Ashish Kaul, author of Didda: The Warrior Queen Of Kashmir, has served Kangana Ranaut a legal notice for refusing to acknowledge his book while announcing her new film, Manikarnika Returns: The Legend Of Didda, which is based on Queen Didda who defeated Mahmud of Ghazni twice. According to Kaul, his book is the only historical and non-fictional account on Didda, and Kangana’s film, therefore, draws from his book. Incidentally, Ashish Kaul is a descendant of the queen.
Ashish was commissioned to do a research monograph and a documentary on 13 women including Queen Didda, in 2018 by the Indira Gandhi Centre For The Arts And Culture in Delhi. He also directed a 60-minute film, Streedesh, based on the life and times of Didda and the 12 other women. The already certified film will be released shortly by the Indira Gandhi Centre.
According to Kaul, Didda is his family’s legacy. He explains that although Kangana claims, Didda’s legend is a historical fact, there is only one book in the whole world which mentions Queen Didda, and that is Rajatarangini which speaks about the history of Kashmir, and has two pages devoted to Didda. The same, he adds, has been taken forward by various other historians, and the other books carry forward the errors of Rajatarangini inasmuch as they refer to Queen Didda as being of immoral character. Kaul wonders how Kangana would make a film about a supposedly immoral queen under the Manikarnika franchise. Obviously, therefore, he adds, she is drawing from his book on the Queen. If Ranaut says that Didda was a great nationalist and fighter, she is stating facts available in only one book which is authored by himself, but she is refusing to acknowledge that.
Ashish Kaul, who has also authored the bestseller Refugee Camp, has also been planning a film or a web series on Queen Didda. In fact, Kaul and his team were looking for someone to pen the foreword of the book. Since Kangana had last year been talking in the media about Kashmir and Kashmiri Pandits, they approached her for the foreword. Despite many reminders, the actress did not revert to their mails wherein they wrote about the book and why she was ideal to write the foreword. The foreword was ultimately gotten written by Padma Shri awardee paralympian Deepa Malik. Ashish realised earlier this month that Kangana had announced a film on the Kashmiri Queen but had very cleverly ignored to mention his name or even his book.