By Eric Vandenbroeck
The Diversity of India During the Delhi
Sultanate
We started this
research by presenting an overview of South Asia
here, and the dream of a United South Asia here.
While Hindu Nationalists see it as a Hindu rebellion,
Pakistan furthermore traces its Nationalist history back to the (by Pakistan’s
historiography considered a Muslim) 1857 Sepoy
Mutiny.
This said, Muslim
rule had been first introduced to South Asia when Arab forces seized
control of the Sind region of the southern Indus plain (now in Pakistan) in
711. Around the same time, the greatest empires of ancient India were based in
the Gangetic plain, which, along with the Indus plain, boasted the earliest
urban centers of the subcontinent.
In south India, in contrast, settled agriculture was
confined to relatively small pockets, although it had a longer history there
than in western or eastern India. Because of its more difficult terrain,
dispersed agrarian zones, and localized social circles, the peninsula's
kingdoms were typically smaller than those of the Gangetic north before 1000
CE. The only states that had ever extended their power across the Vindhyas were
those based in the north. Eastern and western Indian states were even later to
develop than those in the south and were similarly restricted in size, for the
most part.
Just as in Europe,
regionalization occurred at the expense of a cosmopolitan language and culture,
in South Asia's case, Sanskrit, and was a sign of the growing relevance of more
localized concerns and identities among the elite populations. These regional
cultures also interacted with or were affected by aspects of the cosmopolitan
culture of Persia and the Middle East in differing ways in the centuries after
1200.
For much of India's
ancient history, the earlier development, greater wealth -- and larger
population of the Gangetic north gave it political and cultural dominance. This
explains why it was the Sanskrit language, once spoken in the north, that
eventually developed into the pan-Indic literary medium. For a period of
approximately a thousand years beginning in 300 CE, the prestige of classical
Sanskrit was so great that it eclipsed all
other languages and literatures in the area.
And although the
religious beliefs and practices of India were never systematized by a central
institution or spiritual authority, the circulation of Sanskrit and Brahmins
throughout the subcontinent thus, did produce some semblance of a unified
religious culture at the elite level by 1000 CE.
The largest temple in
eleventh-century India was located in Tanjavur, the capital of the mighty Chola dynasty of the
far south. Consecrated in 1010, the temple housed a form of Shiva named Rajarajeshvara after the Chola ruler Rajaraja, who was its
main patron. While the far south of India was thriving under the Chola dynasty,
political power in the northern half of the subcontinent continued to devolve
to an increasing number of small states.
At
the same time that King
Rajaraja I of the Chola dynasty was making plans to build his enormous temple
at Tanjavur, another king had emerged
in far-off Afghanistan. Known to posterity simply as Mahmud of Ghazni (r. 998-1030) after the Afghan city that was
his capital, he is usually regarded as the first Muslim king to have a major
impact on what under British rule was called the Indian subcontinent.
Even Indo-Muslim
chronicles of a later time ignore the Arabs of Sind and begin their narrative
of Muslim rule in India with Mahmud of Ghazni.
Mahmud lived about 350 years after the inception of Islam, at a time when many
in the Islamic world feared that their centuries of political supremacy might
be at an end. In the years immediately after the death of the Prophet Muhammad
(d. 632), Muslims had given their allegiance to a single caliph or head of
state. Under the Umayyad dynasty of caliphs (661-750) based in Damascus and
then the Abbasids of Baghdad, much of the Islamic world had been politically
unified, at least in theory. This unity had fragmented by the tenth century,
with three different rulers: one in Umayyad Spain, another in Abbasid Baghdad,
and yet another in Fatimid Cairo - each claiming to be the sole caliph. While
all Muslims would never again be brought together in one state, the
tenth-century fear that Muslim dominance was on an irreversible decline proved
to be wrong. Instead, the influx of a new group of people, the Turks, would
politically reinvigorate much territory ruled under the banner of Islam. From
the ninth century onward, Muslim rulers had increasingly relied on personal
troops composed of enslaved Turks from the Central Asian steppes. These
military slaves or mamluks were considered more loyal than other soldiers
because they were taken captive at a young age and owed loyalty only to their
master. Many mamluks went on to become prominent generals and leaders in the
Islamic world in this era; at the same time, various tribes of Turks were
gradually migrating into Muslim lands and becoming Islamicized.
Due to their nomadic background, the Turkic peoples were skilled at cavalry
warfare.
Mahmud of Ghazni's ascendance occurred in this context of rising
Turkic military and political power. His grandfather, Alptigin,
was a Turk who began as a military slave and ended his career as governor
of Ghazni, a city in the center of what is now
Afghanistan. Sebuktigin, Mahmud's father, was
also a slave at one time, before he married Alptigin's daughter
and succeeded to Alptigin's position
as governor. He eventually declared his independence and annexed much of modern
Afghanistan, becoming the first in the Ghaznavid line of Turkic rulers. After
Mahmud, the Ghaznavids lost their base in Afghanistan to the Seljuq Turks, a
group of nomadic tribes who went on to conquer a huge swath of territory
encompassing modern Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and much of Central Asia. The
Ghaznavids and Seljuqs were conscious of their status as newcomers to Islam and
so never sought symbolic leadership over the entire Islamic world. Instead of
claiming the ultimate authority as caliphs, Mahmud and other Turkic rulers were
called sultans, a title for Muslim kings that spread widely in later centuries.
After several centuries during which the Islamic frontiers had hardly advanced,
the Turkic sultans of the eleventh century initiated major expansions of the
Islamic realm, the Ghaznavids toward the east and the Seljuqs toward the west.
Mahmud of Ghazni started making frequent campaigns into the
Indian subcontinent in 1001. Keen on building up his prestige within the
international Muslim community, Mahmud portrayed his entry into the
subcontinent as an instance of jihad, in this case a war against infidels.
Making this claim also allowed him to legitimately take booty, which Mahmud did
in great quantities. Mahmud commenced by taking territory around the Indus river in what is today Pakistan and eventually
made his way large majority of Muslims are Sunni, the sense of an ummah was
almost readymade. Also significant in creating unity among Muslims was the
existence of a common language, Arabic, for religious purposes, as well as
common cultural practices and constructs.
Very little intact
architecture from the Ghaznavid period survives, but we do have existing
examples from their Seljuq successors that are quite similar
to the Ghaznavid style. The most notable example of a Seljuq
monument is the Great Mosque of Isfahan in Iran.
Although Mahmud could
claim to belong to a worldwide Muslim community, the Ghaznavid Turks had
adopted an ideology and style of kingship that originated in just one part of
the Islamic world, its eastern segment. This mode of kingship drew heavily on
the pre-Islamic traditions of Persia and cast the king as an all-powerful autocrat
deemed superior to other mortals. The elevated position of a ruler in
later Persian-Islamic society was a far cry from the egalitarian
ethos of the early days of Islam, when the ruler was simply an esteemed man who
was elected from a body of equals just as an Arab chief had been chosen from
the elders of the tribe. Rulers such as Mahmud of Ghazni were
considered shadows of god on earth and, as
such, merited great respect and awe.
The fact that Mahmud
of Ghazni used Persian as a court language
also differentiated him and other contemporary rulers in Iran and Central Asia
from their counterparts in Spain, Egypt, and Baghdad, who spoke Arabic.
These intertwined
traditions of Turkic military prowess, Islamic religion, and Persian culture
were introduced into the Indian subcontinent by Mahmud of Ghazni and his successors. Mahmud's son had to yield
most of the Ghaznavid realm to the much larger and more powerful Seljuq Turks,
but the dynasty managed to retain a small stronghold around Lahore, today in
Pakistan. There the Ghaznavids survived for almost two hundred years, until
they were dislodged by another upstart dynasty from Afghanistan, the Ghurids,
who further spread Perso-Islamic culture in South Asia. Although Arab sailors
and merchants, as well as the early Muslim Arabs who conquered Sind, were no
strangers to South Asia, the Muslims who became politically dominant in the
subcontinent would typically be Turco-Mongol in ethnic background, horse-riding
warriors in occupation, and Persian in cultural heritage.
In the year 1000
thus, two kings at the extremities of the greater South Asian world region had
been poised for expansion. There was Rajaraja Chola of Tanjavur, on the one hand,
who envisioned an extension of power into Southeast Asia that would be realized
by his son Rajendra. And at the same time, Mahmud of Ghazni, situated in the borderland between the
Middle East, Central Asia, and South Asia, was setting his sights on the area
of northwestern India.
