Naseeruddin Shah on misinformation about Akbar in history books and why it’s difficult to make historicals in India: ‘You run the risk of offending people’

Historicals have been a tricky genre in the country, as it has almost always led to protests and in some cases even violence as there is the fear that history will be tampered with in the guise of creative liberty.

In an interview with indianexpress.com, when asked if it is difficult to mount a historical project in today’s climate, Naseeruddin Shah said it is tricky to make a project honest to the genre with the “nuance” it deserves.

“I suppose they are difficult because you have to take sides. There is no such thing as an objective history. History is written by the victors, and you have to read between the lines. I think it is difficult to make historicals with the kind of nuance that they deserve. It’s easy to make a grand spectacle with hundreds of elephants and horses and so on.

“But to understand these people as human beings, I think is more difficult. Yeah. And then you run the risk of offending people, but I don’t think Taj: Divided by Blood is going to offend anyone. It presents an original, non-Indian perception of this dynasty.”

William Borthwick is the showrunner of Taj with Simon Fantauzzo as the writer and Ronald Scalpello as the director. The series showcases the beauty and brutality of the Mughal dynasty, their passion for arts, poetry and architecture, but at the same time their remarkably cold-blooded decisions with regards to their own family, in the quest for power.

Naseeruddin Shah said his own understanding of who Akbar was as an emperor and a person has evolved over the years. What irks him though, is the rampant misinformation about Akbar, especially that he was a ruler who wanted to start his own religion.

“My understanding initially was that of any student who studied history in the 50s or the early 60s, just in the wake of independence when the influence of British was still very strong. We had Irish teachers, English instructors. The picture drawn of Akbar was always that of a benevolent, kind hearted, broad minded, progressive ruler. The one fly in the ointment being his desire to start a new religion. We read about this in history books, which is absolute nonsense.

“I have checked this with authoritative historians and Akbar never did attempt to start a new religion. This is a fact which was in our history books called the Din-e Elahi. But Akbar never used the word Din-e Elahi, ever. He called it Wahdat-e Elahi, which means oneness of the creator. That no matter who you worship, in what form you worship him, you’re worshipping the creator. You may worship a stone, you may worship a crucifix, you may bow your head to the Kaaba, you may worship the rising sun and do what you like, but you are worshipping one and the same thing. That was his belief. This is what I found out.”

Shah said he went to the root of the misinformation and found it that the word Din-e Elahi came about because of historian Abul Fazal, “who didn’t like Akbar much.” He wrote about it, which was translated into English as the ‘divine faith’.

“The divine faith was then translated into Farsi as Din-e Elahi, it’s not a term Akbar ever used. It’s like those South Indian films which are remade in Hindi and then remade in the South! That was the big discovery about Akbar that I made, and I had to speak to the writers about it. Luckily, my objections were upheld.”

His understanding of Akbar, however, was further broadened when he signed up for Taj: Divided by Blood as he got to know a side of the Mughal emperor that he wasn’t aware of.

“Akbar was not only a soft-hearted, vulnerable man, he was also very passionate, sexually driven, ferocious, merciless warrior. And must have been a great lover. I mean, he had hundreds of concubines and to keep each of them happy must have been some job! I don’t know if all of them were happy though. But I played him, to find the human being within this grandeur,” he added.

The ensemble cast of the show includes Aditi Rao Hydari as Anarkali, Aashim Gulati as Prince Salim, Taha Shah as Prince Murad, Shubham Kumar Mehra as Prince Daniyal, Sandhya Mridul as Queen Jodha Bai, Zareena Wahab as Queen Salima, Sauraseni Maitra as Mehr un Nisa, Rahul Bose as Mirza Hakim and Dharmendra as Sheikh Salim Chisti.

Taj: Divided by Blood will stream on ZEE5 from March 3.