The Centre wants to ask a group of historians to watch Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Padmavati and assess whether the film distorts history, as some groups have claimed, the Hindustan Times reported on Thursday.
The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has asked the Ministry of Human Resource Development for a list of historians for the task, on the request of the Central Board of Film Certification. The HRD Ministry is expected to finalise and suggest names for the panel soon, unidentified officials were quoted as saying by the Asian Age.
Last week, Bhansali and Central Board of Film Certification Chairperson Prasoon Joshi had appeared before a parliamentary standing committee to discuss the controversy around Padmavati. Some right-wing groups have claimed that the movie, based on the 14th-century mythical Chittor queen Padmini, distorts history as it shows a romantic dream sequence between the queen and Alauddin Khilji – a claim Bhansali has denied.
Padmavati, starring Deepika Padukone, Ranveer Singh and Shahid Kapoor, has been in the midst of a controversy since January, with Rajput groups and others accusing Bhansali of straying from facts in the movie. In the past few weeks, Padukone and Bhansali have received a number of threats, after which Viacom18 Motion Pictures – the co-producers of Padmavati – decided to “voluntarily defer” its release. The movie was scheduled to be out on December 1.
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