Cut to the Chase: Even if Padmavati Was Real, Violence Isn’t Cool

Whether Padmavati lived or not, whether a Sultan of Delhi was enamoured or not, what halts a story from being told?

For several months now, Sanjay Leela Bhansali, Deepika Padukone, Shahid Kapoor, Ranveer Singh and a host of well-meaning Bollywood personalities have been screaming, till they’ve been blue in the face, about how Padmavati is fictional.

Common citizens, harried by the mounting threats to people’s noses, heads and other body parts, have hurriedly jumped into the fray too, to protest what they claim isn’t history, but myth.

You could fall on either side of the bandwagon – but that isn’t the point. The point is, who decides what you can take up arms for, in a democracy? History can’t be reframed according to convenient contemporary narratives, so that armchair antagonists can sit back and purr, “Now that sounds and suits us just fine!”