This is really a spirited defence of Jodha and I would applaud you for it. But there is a clear difference between this case and the other two you have cited. Let me try and explain why.
1) Jalal was (very irresponsibly, as I wrote in my post The demands of Rajadharma ) ready to give up his throne and abandon the awaam he was duty bound to protect to the horrors of civil war, probably ending in a regime of the worst sort under the likes of Adham Khan, just to keep his word to Jodha. I had then criticised Jalal as criminally foolish. When there is a clash between the public good and a private commitment of a ruler, the public good must always prevail. That is rajadharma.
But at least there it was to protect a specific right, that of Jodha to retain her faith and not be forced to convert.
2) When Jalal had given a shahi farman that he would give the bearer anything he wanted, and he told Jodha she could have asked for his head, I think he was joking, and/or teasing her. I do not at all think he meant it literally. Why, if that was so, no ruler could grant such boons to anyone! Even setting this aside, it was at least a written commitment.
Now here, there is no rationale for this vachan at all, once Jalal has seen the fake khwaja sera in Jodha's rooms. Sujamal, who is presumably not a dunce, should have realised at once what Jalal was bound to think as soon he saw them together, if he was not told that Sujamal was her brother. Why, if Bharmal has seen a strange man in his daughter's rooms, he would have executed both the daughter and the intruder. Remember his reaction to Jodha's moonlight boatride with Suryabhan, her fiance?
What was Sujamal's original reason, tenuous as it was, for the vachan Jodha had taken initially? That Jodha should not get into trouble by being seen to meet an enemy of the Mughal sultanate. Now, that has been renewed, her hand on his head, for exactly the same reason , unhe tum par shak ho jayega.
But once Jalal had seen both of them together in her rooms, all this went automatically out of the window. Anyone, Rajvanshi or not, would know what any husband would think of his wife if the situation was not clarified at once. So why does he not release her from the vachan at once? Why does she not ask him to do so, since the situation was bound to be fatal for him if she stayed silent?
I do not know how much Jodha understands of what agony her husband is going thru, for as I described her once, she is like a clear, burbling brook, shallow and uncomprehending of deep passions. At least her face yesterday did not indicate much grasp of what this betrayal (as he is bound to see it) by the wife he had come to love does to Jalal. If I had been in her place, it would have been what I was doing to this husband who loves me that would have mattered the most. Not, it seems, to her.But that did not surprise me.
Jodha was not hurting anyone but Jalal, and herself at one remove.
And as for the sacredness of one's word, it is not limited to any one group, though from the writings in this forum, one would hardly think so. Jalal is as true to his word as any Rajvanshi, and so would his father, or Hamida Banu,or Jahangir later have been.
But there are no absolutes in any situation, and the pros and cons have to be weighed. The greatest good of the greatest number has to prevail; it cannot be sacrificed at the altar of this kind of personal vanity.That is true whether it is Jalal being ready to abandon his throne (the import of which Jodha never grasped, for she described it later merely as his being ready to take on the mullahs!) or Jodha now, abandoning her husband to the anguish of feeling betrayed by the one he trusted above all.
Shyamala B.Cowsik
Originally posted by: vinitaj27
I agree that jodha was hurting everyone by keeping quiet but we have to remember she herself is the one who is hurt the most. She said to benazir once that I don't fear losing my life but my dignity n self respect. Here she is being accused of adultery, the worst crime possible for a woman and knows that she will not have a place in amer too after this but she is still not able to break her vachan coz that's what has been inbred in her from the time of her birth that no matter what the situation is like or how bad the circumstances are one is not supposed to break ur vachan. Jalal himself was ready to give up his throne for his word. Not only that if u guys remember he told jodha during the sword fighting scene that she could have asked for his head in lieu of his vachan and he would have been obliged to give it o her. So how is this different? Isn't she doing the same. For a Rajput or rajvanshi ur vachan came above everything else be it ur life, ur dignity , ur family or ur kingdom. She is as much caught in this mess as he is. Imagine her plight knowing that she is innocent, and that after this she o longer has a home or a place to live in or anyone to help her she still cannot break her word. History is full of Rajputs who gave up all they hd go keep thr word. U cn call them foolish but it was what they were taught o believe in.
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