Controversy surrounds Jodha

The period film based on love story of Jodha and Akbar seems to be caught in controversy, for who was Jodha? Was she Akbar’s wife or his daughter in law?

Interestingly the controversy has surfaced only after the film is ready to be released on February 15 this year. The noted historians are in opinion that it was not Akbar who got married to Jodha but it was Jehangir who got married to her.

Now the film has slipped into a hullabaloo that accused the film makers to have distorted history which has angered members of Rajput Sabha. The Sabha is now planning to ban the release of this movie in Rajasthan for its historical inaccuracies. They say that there was only one Jodha Bai, daughter of Raja Udai Singh and she got married to Jehangir. The Sabha objected the projection of love life of Jodha Akbar and giving an account of the history tried to correct that it was Harka Bai from the family of Kachchawa rulers of Amber who got married to Akbar.

Many history experts say that Akbarnama and Jehangir’s memoir (Tuzuk-i-Jehangiri) did not mention anything about Akbar’s wife, but there is a mention of Jehangir getting married to the house of Jodhpur.

While some says that Jodha Bai was not a historical character raises a question on her existence. Also the NCERT history text book written by Satish Chandra states that Udai Singh married his daughter Jagat Gosain or Jodha Bai to the eldest son of Akbar, Jehangir.

But director of Jodha –Akbar, Gowarikar is aware of the confusion regarding the use of name Jodha says that he too has went through many books and even the royal family of Jaipur gave the nod to go with the name Jodha.