Though not ideal, voluntarily deferring the film's release is the responsible thing to do
Public memory is indeed short. Neither those who have been opposing the release of Sanjay leela Bhansali's film Padmavati nor those who have been taking a hard line on its immediate release seem to remember that the filmmaker had nearly a decade ago staged an elaborate, critically acclaimed opera ballet, also called Padmavati, which was an adaption of the 1923 ballet written by Albert Roussel. The show premiered in Paris at the prestigious Théâtre du Châtelet and next at the Festival dei Due Mondi in 2008, a year after Bhansali delivered a box office dud in Saawariya (2007) and sparked his cinematic comeback. This factoid is of interest given the ballet, which like the film was also a retelling of Malik Mohammad Jayasi's poem Padmavat (1540), passed off without inflaming passions in India. And that has nothing to do with the present regime in power and everything to do with the fact that one size does not fit all — to put in box office terms, one has to know one's audience. This newspaper has been clear from the outset of the row over Padmavati that there has to be zero tolerance from State administrations for protestors' threats, violence and intimidation and action under the harshest sections of the Indian Penal Code must be initiated against those who have threatened physical harm, damaged property and put bounties on the heads of the actors and director of the film. The booking under the Arms Act of Karni Sena activists in Rajasthan who let off firearms at a protest meeting or the BJP issuing a show-cause notice to its Haryana leader Suraj Pal Amu who announced a Rs 10 crore bounty on the heads on Bhansali and lead actor Deepika Padukone is not enough; cases under harsher sections relating to criminal intimidation, women's protection and even attempt to murder should also be pressed against those who have used vile language and held out death threats against Bhansali and his colleagues. But it also needs to be recognized that a vast swathe of people across north India irrespective of political affiliations, and especially but not restricted to the Rajput community, have been enraged and repulsed by what they perceive — correctly or not, is a discussion for elsewhere — as an attempt to mount a work of fiction on a historical character without a consultative process with stakeholders.
Rani Padmini is very much a historical heroine and abiding deity for millions and the times of an allegedly urbane, reportedly nuanced and often self-servingly selective aesthetic being the final arbiter of what is culturally acceptable in India are over. Freedom of expression is one of our most valued Constitutional rights but it is subject to reasonable restrictions and we cannot bat for the former without accepting the validity of the latter. In the circumstances, and given the threat to public order in the States of Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, the filmmakers have acted sagaciously to voluntarily defer the release of the film. In the interim, while tempers cool and the threat of violence is taken out of the equation by effective administrative action, the filmmakers would do well to consider reasonable offers of mediation like that from the current custodian of the House of Mewar, Rana Arvind Singh, who is the descendent of Rani Padmavati. For, no sane citizen or responsible government would want to curb creative output without a just and pressing cause.