The representation of the Mughal emperor Abkar in Hindi cinema as a reflection of Indian societal issues.

This empire, ruled by a Timurid dynasty [1] that  came to the Indian subcontinent from territories  of present-day Uzbekistan and was of the  Muslim faith, at the height of its expansion  extended over what today constitutes part of  Afghanistan (to the west), Kashmir (to the  north), Bangladesh (to the east), and part of the  Deccan (to the south). The Mughal Empire is  particularly well known for its significant  architectural legacy. Several monuments are  today essential tourist destinations, for example:  the Taj Mahal in Agra, the Red Forts (in Agra and  Delhi), the city/former capital of Fatehpur Sikri, or  the mausoleum of Emperor Humayun in Delhi.

The Mughal dynasty also left its mark on  the collective imagination of the inhabitants  of the Indian subcontinent, and the rulers of  this dynasty became heroes of fictional  narratives, especially from the beginning of  the twentieth century onward.

The first half of the twentieth century was  arked by many important events: the  beginnings of Indian cinema [2]; the anti colonial movement; the project of creating,  once freed from colonial rule, two separate  states – India and Pakistan; and finally, the  independence and creation of these two  countries in 1947.

This turbulent period gave rise to the growth of  numerous historical films, several of which  (notably those produced in Bombay [3] and,  after the arrival of sound cinema, in the Hindi  language) told stories rooted in the Mughal  past. Historical films, regardless of the period  represented, had a patriotic aim: by depicting  past regimes in sumptuous settings,

accompanied by the staging of military and  economic power, filmmakers sought to  represent India’s glorious past and thus  encourage national sentiment among  spectators – giving them hope that once freed  from British colonization, they could once again  build a prosperous and wealthy country, as had  been the case in the past.

Films focused on the Muslim dynasties that  ruled the subcontinent [4] also had a  second objective: to highlight friendly  relations between Hindus and Muslims in  order to ease tensions and convince Indians  of different religions that they could coexist  peacefully in an independent country, since  such interreligious peace and friendship had  already been possible before colonization  [5].

The idea of creating a separate country for  Muslims, Pakistan, gained momentum in the  1930s, which prompted some filmmakers (those  opposed to Partition) to include calls for  intercommunal friendship in their films. On a  human scale, Partition, marked by population  displacement, numerous acts of violence, and  hundreds of thousands of deaths, was a failure.

Indian cinema, particularly Hindi-language  cinema from Bombay, the country’s most  important film industry, therefore continued to  produce historical films emphasizing these  bonds of friendship between Hindus and  Muslims in the early post-independence years,  seemingly in the hope of easing the trauma of  Partition.

Whether before or after 1947, one Mughal  emperor in particular emerges as filmmakers’  favorite – Jalaluddin Muhammad Akbar.  Emperor Akbar was born in 1542 at the court of  Rana Virisal, a Rajput king, in Amarkot. His father,  Emperor Humayun, lost the throne of Delhi in  1540 to Sher Shah of the Afghan Sur dynasty and  was forced to take refuge in Iran. During their  years of wandering, one of his wives – Hamida  Bano Begum – found refuge at the court of  Amarkot, where she gave birth to Akbar.

Akbar was the third (after his father Humayun  and his grandfather Babur, founder of the  dynasty) emperor of the Mughal dynasty, but he  is sometimes considered its true founder, as his  predecessors had conquered only a relatively  small territory, not to mention that Humayun lost his father’s lands for several years before  reconquering the throne of Delhi.

The figure of Akbar lent itself well to the  objectives of Hindi historical films of this period:  he symbolized both the glory of India’s former  regimes and the peaceful coexistence of its  communities. Even though Akbar inherited a  relatively small and weak state at the time of his  father’s premature death, he succeeded in  expanding and strengthening it significantly.

During his reign (1556–1605, the year of his  death), the Mughals established a rich and  powerful empire characterized by ethnic,  religious, and cultural plurality. Being Muslims  themselves, they allied with and included in the  state apparatus many local kings, primarily  Rajputs (Hindus).

One of the reasons Akbar is particularly well  known today is the territorial expansion of the  empire under his reign, achieved partly through  conquests, but also through alliances. These  alliances (between the Mughal Empire and the  Rajput kingdoms) were often sealed through the  marriage of the emperor (and later his sons and  grandsons) to the daughters or sisters of allied  kings.

