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Bollywood veteran Paresh Rawal is back on screen, this time not as comic relief or a cranky uncle, but as the lead in a film that would make historians roll their eyes.

Titled The Taj Story, the film claims to be “inspired by true events” and is set to release on October 31. Directed by Tushar Amish Goel, who made a fictionalised tribute to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2017, the movie questions the well-documented history of the Taj Mahal and the Mughal emperor who built it.

The trailer, which dropped on Thursday, opens with Rawal playing a tour guide at the monument. When a street vendor asks him which temple he’s headed to, he replies, “The Taj Mahal”. What follows is a barrage of revisionist rhetoric and some serious gaslighting of historical fact.

In one scene, Rawal’s character smirks, “Have you ever seen a monument in the world that has both a dome and a kalash?” He goes on to suggest that maybe “the Taj Mahal needs a DNA test”.

Cue dramatic music, courtrooms, protests, and a line that’s already gone viral: “Taj Mahal is not a symbol of love; it is a symbol of atrocity and genocide”. The film follows Rawal’s character as he fights a case, defending himself without a lawyer, and cross-examining historians for allegedly hiding the “truth” about the Taj Mahal’s origins.

Central to his argument? The 22 locked rooms under the monument, which he claims contain Hindu symbols, implying that the Taj Mahal was once a temple. That theory has been debunked repeatedly by historians and the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), who’ve said those rooms are just sealed maintenance spaces, not hidden temples. But facts don’t sell, conspiracy does.

For anyone following Indian cinema lately, The Taj Story fits neatly into a pattern — the growing trend of right-wing “historical” films that blur the line between myth, ideology, and fact.

Goel’s film doesn’t just retell history; it tries to reclaim it. The Mughal-built Taj Mahal, long celebrated as a symbol of love, becomes a site of “atrocity” in the trailer. With a director known for his pro-BJP views and a star like Paresh Rawal delivering lines that challenge centuries of scholarship, it’s clear the film is meant to provoke.

For those tempted to buy into the film’s “what are they hiding?” intrigue, here’s what experts actually say. According to the Archaeological Survey of India, the so-called locked rooms are part of a basement corridor, structural support spaces that exist in many Mughal-era buildings. There are no “Hindu idols” or “hidden chambers”.

As former ASI regional director KK Muhammed told The Indian Express, “I’ve been inside those rooms. There are no religious motifs. These are just technical spaces below the plinth.”

The Taj Mahal has survived wars, colonialism, and pollution. Now, it faces a new kind of assault — one of the cinematic kind. The Taj Story reflects the political moment India finds itself in, one where rewriting history has become an industry of its own. Whether you watch it for the drama or the controversy, one thing’s for sure: this film isn’t really about the Taj Mahal. It’s about who gets to define what the Taj Mahal, and by extension, India’s past, stands for.