How Bhansali messed up with history in Bajirao Mastani

In the 16th century, poet Malik Muhammad Jayasi wrote his Padmavat in Avadhi and introduced the myth of Queen Padmini of Chittore. What Jayasi may not have realised at that time was that his work was a perfect hit-job on Delhi sultan Alauddin Khilji, who preceded him by over three centuries. Posterity has remembered the valiant sultan who destroyed the Mongols and was a brilliant administrator as only a lover boy who destroyed a whole kingdom because he wanted to possess another man's wife.

This image of the sultan was embellished upon by Amar Chitra Katha and much later by an abysmal TV series called Chittod Ki Rani Padmini Ka Jauhar' by national award-winning director Nitin Chandrakant Desai. Khilji was shown as an ever-scheming man always busy with wine and women"stuff that great generals and conquerors are not made of. Sanjay Leela Bhansali has done the same to Peshwa Bajirao with his epic hit-job, Bajirao Mastani.

The movie had me seething with rage all throughout. It had everything I didn't want to see"melodrama, distortion of facts, poorly-shot combat scenes. Bhansali had made his intentions very clear right in the beginning when he put up a disclaimer that no claims have been made for the historical accuracy or authenticity of the plot. That has become a standard practice of makers of TV serials and period films in India where they hide their skin behind this disclaimer while letting their imagination run wild in the name of creative licence'. Some recent examples of this on TV have been Bharat Ka Veer Putra Maharana Pratap', Jodhaa Akbar' and Chakravartin Ashoka Samrat' " all of them atrocious productions, with the debate being around which one is more ridiculous.

The movie begins with Bajirao shooting an arrow and splitting a peacock feather to prove his worth for the post of Peshwa. If kings and emperors could be chosen on the basis of marksmanship, then history would be replete with snipers ruling everywhere. No doubt most rulers in that age were very competent soldiers, but kingship didn't depend on that alone, and certainly not on something as niche as shooting an apple off someone's head.

Bajirao in the movie tells his rivals "Bajirao ki talwar par kabhi sandeh nahin karte, kabhi bhi maat de sakta hai" (don't doubt Bajirao's sword, it can beat you anytime). The truth is, at least going by the established history of his victories, Bajirao wasn't in a position to make that claim in 1720. He had only accompanied his father on battles or been the deputy of other generals before, but never commanded an army until then. His famed victories would come later, after he took over as Peshwa.

The film's credits roll up with Bajirao's famed campaigns against his adversaries in the backdrop, some bad computer graphics easily noticeable. Those military campaigns made Bajirao part of popular folklore and yet those were reduced to some animated sequences.

Then you had Mastani Bai dashing into Bajirao's camp, duelling with the guards and throwing them to the ground like some clay soldiers. One could be assured that anyone seeking military assistance that way would have met a very different end in the 18th century. But Mastani charms the Peshwa with her beauty and valour and manages to bring him to Bundelkhand.

Mastani signals the beginning of the battle by firing an arrow. And she draws the bow with her index finger and thumb, a weird grip any day. Then she herself charges out of the fort and falls upon the enemy, with Bajirao charging from the rear. Mughal general Muhammad Bangash is not just routed but also killed (assuming that the commander shown in the movie was him). In reality, Bangash was never killed. And the ruse with which Bajirao tricked him"cattle hordes with flaming torches"seems to have been taken straight from a TV adaptation of Spartacus, where the rebel slaves break out of a siege by Marcus Crassus in a similar way.

During the battle with Bangash, Bajirao ends up hitting Mastani in what we know as friendly fire, but displays great medical skill when he cauterises her wound with his khanjar (erroneously referred to as katar in the movie when the katar, the Mughal name is jamdhar) was a specific weapon used as a sidearm by the nobility in those times. Later in the movie, he also displays his midwifery skills by delivering Mastani's baby.

What was also interesting was the kind of armour used by the Marathas. History tells us that the Marathas were poorly armed and equipped. And zira-bakhtar (chain mail) topped by char aina plates (a Mughal armour) wasn't something the Maratha cavalry was equipped with. That's why they were a light cavalry with most troopers wearing cotton upper garments topped by leather jackets. Only the Huzurat (Peshwa's household troops) cavalry used to be better equipped than the rest but their numbers were fewer. Bajirao was forever in debt and depended on his silahdars to bring their own troops and equip them. Therefore, it was nearly impossible for the Marathas to bring in well-equipped troops to battle. In fact, at Panipat, Ahmed Shah Abdali commented on the Maratha army as being "bare-backed""not in the literal sense but because of the fact that they had little or no armour.

When it comes to weapons, Bajirao carries a sword with a weird-looking hilt, something that looks like a cross between Bahubali's sword in the movie of the same name and the Pattern 1796 Light Cavalry Sabre of the British Army (used also by the East India Company's European officers in India). In one of the scenes at the Shaniwar Wada, you can also see a glimpse of the scabbard which is identical to that of an English cavalry sabre. This is also the scene where Kashibai frames a couplet that starts with "Heeron mein jo heera ho use kehte hai Kohinoor". Now the name Koh-i-Noor for the famous diamond didn't come until Nadir Shah's invasion in 1739. So how did Kashibai know that in the 1720s? Perhaps Bhansali knows better.

Bajirao next outwits the Nizam by replacing his guards with his own men when the old man tries to capture him. In reality, Bajirao humbled the Nizam with his military skill at Palkhed. Centuries later, Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery called it "a masterpiece of strategic mobility". Sadly, no attempt was made to picturise this masterpiece. Bhansali, if he had to show just one battle, could have avoided that wasteful affair at Bundelkhand and concentrated on Palkhed instead. That would have made the viewer understand that Bajirao was great not because of guile but because of sheer military genius.

Yet for Bhansali, facts can never come in the way of a good story. That's why the Peshwa celebrates his victory with an idiotic dance with too many jumps and is joined by his heavily armoured troops. You could walk with great difficulty while wearing chain mail"something portrayed near-accurately in K Asif's Mughal-e-Azam where a mail-clad Prithviraj Kapoor as Akbar comes to Jodha Bai for tilak, walking like a penguin (an actual mail armour was used). Dancing was, therefore, out of question unless lungi dance was the objective.

Bhansali tried to recreate the Paro-Chandramukhi dance magic from Devdas by making Kashibai and Mastani dance. Historians have been horrified by this particular sequence as Kashibai is made to dance like a courtesan"something unimaginable in that age.

Another dance that's equally horrifying is the Deewani Mastani song where Bhansali tries to redo the magic of Pyaar Kiya Toh Darna Kya of Mughal-e-Azam and fails miserably. Interestingly, Mastani plays a mandolin in this sequence, an instrument that didn't originate in Europe until the 19th century (some sources peg it between 1750 and 1810).

The last military encounter shown in the movie is between Bajirao and the forces of the Nizam's son. Bajirao rashly charges at the enemy all alone, and, in a superhuman feat, uses two aaras (or dandpattas) with both hands to deflect volley after volley of arrows fired at him. In reality, the aara was never used by cavalry. And being rash was not Bajirao's character. So what was Bhansali trying to do exactly?

The film correctly portrays the rejection of Mastani by the Peshwa family. It is also true that Nana Saheb had tricked Mastani into captivity on the Parvati Hill while Bajirao was away campaigning. But it's highly doubtful if she was chained and tortured like Anarkali of Mughal-e-Azam. And both dying together? Bwahahahaha!

The only high point of the movie was its political messaging"that love knows no religion, that religion knows no colour. Nevertheless, the movie has ensured that Bajirao henceforth will only be remembered as the lover of Mastani, not the great Peshwa who truly founded the Maratha Empire.