The first of these marriages took place in 1562  with the daughter of Raja Bharmal of Amber,  who in 1569 gave birth to Akbar’s first son (who  survived early childhood), Prince Salim [6].  Subsequently, important positions within the  empire’s administration and army were given to  the (male) relatives of the princess of Amber, as  well as to other kings and princes from clans  allied with the Mughals. The alliances between  the Mughals and the Rajputs, as well as the  famous religious tolerance characterizing  Akbar’s reign, thus lent themselves to the anti colonial and unifying message of filmmakers  from the 1930s to the 1960s and were also  emphasized in the discourse of politicians and  historians.

Indeed, from the 1930s onward, Jawaharlal  Nehru [7] began to evoke Akbar in his writings,  and did so in very laudatory terms. In his work  Glimpses of World History, Nehru compares  Akbar to another great Indian emperor, Ashoka,  and writes: “It is strange that a Buddhist emperor  [Ashoka] of India in the third century before  Christ, and a Muslim emperor [Akbar] of India in  the sixteenth century after Christ, could speak in  the same manner and almost in the same  voice.

One cannot help wondering whether it was  perhaps the voice of India itself that spoke  through its two great sons” [8]. He also insists on  the fact that the Mughals were viewed by the  population of the Indian subcontinent as  foreigners and that it was only from Akbar’s  reign onward that the Mughal dynasty became  Indian. As mentioned earlier, the 1930s saw a  growing demand to divide the country into two  at independence – a project Nehru opposed.

His vision of India and Indian identity rested on  inclusive nationalism (without distinction of  religion, language, regional culture, etc.) defined  by the slogan of “unity in diversity.” Mobilizing the  figure of Akbar as a great Indian ruler was  therefore for Nehru a way to counter both the  separatist rhetoric of some Muslims and the discriminatory rhetoric of Hindu fundamentalists.

Under Nehru’s pen, Akbar emerged as proof that  one could be both Indian and Muslim and,  moreover, accomplish great deeds. He was  presented not only as an ideal political leader  (“he worked hard for the welfare of the Indian  people” [9]), but also as the father of the Indian  people (“he might be considered the father of  Indian nationalism” [10]).

Moreover, Nehru’s vision of Akbar’s proto nationalism as placing “the ideal of common  Indian nationality above the claims of separatist  religion” [11] was quite similar to what he and his  political party themselves promoted. The image  of Akbar promoted by Nehru’s political discourse  and that of his party was taken up after  independence by Indian historical discourse: the  historian Ashirbadi Lal Srivastava [12], in his  biography of Akbar, described this emperor as  “our national king” [13].

As mentioned above, Akbar, a historical figure  highlighted by politicians and historians, is also  the hero of numerous works of fiction. Here, I will  analyze only a few of them in order to answer  the question of how the statements cited above  are reflected in artistic discourse.

It appears that Akbar was constructed as a  national hero first and foremost in cinema. In the  film Humayun (dir. Mehboob Khan, 1945),  devoted primarily to Akbar’s father and released  two years before independence, the director  emphasizes the ties between the Mughals and  the Rajputs by imagining friendship and mutual  assistance between the Mughal emperors  Babur and Humayun and the Rajput princess of  Amarkot. The Mughals (primarily Babur) are  presented as a people in search of a new home, who came to India not to plunder the country  but to make it their homeland, and who were  committed to guaranteeing all their new  subjects religious, cultural, linguistic, and  property freedom.

While Babur is shown as the founder of the  dynasty and the first to befriend the Indian  peoples, it is Akbar – born at the court of his  “adoptive” aunt, the princess of Amarkot – who  emerges as the first to possess this dual Mughal  (and by extension, Muslim) and Indian identity.

The film ends with a shot of the child Akbar  helping the princess of Amarkot raise the Rajput  flag on the ramparts of her fort, accompanied  by the narrator’s voice-over announcing that  Akbar continued, in every measure he took, to  strengthen Hindu–Muslim friendship.

The film’s message, calling on Hindus and  Muslims to unite against a common enemy  (which, in the minds of spectators in 1945,  would have evoked the British colonizers)  and to jointly create a multireligious and  multicultural country, perfectly underscored  the major issues of the period in which it was  made.

After independence (and Partition), when the  Indian Republic under the governance of  Jawaharlal Nehru became a country “united in  its diversity,” the symbolic importance of Akbar  did not diminish – quite the contrary. Post independence films continued to take up the  ideas set down in writing by Nehru and  proposed in earlier films (such as Humayun),  with the dual aim of offering an ideal of  leadership for new rulers and, once again,  affirming that peaceful coexistence among  diverse communities was possible (an ideal all  the more important to maintain after the  violence of Partition).

