Hysteria over history

The assault on Sanjay Leela Bhansali has left people across the creative spectrum baffled. While some express that certain liberties need to be taken with the truth in order to tell a certain story, some state that if one is making a non-fictional movie, facts needs to be accurate. We speak to historians, movie-makers and authors to know how much can one play around the text?

Author Anand Neelakantan who has authored fiction books based on the Indian epics says, “I don’t know if the people who went and fought, had read the script or not and it’s not like he (Bhansali) has already shot the entire movie or revealed the script. So, no one has seen the movie and yet these people seem offended. We don’t know how much of history has been tweaked by Bhansali. Anyway, violence is never the answer to anything.” Talking about whether it is permitted to tweak a historical tale, he adds, “You can change the viewpoint but you can’t change the facts. Like, for example, one can’t  say that Ala-ud-din Khilji had done no atrocities. But as an artist, you can say how he did it and why he did it. Making him an anti-hero is another thing. But you can’t say he never did any of those things, as that would be ridiculous. So to change a viewpoint is okay. You can play with what was right or wrong but facts need to remain intact and real.”

Theatre directors who work extensively on mythology and history tell us that while these subjects can be ‘reinterpreted’, they shouldn’t be ideally ‘fictionalised’. Atul Satya Koushik, director at The Films and Theatre Society, agreeing with Neelakantan says, “It’s the artiste’s basic right and business to find out lesser known aspects and present it to the audience. But he shouldn’t distort established facts. So, while I made a play where I showed Ramayana from Raavana’s perspective but I can’t show that Raavana killed Rama. I can justify Raavana’s acts, showing him in the role of the main narrator but the ending will remain the same.”

M Sayeed Alam, director, Pierrot’s Troupe, says, “As a research scholar of the history and political science, I can say that while one can surely reinterpret history, one shouldn’t fictionalise, as over the years the film becomes a source of history. I’ve done several plays on Ghalib and my complaint with the TV series based on him is that it shows Ustad Zauq as a villain. Now, there might be a hundred books on Zauq, but people would prefer the TV series to know about Ghalib and end up thinking Zauq as a negative character, while he was great shayar.”

However, both the theatre directors don’t support this form of violent protest. Atul says that the team opposing the film should have spoken to Bhansali about it and presented their reservations and Alam adds, “If supposedly Bhansali didn’t get the historical facts correct, did the protesters have all historical evidences regarding the real story of Rani Padmavati? Also, did Bhansali ever give them his script to compare? If not, then the protest is based on mere rumours.”    

On the other hand, author Aditya Iyengar, says that as long you’re creating fiction, you should be allowed to take as many liberties as possible since fiction is all about imagination and interpretations. He adds, “If you are expressly creating non-fiction or documentaries, only then should you stick to the series of events or facts as they happened.”

Lastly, Sidhartha Gauri, a documentary filmmaker, says that every depiction of history differs as it depends on who is depicting it. “When you’re  creating a story, you can’t  make everyone happy because it will be diverse. People will write their own concepts in their own way of writing. So that conflict can never stop. I believe Bhansali has the full creative freedom to bring alive history and its characters,” he says.