The queen’s palace is closed to visitors.

The white-domed building that sits — floats, really — on a reservoir inside a 7th-century fort here is named for Padmavati, the legendary queen who according to lore killed herself rather than be enslaved by a Muslim sultan.

Protests by a right-wing Hindu group over a new Bollywood movie about the queen forced the fort’s closure this week as violence spread across several states. Highways were blocked, shopping malls set ablaze and the film’s award-winning director, Sanjay Leela Bhansali, burned in effigy. Protesters pelted a school bus with stones, with the video of weeping children caught inside appearing on the evening news.

On Thursday the film, “Padmaavat,” debuted under heavy security, although many theaters were too scared to show it.

India has long banned books or films over sensitivities to certain castes or religions, but the prolonged disruption caused by this film has raised concern that India is growing more divided — and that its governing political party, with roots in Hindu nationalism, may be appeasing fringe groups as elections loom.

Since filming began last year, the movie has provoked the ire of members of the Rajput caste, descended from warriors, who claim the period drama damages the image of the Rajput queen, revered as a goddess and worshiped in a temple where an oil lamp flickers round-the-clock in her honor. A leader of this week’s demonstration at the fort claimed that more than 1,800 women were ready to set themselves on fire — as the queen did — to protest the movie’s release.

That did not come to pass. But in Chittorgarh, a subdued town of 180,000 nestled below the sprawling fort, Rajput women marched carrying fake swords and said they were prepared to die for their cause, just like Padmavati — or Rani Padmini, as she is known locally.

Protesters Wednesday in Chittorgarh. (Poras Chaudhary for The Washington Post)

“They are showing our history incorrectly. They have not given a religious touch to it — they have given a glamorous touch to it,” said Manjushri Shaktawat, an organizer. “If they are showing such disrespect to Padmini, who sacrificed so much and died, how will they treat Rajput women in the future? The only weapon we have is to kill ourselves and finish it off.”

The trouble began last January, when protesters from an organization called the Shri Rajput Karni Sena descended upon the film’s set at a different fort and slapped Bhansali, pulled the director’s hair and damaged cameras. Production for the film — one of the most expensive Bollywood movies ever made — moved to another state. The crew was attacked there, too, with gasoline bombs and swords.

Protesters wrongly believed that the film showed the queen — played by Deepika Padukone, Vin Diesel’s co-star in “XXX: Return of Xander Cage” — in a love scene with the Muslim conqueror. In fact, in the film the sultan only sees her face in a mirror, shrouded by incense smoke.

In November, protests again broke out, despite a video plea from Bhansali, who said that the film was a “tribute” to the queen’s sacrifice and that “there is nothing in the film which will hurt anyone’s sentiments.” A state-
level spokesman for India’s governing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) inflamed tensions by offering $1.5 million for Padukone’s head. The film’s producers delayed its release.

[Indian ruling-party member offers bounty for beheading of Bollywood’s biggest female star]

Many historians doubt Padmavati existed. Accounts of the Chittorgarh fort’s siege in 1303 by Sultan Alauddin Khilji do not mention her, at least directly, according to Rima Hooja, author of “A History of Rajasthan,” although thousands of women did self-immolate, an act known in India as “jauhar,” as the fort was about to fall.

Padmini’s Palace in Chittorgarh. (Poras Chaudhary for The Washington Post)

The legend of Padmavati emerged in an epic poem penned more than 200 years later by a Sufi poet, who describes a queen whose beauty entranced Khilji and drove him to possess the fort.

“There is no direct evidence that such a person existed,” said Aditya Mukherjee, chair of the Center for Historical Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. “This has got nothing to do with history and everything to do with politics. It’s an attempt to mobilize support and votes on the basis of identity issues.”

He continued, “It’s not so much about Rajput pride as a Hindu-Muslim issue, where Muslims are the predators and Hindus have to protect themselves.”

BJP state spokesman Tuhin A. Sinha said the charge that politicians are encouraging such tensions and that BJP-led state governments are not doing enough to quell them is “absurd.”

