Jodha Akbar: Episode 68 - Miscarriage Investigation Arc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xugvpdUIzg0

Okay, I was rewatching the serial, and I am currently at the miscarriage investigation arc where Jodha and her brothers have been acquitted and everyone is investigating who the actual culprit is.

This episode, especially, gave me secondhand embarrassment because, honestly, what was Jodha thinking when she brought Rahim forward as a witness against Maham Anga?! 🤦🏾‍♀️

Not only is this reckless on her part, but it also ignores how children think at this particular stage of moral development.

It is particularly worse as Jodha eventually admits to knowing that Rahim would be afraid of the Shehenshah’ meaning she knew better yet chose to go with this option…

As established in the series (especially in this episode), Rahim is four, meaning he’s in the pre-conventional level of morality development (according to Lawrence Kohlberg), where Rahim’s focus is on avoiding punishment as much as possible and protecting his self-interest.

Rahim finds Jalal (the emperor) holding a box he had stolen from Maham Anga and kept in Salima’s room, probably because he forgot it there (kids tend to easily forget stuff at folks’ place too). Rahim has no idea that the box contained the abortifacient used to kill the unborn heir.

To Rahim, all that is running in his mind is this: the emperor is holding the box I stole from Maham Anga => the emperor looks upset => I am in trouble.

And obviously, for a kid who is at this stage of moral development, he doesn’t want to be punished by the emperor (and for good reasons), so he goes to Jodha (a trusted adult) and confesses to her that he found the box with Maham Anga.

Again, Rahim has no idea what the significance of that box is and believes he’s in trouble for stealing, and one would think Jodha would have factored this in mind before thinking of bringing him out to Jalal’s Khaas Mahal as a witness against Maham.

It certainly doesn’t help that Jalal was visibly upset (right in front of Rahim, no less, who is visibly panicking), which again is not helping matters at all.

It is no wonder Rahim is quick to bolt out of there, and he also feels betrayed by Jodha’s actions.

In addition to that, Jodha was placing Rahim in danger with that move. And while Maham wasn’t there, if she had any idea that Rahim witnessed her with that box, what’s to say that she wouldn’t try to kill him, too?

Honestly, I think Jodha could have found other means of gathering evidence against Maham than bringing a child forward as a witness. This is not to say that kids are invalid eyewitnesses (they are not), but if you are going to have one as a witness, keep in mind that kids tend to see the world in black-and-white and may not see things the way we adults do.

TL;DR: Jodha doing what she did in this episode was reckless, showed a lack of knowledge of how children think and behave (which is strange as Jodha does display that she knew why Rahim was hesitant to tell Jalal the truth while ranting to Moti), and could have endangered Rahim.

Honestly, I also recognize why she brought in Rahim as a witness, given that she had no other choice, given that Jalal is too emotionally attached to Maham in the serial to believe that she could do something so particularly heinous to him; ironic as he has lived long enough to know that even (chosen) family can be traitors.

However, the serial has painted Jodha as an emotionally intelligent individual, which is indicting for the fact that she doesn't seem to read the room and note that Jalal is visibly angry with her, which could sway how Rahim interacts with him (and it does!).

Children around Rahim's age tend to fear authority figures like their parents, guardians and teachers, except that Jalal is also the emperor, and that is 100x worse than if Jalal were just his guardian.

Honestly, Jodha could have gone about this differently instead of straight up bringing in Rahim as her witness, and it is made worse by the fact that she did acknowledge that Rahim was scared of Jalal.

The miscarriage track did piss me off for multiple reasons, and this was one of them 😩😭😭

The arc did have its good moments, I will admit, but overall, it was frustrating to sit through it, and the ending of the track was unsatisfactory with how it was executed. I still hate the fact that Maham got away with murder at the end of the day 😒

Honestly, I thought that scene made Jalal more stupid than the miscarriage arc had already did because while it is understandable why he'd find it unbelievable that Maham would backstab him in such a manner (and the show writers wanted to keep Maham around for longer), why the hell is he revealing what he has investigated to her? of all people? Did he do this with Jodha and Salima?

Two, Ruqaiya has revealed that the queens in the harem have been miscarrying even before Jodha stepped foot into Agra; Lakhi being responsible for that will not be feasible since she admitted to only causing Ruqaiya's miscarriage. If Jalal had at least one brain cell working in this arc, he'd have investigated those ones as well.

But no, we all had to suffer through this one...🥲

I am even more surprised that Jalal did not bother to show concern that Ruqaiya's miscarriage was not the first of such incidents to take place within his own harem, and somehow he was just learning about that as of that moment...😬

Honestly, I would have loved it if the writers had made the miscarriage a cold case by portraying Maham as a ruthless figure executing witnesses just so Jalal would not find her out. That is the direction I am currently taking in IES, and it is a shame we never got to see something like that in the series.

It would have been cool to see Maham actually outsmarting Jalal in his investigation to the point that he has no choice but to eventually close the case.

Also, another stupid aspect in that arc was Maham letting that artisan who made the box holding the datura live 😒🤦🏾‍♀️