Thus, in 1960, in the film Mughal-e-Azam (The  Great Mughal, dir. K. Asif) [14], Akbar is presented  by the narrator (using the same device as in  Humayun) as one of those men who did not  come to India to plunder it but who truly loved it.  Whereas the audience had heard similar  statements legitimizing the Mughal dynasty  from Babur fifteen years earlier in Humayun, this  time they are presented as more objective. In  Mughal-e-Azam, it is not Akbar himself who  declares his love for India (or Hindustan, as the  country is called in the film) and who wishes to  distinguish himself from other “foreign” rulers  who governed the subcontinent – it is an  extradiegetic narrator (in voice-over) who  informs the spectators.

Moreover, unlike the narrator of Humayun, that  of Mughal-e-Azam introduces himself in his  opening monologue – he is Hindustan, which  makes him a witness to the entire history of  many regimes and dynasties of the  subcontinent and renders his words all the more  truthful for spectators.

That said, even though Akbar, the Great Mughal  eponymous hero of K. Asif’s film, is presented  from the outset as a major historical figure and  a positive character, he later also becomes the  antagonist of the film by opposing the union of  his son, Prince Salim, with a court servant  named Anarkali. It should be noted here that the  film is based on a legendary story of the  forbidden romance between Prince Salim and  the beautiful Anarkali [15], first mentioned at the  beginning of the seventeenth century by the  English traveler William Finch, who visited the  city of Lahore [16], where a mausoleum  dedicated to a woman nicknamed Anarkali was  under construction at that time.

The legend recounts that Anarkali, a simple  servant, was punished for her love defying social  hierarchy by Akbar, who ordered her to be  walled up alive. This version, recounted by Finch,  fit into a Western tendency to portray Indian  rulers as corrupt, which later served to justify  colonization as the liberation of the Indian  people from the yoke of despots.

Even though the idea that Akbar, the benevolent  and tolerant ruler, could wall up an innocent  young woman alive posed a problem for some  Indians from the twentieth century onward, it  was taken up by works of fiction such as the  play Anarkali by the playwright Syed Imtiaz Ali  Taj (first published in 1922) and its subsequent  cinematic adaptations.

However, filmmakers gradually realized that it  was difficult to present Akbar as a good ruler  while respecting the canonical ending of the  legend. In 1953, Nandlal Jaswantlal proposed his  Anarkali, in which Akbar decides at the last  moment to commute the death sentence, but  before Prince Salim, tasked with transmitting his  father’s new order, arrives at the execution site,  Anarkali has already died, walled in. K. Asif was  the first to drastically change the ending of this  well-known story in Mughal-e-Azam. In his  version, Akbar, remembering that the emperor is  the guarantor of justice, decides after meeting  Anarkali’s mother to secretly free the heroine.

He tells the young woman that he is not “the  enemy of love, but the slave of principles,” and  that for the good of the empire Salim must  remain convinced that his beloved is no longer  of this world. Anarkali leaves the country through  an underground passage leading beyond its  borders to ensure the stability of the empire.  Indeed, as Akbar explains, if a prince were to  marry a servant, the enemies of Hindustan  could invade it by arguing that Mughal rule was  no longer legitimate because of this misalliance.  Thus, even though Akbar’s behavior in the film  remains in some ways ambiguous and the  spectator can never be sure to what extent the  emperor’s primary concern is the well-being of  his people or to what degree he himself  despises this union due to class bias, the  reputation of the Great Mughal is ultimately  saved – he is presented as one who sacrificed  himself to preserve the stability of his country,  even if it meant that posterity would consider  him a tyrant.

In this way, Asif succeeded in his film in  meeting the expectations of an audience  familiar with the legend of Anarkali and in  aligning himself with the nation-building  project proposed by Nehru and his party,  which presented Akbar’s era as a golden age  of tolerance and peace to which the newly  independent India should aspire.

It is important to note that in comparison with  Humayun, Mughal-e-Azam appears less  didactic with regard to communal issues. Asif  does not preach friendship and inclusion of  different religions and ethnicities within a single  country, but presents them as something  already established.

