WordPress / Akismet Censorship Test Page

There has been some discussion here recently of a foreign dance video, called the “Peshwa” video, into which President Trump’s face was digitally inserted. I wrote a bit about it for a thread a few days ago when a question came up regarding it, but didn’t finish in time to post it in a timely manner. So I’m posting it here now.
Here is the Trump version, in this tweet from @mad-liberals:
https://t.co/s9JOb5e7DR
There is a actually a fascinating history of the Peshwas, and their role in liberating much of India from jihadi rule, which many Q Treepers will surely enjoy reading about!
The dance scene itself is from the song “Malhari” in the 2015 Indian film Bajirao Mastani.
‘Peshwa’ was the title of an official in the Maratha Empire of southwestern India, during the late pre-British period of Indian history, circa 18th century.
This officer was the highest advisor to the Maratha emperor, with duties both civil and military. His role would encompass those of what we today would call prime minister, national security advisor, and general of the army. Like almost all cabinet members, he would be expected to personally lead troops in the field, whenever warranted.
During this era, the Marathas were the leaders in the Hindu and Sikh rebellion against the (Islamic) Mughal Empire, which had previously dominated almost all of South Asia, directly or indirectly, and which had been the leading power in the region for several hundred years.
Shari’a, or Islamic law, is based on the principle of making sure all territory under Muslim rule remains so, as well as expanding itself until it encompasses every land. And, as Muslims believe the rule of their legal and political institutions over the whole world is God’s will, and as they tend to be very religious people, they take the responsibility to care out the resulting duties very seriously. And, in carrying out God’s will, it’s no holds barred.
Therefore, it is rare for the native people of any land that has long been subject to Shari’a to liberate themselves, and to achieve a lasting government that is secular in character, or based on any non-Islamic religion. In fact, it is so rare that, in more than a thousand years of history, it is only known to have happened four times.
The long-term struggle which the Marathas spearheaded against the Mughals resulted in much of India being the third of these four successes. (The others are Catholic southwestern Europe, Orthodox southeastern Europe, and modern Israel.)
Of all the Asian powers, the Marathas represented the most severe military threat to the British forces as the Brits were advancing their own rule in India.
The greatest and best known peshwa was Peshwa Bajirao I, who served the fourth Maratha emperor, Chhatrapati Shahu. Bajirao I is considered to have been the main architect of Maratha political and military supremacy on the Subcontinent.
Peshwa Bajirao once received an urgent distress message from one of the (Hindu) Bundela kings of central India, requesting military aid to prevent a Mughal army from recapturing his kingdom.
At the time, the Maratha forces were committed to fighting the Mughals on several fronts, as well as fighting other, non-Mughal, Muslim forces on other fronts, and had to be wary of the movements of separate Portuguese, British, and French armies, and of the British Royal Navy. All this, while they were locked in a civil war caused by an earlier Mughal attempt to install a Manchurian Candidate pretender on the Maratha throne!
So, Bajirao was not able to come to the Bundelas’ assistance at that time. But the following year the Peshwa led a large army north, out of Maharashtra, into central India, on a force-projection, strategic maneuvering exercise. Realizing that his expeditionary force was not seeing action at the moment, and that it was near the Bundelkhand region, from which the message had been sent, he did come to the king’s aid. He thus saved the king’s capital city from Muslim besiegers who otherwise would certainly have sacked it.
The grateful king, according to legend, then introduced Bajirao to a Muslim servant or slave girl, apparently of Persian, or mixed Persian-Indian heritage. Her name, in traditional accounts, was Mastani.
Continuing this story further, into the realm of legend, away from verifiable facts, Bajirao fell in love with the beautiful young girl. Then, with the well-wishes of the grateful Bundela king, he took her back to Poona, the Maratha administrative capital. There he installed her in the zenana (women’s quarters) of the famed Shaniwar Wada (lit. “Saturday compound”,) the heavily fortified palace complex of the peshwas.
Perhaps needless to say, this arrangement was quite displeasing to Kashibai, Bajirao’s wife!
The 2015 film focuses on a fictional version of this supposed love triangle, along with the double scandal of the Peshwa’s insult to his wife, and of the suspicion of disloyalty he cast upon himself by entering into such a relationship with a Muslim at a time when the Empire was fighting for its life against a such a variety of the Islamic foes which surrounded it.
The film was an eagerly anticipated, big budget release. Its music, dance, cinematography, costumes, and other production values are spectacular, and its acting is good. The presentation of Maratha customs and courtly ceremonies is fascinating, and much of the filming was done on location in Shaniwar Wada itself.
On the negative side, Bajirao Mastani is missing a bit in the way of plot, and the extremely complex, spine-tingling history of the era is almost entirely absent. A cynical viewer will suspect that anything really interesting or challenging in the plot was removed or, more likely, never added, to avoid offending Muslims in the audience.
Here is the full original Malhari scene from the film, starring the irrepressible Ranveer Singh in the title role of Peshwa Bajirao:
“https://youtu.be/YUH9jD__qHY”
(Please copy the url between the quotes, and open in YouTube, or paste into a browser window. The videos are copyright protected so that they apparently won’t play while embedded here.)
Here you can listen to Vishal Dadlani sing the track (music arranged by director Sanjay Leela Bhansali, I believe from a traditional folk music) and read an English translation of Prashant Ingole’s Hindi lyrics. There are stretches of instrumental music at the beginning and in the middle. So sometimes you have to wait for the subtitles.
“https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bHs_zzv7Phw” (Pls copy url btwn quotes.)
And, to wrap up Malhari, here is a side-by-side look at the original lyrics and a better translation. If you press the Romanization or Transliteration tab above the Hindi column, you can see what the Hindi looks like when written with the Roman alphabet, so that you follow the music when reading the English.
https://lyricstranslate.com/en/malhari-malhari.html
To see the feminine side of the movie, here are some other song scenes.
First, here is model/beauty contestant/actress/Hindi singer/American pop singer Priyanka Chopra, AKA Miss World 2000, AKA Mrs. Nick Jonas, in the role of Kashibai, welcoming her husband Bajirao back to their home in Poona from a victorious military campaign. Song: Albela Sajan
“https://youtu.be/s36IMcNP8vo”
Here is Deepika Padukone in the title role of Mastani. Song: Deewani Mastani
“https://youtu.be/h6lHUn20J5g”
Finally, here are Kashibai and Mastani dancing together. Song: Pinga
“https://youtu.be/tzRFLMn4kpM”