Since 2015 Bollywood has given India many films that are ‘inspired’ from history but aren’t quite history in any sense.
Instead of creating their own heroes or legends for their ‘imaginative’ and ‘inspired’ artworks, Bollywood chooses the premise of real events, stories, and places â without being bothered to even change the names of their projected characters.
The makers of these films have often argued that it is their artistic right to ‘reimagine’ history and look it through a kaleidoscope of possibilities. However, all of these recent ‘works of art’ have conveniently aligned with the saffronized version of the same historical story.
Thus, we might be soon subjected to a film that showcases the life of Jawaharlal Nehru (as the grandson of an Afghani migrant, Ghiasuddin Ghazi), who was a ‘Muslim’ born in a brothel in Allahabad.
Laughable to the ones well-read and aware, these ‘histories’ are sinister and pervasive with a growing constituency of Indians who consume these figments of Hindutva-inspired imagination as hard and fast truths.
RSS stalwarts have time and again called for the ‘rewriting’ of history and the most recent statement of this fashion came from the Union Home Minister, Amit Shah â who called for a revision of history from an ‘Indian standpoint’.
Therefore it is not too hard to draw a parallelism between BJP’s ascent to power and the rise of jingoist Hindi cinema.
Old and watched: Bajirao Mastani, Padmaavat, Manikarnika, Kesari Panipat and Tanhaji
The plot is almost the same each time â a glorious war over land or morals is fought, unfailingly against a ‘Muslim’ antagonist.
Tanhaji Screenshot of the trailer/YouTube
The term ‘surgical strike’ became commonplace after the 2016 surgical strikes which were carried out as a reaction to the killing of 20 Indian soldiers in Uri by Jaish-e-Mohammed terrorists.
Now the expression is callously dropped around by politicians in rallies to drive nationalist emotions and was also widely used to refer to the Modi-led government’s demonetisation move.
But Ajay Devgan’s Tanhaji helped the term’s employment achieve its newest low â using it to amplify the jingoistic subtext of the film based on the Battle of Sinhgad (1670).
The movie is slated for an early release in January 2020 but the trailer has an overwhelming number of glaring historical inaccuracies.
The story, no doubt, is a real record of a glorious Maratha victory against Udaybhan Rathod, a Rajput fort keeper under Maharaja Jai Singh (senior general of the Mughal army).
In 1665, the Treaty of Purandar required Shivaji to give up the heavily fortified and strategically placed Maratha fort of Kondhana, located near Pune, to the Mughals. This was a legally signed agreement by the great Maratha ruler himself.
But the idea of Mughals owning the fort enraged Shivaji’s mother Jijabai, who demanded that her son and his army recapture it. Shivaji thus entrusted Taanaji to reconquer fort Kondhana and legend has it that Taanaji used his pet monitor lizard to scale the steep mountain and launch an attack against Udaybhan’s army.
However, the trailer to the film does little justice to present facts as they are. Although dramatization and exaggerated theatrics are normal for a movie, Udaybhan’s portrayal as a fort keeper sporting a Pathani turban despite being a Rajput, lining his eyes with surma (common amongst present-day Muslim men) and walking around in black and dark sets (colours associated with Islam) do little to tell the audience about his Hindu identity.
His portrayal in the film paints him as a shady character, as it is brought alive on the screen by manifesting Muslim stereotypes.
NCP MLA Dr Jitendra Awhad even wrote to the filmmakers to get their facts right and the extremist fringe group Sambhaji Brigade penned a letter to the makers raising objections against the non-secular depiction of Shivaji.
‘Om’ on the Maratha flag/Screenshot from YouTube
‘Bhagwa’ the word for saffron which has widespread symbolism in Hindu and Buddhist culture, was historically the flag of the Marathas but without the ‘Om’ symbol at its centre. Tanhaji: The Unsung Warrior uses the Maratha flag but communalises the banner of the empire.
Another objectionable narrative being pushed by the film is of Brahminical supremacy as Kajol â who plays Tanhaji’s wife, Savitribai Malusare â says, ‘Jab Shivaji Raje ki talwaar chalti hai, tab aurto ka ghoonghat aur Brahmano ka janeu salamat rehta hai’ (When Shivaji draws his sword, it safeguards the honour of women and the sacred thread of Brahmins).
Kajol, as Tanhaji’s wife in the film/Screenshot from YouTube The protagonist of the film, Tanaji Malusare, belonged to the marginalised Koli community and i…
