Purushottam Agrawal - Absurdity of epic proportions: Are people aware of the content in Jayasi's Padmavat? / Mukul Kesavan - Rajputs redux: Padmini's long afterlife

Malik Muhammad Jayasi sure composed his magnum opus Padmavat, glorifying a Rajput legend of valour, and casting one of the most powerful, competent Muslim kings as the villain of his narrative. Why is there an issue with Padmavati despite Sanjay Leela Bhansali reiterating that his movie is based on Jayasi's work?

Malik Muhammad Jayasi belonged to the Chishtia order of Sufis. His miracle-legends have been part of popular memory. The most stunning miracle he performed -- the Padmawat -- has been around physically for five centuries. Jayasi composed his magnum opus in 1540 in Awadhi, its manuscripts were mostly found written in the Persian script. Taking the legend of Padmini from the oral traditions of Rajputana, Jayasi created a fascinating texture of legend, history and mythology (Hindu as well as Islamic), drawing liberally from his vast knowledge and life experiences. Padmawat was apparently an instant hit in the literary circles of north India, and was also translated into Bengali in the sixteenth century itself. Thus, to Jayasi goes the credit of taking the Padmawati legend to Bengal; wherefrom a number of novels, plays and poems glorifying the Rajputs were to emanate in the nineteenth century.

Ever since Ramchandra Shukla, the most influential historian of Hindi literature, published his edition of Padmawat (1924), its excerpts have inevitably been included in Hindi syllabuses, from schools to post-graduate programmes. Shukla situated the text in a historical context in which after initial conflicts, Hindus and Muslims were coming to terms with each other: "A century ago, Kabir had already castigated bigotry of every kind. One is not sure of the pundits and mullas, but ordinary people had recognised the unity of Ram and Rahim...only those sadhus and fakirs could hope to win popular admiration who seemed beyond discriminating on religious lines... For Hindus and Muslims alike, it was time to open up to each other. People were tending towards sharing rather than distancing. Muslims were willing to listen to the Ram story of the Hindus and Hindus were ready to hear the Dastan of Hamza... and sometimes both tried to explore pathways to God together."

To Shukla, Padmawat was a luminous signpost of this shared search of the pathway to God. He wrote about Padmawat with as great a passion and critical acumen as he did about his most favourite poet - Tulsidas. Taking a cue from the "last stanzas" of the epic, which supposedly "hold the key" to Sufi content "hidden" in the text, he thought it was an allegory of Sufi spiritual practice. But, Mata Prasad Gupta, the great text-critic and scholar of the early modern vernacular literature of north India, in his edition of Padmawat (1963), based on a comparative study of sixteen manuscripts of different periods, comes to the convincing conclusion that the so-called 'key stanzas' were "added to the text much later." He concludes that far from an allegory of any kind, Jayasi was, in fact, composing a richly layered poem of human desire and love.
Jayasi was a practising Sufi, but he did not compose Padmawat to propagate or preach Sufism or any other edition of Islam. He wrote it to celebrate human love, luxuriating in all its aspects - desire, wandering, coupling (described in uninhibited, moving erotica), jealousy, separation, struggle, suffering and sacrifice. If at all he wished to preach anything, it was human, carnal love, which in its deep reaches becomes sublime and transforms the mortal human into the immortal and divine ('manush prem bhayau baikunthi'). At the end of his epic, he is confident that 'anybody listening to this poem, written in blood and tears, is bound to feel-and sing-the pain of love him/herself'. He writes of the inevitability of death and identifies with the universal human desire to leave behind memories: "Who in this world does not long for abiding fame? / I hope the readers of this story also remember my name."

His hope did bear fruit. Even if he is not as popular among the masses as Kabir, Tulsi, Mira or Surdas, his Padmawat fired the imagination of scholars of both literature and history. Apart from Shukla and Gupta mentioned here earlier, the two most important works are: a fascinating Bhashya (a scholarly commentary) on Padmawat by Indologist Vasudeva Sharan Agrawal and a thought-provoking monograph by eminent poet, critic and Lohia acolyte Vijay Dev Narain Sahi.

It is important to internalise all this to see the current controversy in perspective. Please note that Jayasi glorified a Rajput legend of valour, and in the process cast one of the most powerful and competent Muslim kings as the anti-hero of his narrative. But, he was not penalised by his Muslim peers or benefactors. He presented a brahmin Raghava Chetan as the real villain of the piece, and brahmin sentiments were not hurt. He described with abandon the beauty of Padmini and her love-making with Ratansen, he did not hesitate to describe the jealous fights between Padmawati and Nagmati (Ratansen's first wife) and Rajput modesty was not outraged.

As is expected of a great poet, Jayasi put love and life in the ultimate existential perspective of transience in the face of impending death. In a poignant poetic move, at the end of his saga, Jayasi makes victorious Alauddin reflect not only on his pyrrhic victory (duly noted in the ironic manner he talks of how 'Chittor was taken over by Islam') but also on the nature of insatiable desire. He picks up Ratansen's ashes from his pyre (also the pyre of his two wives) lamenting: 'I actually wanted to avoid this' and continues, 'Desire is insatiable, permanent / but this world is illusory and transient / Insatiable desire man continues to have/ Till life is over and he reaches his grave.'

