Yesterday, the leftist propaganda website ‘Scroll’ published an article titled “History lesson : Padmavati was driven to immolation by a Rajput prince, not Ala-ud-din Khalji” where it claimed that Rami Padmini committed Jauhar because she feared rape by Devapala of Kumbhalner after he defeated and killed Rani Padmini’s husband, Rawal Ratan Sen.
A stitched screenshot of the entire article is as follows :
Soon, this fallacious article was picked up by many and peddled as a stick to beat the Rajput clan with, which has become the favourite pastime of bigoted casteist ‘liberals’ of late:
In fact, this grossly erroneous article was not just picked up by journalists from the Indian Express, HuffPost, or some leftist propagandists, but also by a self proclaimed ‘Mythologist’ who has been often called out for his distortions.
While these assorted commentators and haters derived pleasure out of shaming Rajputs, many Twitter users started pointing out the glaring mistakes in the Scroll article:
liar !! Ratan Singh & Devpala both killed in that fight. U say only Ratan S died ! Padmini doesn’t do Jauhar fearing Devpala but becomes Sati! Jauhar done by other women fearing Jihadi Khilji. @hindu_g@purnimchand@bhAratenduH . Hazriparasd Dwivedi’s book on Padmavat shows this pic.twitter.com/IV3nWHdocI
— Ceteris Paribus (@entropied) November 25, 2017
So both Devapala and Ratan Sen died in that fight according to Jayasi’s poem itself, based on which Scroll article made wide claims. Not just this poem, there are several other references that cite how Devapala and Ratan Sen both died, and Rani Padmini actually committed Jauhar fearing Khilji.
Soon it was found out that Scroll had withdrawn their article pending editorial review and admitted the glaring mistakes made by the author:
Many people noted how the falling editorial standards of such platforms, owing to their authors’ biases, have been forced to retract the shoddily researched article because of corrections by Twitter users.
To glorify Khilji leftists declared Devapala (brother of Rawal Ratan singh ) a rapist, The article was taken down because some RWs pointed out the lie. Now imagine what they did to our history during 60 years of Congress when no one was there to point out their lies. pic.twitter.com/QpEG3pA8L1
— The Frustrated Indian (@FrustIndian) November 25, 2017
What is noteworthy is that the same Ruchika Sharma who was giving ‘history lessons’ in this article, terrible ones at that, had not so long ago written an article claiming that Rani Padmini is nothing more than a fictional character. In that article, published incidentally on Scroll, she had written:
“Calling Jayasi’s masnavi a work of history is doing great injustice to the many efforts he took to weave together such brilliant poetry.”
While Rani Padmani herself finds mentions in many history books, and her claim that she is ‘fictional’ might not hold water, it is amusing that she would first write about her being fictional, and then distort to give a history lesson exonerating Khilji and maligning the Rajputs.
Another one by renowned historian Ishwari Prasad. Written in his 1930 first edition book @Javedakhtarjadu @Sharanyashettyy #Padmavati pic.twitter.com/mQsEHzN5bE
— Nupur (@UnSubtleDesi) January 31, 2017
Finally, another famous historian Prof D Sharma asserts historicity of Padmini, through sources that existed much before Jayasi’s Padmavat. pic.twitter.com/MusHGOObs8
— Anand Ranganathan (@ARanganathan72) January 29, 2017
It is thus tragic that some authors seem to have made it their intellectual mission to not only exonerate Khilji, but also vilify the entire Rajput clan.