By 1200, however, the
Chola dynasty had withered away along with Indian influence in Southeast Asia,
whereas a second wave of Turkic warriors following in Mahmud of Ghazni's footsteps was overrunning much of north
India. The Cholas flourished toward the end of one long phase, a period of
roughly a thousand years when Indian culture had spread far beyond the confines
of the modern region not only into Southeast Asia but also into central and
eastern Asia. Mahmud of Ghazni, on the other
hand, stood at the inception of a second phase, during which Islamic religion
and culture were transmitted as far east as the southern Philippine islands.
What happened subsequently in India was not so much a clash of civilizations as
a revitalization of its politics and an enrichment of its already diverse
culture. That is the story to which we now turn our attention.
The origins of the
Delhi Sultanate can be traced to the career of Muhammad Ghuri, so-called after the mountainous region in
Afghanistan where his family was based. His full name was Shihab al-Din
Muhammad bin Sam, but he is also known in the historical sources as Muizz al-Din.
Muhammad Ghuri was based in Ghazni,
the former capital of the renowned Mahmud, and from there he turned his
attention eastward toward India beginning in 1175. Like Mahmud, Muhammad Ghuri spent years campaigning in the Indian
subcontinent and won victory after victory. Unlike Mahmud, however, Muhammad's
goal was to annex territory and not merely to carry out profitable raids.
Muhammad's first conquest in South Asia was the region of Punjab, held by the
Muslim descendants of Mahmud of Ghazni. For two
decades from 1186, the main city in the Punjab, Lahore (now Pakistan), served
as the primary Ghurid base in South Asia for a series of successful attacks on
north India proper.
The sophisticated
military system of their native Afghanistan was the principal reason for the
success of the Ghurid armies in India. The ease of the Ghurid conquest has
puzzled historians in the past, given the far greater agrarian wealth and
population of the conquered Indian kingdoms that should have provided them with
ample resources for military defense. Hence, early twentieth-century scholars
often pointed to the lack of unity among Indians as the chief explanation for
their defeat. Since the concept of India as a nation was still centuries away,
Prithviraj Chauhan and Jayachandra Gahadavala –
Muhammad Ghuri’s opponents - had no incentive to
forge a united front and indeed are depicted as mortal enemies in a later
ballad that champions Prithviraj. Similarly, there was no sense of a common
religious identity among Indian warriors at the time, for the notion of a unified
Hinduism is a modern one.
Muhammad Ghuri's sudden
death in 1206 precipitated an intense contest for power among the leading
Turkic military slaves upon whom Muhammad had so heavily relied. In that year,
Qutb al-Din Aibak, a slave of Turkic origin, seized control of the armies from
Afghanistan that were occupying numerous forts in the heartland of north India.
Qutb al-Din Aibak's act was but the first in a series of struggles for
dominance among the leading members of the Turkic forces in India. This event
easily could have been relegated to the status of a footnote in history had the
occupying Turkic armies eventually retreated to their area of origin,
as had Mahmud of Ghazni two hundred years
earlier, or had the fledgling Islamic state torn itself apart in internal
conflict. Instead, Qutb al-Din's political successors were able to entrench
themselves in India for centuries thereafter and, in doing so, ushered in
momentous changes not only in the political makeup of the subcontinent but also
in its culture. The importance of the date 1206, when the first of a series of
dynasties collectively known as the Delhi Sultanate was founded, is thus clear.
A New Delhi Sultanate
Enter a few hundred
years later, Zahiruddin Muhammad, also known as Babur, who was twelve years old
when he ascended the throne of the tiny Mughal principality of Fergana in
faraway Central Asia. And although he soon lost Fergana and had to wander in
the mountains of Central Asia, a king without a kingdom, with the blood of
Timur (on the paternal side) and Chingiz Khan (on the maternal side) he had great
dreams. When fortune favored him eventually with the throne of Kabul, his eyes
turned eastwards, where, beyond the mountains, lay the vast, fertile
Indo-Gangetic Plain, renowned for its wealth, which was then ruled by the
Afghan dynasty of Lodis.
In November 1525,
Zahiruddin Muhammad descended from the snow-capped mountains, crossed the
Indus, and swept into Hindustan. This was a perilous enterprise, for he had
only a small army of just twelve thousand men, while opposing him was the
mammoth Lodi army of some hundred thousand with a formidable contingent of a
thousand elephants. But in a five-hour battle fought at Panipat, about
eighty kilometers north of Delhi, he entirely routed the
enemy. Babur, aged forty-three, was at last an emperor.
Four years later,
Babur died and was succeeded by his son Humayun. An easy-going bon vivant,
Humayun was devoted more to the pleasures of life than to the pursuit of power
and did not have the grit and ruthlessness needed to prevail in the turbulent
political environment of India. The Mughals' adversaries, though routed in
several battles by Babur, were not destroyed, and they hovered on the periphery
of the empire, regrouping, watching, waiting. In 1540, the resurgent Afghans
struck, seized the imperial throne, and drove Humayun out of India.
For three years,
Humayun wandered about in the western borderland of India with a small band of
followers, hoping for a turn of fortune. That did not happen. So he finally crossed the Indus and, scurrying through
the domains of his hostile brothers in Afghanistan, took refuge with the shah
of Persia. The shah welcomed Humayun as an honored royal guest and
Humayun basked in the opulent Persian hospitality for a year, 'feasting and
carousing', as his attendant Jauhar described it. But he had to vindicate
his honor, win back his empire. So he
set out again, though rather reluctantly. Humayun was now accompanied by a
contingent of troops provided by the shah, with whose help he seized
Afghanistan from his brothers and, after consolidating his power there over
several years, finally headed for India to recover his lost empire.
Humayun had with him
at this time only a tiny army of around five thousand. That was enough, though.
Sher Shah, Humayun's great Afghan adversary, had died a few years earlier, and
North India was in political disarray. In July 1555, Humayun stormed back into
Delhi, fifteen years after he had been driven out of it by Sher Shah. But he
died soon afterwards in a tragic accident, tumbling down the stairs of his
astronomical observatory where, obsessed with astrology, he had gone to study
what the stars boded.
AT MIDDAY ON Friday,
14 February 1556, a time and date that was considered astrologically
auspicious, in the obscure little town of Kalanaur on
the Ravi river in Punjab, an illiterate
and unruly youth of fourteen, Jalaluddin Muhammad Akbar, was
enthroned as Mughal emperor on a hastily built, rough masonry platform.
Thus began, in a lowly and bleak setting, the reign of the greatest ruler of
India after Asoka, the celebrated Buddhist emperor of the third century BCE.
The grand destiny of
Akbar was not evident at the time of his accession. Quite the contrary: the
future looked very grim for the nascent empire and its boy-king, for the
Mughals had as yet only a tenuous toehold in
India, and in Akbar there was no sign at all of any
greatness. But the scene changed entirely over the next couple of decades. Not
only did Akbar build an extensive and powerful empire, but he also, more
importantly, inaugurated the second golden age of India after the decline of
its classical civilization a thousand years earlier. He and his immediate
successors so decisively stamped their personalities on India that the Mughal
Empire became, in the public perception, synonymous with India. And it remained
so for quite a long time, even after the empire had entirely disappeared and
the emperor had become a humble pensioner of the British.
Akbar, however, initially was
not yet ready to assume responsibility, and for the time being, he left
governance entirely to his guardian, Biram Khan, a suave Persian noble of
exceptional ability. For four years Biram Khan ruled as de facto emperor while
Akbar remained 'behind the veil'. But despite his seeming disinterest in
government, Akbar was all the while observing, learning, quietly preparing
himself for the role that destiny had assigned to him.
By 1560, he was
ready. That year, Akbar dismissed Biram Khan from his service and shortly
thereafter, in what seemed like a ravenous earth-hunger, launched a rapid
series of conquests which enlarged the Mughal kingdom in India into a vast
subcontinental empire. Entirely fearless and blessed with phenomenal physical
prowess and stamina, he invariably led his army from the front, impetuously
plunging in where the fight was fiercest.
Exuberant physicality
characterized Akbar in his youth. As he grew older, however, his life became
more and more austere , and he revealed
himself to be a man of wide cultural interests and insatiable intellectual
curiosity. Though as a child he had stubbornly refused to learn to read and
write, despite the persistent efforts of his erudite father, and would remain
formally illiterate all his life, he now had his officers read regularly to him
from the books in the vast royal library, and in time he became quite a savant.
Akbar was eclectic in
his tastes, liberal in his outlook, and entirely open-minded, without any
prejudice as to race, religion, or culture. In 1564, when he was twenty-two, he
took the bold step of abolishing jizya, the poll tax that Muslim states mandatorily
imposed on non-Muslims, thus ending a major discrimination against Hindus in
his empire. Later, he invited to his court leaders of diverse religions -
Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, Jains, and Parsees - and often held night-long
discussions with them. There was also a small group of Jesuit missionaries at
his court , and he paid careful attention to
their expositions as well, once even attending service in their chapel.
