Padmavati: A hard look at looking left

Padmavati may not have been real but there is no dearth of recorded history about jauhar among Rajput queens and princesses

Two recent incidents encapsulate the fraught — and sometimes absurd — nature of political discourse in India today. One is the long-running protest against Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s upcoming film, Padmavati, by some groups in Rajasthan who claim that the film defiles the memory of the eponymous queen.

The other is comments made by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar this week in which he called homosexuality a “tendency” that could be reversed. Both incidents in themselves are not spectacular but the disparity in the reaction to them in the mainstream media is.

Sri Sri’s comments were criticised in the media on a number of