Government asked to delay movie’s release and riot police may be on standby at cinemas after attacks on director and threats against its star Deepika Padukone
……………………………….A member of India’s Hindu nationalist ruling party has offered a 100 million rupee ($1.5 million US) reward to anyone who beheads the lead actress and the director of the yet-to-be released Bollywood film Padmavati over its alleged handling of the relationship between a Hindu queen and a Muslim ruler.
Suraj Pal Amu, a Bharatiya Janata Party leader from the northern state of Haryana, offered the bounty against actress Deepika Padukone and filmmaker Sanjay Leela Bhansali on Sunday.
The film’s producers postponed the release of the film, which was set to be in theatres Dec. 1, the same day. Speaking at a public rally that was reported by several local news outlets, Amu also added that the film would not be allowed to release at all.
Actress Deepika Padukone appears at a promotional event for Padmavati in late October.
Padmavati is based on a 16th century Sufi epic poem, Padmavat, a fictional account of a brave and beautiful Rajput queen who chose to kill herself rather than be captured by the Muslim sultan of Delhi, Allaudin Khilji. Over centuries of its retelling, the epic has come to be seen as history, even though there is little historical evidence.
Padukone plays the role of Padmini, the legendary queen who committed “jauhar,” the medieval Rajput practice in which women of royal households walked into funeral fires to embrace death over the dishonour of being taken captive.
Padmavati has been in trouble since the beginning of the year, with fringe groups in the western state of Rajasthan attacking the film’s set, threatening to burn down theatres that show it and even physically attacking Bhansali in January.
Most of the anger at the film appears to stem from allegations that Bhansali has distorted history by filming a romantic dream sequence between the main protagonists of the film. Bhansali has denied the allegations.
Director Sanjay Leela Bhansali, seen attending the Marrakech International Film Festival in 2013, was attacked by critics of the film in January.
Earlier this month, the head of the Rajput Karni Sena in Rajasthan said Padukone should have her nose cut — a symbol of public humiliation — for being part of a film that allegedly insulted the famed queen.
Books, films often subject to threats, bans
India’s 1.3 billion-strong democracy is the largest in the world, but despite significant economic progress over the last few decades its politics are held hostage by a complex mix of religion and caste. Books and movies have found themselves at the receiving end of threats of violence and bans because they either offend one religious or caste group, or are deemed offensive to Indian culture in general.
In the past, India’s film censor board rejected the erotic drama Fifty Shades of Grey, and Hollywood movies that appear on Indian screens are routinely scrubbed of sex scenes. The Da Vinci Code was banned in the Indian state of Goa, which has a large Christian population, because religious groups objected.
In 2014, the publishing house Penguin India pulled from shelves and destroyed all copies of American historian Wendy Doniger’s The Hindus: An Alternative History after protests and a lawsuit from a Hindu right-wing group. The group’s main objection was that the book described Hindu mythological texts as fictional.
Indian-born writer Salman Rushdie’s book The Satanic Verses has been banned here since 1998, since many Muslims consider it blasphemous. Rushdie was forced to cancel a 2012 appearance at the Jaipur Literary Festival amid protests and threats by prominent Muslim clerics.
Demonstrators chant slogans as they protest against the release of Padmavati in Bengaluru.
Riot police may be deployed at Indian cinemas over the release of a film about a mythological Indian queen that has sparked protests, attacks on the set and director, and threats to mutilate the lead actor.
The Indian government is being asked to intervene to delay the release of Padmavati, a film based on an epic 16th-century poem, starring Deepika Padukone as the titular character.
Uttar Pradesh officials said on Thursday that due to elections and a Muslim holiday they would not be able to provide enough police to secure cinemas for the film’s scheduled release on 1 December.
Rumours about how Rani Padmavati will be depicted have angered fringe Hindu groups, Indian royals and members of the ruling Bharatiya Janata party.
Rightwing Hindu organisations believe the film will depict a romantic relationship between Padmavati and an invading king, Alauddin Khilji, who is Muslim.
Though Khilji existed, experts say there is little historical evidence for Padmavati, who may have been created by the Sufi Muslim author of the poem, Malik Muhammad Jayasi.
But the queen has become an important mythological figure especially revered by members of the Hindu Rajput caste, to which the character in the poem belonged.
The director, Sanjay Leela Bhansali, has clarified there will be “no romantic scene or song or dream sequence between Rani Padmavati and Alauddin Khilji”.
But members of one Hindu group stormed the film set in January and assaulted Bhansali and others. Bhansali agreed to delete offending scenes from the film following the attack.
A spokesman for the same group said on Thursday they would “cut the nose” of Padukone after the actor said protests would not stop the film’s release.
Rajput groups and royals belonging to the traditional warrior caste have also complained about Padukone dancing and baring her midriff in the film’s trailer.
Rana Safvi, a historian, blamed the controversy on growing religious polarisation in India. “Our tolerance levels have gone for a toss,” she said.
Rumours were also spreading on social media more quickly than they could be debunked. “No one reads much any more and we believe all kinds of unverified stuff on WhatsApp,” she said.