But what Akbar sought
was knowledge, not faith. 'He is a man who makes justice the guide of the path
of inquiry, and takes from every sect what
is consonant with reason,' he held. And it was the practical aspect of
knowledge that interested Akbar. 'Although knowledge in itself is regarded as
the summit of perfection, yet unless displayed in action, it bears not the
impress of worth,' he contended.
In 1582, when he was
forty, Akbar took the revolutionary step, most unusual for a monarch, of
founding a syncretic religious fraternity of his own, called Din Hahi (Divine Faith). 'For an empire ruled by one head,
it is a bad thing to have its people divided among themselves and at variance
with one another,' Akbar said, explaining his reason for founding the
fraternity. 'We ought, therefore, to bring them all into one, but in such
fashion that they should be both one and all; with the great advantage of not
losing what is good in anyone's religion while gaining whatever is better in
another. In this way, honor would be rendered to God, peace would be given to
the people, and security to the empire.'
Din Hahi was
more an elite socio-political brotherhood than a religious sect in the
conventional sense. Its orientation was towards rationalism rather than faith.
It had no pantheon, no theology, no transcendental concerns. Its sole objective
was to guide its followers to lead sensible, responsible lives as human beings
and citizens. Religious tolerance was its bedrock. 'No one,' Akbar declared,
'should be interfered with on account of his religion. Anyone should be allowed
to go over to any religion he pleased.'
Din Hahi did
not survive Akbar. It could not: like its creator, it was way ahead of its
time. When Akbar died, the medieval culture of the age entombed Din Hahi as well. But on the whole,
Akbar had had a singularly fortunate career, and nearly everything in his life
worked out perfectly for him - everything, except for his sons. Growing up in
the awesome shadow of the great emperor, the personalities of the princes
became stunted and warped. Two of them drank themselves to death in their
youth, and his only surviving son, Jahangir, also became an alcoholic and an
opium addict.
Akbar, in his last
years, was hardly the emperor or the man that the world had known. Fortune no
longer waited on his pleasure. Aggravations
and misfortunes broke his once indomitable spirit. His health collapsed, and in
October 1605, at the age of sixty-three, he died after a reign of forty-nine
years.
Akbar's last
act on his deathbed was to invest Jahangir, aged thirty-two, with the
regalia. Jahangir had broken out in rebellion towards the close of Akbar's
reign, but no one held that against him. The fight of son against father, and
of brother against brother, for the throne was the norm among the Mughals:
Babur, Humayun, Akbar, Shah Jahan, and Aurangzeb all fought fratricidal wars,
and most of the emperors had to face rebellions by their sons as well. Such
clashes were a rite of passage for Mughal princes, which enabled the fittest of
them to survive and rule.
In character and temperament,
Jahangir was like his grandfather Humayun, a debonair, gregarious, fun-loving
epicure. And just as Humayun had had a serious interest in astronomy and
astrology, Jahangir took a serious interest in nature studies and was a
connoisseur of art. He also prided himself on being a poet, and he wrote his
candid memoirs. He was very much his father's son, too, being open-minded and
liberal in his cultural and religious attitudes. Unlike Akbar, however, he had
no deep interest in religion and was generally scornful of all faiths. 'Jhe-Hangier Shah" (who likely refers to Shah Jahan, the
fifth Mughal emperor of India. He ruled from 1628 to 1658 and is best
known for commissioning the Taj Mahal in memory of his wife, Mumtaz Mahal), is
an atheist,' stated Sir Thomas Roe, the first British royal ambassador to
India.
According to Sir
Thomas Roe, Jahangir once told the Jesuits in his court: 'If yee cast the Crucifix and Picture of Christ into fire
before me, if it burne not, I will become a
Christian.' In comparison with Akbar, Jahangir pales to insignificance, though
only in comparison with Akbar. He was a man of diverse talents and, despite a
certain playfulness, quite conscientious in the discharge of his royal duties.
But he was a physical wreck during most of his reign due to his long addiction
to wine and opium, and his life would have probably ended in disgrace but for
his good fortune in having by his side the imperiously beautiful and enormously
talented Nur Jahan, his chief queen. As the reins of power began to slip from
his enfeebled hands, she stood beside him and gave him strength. She, noted the
Mughal courtier Inayat Khan, 'gradually acquired such unbounded influence on
His Majesty's mind that she seized the reins of government and took on herself
the supreme civil and financial administration of the realm, ruling with
absolute authority till the conclusion of the reign'.
There were two major
rebellions towards the close of Jahangir's reign, by the prince Shah Jahan and
by the royal commander Mahabat Khan, but
both were effectively and decisively suppressed under the leadership of Nur
Jahan. And when Jahangir died after a reign of twenty-two years, the great
empress had the grace and wisdom to retire quietly from public life and spend
the last eighteen years of her life in contented obscurity in the provincial
town of Lahore.
Jahangir was
succeeded by Shah Jahan, aged thirty-five, and with him, the Mughal golden age
reached its culmination. Shah Jahan was the quintessential Great Mughal, who,
by the splendor of his dress and ornaments, and his lordly bearing
and conduct, personified the opulence and grandeur of the empire. In him, the
Mughal rumbustiousness was at last tamed under the influence of Persian courtly
formalism. Though courteous and soft-spoken, his bearing in public was always
stiffly dignified. 'I never saw so settled a countenance, nor any man keep so
constant a gravity, never smiling, or in face showing any respect or difference
of men, but mingled with extreme pride and contempt of all,' observed Roe.
Shah Jahan, unlike his ancestors, particularly unlike
his father and grandfather, was a rigidly orthodox Muslim, and with him began
the attempt to convert the Mughal Empire into a theocratic Muslim state, in a
deliberate reversal of the established Mughal policy. Though all his
predecessors, except Akbar, had occasionally persecuted Hindus and demolished
temples, they had done so in random and impulsive acts. Now it was state
policy. Furthermore, while Akbar and Jahangir had allowed anyone to adopt any religion,
Shah Jahan prohibited Muslims from changing their religion. He also directed
that Hindus should dress differently from Muslims: while Muslims tied the tunic
on the right-hand side, Hindus were required to tie it on the left.
A major influence on
the formulation of Shah Jahan's policies was his queen, Mumtaz Mahal. She was a
niece of Nur Jahan and, like her aunt, she
played a crucial role in government, but discreetly, from behind the throne.
Mumtaz, wrote the Mughal chronicler Aminai Qazvini, was the emperor's
'intimate companion, colleague, close confidante in distress and comfort, joy
and grief'. Shah Jahan was devoted and faithful to her, and though he had other
wives, he begot children only by her. And she was marvelously fecund: she bore
him fourteen children in the nineteen years they lived together,
but died at the age of thirty-four while delivering her last child.
Shah Jahan was devastated by the tragedy, and it was to commemorate his
love for her that he built the Taj Mahal, often considered to be the most
beautiful building in the world.
Shah Jahan had a keen
interest in music and dance - he used to sing at the private gatherings of his
intimate nobles - but his main artistic interest was in architecture, which
found expression in several magnificent buildings he erected. He took enormous
pride in them, as reflected in the couplet he had inscribed on the hall of
public audience in his Delhi palace: If there be a paradise on earth, It's
this, it's this, it's this!
That, indeed, was how
the contemporary world saw the Mughal court. Shah Jahan was the richest and
most exalted monarch in the world in his time, and he lived in the greatest
possible magnificence. But his last years were pathetic. Trouble erupted in the
summer of 1657 when Shah Jahan fell seriously ill. This sent shivers of anxiety
through his four sons, stationed in the different provinces of the empire, for
each knew that if the emperor died, his own life would be in peril as the
successor would liquidate him as a potential contender for the throne. The only
way a prince could save his life was by securing the throne for himself. It was
the throne or death for each of them.
Soon, the princes
were on the march with their armies, headed for the
imperial capital. Once these moves had been initiated, there was no turning
back for them, even though Shah Jahan recovered and the immediate threat to
their lives and fortunes passed. A prolonged and traumatic war of succession
ensued, out of which the emperor's third son, Aurangzeb, emerged victorious,
eliminating all his brothers and usurping the throne. And he, saturnine and
remorseless, kept Shah Jahan confined in the Agra fort for eight years, till
the end of his life.
