![]() Says Abraham Eraly, author of The Last Spring (1997), a study of the lives and times of the Mughals: “One of Jehangir’s Rajput wives was named Jodh Bai, the mother of Shah Jahan. Irfan Habib, historian and former chairman of the Indian Council of Historical Research, unequivocally: “There was no historical character in Akbar’s times named Jodha Bai."īased on all the information that has surfaced after the promos of Gowariker’s films began to air, historically, Jodha Bai is merely a representative figure. Reluctant bride: Jodha Bai (Aishwarya Rai Bachchan) resists conjugal relations with Akbar (Hrithik Roshan) in the film. That is the heart and soul of this film," Ali says. “How does a beautiful Rajput princess with military skills and a mind of her own accept a Muslim ruler as her husband when the marriage was purely for a political alliance between her father and the emperor? Being married to a Hindu myself, and having read about Akbar’s secular and humanitarian ideas since my childhood, I could develop the nuances of this relationship. No history book has offered any material in that respect to Ali, who developed the relationship with his imagination. Asif’s Mughal-e-Azam (1960), based on Rajasthani oral history? Doesn’t such a portrayal falsify the life and times of one of the greatest figures of Indian history?Ĭlearly, the only purpose of Gowariker-director of Lagaan and Swades (2004)-was to fictionalize the romance between Akbar and Jodha Bai the film is meant to be “an epic romance" and nothing much beyond that. Who, then, was Jodha Bai? Are Ali and Gowariker simply reiterating a myth that has passed on as history from K. In fact, some historians say that Jodha Bai was the name of Jehangir’s wife, and she was not even born when Akbar was in his prime. Jehangir’s memoir doesn’t mention her, and neither do most seminal works of history on this era or school history textbooks. Abul Fazal’s Ain-e-Akbari and Akbarnama have no reference to Jodha Bai. Yet, it is now established that Jodha Bai isn’t the wife of Akbar in most authentic chronicles of early Mughal history. She even flew down to Mumbai to release the music album of the film on 19 January. One of the greatest validations for the writer-director duo’s screenplay came from Maharani Padmini Devi of Jaipur, a direct descendant of Jodha Bai, who read the entire story and expressed her satisfaction and approval. If we go by Wikipedia, Jodha Bai, daughter of Raja Bharmal of Amber, was married to emperor Akbar in 1562. ![]() “What we knew for sure was that Akbar married the daughter of Raja Bharmal of Amber and Jehangir was born out of this union," Gowariker said. Srivastav and Munni Lal-all former professors at the university-mentioned Jodha Bai. ![]() ![]() But before that-sensing that this film was risky territory-Gowariker visited the Aligarh Muslim University, where he was told that there were no historical references to Jodha Bai, but historians such as K.L. ![]()
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