Mughal descendant moves court against `Jodhaa Akbar'

Agra, April 5 (IANS) Yakub Habeebuddin Tucy, the great grandson of the last Mughal emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar, has filed a writ petition in the Supreme Court against what he calls "molestation of history and character assassination of emperor Akbar" in Ashutosh Gowariker's "Jodhaa Akbar".

In his writ petition filed Thursday, Tucy prayed to the apex court to direct the producers of the film to change the name of the character "Jodha" to "Harkha" or some other fictitious name which "does not distort history and defame the name of Akbar or the illustrious Mughal dynasty".

Talking to IANS from Hyderabad, Tucy said he presented documents and statements of prominent historians like Jadunath Sarkar, Satish Chandra, Ashirwadi Lal Srivastav, and R. Nath to establish that emperor Akbar had nothing to do with Jodha Bai "who was actually the daughter of Udai Singh and daughter-in-law of Akbar."

He objected to the distortion of history in the movie, which the producers were promoting as a "period film".

Tucy said he wanted the film's screening to be stopped as it was misleading people and creating a wrong image of the Mughal dynasty.

Noted Mughal historian R. Nath said "Jodhaa Akbar" is an example of perverted history for entertainment.

"The film by Gowariker is no match to K. Asif's 'Mughal-e-Azam'. No doubt Asif added characters and events to romanticise the film, but hardly ever did he try to transgress the limits of history or outrage its sensitivity or authenticity. That was how Anarkali was permanently imprinted on the collective psyche of people."

Nath said "Jodhaa Akbar" is a poor imitation of "Mughal-e-Azam" and without any historical basis whatsoever.

"In history, there was only one Jodha Bai, daughter of Mota Raja Uday Singh Rathor of Jodhpur, and was married to Salim (Jahangir, 1628-58).

"She was called Jodha Bai because she belonged to Jodhpur. Jahangir bestowed upon her the title of Jagat Gosain, as he styled himself as Jagat Guru. Jahangir's queen Jodha died in 1619 and her son Shah Jahan built for her a magnificent tomb at Agra."

Akbar had four wives and with none did he have any romance as "all these were political marriages".

Nath said Gowariker had done "injustice" to Mughal emperor Akbar whose dignity, majestic looks and grandeur had been "caricatured" in the form of Hritik Roshan.

Even the inscription outside the so-called Jodha Bai palace in Fatehpur Sikri clearly mentions that Jodha Bai has been mistakenly called Akbar's wife, said Tucy. With such material proof how can filmmakers claim they had researched and presented true Mughal history, he asked.

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Jodhaa Akbar