Aurangzeb was an
unlikely Mughal ruler. He did not have the dynamism, charisma, and verve
that characterized his ancestors, but was a dour, joyless drudge. This,
however, was a persona that he deliberately cultivated. He had in his early
youth loved music, enjoyed hunting, and was susceptible to feminine charms, but
he burnt out all those vulnerabilities with his searing, inexorable will, SQ as
to focus his whole being on the business of winning the throne and ruling.
Utterly implacable and cold-blooded in his pursuit of power, his life was a
triumph of mind over body and of will over nature.
Aurangzeb believed
that he had a divine dispensation to rule, not for his enjoyment of power but
for the restoration of the true kingdom of Islam in India. Characteristically,
when his sister Jahanara pleaded with him to spare the life of his brother Dara,
he said: 'Dara is an infidel and a friend of Hindus. He must be extirpated for
the sake of the true faith and the peace of the realm.' He had no feeling for his father either; in all the years he kept
him confined in the Agra fort, he never once visited him, not even during his
final illness, and did not attend his funeral. He had no weakness of sentiment
or love.
Yet he was a man of
great humility, soft-spoken, mild-mannered, and of equable temper. He was
particularly kind in his treatment of the lowly.
Once, when a eunuch stumbled against him and knocked him down, and he collapsed
in fright, Aurangzeb spoke to him kindly: 'Wherefore fearest thou
a created being, one like thyself ... Rise and be not afraid.' He led an
ascetic life, was very simple in dress, wore hardly any jewels, and met his
expenses by making caps. Contemporary Muslims regarded him as a saint.
Under Aurangzeb, the
very nature of the Mughal Empire changed. Shah Jahan had tentatively begun the
conversion of the secular empire into a theocratic Muslim state; this process
was now completed by Aurangzeb. He reimposed jizya, 115 years after Akbar had
abolished it, and imposed various disabilities on non-Muslims as required by
orthodox Islamic tradition. However, in all this, he acted strictly within the
law, doing what was permitted and obligatory for a Muslim ruler but nothing
beyond that, and he did on occasion pull up his officers who, in their
theocratic fervor, unlawfully persecuted Hindus.
One phase of
Aurangzeb's life ended in 1681 when, after reigning from
north India for twenty-three years, at the age of sixty-three, he crossed into
the peninsula to begin the final ascent to the summit of the Mughal Empire. He
would spend the next twenty-six years there in ceaseless wars, conquering new
territories, subduing rebels, and capturing forts. At the end of this titanic
effort, a vast sweep of land from Kabul across virtually the entire Indian
subcontinent lay under his sway. There were no more lands to conquer, no more.
Efforts to take our armies
to defeat. Aurangzeb had become master of the largest empire that India has
ever known. Mughal imperial destiny had been fulfilled, it seemed. Yet, just
when Aurangzeb appeared triumphant, everything was utterly lost. At the moment of his supreme triumph, Aurangzeb found
to his horror that the very ground on which he stood was crumbling.
The Marathas were his
nemesis. Aurangzeb thought that he had pounded them into the earth, and indeed he
had, but they rose again out of the soil everywhere to confound him. When the
weary old emperor began his slow trek northwards to Delhi, his mission
accomplished, the Marathas hounded him, incessantly snapping at his feet.
Meanwhile, seeing the emperor's helplessness, panic began to spread through the
empire, and the immense, multitiered Mughal administrative edifice began to
crack and crumble. Rebels and bandits roamed the land freely, and as
Aurangzeb's end neared, his sons, even his grandsons, squared off to fight for
the succession.
Aurangzeb trudged on.
But on the way, while camping at Ahmadnagar in
central Maharashtra, he fell ill with a high fever. And on 3 March 1707, a
Friday, in the early morning while he was saying his prayers, Aurangzeb,
eighty-nine years old and emperor for forty-nine years, slid into death.
This second, Muslim (in
this case Mughal alias Mongol) conquest of India apparently did not involve any
major changes in the racial, linguistic or religious make-up of the
subcontinent. There were in fact very few Mughals in Mughal India. Babur had
brought with him into India about 10,000 of his own people, but a number of them had returned to Kabul after the battle
of Khanua, and even those who remained were
later driven out by Sher Shah. The reconquest of India by Humayun involved even
fewer Mughals, a mere 5000 cavalrymen. However, under Akbar and his immediate
successors, when the Mughal empire became renowned as the largest, richest and
most dynamic Muslim kingdom in the world-the land of opportunity for Muslims
everywhere-there was a steady migration of Muslims from Central Asia and Persia
into India. These migrants occupied the top echelons in the Mughal government,
but their total number was at no time large, a drop in the vast ocean of the
Indian population. Even this dribble of migration virtually stopped during the
reign of Aurangzeb, as the Mughal empire lost its vitality, and Muslim culture
everywhere went into decline.
There was some
population movement within India in Mughal times, as groups migrated to avoid
famine or oppression or war, but these were insignificant compared to the
previous, great shufflings of people that
had taken place in early medieval India. By and large, the racial, religious,
and linguistic mix of India, and the geographical rooting of its peoples and
their socio-cultural contours, had firmed up by the time the Mughals arrived.
What the people had
congealed into, however, was not a nation, or even a family of nations. Though
the Mughals had imposed on the subcontinent such political unity as had never before existed, and had given it a uniformity of
administrative system, court culture, coinage, and official language, there was
no sense that the subjects of the empire were one people. Nor was there any
concept of citizenship, either in the Mughal empire or in any other Indian
state- it was land, not people, that made up the state, and frontiers,
indefinite and ever shifting, were always porous. There was an Indian
empire; there was no Indian nation.
The people of one
part of the subcontinent hardly knew those of the other parts,
and had little in common with them. They spoke different languages,
worshipped different gods, and had different social systems. Only in the thin
top crust of society, among brahmins and the Persianized Muslim aristocracy,
were there pan-Indian linkages. Even among them, there was no real sense of
belonging together.
Paradoxically, there
was no regional cohesiveness either, not even among the Rajputs and the Marathas. Tribally fragmented, or
divided into castes and sects, even the people who spoke the same language,
lived in the same area, and belonged to the same broad religious group,
developed no sense of shared history or common identity. The only sharp
distinctions were those of caste and tribe. All other identities were
amorphous, all other barriers permeable. This absence of sharp we/ they
distinctions between the regional peoples of India, or between Indians and
foreigners, in part accounts for the docile acceptance of conquerors by
Indians. Foreign rule was seldom perceived
as foreign rule.
Even the name India
is not Indian. The word is derived from the Persian mispronunciation of Sindhu
(Indus River) as Hindu, which the Greeks turned into Indus, and used the term
India to refer to the region around and beyond the Indus. It was only in the sixteenth
century, at the beginning of the Mughal rule, that the term India was for the
first time used in the subcontinental sense, initially by the Spaniards or the
Portuguese. Its usage was confined to Europeans. Indians themselves never used
the term India in pre-modern times to describe their country, nor did the
Mughals. The alternate term, found in Mughal chronicles, was Hindustan, but
this meant only the Indo-Gangetic plain; the Deccan was not part of it, nor the
north-west or the north-east, nor Kashmir. The term Bharat is not mentioned in
any Mughal work.
Babur recognized
India as a distinct geological and bio-cultural entity-"It is quite a
different world," he writes. "Its hills
and rivers, its forests and plains, its animals and plants, its inhabitants and
their languages, its winds and rains, are all of a different nature. You have
no sooner passed the river Sind (Indus) than the country, the trees, the
stones, the wandering tribes, the manners and customs of the people, are
all entirely of Hindustan." But the
distinctiveness of India that Babur saw existed only in the eyes of the outsider, and was no more meaningful than the
designation of all Europeans as Feringhees by Indians,
or of all fair-complexioned Muslims as Mughals by Europeans.
"They were
called Moguls, that is, white of complexion . . . the natives being all brown
or olive colour," says Tavernier. According
to Bernier, "to be considered a Mogol, it is enough if a
foreigner have white face and
professes Mahometanism." Some Europeans
even thought that the term Mughal meant simply a circumcised man; Terry thus
believed that the Great Mughal meant "the Chief of the
Circumcision". Bernier also wrote: Indians are 'tenderhearted towards
animals of every description, man only excepted.' Indians, says Ovington, are
'profligate of their own lives', though caring towards animals.
In fact, in
the deep south, except in Kerala, there were very few Muslims in Mughal times.
Mughal chronicler Muhammad Sharif Hanafi, a contemporary of Shah Jahan, writes
about Madura: 'There is not a single Muslim there. Occasionally,
a Muslim may visit the country, deputed by Nizam Shah, Adil Shah, or
Qutb Shah, but the natives are all infidels.'
Furthermore, the term
Mughal is an Arabic and Persian corruption of Mongol. The Mughals were Mongols.