Indeed, several important secondary characters  are Hindus holding high positions at the Mughal  court: Queen Jodha, Akbar’s Rajput wife and the  mother of Prince Salim; Raja Man Singh, the  commander-in-chief of the Mughal army and a  member of Jodha’s clan; and finally Durjan  Singh, Man Singh’s son and Salim’s best friend,  who tirelessly helps him overcome obstacles to  be with Anarkali. Syncretic culture is also  presented as natural at Akbar’s court.

The film begins with Akbar and Jodha’s  pilgrimage to the hermitage of a Sufi mystic

(Muslim) to ask for his mediation with God, as  the couple still has no child/heir. Later, Akbar  participates in the rites associated with the  festival of the Hindu god Krishna organized by  his queen in her apartments – Akbar’s active  participation and the fluidity of his gestures  indicate that he is familiar with Hindu rituals and  that his wife’s culture has already become his own.

The emperor also organizes large-scale  celebrations in the palace for both the festival of  Krishna and Nawroz – a festival of Zoroastrian  origin (Persian New Year), later adopted by  certain Muslim communities.

In the post-Partition context, Asif seems to want  to emphasize the syncretism of Indian culture,  here assimilated to the culture of the Mughal  court, rather than highlighting differences to be  overcome. Thus, even though Akbar is married  to Jodha, a Hindu woman, there is no discussion  whatsoever of potential difficulties or the  possible strangeness of an interreligious  marriage.

The film’s main conflict arises from the fact that  Prince Salim wishes to marry a servant – a  woman who is far below him in the social  hierarchy. The difference in social status (even  within the same community, Salim and Anarkali  both being Muslims) thus proves more  problematic than that of religion (Akbar and  Jodha belong to different religious beliefs but  both come from royal families).

The film seems to tell the Indian audience that it  must first resolve tensions related to religion  before fighting for a more egalitarian society in  terms of social classes. According to scholar  Swarnavel Eswaran, Akbar here represents the  vision of Mahatma Gandhi, who fought for  peaceful unity among religious communities  but did not challenge the caste system within  Hinduism. Salim, according to Eswaran, would  symbolize Jawaharlal Nehru and his more  socialist and egalitarian project [17]. The film’s  ending, which shows Akbar secretly freeing  Anarkali, suggests that society is not yet ready  for greater social equality and that even if those  in power recognize its importance, a  generational change must occur before more  egalitarian policies can be implemented.

At the same time, the film seems to send a  message to political leaders: they must  always dispense justice, especially moral  justice, even if they must do so secretly when  it challenges overly rigid (and sometimes  unjust) laws governing the country.

The most recent Hindi film featuring the figure of  Akbar is Jodhaa Akbar (dir. Ashutosh Gowariker,  2008), which, as the title indicates, focuses on  the imperial couple: the Mughal emperor Akbar  and his Rajput wife Jodha, the princess of  Amber.

The film, released in 2008, was created in a  sociopolitical context very different from that of  the mid-twentieth century. Since the 1970s, the  Congress Party led by the Nehru–Gandhi family  had been in decline, even though it won some  elections, while parties previously in opposition,  notably those linked to Hindu nationalist right wing movements [18], were gaining strength.

The Hindu nationalist turn marked the 1990s, and  as Hindi cinema specialist Rachel Dwyer points  out, this political shift is particularly reflected in  Hindi cinema of that period. According to Dwyer,  “it would be surprising if, from the 1990s onward,  Hindi films, produced and consumed by the new  middle classes, did not manifest Hindutva  ideology [19], just as nationalist and Nehruvian  ideologies dominated earlier films” [20].

If the 1990s emerge as a decade in which no film  focused on Akbar was produced, this may  perhaps be explained by the fact that in the new  atmosphere of Hindutva reigning in India,  filmmakers did not know what to do with this  Muslim emperor (Dwyer recalls that Muslims are  the primary target, the chosen enemy of  Hindutva [21]), who was widely considered  nonconforming to the image of the Muslim that  emerged in the cinema of that era – terrorist  and religious fanatic (or agent of Pakistan).

Moreover, the 1990s and the beginning of the  twenty-first century were marked by numerous  cases of extreme intercommunal violence [22].  In this context, Ashutosh Gowariker created a  film that, on the one hand, seems to aim to  promote Nehru’s secular and syncretic vision,  traditionally symbolized by the figure of Akbar,  but on the other hand does not escape the  omnipresent pro-Hindu (or even pro-Hindutva)  discourse.