Manjushri Shaktawat, president of the women’s group Jauhar Kshatrani Manch, hands over a memorandum to the subdivisional magistrate in Chittorgarh on Wednesday. (Poras Chaudhary for The Washington Post)

Residents of Chittorgarh believe that Padmavati is real, her history kept alive through generations of bards and by their own grandparents, who would weave tales of brave Rajput queens such as Padmavati — whose skin was so translucent you could see water running down her throat as she drank, according to the lore.

About 40 or so Rajput women marched to her temple Wednesday, trailed by female police officers, their watchful male family members and the media. The Rajputs are deeply conservative, and many of the women still observe the tradition known as purdah, which means they wear veils in public and cannot travel far alone. They chanted: “We are not flowers! We are sparks! We are the women of India! Shoot Bhansali!”

Aarti Kanwar Rathore, 25, who is a mother of a 2-year-old and has a master’s degree in political science, declared she was willing to commit suicide over the film’s “wrong history” — including thescene of the queen dancing in a revealing costume, which she said Rajput woman of that time would never do.

The protest concluded peacefully, and the women claimed a moral victory because the film would not be shown for miles around — as good as a formal ban, they said.

A banner that hangs over the entrance to a theater in Chittorgarh, announcing the film “Padmaavat” will not be shown there. (Poras Chaudhary for The Washington Post)

In the end, Bhansali made five modifications to the film to appease India’s powerful censor board, including adding disclaimers that the film was based on a fictional poem. A cover was digitally added to the triangle of flesh from Padukone’s midriff that could be seen in a dance scene. Despite a Supreme Court order, distributors and multiplex owners in four states are not showing the film, citing safety concerns.

Reviewers took note of Bhansali’s lavish sets and costumes and described an over-the-top performance by actor Ranveer Singh as the rapacious sultan. In the end, ordinary moviegoers might wonder what all the fuss is about, reviewer Sonal Kalra wrote in the Hindustan Times.

“There’s so much praise of Raj­put courage and valour added in the film that most people are likely to have trouble finding anything remotely controversial,” she wrote, “even if they tried.”

Swati Gupta contributed to this report.

(The Washington Post)

(ANTIWAR.COM) — US and coalition warplanes attacked the village of Shafah, in eastern Syria, overnight on Tuesday, killing at least 13 civilians and by some accounting 15. Seven of the slain were women.

The coalition has declined comment on the Tuesday night attacks, and when pressed by the media simply referred them to a previous statement. That statement, however, addressed an attack on Sunday, in which they claimed 150 ISIS fighters were killed in the same village.

Shafah is a village along the Euphrates River, not far from the Iraqi border. The Sunday attack statement claimed ISIS had their “headquarters” in Syria at that village. Having claimed to have destroyed it, however, it’s unclear why they keep attacking the site.

The Sunday attack, however, included a statement that the US was very certain it was impossible that no civilians could’ve been killed. It’s clear that was not the case in the Tuesday strike, though this may be one of those incidents which never officially finds its way into Pentagon reports.

By Jason Ditz / Republished with permission / ANTIWAR.COM / Report a typo

This article was chosen for republication based on the interest of our readers. Anti-Media republishes stories from a number of other independent news sources. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not reflect Anti-Media editorial policy.

By Brandon Smith

While the mainstream media and general public tend to assume that every new day is bringing us closer to a better future, many alternative analysts focus on the underlying weirdness of our world and all of the crisis factors that average people don’t want to think about. I have to say, in my view the “weirdness” has been escalating rather swiftly lately, and I don’t think that very many analysts, alternative or mainstream, appreciate the potential consequences.

The most important issue of course has always been the global economy. With nearly every sector of our system resting on massively inflated financial bubbles driven by central bank fiat printing and artificially low interest rates, there is only one question that really needs to be asked: How long before a geopolitical or economic shock event takes down the entire house of cards?

The mainstream philosophy seems to be that the economy is now impervious to such events. As the media now argues often, stock markets in particular do not appear to care whenever international threats present themselves. I would argue that this is because nothing substantial has actually happened quite yet. We have had a steady build-up of domestic and global political tensions, but the markets have so far been presented with a world that is comfortably predictable. It is a dangerous world with numerous potential pitfalls, but still predictable nonetheless.