But they generally preferred to call themselves Chaghatai Tufks-Chaghatai, because their ancestral homeland was north
of the river Amu Darya (Oxus), which was the domain of Chaghatai Khan,
the second son of Chingiz Khan; Turks, because they had become Turks in
language and culture due to their long residence in Turkish countries. In
Indian history, the term Mughal is specific to the dynasty founded by Babur, but is also applied loosely to their immigrant
officers and men.
The Mughal cosmos
revolved around the emperor. Everyone else was either his servant or his
subject. Broadly speaking, his servants made up the leisure class, and his
subjects the productive class. The leisure class was the ruling class, and had
its work (administrative, military, or religious), but not many members of the
class were economically productive, or even supportive of production, and they
merely appropriated what others produced. This polarization was further
accentuated by the fact that the productive class was overwhelmingly Hindu,
while the leisure class was predominantly Muslim. Muslims as a community
belonged to the ruling class, by community right; others, such as the Rajputs and other local chieftains, were merely
admitted to the class as a matter of administrative, political, or military
expediency.
The ruling class was
not homogeneous. Apart from racial, religious, and social differences, there
were great economic disparities among the members of the class, and the majority of them lived a life not very different
from that of the common productive class. Within Muslim society, there were, in
addition to class divisions based on wealth and position, divisions based on
race and profession, although Muslims did not have the social and ritual taboos
that vacuum-sealed the Hindu castes. Different Muslim classes and occupational
groups even had different graveyards in cemeteries. And the Persians formed a
very superior class by themselves.
If Mughal India, or
indeed the whole eastern Muslim world, had a natural aristocracy, they were
Persians. Everyone looked up to the Persians, and the Persians looked down on
everyone. Their language was the Mughal court language, their culture the
Mughal court culture, and it was from the Shah of Persia that the Mughal
emperor sought peer recognition.
Apart from their
assumed superior culture, the fair skin of Persians also helped to establish
their superior status bias for fair complexion was part of the Indian psyche,
and in Mughal India, in popular perception, all fair-skinned Muslim immigrants
were viewed as Mughals, and therefore as masters. "The children of the
third and fourth generation," writes Bernier, "who have the
brown complexion, and the languid manner of this country of their nativity, are
held in much less respect than newcomers."
Persians often
sneered at Mughals and Indians as semi-barbarians; they snickered at the Indian
efforts to speak and write Persian, and ridiculed
the Indian imitations of Persian courtly manners as vulgar, very much in the
same way in which the British would later privately mock Anglicized Indians.
Persians, says Bernier, often indulged in much "satirical merriment"
about Indians; Manucci says that Persians often called Indians 'slaves' or
'blacks'.
The topmost positions
in the Mughal empire were invariably held by Persians. It was not, however,
merely their racial origin or superior culture that won Persians their
privileged place, but rather their high talent, hard work, and devotion.
"No other nation is better than the Persians for acting as clerks,"
Aurangzeb maintained. "In war, too ... none of this nation has turned his
face away from the field, and their firm feet have never been shaken. Moreover,
they have not once been guilty of disobedience or treachery to their master.
But, as they insist on being treated with great honor, it is very difficult to
get on together with them. You have anyhow
to conciliate them and should employ subterfuges." The traits of Persians,
Aurangzeb believed, were derived from their astrological status. "As the
Sun is the guardian planet of the Persians, the intellectual keenness of those
men in quickness of perception and foresight is four times as great as that of
the Indians, whose tutelary planet is Saturn," he stated. "Their only
defect is that because of its conjunction with Venus, they have grown
ease-loving, whereas men governed by Saturn are accustomed to toil."
In contrast to
Persians, Afghans, whom the Mughals overthrew from power in Hindustan, were
generally seen, in the jaundiced eyes of the victor, as a crude and vulgar
people, without manners, gluttons, and drunkards. "These Afghans remain
very rustic and tactless!" says Babur. Afghans were a tough, unruly
people, "an intractable race," as Bernier puts it. "Even the
menials and carriers of water belonging to that nation are high-spirited and
warlike."
The sharpest division
among Muslims in India at this time was the north-south division. The northern
Muslims were predominantly Sunnis, while in the south they were mainly Shiahs. In the north, India-born Muslims and Hindu converts
were held in low esteem and were denied any major role in government.
In contrast, in the south, native Muslims held high positions, along with
Afghans, Ethiopians, and a few Persians. The preferred language of Muslims in
the north was Persian; in the south, it was Dakhini (Deccani Urdu). Further, as
Muslims constituted only a small percentage of the population in the south, a
far greater number of Hindus were employed in high positions in the southern
Muslim kingdoms than in the Mughal empire.
However, whether
in the south or the north, a Muslim, whatever his race and sect, automatically
belonged to the ruling class in Mughal times. It was a matter of wonder to
contemporary as well as later European writers that a small number of Muslims
should have been able so effortlessly to dispossess Hindus of power and rule
over them for so many centuries, treating them as second-class citizens, and
subjecting them to severe political, social, and economic disabilities.
"It seems a wonderful thing, that such a prodigious multitude of men
should be cowed by a handful, and bow so easily under the yoke of the
Mahometan princes," says Jean Baptiste Tavernier.
Hindus and Muslims
were in every respect antipodal communities. Yet
by and large, they coexisted in peace. Though there were innumerable revolts
against Muslim rulers in India, nearly all of them were by Muslim nobles,
hardly any by Hindu chieftains. There were occasional communal flare-ups over
such issues as cow slaughter, Holi revelry, and Diwali fireworks, and sometimes
Hindus retaliated against temple demolitions-remarks Sher Shah: "[Hindus]
have thrown down masjids and buildings of believers and placed idol shrines in
them"-but there were no major communal conflicts in Mughal India. Foreign
travelers, who would normally have reported such matters, are entirely silent
on them.
How do we account for
this strange amicability? One reason could be that Muslim rulers were not as
harsh to Hindus as is commonly assumed. Contemporary Muslim writers, of course,
exultingly tell gory tales of the oppression of Hindus by Muslim rulers, but
there is little doubt that they were panegyrically exaggerating the religious
fervor of their patrons in the conventional hyperbolic style of the times.
Infidel-bashing was
more a matter of literary overkill than of physical excess. Typical was the
comment of Badauni on the death of a Hindu
officer: "He went to his natural abode- Hell, where he got into hot
water." And on the death of Todar Mal
and Bhagwan Das, he wrote that they "hastened to the abode of hell and
torment, and in the lowest pit became the food of serpents and scorpions- may
God scorch them both!" Such affectations had become so common a routine
that even the Hindu chroniclers of the age writing in Persian, like Ishwardas Nagar, adopted it, invoking damnation on
Hindus in the manner of the Muslim chroniclers-they, as H. M. Elliot points out
in his classic mid-nineteenth century compilation of the chronicles of Muslim
rule, routinely referred to fellow Hindus as infidels, and stated that when
Hindus were 'killed "their souls were dispatched to hell", and that
when Muslims were killed they drank "the cup of martyrdom".
It was not that there
was no discrimination. Though the actual conditions of life for Hindus under
Muslim rule were not as rough as the chronicles of the age would have us
believe, there is no doubt that they lived under severe restrictions. For a
short while, under Akbar, their inferior status virtually disappeared, but
even then not entirely, and at no time would
a Muslim of even the lowest status have considered giving a daughter in
marriage to a Hindu of even the highest status. It was a major crime for a
Hindu to keep a Muslim woman as a wife or concubine. Even the easygoing
Jahangir was incensed when he learned that a Muslim community in the Bhimbhar district of Kashmir was giving daughters to
Hindus, and he forbade the practice on penalty of death. In the same spirit,
Jahangir cut off the tongue of a son of Raja Bikramjit,
imprisoned him, and ordered that he should eat only with dog-keepers and
outcasts-for the crime of keeping a Muslim concubine, and for killing her
mother and father to keep it a secret.
The degree of
discrimination that Hindus had to suffer varied from ruler to ruler and from
province to province, depending on the ethos of the region and the temper of
its governor. A ludicrous case was that of the Mughal governor of Lahore,
Husain Khan, who once committed what he considered to be a most awful faux pas,
in greeting a Hindu with civility, mistaking him to be a Muslim, because he was
dressed in the Muslim style. On realizing his mistake, the Khan was so
thoroughly ashamed of himself that, to avoid similar blunders in the future, he
ordered that Hindus thereafter "should sew a patch of stuff of a different
color on their garments near the bottom of the sleeve," says Badauni. He further ordered that Hindus, "by the
requirements of the Holy Law, should not ride on saddles, but should sit on a
packsaddle."
