KOLKATA: Indian history is a very popular topic for Indian filmmakers. We have seen this through the commercial success of films like Anarkali, Taj Mahal, Mughal-e-Azam, Amrapali, Jodha-Akbar, Asoka, Bajirao Mastani and so on.

Predecessors like Sohrab Modi’s Jhansi Ki Rani, Sikandar and Pukar did not create controversy because the fictional bits added to make the films more audience-friendly did not mess with the main historical core. Yet, a researcher might need to sift fact from fiction for academic research on the historical film – if there is one.

The violence inflicted by members of the Rajput Karni Sena on filmmaker Sanjay Leela Bhansali during the shooting of his new film Padmavati would have been the biggest joke had it not evoked such mindless violence on a creative artiste in the world’s largest democracy – well, that is what it is still called!

The crew’s equipment was destroyed and Bhansali packed up everything, stopped the shoot and quit Jaipur with his cast and crew. While everyone began a verbal slaughter of the perpetrators, in the media and on social networking sites, noted journalist Rina Mukherjee said, “You cannot expect anything better than such mobocracy in a place like Rajasthan which did not even have schools for girls until Maharani Gayatri Devi set up one in the mid-20th Century.”

One wishes that these guys trying to protect their culture and history in quite anti-cultural and ahistorical ways would have read up on authentic history to be able to justify their keenness “to protect the lineage of their ancestors from any misrepresentation” before they wreaked violence.

If at least one among them had gone through history, or consulted a history teacher, they would have discovered that Rani Padmini or Padmavati is not mentioned in any Rajput or Sultanate annals, and there is absolutely no historical evidence that she existed.

Alauddin Khilji, one of the finest generals in India’s military history, needed no treachery to subdue Chittor. He repelled successive Mongol invasions while conquering much of Rajasthan and Gujarat. But what has survived of him is the image of a lustful, deceitful, tyrant pitted against chivalrous Rajputs.

Noted historian S Irfan Habib claims that Rani Padmavati was not a historical figure as there is record of her before 1540. According to him, the queen was a fictional figure created in the poem, ‘Padmavat’ written by Malik Mohd Jayasi in 1540.

The poem traces the story of Padmini, Alauddin Khilji and Rawal Ratan Singh and has no basis in fact. Some feel that Amir Khusrau referred to a beautiful queen of the Padmini class, in his epic work Khazain-ul-Futuh — but there’s no proof of this. The words he speaks in this story, about Ala-ud-din Khilji being the Solomon of this Age, however, are actually taken from his work.

The two most famous films based on the same historical romance between Salim (later became Jehangir) and Anarkali, namely Anarkali (1953) and Mughal-e-Azam (1960) are said to be fictional because Anarkali is a creation of fiction who did not exist.

There is no evidence that Prince Salim ever fell in love with the courtesan, and no reference to her in Salim's autobiography. Noted art historian R. Nath has argued that Jehangir had no wife called Anarkali to whom the emperor could have built a tomb. Whether Anarkali is pure fiction or based on historical fact, her legend has mesmerized the people of South Asia. She has caught the eye of nearly every big name in the arts in South Asia for the past 100 years. Anarkali and Mughal-e-Azam were major hits in Pakistan and India.

Prof. S. Irfan Habib, former chairman of Indian Council of Historical Research had also maintained that there was no historical character named Jodha Bai as shown in Jodha-Akbar directed by Ashutosh Gowarikar.

It is true that Akbar married Amber king Raja Bharmal’s eldest daughter but her name is not mentioned anywhere. Even Jehangir has not mentioned anything about this lady in his memoirs Tuzuk-i-Jahangir.

N R Farooqi, Head of the Department of History at Allahabad University says,” Jodha was not Akbar's wife but Jahangir's and she was Shahjahan's mother!” It is said that Gowarikar hired a research team of historians and scholars from New Delhi, Lucknow, Agra and Jaipur (!) to guide him on this film and help keep things historically accurate. How can any accuracy, historical or otherwise, be sought in a love story rooted in fiction?

Santosh Sivan’s Asoka (2001) flopped because halfway through, Shahrukh Khan who was portraying the layered role of Samrat Asoka, forgot that he was playing a king who became a Buddhist and came back to being Shahrukh Khan, mannerisms and all.