And this is the very odd position we find ourselves in. A system which grows progressively more unstable year by year, and a society that has grown ignorantly used to it. To wake people up to the threats ahead would require a surprise, a slap to the face, something entirely unexpected. Here are a few developing powder kegs around the world that may present such a shock.

U.S. Debt Ceiling And The Government Shutdown Battle

I think a lot of people are missing some major points on the government shutdown situation. First, consider this — every new deal to keep the federal government funded offers a shorter stopgap than the last. The latest deal would only keep funding in place for three more weeks, then the same conflict over budget and spending initiatives happens all over again. It is not outlandish to expect that one day soon we will be faced with weekly or bi-weekly funding battles in D.C., while the greater problem of the U.S. debt ceiling is generally ignored.

You see, the “fight” within the federal government is not so much over whether or not more debt is a “bad thing.” In fact, both sides support more debt and bigger government. Instead, the fight is over the allocation of funds (debt) to certain projects and away from others. Who gets the money? And how can a government shutdown be used as leverage to gain the upper hand politically?

The thing is, this is all theater. There are no “sides” to the debate in Washington, and there is no battle. This is all designed to condition the American public into believing that the two parties are separate and opposed when they are in fact not. Beyond that, the shutdown battle also achieves a certain stress factor for the economy that many people are not aware of.

Among alternative analysts, cynicism runs rampant over a government shutdown. “Who cares?!” many of them will say, “Let it shut down!” But there are some concerns here, primarily the concern of full faith in U.S. debt issuance.

While I am all for the notion of the federal government going the way of the Dodo bird, I do not think many alternative analysts are considering the trade-off required when the system does in fact “reset.” For example, while the U.S. Treasury is supposed to remain functional during a government shutdown and certainly remains functional during stop gaps and debates over funding, this internal conflict though theatrical in nature can still produce a lack of faith in Treasury bonds and the dollar internationally. And frankly, faith is all that our economy has left to sustain itself.

If the funding battle continues with ever shorter stop gaps or with an extended period of government shutdown, there is a possibility that the largest foreign investors in U.S. debt and the dollar will begin dumping their holdings. When this is done, it will be done quietly and will be fully denied if questions arise. If China, for example, begins decoupling from U.S. debt, we will not find out until it is far too late. The Chinese would seek to be the first to dump their holding in order to avoid a vast international rush for the exits. They would want to be the first to sell, not the last.

Again, if the funding fight continues to become more aggressive and more absurd, eventually we will see a foreign dump of U.S. debt, and with it an unprecedented crisis. Whether or not this “needs” to happen is not what I am debating here, only that when it does happen, there will be consequences for us all, and being prepared for them is essential.

Syria Back On The Table

So, if you thought the Syrian situation could not get any weirder, the past week might have been a surprise.

The last major development was Vladimir Putin’s orders to pull a large percentage of standing Russian troops from the region, leaving the Assad government particularly vulnerable. This move did not surprise me in the least. In fact, I predicted that Russia would step aside in Syria in interviews last year. I also wrote about the possible problems this would cause in my article ‘A Review Of The Most Disturbing Events Of 2017’. One of these problems would be Putin leaving the door wide open for a foreign force to invade Syria, drawing in other nations like Iran or Lebanon into the fight and expanding the war tenfold.

What did surprise me, though, was the brazen launch of forces into the region by Turkey in particular. Erdogan has been pecking away at Kurdish tribes in Syria for quite some time, but his latest measuresare something entirely new. Keep in mind that Turkey is still technically a NATO member and an ally of the U.S., despite Erdogan’s anti-NATO rhetoric and threats to leave the multi-nation defense pact. Also keep in mind that the U.S. government is giving monetary and weapons support to the Kurds. So, to clarify, a U.S. ally is ignoring the tense situation in Syria and the possibility of triggering a wider regional war to hunt and destroy another U.S. ally, all while Saudi Arabia, Iran, Israel, Lebanon, Russia, etc., hover on the periphery waiting to jump into the fray.