Such fiats were as
much the expressions of ruling class arrogance as of religious prejudice. The
Hindu-Muslim relationship was primarily a relationship between masters and
subjects, not just between two competing communities. This largely accounts for
Muslim haughtiness and Hindu subservience. Hindus suffered disabilities not
merely because of their religion, but also because they were a subject people,
and they deferred to Muslims because they (Muslims) were the masters. The
300-odd years of Muslim rule that preceded the Mughal regime had ingrained in
Hindus a subject mentality.
Hindus were moreover
long habituated to discriminations within Hindu society itself, because of
caste and sectarian divisions, and the taboos and tyrannies associated with
them. To most Hindus, ill-treatment by Muslims would have seemed like any other
caste or sectarian outrage, maybe more virulent than anything within Hindu
society, but not fundamentally different. Besides, for the common people, who
were brutally exploited by their own rulers, the establishment of Muslim rule
meant merely the substitution of one predator by another, which did not
significantly alter the quality of their lives.
Passivity was, in any
case, a Hindu cultural trait. Their lot was their karma, Hindus believed, and
by and large, they fatalistically accepted their subject status, as if it were
their natural, immutable condition of life, and they tried to make do within
that environment, taking all excesses and humiliations in their sluggish
stride. Through all the political and social upheavals in medieval India, and
some radical movements within Hinduism itself, the Hindu social order endured
its structure and indwelling spirit the same. It accommodated all things new or
deviant in its capacious fold by applying the principle of tolerance by
exclusion. Hindu society yielded to change like a plant bending to the wind,
but did not itself change. This was its means of survival. The "peaceable
and submissive Deportment [of Hindus] wins mightily upon the Moors and takes
off much of that scornful Antipathy which they harbor against them,"
says J. Ovington.
There was, in any
case, little chance of a Hindu/Muslim divide in Mughal India, because Hinduism,
unlike Islam, was not a monolithic religion, but a conglomeration of divergent
sects and castes. "The idolaters," says Tavernier, "have no union
among themselves, and ... superstitions have introduced so strange a diversity
of opinions and customs that they never agree with one another." Writes
Manucci: "The inhabitants of these places differ in their customs, as well
as in their mode of life, the ceremonial at their temples, and the doctrines of
their religion." Despite the traditional brahmanical endeavor
to incorporate local and tribal deities into the Hindu pantheon and the
devotional bhakti movement tending to efface regional differences, Hindu gods
in Mughal India remained mostly localized. The gods worshipped by one Hindu
community were not worshipped by other Hindu communities.
Divergence in the
occupations of Muslims and Hindus also helped to deflect communal tensions.
Muslims were mostly in government service or in some sinecure or other; a small
number of them were traders and craftsmen, but they generally avoided
agriculture, which they considered a demeaning occupation, while trade and
agriculture, especially agriculture, were the primary occupations of Hindus.
"First, they are the leading merchants and jewelers, and they are most
able and expert in their Qusiness," says Pelsaert about the occupations of urban Hindus.
"Next, they are workmen, for practically all work is done by Hindus, the
Moslems practicing scarcely any crafts but dyeing and weaving ... Thirdly, they
are clerks and brokers: all the business of the lords' palaces and of the
Moslem merchants is done by Hindus-book-keeping, buying, and selling. They are
particularly clever brokers, and are
consequently generally employed as such throughout all these countries, except
for the sale of horses, oxen, camels, elephants, or any living creatures, which
they will not handle as the Moslems do."
Communal peace was also facilitated by the fact that
Hindus in general did not come into everyday contact with Muslims, for Muslims
in India were largely an urban people, while most Hindus lived in villages. In
the urban centers where the two communities mingled, peace generally
prevailed because the Hindu urban elite belonged either to the political or the
trading class, and both these classes had a vested interest in avoiding strife,
though for different reasons-the political class, especially the Rajputs, had made a cozy career for themselves by
serving the Mughals; as for the trading class, they kept as low a profile as
possible, to make themselves and their wealth invisible to the rapacious
rulers. The urban Hindu adroitly adopted Mughal culture to blend with the new rulers,
dressing like them, living in homes like theirs, and speaking their language.
It was all politics
(or business) as usual. On the few occasions when the Hindu political elite
clashed with Muslim rulers, the primary issue involved was power, not religion.
The Maratha, Rajput, and Sikh rebellions, though they had some communal aspects
to them, were essentially political conflicts. Thus we see Maratha captains, on
occasion Shivaji himself, serving in Muslim armies, and we see Muslim captains
in the Maratha army; there were Muslim chiefs in the army of Rana Pratap Singh
opposing Akbar, and there were Rajput chiefs, including the Rana's brother, in
Akbar's army menacing the Rana; Vijayanagar had Muslim divisions in its army
fighting against the Deccan Sultanates, who in turn had Hindu divisions in
their armies; the Sultans sometimes sought the help of Vijayanagar against each
other, while Vijayanagar factions often invited Bijapur to intervene in their
internal squabbles; Ranga Rayal, the last of the Vijayanagar rulers, once even
offered to become a Muslim along with his family in return for Mughal help
against his enemies; the list could go on.
Only very rarely do
we hear of Hindu chieftains seeking to protect Hindus. Akbar's general Man
Singh is said to have once forbidden the Mughal army under his command from
plundering in Rajasthan, but normally Rajput chieftains offered no opposition
even to temple demolitions by the Mughals. As for Muslim rulers, temple
demolitions were a part of their victory rite rather than a specifically
religious act. Though Muslim rulers often termed their wars against Hindu kings
as jihad, this was done more as a matter of convention than as a deliberate
policy: their objective was political rather than religious.
Muslim rulers, even
the Turko-Afghans, were on the whole careful not to
push Hindus beyond endurance. By the time the Turks invaded India, the
religious fervor of Islam had largely dissipated, the motive of their conquest
was essentially political, not religious, and this had a moderating influence
on Muslim theocracy in India. As for the Mughals, except in Aurangzeb and to
some extent in Shah Jahan, the religious impulse was virtually non-existent in
them, and they sought to conciliate Hindus to their rule through such measures
as the abolition of jizya and the prohibition of cow slaughter. "Oxen and
cows are not slaughtered, as they have to work while they are young, doing
everything that is done by horses in Holland; and besides, their slaughter is
strictly forbidden by the King on pain of death, though buffaloes may be freely
killed," says Pelsaert of what he
observed in Jahangjr's India. "The
King maintains this rule to please the Hindu rajas and banias,
who regard the cow as one of the most veritable gods or sacred things."
The Mughals also took
care to give the Hindu political elite an important role in the governance of
the empire. The number of Hindus in Mughal service was, however, small relative
to their population, and only a handful of them occupied top government positions
even in the best of times, and no Hindu was ever elevated to the post of the
Vizier, the highest office in the Mughal empire. Hindus were mostly in
subordinate positions.
Hindus generally had
a greater political role in small Muslim kingdoms than in the Mughal empire-the
Vizier of Sultan Abdul Muzaffar Shah of Malwa early in the sixteenth century,
for instance, was a Rajput, Basant Rai; later, another Rajput, Medini Rai, became
the de facto ruler of the kingdom under Sultan Mahmud, and Rajputs occupied all the important positions in
government. In Bijapur during the reign of Muhammad Adil Shah, the government
was "delivered ... over to a mischievous, turbulent Brahmin, named Murari
Pundit," says Lahori; and in Golconda, Madanna,
another Brahmin, ruled supreme for several years in the name of the sultan. A
few Hindus of the lower castes also rose to high positions in Muslim
states-they in fact had far greater career opportunities in Muslim states than
in caste-bound Hindu kingdoms, as the dramatic rise of Hemu under Adil Shah of
Bihar demonstrated. The Hindu-Muslim barrier was a soft barrier, which could be
easily pierced by men of ability.
Surprisingly there
were hardly any Brahmins, the traditional Hindu ministerial class, among the
top officers of the Mughal empire, Raja Birbal, Akbar's companion, and
Raghunath, Aurangzeb's revenue minister, being the only distinguished
exceptions. Though the Mughals preferred Hindus as revenue administrators one
time, Hindus headed the revenue departments in eight of the twelve Mughal. The
top positions were held by Khattris and Kayasthas and an occasional Rajput, not by Brahmins.
The most prominent
Hindu community in the Mughal service was the Rajputs,
and they were held in high esteem by the emperors. "Rajas," writes
Bernier, "bear an equal rank with the foreign and Mahometan Omrahs."
Still, the Rajputs could not aspire to the
high administrative positions held by Persians, and
were mostly in military service. Says Pelsaert, "In wartime the race
is much esteemed, and is feared by other classes of soldiers, but during peace
they get the cold shoulder, because in palaces or camps they make less show or
display than the Moguls or Hindustanis." Even under Akbar, Rajput soldiers
were paid less than Muslim soldiers.