Jodhaa Akbar, which can be seen as a spiritual  prequel to Mughal-e-Azam (its story ending  shortly before that of Asif’s film begins), focuses  on the early years of Akbar’s reign and his  marriage (and budding love story) with Jodha  [23].

Unlike Mughal-e-Azam, Jodhaa Akbar presents  religious differences as a major difficulty that the  protagonists must overcome in order to be  together. Their marriage, proposed by Jodha’s  father to Akbar in order to secure the protection  of the powerful emperor, is initially a political  alliance that displeases the princess.

Upon learning of her father’s decision, she  openly asks how she could allow a man to mark  her hair parting with vermilion if that man  ignores the meaning of the gesture [24]. When,  on their wedding night, Akbar notices the  coldness of his new wife, he informs her that in  Islam a woman can divorce her husband, to  which Jodha responds that in Hinduism a  marriage lasts seven lifetimes.

Through these lines, the director quickly  establishes the central issue of the film and  makes the audience understand that as long as  they are not in harmony on religious and  cultural levels, Jodha and Akbar will not truly be  able to fall in love and be happy.

Subsequently, it is Akbar who moves toward  Jodha and gradually adopts her customs. He  accepts the conditions set by Jodha before the  marriage (she will not convert to Islam and will  be able to build a small temple dedicated to  Krishna within the Mughal imperial palace) and  willingly participates in the prayers led by his  wife.

Moreover, when Akbar comes for the first time to  Jodha’s apartments to listen to the prayer she is  chanting and joins her, one notices the  difference in his attitude compared to that of his  counterpart in Mughal-e-Azam. Whereas the  Akbar of Mughal-e-Azam (older and more  experienced) knew exactly how to behave  during prayers dedicated to Krishna, that of  Jodhaa Akbar seems lost, and it is his wife who  must guide him step by step. Akbar’s so-called  “tolerance” policies (such as the abolition of a  discriminatory tax on Hindus) are also shown as  being prompted by his wife. Indeed, the film  presents Akbar as gradually becoming  “Hinduized” under his wife’s influence, which  ultimately allows him to win her heart.

This vision differs from what is known from  historical sources and history books, which  describe Akbar as a man in search of a certain  spiritual truth, guided, admittedly, by  representatives of various beliefs (not only  Hindus) whom he invited to participate in  debates organized at his court, but autonomous  and mature in his reflections.

Portraying his interest in Hinduism as the result  of his passion for a woman seems to remove  some of his agency and overly simplify the  complex character. Akbar becomes, at the end  of the film, the good monarch loved by his  people, but the path he takes to get there  makes spectators understand that he can only  be accepted by his wife and his people if he  gradually abandons Islam in favor of Hinduism  – the religion of the majority.

Increasingly “Hinduized” in his practices, Akbar is  presented as the “good Muslim” and opposed to  certain members of his court, “bad” Muslims  (more orthodox), who seek to undermine the  religious harmony he pursues and who  disapprove of his marriage to a Hindu woman  [25].

This Manichean vision is not new – in works  devoted to Akbar it can already be found (at  least) from the 1970s onward in comic books.  Indeed, comic series published by two  publishing houses – Amar Chitra Katha and  Diamond Comics – and focused on the  adventures of Akbar and his Hindu minister and  friend Birbal, highlighted the same dichotomy.  Akbar, preferring Birbal over all his other  courtiers and regularly needing to be educated  in proper conduct by his Hindu friend, was  shown as a character not without flaws but  nonetheless positive.

The other Muslim characters in these comics  (the emperor’s vain wives, jealous courtiers  plotting to kill Birbal, or others simply foolish and  mocked by the Hindu minister) were generally  presented as antagonists and always lost to  Birbal.

Inspired by older oral folklore, these stories  reemerged and gained popularity in comic  form in the 1970s–1980s, one of the first major  moments of popular disenchantment with the  model proposed by the Congress Party and of  victories by the Hindu nationalist right.

The analysis of the representation of the  figure of Emperor Akbar in Indian fiction,  particularly in Hindi cinema (one of the  country’s most important industries), shows  the close links between artistic discourse  and the sociopolitical context in which  works are created.

A symbol of a glorious past, of a syncretic  culture in which each religion is equal or, later,  still illustrious but this time in need of progressive “Hinduization,” the fictional Akbar reflects the  changes that have taken place in Indian society  and politics since at least the 1940s. Even though  he must be adapted to a changing  (increasingly pro-Hindutva) context, Akbar  remains a national hero in works of fiction [26].

