History lesson: Padmavati was driven to immolation by a Rajput prince, not Ala-ud-din Khalji

by Guest Sat Nov 25, 2017 12:35 am

A movie is being staunchly opposed, an actor’s life is being threatened, and Rajput pride is being extolled to justify it all. But despite what the Karni Sena will have you believe, the history of the Rajputs is not one of fierce valour. It is one of constant internecine warfare, rife with bloodshed and kidnapping and raping of women from rival Rajput clans. Indeed, it was an inter-Rajput conflict that led to Rani Padmini, the fictional queen of Chittor, immolating herself.

Malik Muhammad Jayasi’s Sufi allegory Padmavat, which first introduced the character of Padmini, was so creatively woven it took the 16th century literary world by storm, and the epic poem’s legacy continued to be celebrated well into the 19th century, with many different versions being written such as Rat Padam and Padmavat-i-Zikr. Crucially, most later versions of Padmavat retained a key aspect of the story: Padmini’s jauhar was not brought about by the much-maligned Ala-ud-din Khalji, but a Rajput prince, Devapala of Kumbhalner.

According to Jayasi’s Padmavat, being a famed beauty, Padmini has many suitors and Devapala is one of them. After her husband Rawal Ratan Sen is taken as Khalji’s prisoner to Delhi, Devapala, driven by his lust for Padmini, sends a woman messenger by the name of Kumudini, who beseeches Padmini to accept Devapala’s offer of marriage and forget about her captive husband. She entices Padmini by telling her how rich the prince is and how “one forgets Chittor when one goes to Kumbhalner”.

Padmini declines the offer and hatches a plan with the Rajput chieftains Gora and Badal to free Ratan Sen by sending soldiers into Khalji’s Siri Fort in palanquins. The plan succeeds and Ratan Sen returns with his wife to Chittor, only to find Devapala has attacked his fort. In the fight that ensues between Ratan and Devapala, the former loses and is killed. Fearing that Devapala will rape her and other women of the harem, Padmini leads them to commit jauhar. By the time Khalji returns to Chittor, to reassert his control over Ratan Sen, all he finds are ashes.

Even though Padmavat is a work of fiction, it stands as a testament to the internecine warfare that was endemic to the Rajputs. In his study on the ethics of warfare in South Asia, Kaushik Roy argues that for the Rajputs, enmity within the community was more important than fighting the Turks. Thus, when Muhammad Ghauri attacked Bhimadeva, the Rajput Chalukya ruler of Gujarat, the famous Tomara ruler Prithviraja refused to help his fellow Rajput king because of long-running Tomara-Chalukya enmity. A pan-Indian Rajput consciousness is largely a post-colonial construct and certainly did not exist previously.

https://scroll.in/article/858619/history-lesson-padmavati-was-driven-to-immolation-by-a-rajput-prince-not-ala-ud-din-khalji