This is not a recipe for diplomatic discourse. This is a recipe for disaster. Will Syria lead to WWIII as some people suggest? Probably not in the way most of them imagine. War takes many forms, including sporadic region by region conflicts, as well as economic conflicts. Global nuclear war is unlikely considering such an event would virtually vaporize decades of investment by the elitist establishment in control grids around the world. But, constant regional combat and financial disasters? THAT is a strategy that benefits them greatly.

North Korea And The Olympic-Sized Target

First let me say that the very fact that South Korea and the Olympic committee feels compelled to continue the games in the region at a time of such heightened tensions is extremely odd to me. The notion may simply be that the games will “heal” divisions in the Korean peninsula. I am not so sure about that…

I recently wrote about the North Korean war scenario and the potential false flag event during the Olympics in my article ‘Olympic Games In South Korea – Perfect Opportunity For A False Flag Attack?’. I would add to my analysis another interesting development; the negative response by South Koreans to the North’s participation in the Olympic games.

I have continually had to remind people that a war in North Korea would be the most effective trigger event for economic downturn and global distraction, though some skeptics seem to think the situation is going nowhere. Yet, all the elements are now present, including an array of naval forces ready for kinetic response, the escalation of North Korea’s missile technology to include ICBMs capable of striking the U.S. mainland, the war rhetoric grows on both sides, with the Department of Defense being the most aggressive, and now even the South Korean citizenry seems to be shunning diplomacy as theyburn photos of Kim Jong-un during Olympic processions and demand a stop to cooperation with the North during the games.

This is a rather sharp break from the mainstream narrative in the U.S., which has told us that South Koreans are seeking generally passive and diplomatic relations with the North, and that the US involvement is universally unwanted. That is to say, the desire for conflict is not limited to U.S. warhawks and North Korean “fanatics,” it is also a large portion of the South Korean population that appears to prefer less-than peaceful solutions.

Add to this the latest CIA claims that North Korea’s nuclear weapons technology will be a full threat to the U.S. in a matter of months, and the news that North Korea’s armies are confiscating food stores from the citizenry at a greater rate than usual, and anyone with any sense can see what is developing here. CIA director Mike Pompeo has asserted that the Trump Administration will act to prevent North Korea from developing an arsenal of ICBMs capable of striking the U.S.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: This is going to end in war. There is no way around it.

The U.S. Dollar Continues Its Rapid Decline

I outlined this interesting development a couple weeks ago in my article ‘The Strange Case Of The Falling Dollar – And What It Means For Gold’, and so far it seems that the downward spiral of the dollar is continuing, now falling at a speed not seen since 2003.

This trend is very strange for a number of reasons – the most prominent being the fact that the dollar index is ignoring policy moves by the Federal Reserve to hike interest rates and reduce its balance sheet. Under normal economic conditions, this should trigger a dollar spike, not a dollar collapse. I predict that the Fed, under “new leadership” through Jerome Powell, will pursue highly aggressive fiscal tightening measures in 2018, including expanded interest rate hikes in the name of tempering the dollar’s decline.

If this takes place, the insane stock market bubble now in full steroid mode will feel a sudden swift kick to the nether regions. However, such a move may still not stop the dollar’s decline. This could be the first stage of the stagflationary crisis I and a few other alternative analysts have been warning about for years.

Growing Accustomed To The Weird

I think if you asked most people if they would have believed the developments of today were possible five to 10 years ago, they would say no. The danger is that when a society becomes too accustomed to instability and conflict, they become complacent in terms of their own security and their own freedoms. They might not even notice until it is too late that both necessities have been stolen away from them.

That great global slap in the face is coming, make no mistake, but the question is, can we prepare enough people for it in time to make a difference in the outcome? Reporting on these issues is often compared to “doom and gloom,” but really, it is an act of optimism. I and many other analysts are operating on the assumption that we can tip the balance by informing the public and creating a shield against calamity. Maybe this is a foolish assumption, maybe not. We shall see in due course.

You can read more from Brandon Smith at his site Alt-Market.com. If you would like to support the publishing of articles like the one you have just read, visit our donations pagehere. We greatly appreciate your patronage.

You can contact Brandon Smith at: brandon@alt-market.com

(activistpost)