The rise to power of the Bharatiya Janata Party  (a party claiming Hindutva ideology) since 2014  has given rise to numerous politically engaged  films promoting a new vision of Indian identity  (assimilated to Hindu identity). While films such  as Tanhaji: The Unsung Warrior (dir. Om Raut,  2020) and Chhaava (dir. Laxman Utekar, 2025)  depict the battles of Hindu kings (Marathas in  both films) against the Mughal Empire, they  choose as their villain Emperor Aurangzeb (r.  1658–1707), who in the collective imagination of  Indians has always been opposed to Akbar and  criticized as intolerant and responsible for the  decline of his predecessor’s ideals.

The figure of Akbar, constructed as a national  hero by historians’ writings, political discourse,  and fictional narratives, still seems to hold firm,  at least in fiction, in the face of the denigration of  Indo-Muslim rulers of past centuries.

[1] Drawing his heritage on one side from Genghis Khan, and  on the other from Tamerlane.

[2] The first Indian feature film, Raja Harishchandra (dir.  Dhundiraj Govind Phalke), was released in 1913.

[3] Today: Mumbai.

[4] Which scholars Ira Bhaskar and Richard

[5] Allen call the “Muslim Historicals.”

Ira Bhaskar and Richard Allen, Islamicate Cultures of  Bombay Cinema (New Delhi: Tulika Books, 2009), 5–7. Rachel  Dwyer and Divia Patel, Cinema India: the visual culture of  Hindi film (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2002),  140–143.

[6] Future emperor Jahangir (r. 1605–1627).

[7] Leader of the Congress Party (Indian National Congress)  and the first Prime Minister of the Indian Republic after  independence.

[8] Jawaharlal Nehru, Glimpses of World History, Being  Further Letters to His Daughter, Written in Prison, and  Containing a Rambling Account of History for Young People  (Bombay: Asia Publishing House, 1962), 316.

[10] Loc. cit.

[11] Loc. cit.

[12] One of the first Indian biographers of Akbar, whose work  long remained the standard reference on the subject.

[13] Ashirbadi Lal Srivastava, Akbar the Great. Volume I:  Political History, 1542–1605 A.D., vol. I (Agra; Delhi; Jaipur:  Shiva Lal Agarwala, 1962), 530.

[14] The director had the idea for this film as early as the  1940s, but, notably due to the departure of his first producer  to Pakistan after Partition, production was delayed.

[15] Her identity – whether a servant or imperial courtesan,  one of Salim’s wives or even one of his father’s – remains an  enigma, and the story of her love for the Mughal prince is  purely legendary.

[16] Today in Pakistan.

Swarnavel Eswaran, “Humayun and Mughal-E-Azam: History  and the Contemporary,” in Historicizing Myths in  Contemporary India, ed.

[17] Swapna Gopinath and Rutuja Deshmukh (New York:  R o u t l e d g e , 2 0 2 3 ) , 4 1 – 6 3 , https://doi.org/ 10.4324/9781003363149-3.

[18] For example, the Bharatiya Janata Party (Indian People’s  Party), currently in power (since 2014).

[19] Ideology of the Hindu nationalist right promoting the  idea that Indian identity should be built on Hindu values.

[20] Rachel Dwyer, “The saffron Screen? Hindu Nationalism  and the Hindi Film,” in Religion, media, and the public sphere,  ed. Birgit Meyer and Annelies Moors (Bloomington: Indiana  University Press, 2006), 274.

[21] Ibid., 276.

[22] Riots in Bombay in 1992/1993 and those in Gujarat in  2002 in which many Muslims were killed, as well as the  terrorist attacks in Mumbai in 2008 carried out by a jihadist  group.

[23] Historians generally agree that this princess could not  have been called “Jodha,” which would have been a  nickname given to a princess from Jodhpur rather than  Amber, but this is the name that first became known  through North Indian oral folklore and later through cinema.

[24] Married Hindu women apply vermilion in their hair  partings as a sign of marriage.

[25] Shahnaz Khan, “recovering the past in ‘Jodhaa Akbar’:  masculinities, femininities and cultural politics in Bombay  cinema,” Feminist Review, no. 99 (2011): 131–146, https:// www.jstor.org/stable/41288880.

[26] This is not the case in political discourse: in recent years  the Mughals, including Akbar, have been denounced as  colonizers, and there are increasing attempts to rewrite  history, notably through school textbooks.