Friday, February 24, 2023

If everything the Mughals did was evil, knock down the Taj Mahal and the Red Fort': According to Naseeruddin Shah, the Mughals should not be glorified, but they should also not be vilified



 Naseeruddin Shah, who appeared as King Akbar in the television series Taj, According to Divided By Blood, the Taj Mahal and other Mughal monuments should be demolished if the Mughals' entire conduct was appalling.


Actor Naseeruddin Shah claims that those who routinely oppose his views will never comprehend his perspective because there is no room for a healthy debate in the country. Hatred and misinformation thrive in the absence of logic or well-documented history. This may be why a portion of India now appears to attribute everything to the past, specifically the Mughal Empire, which Shah finds amusing rather than enraged.


Ministers of the current government have repeatedly denigrated the Mughal era in recent years. There have been attempts to alter history, including renaming the historic Mughal Gardens at the Rashtrapati Bhavan as "Amrit Udyan" and changing the names of 40 villages with names that refer to the "Mughal era."


The original series Taj – Divided by Blood, starring Shah as King Akbar, airs on ZEE5 during a time of polarization. The production is described as a "revealing tale about the inner workings and the succession drama" that took place in the Mughal empire's chambers.


Shah told indianexpress.com, "It amuses me, because it is so utterly ridiculous," when asked how he views a nation that appears to believe that everything wrong with it dates back to the Mughals. I mean, people can't tell Akbar apart from a murderous invader like Nader Shah or Taimur, Babar's great-grandfather.


"The Mughals did not come here to loot; these were people who came here to steal." They came here to live here, and that's exactly what they did. Who can deny their part?”


The veteran stated that the notion that the Mughals were the embodiment of all evil merely demonstrates one's ignorance of the country's history. Shah asserts that, despite the fact that the Mughals' time in history should not be dismissed as catastrophic, the history books may have been too kind to them to the point of glorifying them at the expense of India's indigenous culture.


They aren't the only ones, of course. Unfortunately, history was mostly taught about the British or the Mughals in school. We were familiar with Lord Hardy, Lord Cornwallis, and the Mughal emperors; however, we had no prior knowledge of the Gupta dynasty, the Maurya dynasty, the Vijayanagara Empire, the Ajanta caves' history, or the northeast. Because history was written by Englishmen or Anglophiles, we did not read any of these things, which I believe is extremely unfair.


The assertion that the Mughals have been glorified at the expense of our own indigenous traditions is, therefore, somewhat accurate. It's possible that's true, but there's no need to make them into villains either.


Why don't those who oppose the Mughal empire "knock down" the monuments they have constructed, Naseeruddin Shah stated? Take down the Taj Mahal, the Red Fort, and the Qutub Minar if everything they did was terrible. Given that the Red Fort was constructed by a Mughal, why is it considered sacred? They should not be glorified, but neither should we denigrate them.


Shah responded, "no, absolutely not," when asked if there is room for an intellectual discussion right now because discourse is at an all-time low.


"Tipu Sultan is called a liar! a man who laid down his life to drive out the English. "Do you want Tipu Sultan or the Ram Temple?" is now being asked. I mean, how does this make sense? They and I cannot ever see each other's points of view, so there is no room for debate, in my opinion.


Union Home Minister Amit Shah had stated in January that in the Karnataka Assembly elections, people will have to choose between Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who developed Kashi, Kedarnath, and Badrinath and built the Ram Temple in Ayodhya, and "those who glorify Tipu Sultan."


In Taj – Divided by Blood, which was made by Contiloe Digital, Dharmendra will play Sheikh Salim Christi, who represents King Akbar's reign and is looking for a worthy successor.


The show depicts the rise and fall of subsequent generations by highlighting the splendor and brutality of this great dynasty, as well as their passion for art, poetry, and architecture and their remarkably cold-blooded decisions regarding their own family in the pursuit of power.


Aditi Rao Hydari, who plays Anarkali, Aashim Gulati, who plays Prince Salim, Taha Shah, who plays Prince Murad, Shubham Kumar Mehra, who plays Prince Daniyal, Sandhya Mridul, who plays Queen Jodha Bai, Zareena Wahab, who plays Queen Salima, Sauraseni Maitra, who plays Mehr un Nisa, and Rahul Bose, who plays Mirza Hakim round out


Taj has a showrunner in William Borthwick, a writer in Simon Fantauzzo, and a director in Ronald Scalpello. On March 3, Taj: Divided by Blood will be available on ZEE5.

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