Contrast this poignancy with the absurd theatre playing out around a film that in all likelihood will only reiterate smug, self-satisfied stereotypes of Rajput 'valour'. The 'warriors' are announcing rewards for chopping off a woman's nose ostensibly in defence of the honour of another. It's not really about the honour of a woman, but an unmitigated male chauvinist fantasy that denies the woman any individuality, a chauvinism that finds expression in a woman self-immolating or in widow-burning. The glorification of this medieval fantasy continues unfortunately, in subtle and not so subtle ways. Bhansali's film is going to contribute to this glorification. This is the sub-text of claims that the film actually upholds Rajput 'honour'.

Personally speaking, I just detest Bhansali's obsession with vulgar opulence and cannot forgive him for massacring the beautiful self-destructive tragedy of Devdas. But criticising someone for lack of subtlety or genuine understanding of a subject is one thing and issuing death threats is quite another. It is no surprise that many BJP leaders are implicitly or explicitly endorsing such threats. Of late, the Congress chief minister of Punjab has also endorsed the 'right to nurture hurt sentiment'. The violence of 'hurt sentiments' persists despite the 'No Objection' certificates issued by journalists Ved Pratap Vaidik, Arnab Goswami and Rajat Sharma, none of whom can be 'accused' of being left-liberal or 'sickular'.

It's true that 'freedom of expression' is not limitless, but the limits are set by law, not by armed mobs invoking hurt sentiment. Also, irrespective of the historicity or otherwise of the persona of Padmawati, even an artist as uninspiring as Bhansali has a right to poetic licence. Given the present state of historical knowledge, the character of Padmawati can only be described as legend, and legends happen to be more deeply entrenched in the cultural memory of a people.

This begs the question: what makes your memory or sentiments so brittle? Even if someone has a different take on a shared memory, why should it bother you if you are so attached to it? Asking this question will take the wind out of the politics of hurt sentiment, and put the matter in the realm of rational enquiry which, of course, is anathema to all warriors of hurt sentiments.

Finally, the absence of rational argument doesn't by any means indicate the absence of calculation. There is nothing 'spontaneous' about organised, aggressive display of hurt sentiment of any kind. It is always politically motivated, the gist of which comes out clearly if the right questions are asked. So, ask why there is no outrage against the boss of the production house. Ask if it's mere coincidence that just before the Gujarat elections, the electronic media is obsessing about this 'burning' issue while ignoring seemingly 'mundane' issues like the Rafale deal, the plight of farmers and the bloodshed on the jobs front.

Among all bhakta and sufi poets, Jayasi was the most insistent on his poetic persona. He was also painfully conscious of his 'ugly' appearance and bodily deformities, and confronted them with confidence in the power of his poetry: "Muhammad, poet of love, ugly and frail, causes laughs and jeers / but hearing his verses, nobody can hold back tears." The poet was conscious of his bodily deformities and could use his poetry as an antidote. Are we willing to face the deformities of our souls, our minds? Are we blessed with an antidote, or just condemned to inch towards a fractured social psyche, a violent society and a dysfunctional state?
http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/padmavati-karni-sena-malik-muhammad-jayasi-sanjay-bhansali/1/1095409.html

Mukul Kesavan - Rajputs redux: Padmini's long afterlife 
The rearguard action that Rajputs have steadfastly fought to find honour in medieval defeat continues with the battle of Bhansali. Once upon a time the effort to salvage glory from the wreckage of history consisted of bardic narratives and modern hagiographies that talked up episodes of individual valour, embedded though they were in collective failure.

Indian cricket fans of a certain age will sympathize with this strategy. There was a time when the Indian cricket team won very little: it managed a few honourable draws and lost most of the Tests it played. Being a fan meant lingering over great individual performances in a losing cause. Pataudi, hobbled but heroic, limping to two brave fifties in Australia; Gavaskar scoring centuries in both innings of a Test against Pakistan on a tour that we lost 2-0; Azharuddin's blazing hundred in England in reply to Graham Gooch's match-winning triple century; these performances gave us something to remember. We found consolation where we could: we totted up individual averages, counted Gavaskar's centuries and proved to our satisfaction that Kapil Dev was a better all-rounder than Ian Botham, Richard Hadlee and Imran Khan. Especially Imran Khan.


Likewise, revisionist patriots and virile Hindus were fans first and historians afterwards. They looked to former Rajput captains for both inspiration and consolation. Rana Sanga and Rana Pratap became names to conjure with in colonial India as generations of Bengali boys called Rana will tell you. The heroic refusal of the rulers of Mewar to serve as vassals was read as a moral victory in the absence of any other kind. More recently, Hemu, who occupied Delhi before being defeated by Akbar's army, was hailed by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad as an Indic night-watchman who briefly occupied the imperial crease before Akbar's long innings… read more:
https://www.telegraphindia.com/opinion/rajputs-redux-188019

See also

Popular posts from this blog

Third degree torture used on Maruti workers: Rights body

Haruki Murakami: On seeing the 100% perfect girl one beautiful April morning

The Almond Trees by Albert Camus (1940)

Satyagraha - An answer to modern nihilism

Rudyard Kipling: critical essay by George Orwell (1942)

Three Versions of Judas: Jorge Luis Borges

Goodbye Sadiq al-Azm, lone Syrian Marxist against the Assad regime