Karni Sena
Shri Rajput Karni Sena (SRKS) is a Rajput caste organisation founded in 2006. It is based in Jaipur, Rajasthan, India. The association favours "national unity" and is opposed to caste-centric positive discrimination and corruption.[1]
SRKS had protested when the film Jodhaa Akbar was released in 2008. According to Goldie Osuri, an academic with specialist interests in depictions of nationalism in the media, the public objection of the SRKS was related to a "minor historical indeterminacy" regarding whether the fictional central character was the wife or daughter-in-law of the Mughal emperor Akbar. Osuri says that a wider analysis of media and blog sources shows that the real objection was to the depiction of marriage between the Muslim Akbar and a Hindu Rajput princess. She has describes the SRKS both as a Hindutva and a Hindu nationalist group.[2][3]
The SRKS did not receive an apology from the Jodhaa Akbar film-maker, Ashutosh Gowariker, as they had demanded but some Rajasthani cinemas did refuse to show the production and there were some protests in other states also. The organisation then objected to the 2010 movie Veer, which they claimed maligned their "brave community". They vandalised some cinemas that showed the film, the acts being described by commentator Chitra Padmanabhan as:
Thereupon the Sena wrote a new chapter in bravery by indulging in acts of vandalism in theatres screening the movie. Clearly, the 'art' lies in feeling aggrieved all the time.[4]
In 2013, SRKS announced their opposition to the similarly-titled and -themed Jodhaa Akbar historical drama television series. Various objectors associated with SRKS said that the group would organise legal action and public protests to ban the series from being broadcast if discussions with the television company, Zee TV, did not achieve their aim. They claimed that the Hindu-Muslim marriage involved a fictional character and was a distortion of history resulting from poor research.[5] In 2014, SRKS organised a protest against Ekta Kapoor, who had produced the now-broadcast series.[6] A month later, it was alleged that a group of around 40 SRKS members attacked the offices of Zee Media in Jaipur, a part of the television company that had broadcast the series. Journalists' trade unions demanded that the police should react by arresting Lokendra Singh Kalvi, the SRKS leader.[7][8]
Protests involving supporters of SRKS also occurred in 2009 at the University of Rajasthan, where a dispute between a Rajput student and one from the Jat caste escalated as fellow Jat students protested against the treatment of their colleague. The two castes constituted a significant proportion of students at the university and their caste associations — the SRKS and the Jat Mahasabha — tended to get support in particular from those caste members who came from small towns and villages. The caste barriers were reinforced by the existence of caste-based accommodation and tended to become particularly evident in student politics, which reflected the similar caste-based rivalry found in the politics of the state of Rajasthan itself.[9]
In 2010, the Indian Police Service said that it had detained seven SRKS activists who were planning to disrupt an event at which Sonia Gandhi would be attending.[10]
References
- ^ "Shri Rajput Karni Sena". Shri Rajput Karni Sena. April 2015. Retrieved 2015-04-15.
- ^ Osuri, Goldie (2013). Religious Freedom in India: Sovereignty and (anti) conversion. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-41566-557-5.
- ^ Osuri, Goldie (Spring 2012). "Secular Interventions/Hinduized Sovereignty: (Anti) Conversion and Religious Pluralism in Jodhaa Akbar". Cultural Critique. 81. University of Minnesota Press: 70–99.
{{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter|subscription=ignored (|url-access=suggested) (help) - ^ Padmanabhan, Chitra (20 February 2010). "Art under Fire". The Hindu. Retrieved 2015-04-16.
- ^ Singh, Arvind (16 June 2013). "Rajputs protest against 'distortion' of history in Ekta Kapoor's TV serial". Hindustan Times. Retrieved 2015-04-15.
- ^ "Rajput Karni Sena Shout Slogans at Ekta Kapoor During Jaipur Lit Fest". The New Indian Express. IANS. 21 January 2014. Retrieved 2015-04-14.
- ^ Singh, Mahim Pratap (27 February 2014). "Journalists demand arrest of Karni Sena president". The Hindu. Retrieved 2015-04-14.
- ^ Khole, Purva (26 February 2014). "Karni Sena attacks Zee TV office over Jodha Akbar". Bollywood Life. Retrieved 2015-04-14.
- ^ "Minor dispute becomes major caste issue". The Times of India. 6 October 2009. Retrieved 2015-04-14.
- ^ "Police denies detaining Karni Sena leader". Business Standard. Press Trust of India. 5 October 2010. Retrieved 2015-04-15.