The Rajputs were a heterogeneous people. Though some of
them in bold flights of fancy traced their origin to Vedic Aryans or epic
heroes, most of them were descendants of early medieval immigrants, while some
were of the Dravidian and aboriginal stock. What distinguished them was not
race but martial culture. "They are a bold and
courageous people, determined and loyal," lauds Pelsaert.
"Rasbooches ... knowe as well howe to dye as anye men
in the world, regarding their desperateness," says Withington.
"Those (Rajputs) excepted," remarks Terry,
"all the rest in the country are in general pusilanimous,
and had rather quarrel than fight." Rajput chiefs, says Manucci,
"carry on such a disastrous warfare against each other that it is rare to
see one of them die of disease."
Like many other
medieval people, the Rajputs were given to
banditry, and, though they had a certain reputation for chivalry, they were by
no means the white knights that British romantics like James Tod imagined them
to be. "Rashbootes, a number of which live
by spoyle; who in troopes surprise poore passengers, cruelly butchering those they get under
their power," says Terry. Confirms Careri: "The Rashootis are
very great Thieves." The odium of this charge is somewhat mitigated by the
fact that the term Rajput was at one time a synonym for brigand, and the Rajputs, like the Marathas in later times, often had
unfairly to bear the blame for the crimes of others.
Whatever their
faults, the Rajputs had a relatively high
sense of personal honor, and they were usually steadfast in loyalty and
relentless in battle. These were not, however, absolute virtues, but relative
to the political and military culture of the age. The Rajputs were
not a people apart. Even the best of them sometimes opportunistically switched
loyalties Jai Singh did when he abandoned Dara for Aurangzeb, many
valued life and career over honor. Jaswant Singh, for instance, often changed
sides and betrayed trust. His valor, too, was suspect.
According to Khafi Khan, after the battle of Dharmat, "Raja
Jaswant's chief wife ... strongly condemned her husband's conduct, and refused
to sleep with him." The raja, in her view, should have died in the
battlefield, rather than return home defeated.
Honor was everything
to the Rajput. It was his strength. And also his
weakness. "One of the fundamental rules of their caste is never to give
way, but either to die or conquer," says Manucci. Unfortunately, most of
the time the Rajputs died rather than
conquered. Their fierce obstinacy, though awesome, was not always an advantage,
for to retreat tactically was as important
in battle as to fight heroically. They were so
fearless in battle as to seem almost senseless. Aurangzeb had therefore only
disdain for what he termed "the crass stupidity of the Hindustanis, who
would part with their heads but not leave their positions [in battle]".
The Rajputs were voluptuaries of death. Cultural
habituation was a major factor in theft daredevilry, but so was poppy
chemistry. Living in a state of perpetual war, the Rajput had become familiar
with carnage. Death meant little to him, his own or that of others. And this
trait was augmented, perhaps crucially, by the Rajput practice of going into
the battlefield heavily drugged with opium. "They are slow to retreat in a
fight, and are obstinate in attack, because the quantity of opium they eat
excites them, and causes them to care little for their lives," says Pelsaert.
The most awesome
Rajput rite of honor was jauhar, in which, when
faced with certain defeat, a fate worse than death for them, they sacrificed
their women and children, normally in fire, but if time was short, by sword and
dagger, and then, frenzied with opium, shed all their clothes, and offered
themselves to be ritually slaughtered by their captains, or charged naked on
the enemy, to kill and be killed, in a carnal embrace of death beyond defeat
and victory.
The fearsome rite was
probably a primitive tribal custom brought into India by migrants, but the
term jauhar seems to have been derived
from jauhara, the Prakrit version of the
Sanskrit term jatu-griha, meaning a lac-house,
like the inflammable house in which the Kauravas tried to burn the Panda vas
alive in the Hindu epic Mahabharata. The Mughals beheld jauhar for the first time at Chanderi.
Records Babur: "In a short time the Pagan, in a state of complete nudity,
rushed out to attack us, put numbers of my people to flight ... Two or three
hundred of them slew each other in the following manner: One person took his
stand with a sword in his hand, while the others, one by one, crowded in and
stretched out their necks eager to die."
Jauhar was not an
individual decision, but a community choice. Women and children had to be
killed to save them from dishonor at the hands of the enemy, and perhaps also
for the warriors thus to sever all earthly attachments, so they could face
death without anxiety. "It is the custom of Indian rajas under such
circumstances to collect wood, cotton, grass, ghee, and such like into one
place, and to bring the women and burn them, willing or unwilling," notes
Abul Faz!. "This they call jauhar . . . Whoever out of feebleness of soul was
backward [to sacrifice herself] was, by their custom, put to death." In
most cases, Rajput women needed no inducement to perform jauhar. "Women, especially Rajput women, have often a
higher sense of honor than men," says Khafi Khan;
"and for this reason will rather bear the torture of fire than suffer
disgrace."
The Rajputs, for all their valor and romantic history, had no
political future in India. Their time in the sun had been over long before the
Mughal conquest of India. The Mughal connection potentiated them temporarily
by opening up for them a theatre of
operation far wider than they could have otherwise had, but they became too
enmeshed with the Mughals to survive the fall of the empire.
The Rajputs were eager collaborators of the Mughals, and
not even the theocratic rigor of Aurangzeb turned them away. It was only when
Aurangzeb began to abrogate their political privileges that they turned
hostile. This willing subservience of the rajas was a major reason for the
remarkable dynastic stability of the Mughals. Says Francois Bernier:
"Fifteen or sixteen of these Rajas are rich and formidable... [and if some
of them] chose to enter into an offensive league, they would prove dangerous
opponents to the Mogol." Manucci believed that "if they
(the Rajputs) were only of one mind, they would
be able to thrust out every other tribe and race."
Internecine squabbles
among the Rajputs precluded any possibility
of a Rajput league against the Mughals. Even if the Rajput clans had united, it
is doubtful whether they could have fought off the Mughal desert
people; they were poor in resources, and their mode of warfare, which relied on
individual valor rather than on discipline and training, was archaic
and ineffective. The Rajput domains were tiny in comparison to the Mughal
empire- all their kingdoms together made up only a small portion of the vast land
mass of the Mughal empire; the great Rajput states of Chitor,
Jodhpur and Bikaner were just districts in the Mughal province of Ajmer, and
Jaipur a taluq subdivision of a district.
As the political role
of the Rajputs atrophied, that of the
Marathas swelled, and they would emerge from the shambles of Shivaji's little
kingdom to sweep across the subcontinent. In another respect, the future also
belonged to Brahmins, who, despite their numerous sectarian and lineage
divisions, were the only distinctive all-India community. They were a baffling people to Europeans, an embodiment of the
mystery of the mysterious East. Terry, reflecting the common prejudice of the
Christian clergy, says that Brahmins were "so sottish and inconstant in
their grounds that they scarcely know what they hold."
Manuccisarcastically notes that Brahmins, "according to their
view, are the noblest family of all mankind, and the one most venerated, not
merely as superiors, but as gods." Their ingenuity, however, could not be
denied. Writes Pelsaert, "Some of the
brahmans are very ingenious, good astronomers, familiar with the course of
stars."
With the near-total
eclipse of Hindu kingdoms in medieval India, Brahmins had lost their secure
traditional role as royal advisors, and though here and there they did rise
above the tide, there was even a dreaded Brahmin bandit by the name of Chintu Chimma in Bijapurthe community
was in general on the decline in Mughal India. It was only with the
establishment of the Maratha kingdom that Brahmins finally began to
rehabilitate themselves, achieving a position of political prominence, which
they would further expand and consolidate under the British, by both serving
and battling the new empire.
In trade, the
dominant community in Mughal times was the Baniyas. They concentrated almost
exclusively on making money, and were viewed
with resentful respect by Europeans who also had their eyes glued to money.
Rivalling Baniyas in commercial acumen were Parsees, a tiny community with a
great future. They were ancient Zoroastrian fire worshippers who had fled from
religious persecution in Iran to settle in Gujarat in the tenth century. From
Gujarat, they gradually spread southward towards Bombay, living quietly and
obscurely as farmers and weavers. "Their profession is, for the
generality, all kinds of husbandry," says Terry. Peter Mundy found them
cultivating palm trees. "Their habitations are for the most part
along the Sea-Coast," writes Mandelslo,
"and they live very peaceably, sustaining themselves by the advantage they
make out of the Tobacco they plant, and the Terry (toddy) they get out of the
Palms of these parts, and whereof they make Arak, in regard they are permitted
to drink Wine. They intermeddle also with Merchandise, and the exchange of
Money and keep Shops, and are of all Trades, except those of Farriers,
Blacksmiths and Locksmiths; in regard it is an unpardonable sin among them to
put out the fire." "In their Callings they are very Industrious and
diligent, and careful to train up their Children to Arts and Labour," says J. Ovington.