Besides this, all characters in the film (from the Mauryan Empire and Kalinga) speak modern Hindi opposed to the ancient Prakrit dialects spoken in the 3rd century BC. The names of the historical figures in the film are also changed in accordance with modern Hindi.

There is no historical evidence of a queen ruling Kalinga at the time of Asoka's invasion and the whole Pawan/Kaurwaki episode is pure fantasy. Asked how much liberty he took with history, Sivan said, “We had to dramatise to show the magnitude of the change (in Asoka) and also to create an impact. We basically followed his life but we added characters and created dramatic moments.” If that be so, why call it a historical film at all and not a feature film ‘adapted from history’?

Ketan Mehta did not blink twice when he placed entirely fictionalised love stories in his film Mangal Pandey – The Rising (2005). Mangal Pandey was a Sepoy whose actions helped spark the Indian rebellion of 1857. But the two stories of the romantic liaisons between the British Commanding Officer William Gordon and Jwala, a teenaged widow he saves from being burnt as a Sati is pure fiction as is the romance between Mangal Pandey and Hira who he marries before being executed.

The film made decent business but faced controversy. The Bharatiya Janata Party demanded a ban on the film accusing it of showing falsehood and character assassination of Mangal Pandey. The Samajwadi Party leader Uday Pratap Singh called in the Rajya Sabha to ban the film for its "inaccurate portrayal" of Pandey. Protestors in Ballia district, where Pandey had lived, damaged a shop selling cassettes and CDs of the film, stalled a goods train on its way to Chapra (Bihar), and staged a sit-in on the Ballia-Barriya highway.

But the film continued to run and made reasonable business. Not much is known about Pandey's life, and the film invents liberally; yet there is some plausibility in these inventions.

A descendant of Peshwa Bajirao I has alleged that historical facts have been "altered" while portraying the late king and his wives Kashibai and Mastani in Bajirao Mastaani.

A petition was filed stating that the song ‘Pinga’ is offensive to Marathi culture. A descendant of queen Kashibai Peshwe, who wished not to be named, claimed that Kashibai suffered from an arthritis-like ailment at a very young age and was bed-ridden for most of her life. She also suffered from asthma, and hence it was impossible that she danced with Mastani.

The thumping box office returns on Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Bajirao Mastaani raises questions on whether historical romances are based on truth or are they a form of romanticizing history. The commercial risks taken are underscored by their box office success.

The question is not so much about the commercial success or failure of historical romances but is more about the extent to which such films (a) reflect the historical conditions and contexts of these romances, (b) how much they are based on authentic sources and (c) whether they are a part of what has come to be termed “contextual film history.”

Placed within the context of Bollywood films, such questions do not arise for the simple reason that they are made with two targets (a) to fulfil the demands of the mass audience, cutting through caste, class, language and geography and (b) to fill in the coffers at the cash counter so that there is enough money to make the next film. Within this scenario therefore, it is interesting to discover that the very popular films supposedly rooted in love stories picked from history, most of the love stories use only the names of the characters, the historical backdrop and the grand production design and locations for their films.

Historical films are flamboyant, lavishly mounted, richly costumed and propped melodramas not to be taken outside of mainstream films because they are mainstream structured to offer larger-than-life entertainment. They have little history and even less fact. Such films are often made by directors with a self-conscious, loud, and highly formalist style using historical motifs, backdrops and costumes not symbolically but in very attractive and glamorous ways adding fodder to the audience’s hunger for entertainment.

Are historical films authentic? Jodha-Akbar, Anarkali, Mugha-e-Azam, Bajirao Mastaani, and Mangal Pandey – The Rising render these questions redundant. According to Frederick Jackson Turner, “each age tries to form its own conception of the past. Each age writes the history of the past anew with reference to the conditions uppermost in its own time.”

The entertainment value, the lavish sets, the beautiful costumes, the music, the song and the dance numbers, the dramaturgy, the aesthetically picturised locations and the designedly stylised acting transport us to a world of fantasy that transcends, aborts and stills all expressions of violence for its own sake!