Senior Congress leader Niranjan Patnaik has sent a notice from his lawyers to Sudhanshu Vats, Group Chief Executive Officer, Viacom 18 Media Private limited, owners of Colors TV Channel, broadcasting the controversial serial Chakravartin Ashoka Samrat. He demanded an apology for distorting history and insulting people of Odisha.
Niranjan argued that he respects freedom of expression, which includes creative expression in different art forms. But, the depiction in the TV serial is contrary to 250 years of research and writing on emperor Ashoka.
The people of Odisha take justifiable pride in the fact that the brave people of Kalinga had refused to surrender against the might of the Mauryan ruler and had shown great heroism causing a blood bath that transformed Ashoka into accepting Buddhism and spreading the message of peace and ‘dharma’ in his own territory as well as across the world. This is an important chapter in Odisha’s history and part of the State’s heritage. The events and characters as depicted in the serial is a bogus dramatisation that has no basis in any published research or writing.
The age and time of King Ashoka is well documented by eminent historians and there are endless amounts of research available especially from major sources of Ashokan history, i.e. Indian, Sri lankan, Chinese, Burmese, Tibetan and Greek, which have been successfully cross-referenced over the last two centuries. Besides, there is now a huge body of archaeological evidence in the form of major and minor edicts written in Bramhi script, including the ones in Dhauli and Jaugada, which are well known. The makers of the serial have not even referred to widely read authors on Ashoka like Romila Thapar and Charles Allen, Patnaik contended.
“There is no basis, research, source for such scurrilous misrepresentation except the desire to make commercial gains and in the process unnecessarily insult the sensibilities and pride of the people of Odisha by distorting what is accepted by the entire world as history,” said Patnaik. The legal notice has been issued by a Delhi based law firm and demands Colors to insert a suitable scroll in the serial within seven days apologizing for the error or be prepared to face appropriate legal proceedings both civil and criminal before appropriate courts of law in India.