Violence or vandalism cannot recreate history. In fact, it cannot create anything. It only destroys - destroys peace, democratic discourse, creativity and free speech. Unfortunately, this happened twice recently on the sets of the film Padmavati. The film is based on an epic poem Padmavat written by Malik Muhammad Jayasi in Avadhi language. Jayasi himself acknowledges it be a fictional work and in fact assigns allegorical interpretations to the characters - Allaudin represents lust, Padmini stands for wisdom, etc. The vandals are thrashing one of the finest and accomplished filmmakers of the country and burning down expensive film sets based on rumored romance scenes between the two ! When facts meet fiction and the lines start blurring between the real and the unreal, some fringe groups resort to violence to seek credibility for their version of imagined history. Will the fringe groups enforce the discourse of how we view history? If we were to start writing or interpreting history in our individual ways, then what is the role of historians and the historical evidence? 

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