Akbar has been branded a foreigner defeated in battle and efforts are on to erase Aurangzebs name – if not from history, at least from road signs."Khilji was aware he was cruel but he was not the kind to be running after women and then conquering kingdoms. He was only interested in expansions and conquests," she said. The poet did not project him as a barbarian ruler either.The film, according to Bhansali, is based on the 16th century-epic poem Padmavat written by Sufi poet Malik Muhammad Jayasi two centuries after Khilji’s death.History doesn’t quite remember Alauddin Khilji like this, but that is the image Sanjay Leela Bhansali seeks to portray of the Khilji dynasty king in his film Padmaavat.The poet Amir Khusro, who flourished during the Khilji rule, gave a detailed account of the king’s conquests as well as his reign in the 13th century."There is a clear pattern to colour Islamic rulers as villains with no reference to any facts based on authentic sources of information," said Heeram Chaturvedi, head of department of history at Allahabad University."

The rulers followed the exact potato cutting machine factory code of conduct and etiquette as in Persia.A section of academics believes the depiction of Khilji is only the latest move in a larger movement in parts of the country to distort history.Bhansali’s Khilji, played by Ranveer Singh, has kohl- rimmed hungry eyes, a scarred face, a gym-toned body, wears furs when he is not bare-chested and rips meat off the bone with his teeth.Alauddin was a "cruel imperialist" and a good military strategist who wanted to crush Mongol invaders, she held..New Delhi: He gnaws the meat off the bone, bares his hairy chest, has long unruly locks and laughs like a hyena.

It would have been very formal – the eating, dining and sartorial choices," Safvi said.While members of some Rajput groups are still violently opposing the film’s release, a section of historians states that the filmmaker misses the mark, not in portraying Padmavati, a role played by Deepika Padukone, but in painting the Sultan as a barbarian. Jayasi wrote it in Awadhi, not any Rajasthani dialect.Safvi added that the barbarism the film depicts in Khilji is to only show him as a villain andShahid Kapoors Ratan Singh as a sophisticated rival. It was under his rule the Delhi Sultanate heavily drew from Persia, one of the oldest and most sophisticated civilisations of all time, she said.The king is depicted almost like a barbarian in the film, which was released today after months of strife – in court, on the streets and at the Censor Board."

It cannot be ignored that the epic Padmavat was penned centuries after Khiljis attack. He belonged to a different region," pointed out Arunima Gopinath, associate professor of Womens Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University.Historian Rana Safvi believes that Khilji was anything but savage.

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