In 1578, the
community suddenly and dramatically emerged into Mughal history when Akbar
invited their leader, Dastur Mahyarji Rana,
to explain Zoroastrianism to him. In the seventeenth century, Parsees
established an energizing and immensely profitable association with European
traders, especially the English. The chief broker of the English factory at
Surat in 1660, for instance, was a Parsee, Rustom Manek, and it was to a
Parsee, Kharshedji Pochaji,
that the English entrusted, in 1664, the construction of their fort in Bombay.
Thus began the community's ascent to prosperity and national prominence.
There are in Mughal
accounts a few other sketches, brief and random, of several other Indian
communities. Kashmiris, especially Kashmiri women, fascinated Bernier; he
considered them as beautiful as the women of Europe and spent a good amount of
his time (and money) in the engaging hobby of girl-watching in Kashmir. As for
the men of Kashmir, they were, says Bernier, "celebrated for wit, and
considered much more intelligent and ingenious than the Indians."
At the other end of
the subcontinent from Kashmir were the 'Malabaris',
the people of Kerala, whom Linschoten at the close of the sixteenth
century considered as "very arrogant and proud, of
color altogether black, yet very smooth both of hair and skin,
which commonly they anoint with Oyle,
to make it shine ... Of Face, Bodie and Limbes,
they are altogether like men of Europe, without any difference, but only in color.
The men are commonly very hairy, and rough upon the breast, and
on their bodies." Ralph Fitch found them bizarre, with "horrible
great ears, with many rings set with pearls and stones in
them."
Beyond the pale of
medieval Indian society were the untouchables. "To give some conception of
the infamy attached by the Hindus to these blacks, I will say that there are no
words to express the vileness of the esteem in which they are held," says
Manucci. The outcastes passively accepted their lot, observes
Ovington, and to go through with their Drudgery
without noise and concern." In Kerala, outcastes were not
allowed to get closer than about twenty meters to a high caste Hindu,
says Thevenot in “On India and it’s People”; a Nair could kill an untouchable
if his breath fell on him. As for the forest tribes, they were regarded as no
different from wild beasts. During the royal hunt, says William Finch,
"the beasts taken, if mans meat, are
sold and the money given to the poor; if men, they remain the Kings
slaves, which he yearly sends to Kabul to barter for horses and
dogs; these being poor, miserable, thievish people that live in woods
and deserts, little differing from beasts." The Marathas, it is said,
"trapped and slew them Gungle tribes) in numbers as pests and
outcasts."
Slavery was also
common in Mughal India, as in other parts of the medieval world. Enslaving the
conquered people had the sanction of tradition among both Hindus and Muslims,
and slaves were as numerous in the Hindu kingdom of Vijayanagar as in any
Muslim state. Slaves abounded in Goa too, where, according to Linschoten,
they "were sold daily in the market like beasts." During times of
famine, children were often sold into slavery or hawked in the streets. A
Persian envoy once bought a large number of slaves
in India, for they were, says Bernier, "extremely cheap" on account
of the famine. The normal price of a slave in India was fifteen or twenty
rupees, though at times it rose to as much as fifty rupees; a slave girl in Goa
cost forty to sixty rupees. Insolvent debtors and tax defaulters were also
enslaved; sometimes their wives and children were taken in payment of debts.
Agricultural bondage was also common.
To be a slave was
not, however, odious in the Muslim world. Many slaves rose to high positions in
government, and some even rose to be sultans in Delhi before the Mughals. In
the Deccan, they-like Malik Amber, the de facto ruler of Ahmadnagar, who was originally a slave-continued to playa major role in politics in Mughal times. Slaves
from Ethiopia (Habshis) were especially valued in the
Deccan as eunuchs and bodyguards, and it was they who manned the local navies.
Akbar disfavored
slavery and "forbid the restriction of personal liberty and the selling of
slaves", says Abul Fazl . Elsewhere, he
amplifies:
"It had been the
custom of the royal troops, in their victorious campaigns in India, to sell
forcibly and keep in slavery the wives, children, and dependents of the
natives. But His Majesty, actuated by his religious, prudent, and kindly feelings, now issued an order that no soldier of
the Royal Army should act in this manner."
Still, slavery
persisted in India. In the mid-nineteenth century, the British, who had by then
become the dominant power in India, formally abolished slavery, and the
practice then gradually died out. There was no agitation against its abolition.
Slavery has always been mild in India.
By the close of the
seventeenth century, there were a fair number of Europeans all over India, in
trading and political centers. The Portuguese were the first to arrive, in
1498, when Vasco da Gama landed in Calicut on the Kerala coast, seeking, as he
put it, "Christians and spices", and went on to rule the Indian seas
in the name of Mammon and Christ. A century later, the Dutch arrived on the
scene, and then came the English, the French and the Danes, while Portuguese
power declined. As traders, Europeans were generally welcomed by Indian rulers,
for the curiosities they brought from Europe-ranging from works of art to wine
and pet dogs-as well as for the profit from their trade, and occasionally for
military supplies like cannons and horses. Indian Muslim rulers also looked to
them for protection of the overseas pilgrim traffic to Mecca.
Akbar was the first
emperor to admit Europeans to the Mughal court, Jesuit priests whom he summoned
from Goa to instruct him in Christianity and European culture. By the
mid-seventeenth century, European professionals in various fields, especially
artillerymen, were employed in growing numbers by Indian rulers. European
gunners were a pampered class, who, says Manucci, "only took aim; as for
all the rest-the fatigue of raising, lowering, loading, and firing-this was the
business of...laborers kept for the purpose." Some of them were paid
as much as 200 rupees a month, about fifteen times more than what was paid to
Indian artillerymen. When Aurangzeb cut the European artillerymen to size by
reducing their pay, and in addition required them to load the guns, several of
them, including Manucci, left the imperial service.
Europeans in India
were a motley lot-traders, professionals like physicians and jewelers,
royal ambassadors, missionaries, adventurers, romantics, as well as cheats,
vagabonds, and desperadoes. The first English settler in India was probably Fr.
T. Stevens, an Oxford educated Jesuit missionary who landed in Goa in 1579,
lived there for forty years, mastered the Marathi language, compiled its
grammar and wrote in it an epic poem of 11,000 strophes titled Krishta Purana on the life and teachings of Christ. The
letters of Stevens to his father in England, which were later published, are
believed to have contributed to the growing British interest in India, roused
already by legends of Portuguese adventures.
European physicians
were favored by the Mughal aristocracy, for most of them, like Bernier, were
highly qualified, though some, like Manucci, the gunner-turned-physician, were
shameless quacks. Such was the faith of Indians in the healing powers of Europeans
that even quacks thrived sensationally. Once, a surgeon accompanying Norris was
called to attend to a man dead for several hours, which drew from the acerbic
ambassador the comment that Indians were so ignorant that they believed the
English could "almost raise ye deade".
Several wild European adventurers, the dregs of
European society, also began to descend on India around this time. "They
are of many nations, mostly thieves and criminals," says Manucci.
"The Christians who served in the artillery of the Moguls retained nothing
but the mere name, were devoid of the fear of God, had ten or twelve wives,
were constantly drunk, had no occupation but gambling and were eager to cheat
whomsoever they could." European pirates roamed the Indian seas, infamous desperadoes
like William Kidd and Henry Bridgman (alias Evory),
who terrorized the Indian seas at the turn of the seventeenth century. The most
villainous of the lot were the Portuguese and half-caste pirates operating in
the Bay of Bengal-"They were unworthy not merely of the names of
Christians, but of men," says Manucci.
Many Europeans in
India adopted the Indian lifestyle, but many others, especially those from the
upper classes, did not; they had no empathy for Mughal culture, and looked down
on India with the pride of a resurgent Europe. But then, Indians had no great
regard for Europeans either. While Europeans saw themselves as major players in
India, the Mughals regarded them as minor curiosities. Thus while Sir Thomas
Roe, the British ambassador, and Captain Hawkins, the presumed ambassador,
claimed intimacy with Jahangir, and their journals are full of lore about their
relationships with the emperor, there is not even a passing word about either
of them in the 745-page long (in English translation) memoirs of Jahangir,
though the visits of Persian ambassadors are described in detail, and even the
missions from petty Central Asian potentates are noted. European powers did not
amount to much in Mughal estimation.
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