For all those who say that we should be discussing ‘real issues’ rather than non issues like Padmavati, but still can’t stop spewing derisive verbiage on the Padmavati topic-

First the facts.

1) Sixteen thousand women in the walled city of Chittor burnt themselves to death in a giant pyre. That’s all we really know.

2) Today people of all denomination and abomination are accusing each other of barbarism. The one who speaks in the right accent with the right television channel seems to ‘win’ the debate.

The rest is history.  And while it gets written and rewritten by the man on top, here is what never comes to light.

1. Padmavati was a belief system around the sacred feminine.

An entire city razed itself to the ground not for it’s king, but it’s queen. Get the drift. How many times has that known to happen in world history? Even among Rajput extremists today, she is not a queen, she is a symbol of the Mother. People who have been raised in cultures where mothers are birth giving disposable commodities struggle to comprehend the power of the Great Mother. Therein lies the seed of contention. For Persian mystics,  Jayasi’s immortalisation of Padmavati as ‘the invincible spirit of ‘womanhood’ is the goal of all mystics. In certain swathes of land from Kashmir to Rameshwaram  the Great Mother was worshipped before the prosyletisation of Brahmanism, Vaishnavism and Shaivism, the three great Hindu patriarchies. Most Rajput deities are female divinities, like Karni.  Only on rare occasions in history do we see an extant culture evolving around the deification of the feminine.

Padmavati is a muse, not a person.

2. Death before dishonour is some type of honor killing.

No, it’s not. Once upon a time when wars were fought with swords and not tongues, a ‘true’ Rajput boy would be taught by his mother the Rajput code of chivalry. Never raise your hand on a woman. Never disrespect her. Protect her and give your life for her if need be. For a true Rajput does not fear death.

A Rajput fights for his motherland, not his fatherland. It was not just the women who died that day of Jauhar in Chittor, but men too. The Kesari banas, tied the saffron safas of  martyrdom, and died fighting to the last man. Now that’s a cinematic nuance that might challenge Bhansali’s triangulated love formula to a breaking point. The stomach churns at the mid-riff showing unibrowed pirouetting Padmini. Bhansali’s depiction of a Rajput queen so far is an insult to artistic sensibility. A folk dancer in a Rajasthan fair can do better.

3. Jauhar is a type of sati.

No it’s not. Jauhar is the refusal to live a life of indignity, a refusal to be conquered, a refusal to be touched by a man displeasing to you. And your man is willing to die for this too, just so your wish is fulfilled. It is the opposite of sati, well defined as climbing into your husband’s pyre because you can’t live without him. A woman who commits jauhar will not commit sati, because sati establishes patriarchy, jauhar thumbs your nose at it.

Like patriarchy, you find feminism in unlikely places.

4. Feudalism is the same as patriarchy.

No it’s not. Feudalism, in its best practice, is corporate culture without the pink slip. The only difference between feudalism and corporate culture is that in a feudal society you get hired at birth but don’t get fired at death. And the expenditures, from birth to death, marriage ( sometimes many), children (also many) for you and your entire family is paid for.

Few know that in many Royal households the Rani inherited her mother-in-law’s lands and properties, and no one, not the Queen Mother nor the King could take it away from her. No scope for a dowry death there.

The Ranis of the hoary past, from the private confines of the zenana ran their parallel governments and held their private courts. The Rajas had no say in the matter or any other personal matter or any decision regarding their children. A strong Rani could easily run the kingdom and most of them did.

For every concubine, there was a handsome stable boy, and an even handsomer cook. Feudalism invented the open marriage.

It is an irony that many accomplished women I know today are still nothing but glorified secretaries of their husbands. They raise their daughters to be like them, and defer to their sons. They abject themselves to a gender skewered narrow divisive system they were raised in and continue to propagate. I cannot see them as examples to be emulated.

5.  Rajputs are crude and barbaric.

Yet their customs, etiquette and havelis are a lucrative tourist exhibition of aesthetics and culture. Many try to imitate their Royal lifestyle but fail miserably. There’s only so much you can do with nouveau riche money, social climbing fame and a convent education.

Of the men vociferously denouncing Rajput barbarism, one has been accused of killing his wife, and the others are renowned gropers. Only no victimised woman will come out and speak about it.

They speak only when the topic turns to Padmavati, the non-issue.