, a powerful community mostly from Rajasthan, have objected to the film, mostly sight unseen. They claimed a Rajput princess would never dance in public, flashing her midriff, shaking her hips to a song like “Ghoomar.” There were rumors that there was a dream sequence showing the Muslim invader romancing the Hindu princess, an idea that still remains taboo for many. The director, Sanjay Leela Bhansali, took to Facebook to say no such scene existed, but to no avail.
An Indian minister said people had the right to be offended at this “distortion of history.” An activist group, the Karni Sena, vandalized the sets, ransacked theaters screening the trailer and beat up Bhansali. A Karni Sena leader publicly threatened to cut off the nose of Deepika Padukone, who plays the princess Padmavati, after she said, “Nothing and no one can stop this film.” Another put a price on her head. Women vowed to set themselves ablaze if the film was released. A bus filled with schoolchildren was stoned by angry protesters. The Indian Supreme Court had to weigh in to get the film released all over India, though Rajasthani distributors refused to touch it.
In an effort to defuse the controversy, the Indian censor board decided the film should be called “Padmaavat,” the name of the poem on which the film is based, rather than “Padmavati,” the name of the princess. The film now opens with a screen-load of disclaimers.
But that did not cool tempers. The head of the film censor board, Prasoon Joshi, was scheduled to speak at the prestigious Jaipur Literature Festival in January. Faced with angry threats from the Karni Sena, he issued a statement saying he was withdrawing “so that the lovers of literature get to focus on creativity and not controversy.”
Culture critic Deepanjana Pal says there’s nothing new about Bollywood films and controversy. Karni Sena protested the 2008 film “Jodhaa Akbar” depicting the love story of the Mughal emperor Akbar and the Rajput princess Jodhaa. “What is worrying about the turns that the “Padmaavat” protests took is that the conversation went from freedom of expression to criminality, with first the director being assaulted and later riot-like conditions being unleashed upon cities by Karni Sena,” says Pal.
The fight is no longer about “Padmaavat.” It is about the bullies claiming the bully pulpit, fringe groups flexing political muscle in a state bound for elections soon. Pal says the fact that many states tried to ban the film was an “appalling act of censorship, but how can you blame anyone when there are children being attacked by protesters? Consequently, the conversation ends up to be not about freedom of expression but freedom of expression versus law and order, as though the two are mutually exclusive.”
All of this controversy is not necessarily bad for business. Gitesh Pandya of Box Office Guru, a film industry analysis site, says the film raked in $4,937,521 over its first four days in the U.S. “This breaks the all-time record for the largest Bollywood opening weekend in North America previously held by the 2014 film ‘PK’s’ $3.6 million,” says Pandya.
With a famous director and top-notch stars, “Padmaavat” always had the makings of a blockbuster. The controversy made it a must-see. The irony, says Pal, is that “in the 21st century, a man decided to make a film glorifying a ritual suicide that supposedly protects a woman’s honor, and the ones championing his film are progressive liberals and feminists.”
Sarini Kakkar sees it (and her own “Ghoomar” dance) differently. “I feel that this small group of Bay Area ladies has conveyed the larger message of women’s empowerment at various levels.” Although others argue about whether Padmavati burns bright as a model for women’s empowerment in the 21st century, Kakkar says, “Celebration of womanhood is best when women are given the freedom to come up with their own definition of bravery.”
As long as their midriffs are covered. The “Ghoomar” dance stayed in the film, but a little CGI helped keep Padukone’s belly discreetly draped.