Aurangzeb

Title: Aurangzeb – The Man and the Myth

Author: Audrey Truschke

Publisher: Viking Penguin, 2017 (First)

ISBN: 9780670089819

Pages: 189

Old wine in an old bottle – that is the impression one feels after reading this small book on the last great Mughal emperor Aurangzeb Alamgir. He was a controversial figure then, as now. All of India, with the exception of a bunch of Left-leaning career-historians, consider Aurangzeb as a tyrant who harassed and intimidated the non-Muslim, non-Sunni subjects in untold number of ways. This dislike comes out in more ways than one. ‘Aurangzeb ki Aulad’ (progeny of Aurangzeb) is an invective in India which one hurls against his opponent in the heat of the argument. The administration of Delhi changed the name of Aurangzeb Road in the city to APJ Abdul Kalam Road in 2015. Just because the emperor treated his non-Muslim, non-Sunni subjects so badly, his name is revered in Pakistan and other places where jihadists exert their vicious influence. The Mughals ruled over a vast empire, whose population outstripped the entirety of Europe in 1600. Supplicants from European courts literally begged for trading concessions from the Mughals. Aurangzeb was well known in the higher echelons of England at that time as evidenced in the heroic tragedy Aureng-zebe penned by the poet laureate John Dryden in 1675. This book is by a young author who seeks to clear the myths about the legendary king and bring out the truth. Wholesale whitewashing of Aurangzeb off all his heinous crimes is the outcome of this volume. Audrey Truschke is assistant professor of South Asian history at Rutgers University in Newark, New Jersey. Her teaching and research interests focus on the cultural, imperial and intellectual history of early modern and modern India (c.1500-present). Unfortunately, the primary source research of the book relies solely on printed editions and no new facts are mentioned anywhere.

Aurangzeb was the most pious Mughal king. But piety was never translated into righteousness in this cruel prince’s career. The mistreatment of his own father, Shah Jehan, is a case in point. Ya takht ya tabut (either the throne or the grave) was the prevailing maxim among brothers in the imperial household. The successful brother – not necessarily the eldest – usually killed or blinded his siblings in the struggle for succession. But extending this rationale for lusting after power to one’s own father was a trifle too much even for medieval sensibilities. The Sharif of Mecca declined to recognize Aurangzeb as the proper ruler of Hindustan and refused his financial gifts for several years until Shah Jehan was dead in his son’s captivity. Contrary to Islamic doctrine, Aurangzeb was a staunch believer in astrology and continued to consult astrologers till the end of his life. Like other princes of the era, he too was fond of shapely dancers and singers. Trushcke remarks about his whirlwind romance with a courtesan named Hirabai Zainabadi in Burhanpur that created ripples of palace gossip. He was enthusiastic in erecting fine mausoleums for his loved ones, just like other Mughal kings. Aurangzeb’s first wife, Dilras Banu Begum, died from complications following the birth of her fifth child and the king erected a fine tomb Bibi ka Maqbara at Aurangabad. Locals still call it ‘Poor man’s Taj’.

Aurangzeb’s transition to Puritanism after 1669 is clearly noted in the book. As part of his Deccan campaign, the capital was shifted to the South and the king and his entourage lived in tents thereafter for the rest of his life. His nomad ancestors had lived in tents and in a twist of fate, the world-seizer (alamgir) also spent his life in tents in the wilderness. He tried to ensure justice to the people, but corruption was widespread under the elusive quest for justice. Even Abdul Wahhab, the chief qazi (judge) and hence a moral guide to the empire, freely indulged in backhand dealings. Truschke makes a vain attempt to praise Aurangzeb for increasing the share of Hindu nobility from 22.5 per cent under Akbar to 31.6 per cent of the total. The real cause for this increase was the frantic attempt to incorporate the Maratha aristocracy into the Mughal nobility so as to co-opt them in the fight against the Deccan sultanates. Aurangzeb’s cruelty to Sambhaji, who was Shivaji’s son and captured by Mughal troops, is mentioned in the book. He was forced to wear funny hats and was led into court on camels. He then had Sambhaji’s eyes stabbed out with nails and later had him decapitated. His body was chopped to pieces and thrown to the dogs, while his head was stuffed with straw and displayed in cities throughout the Deccan (p.69). Aurangzeb at his typical best!

The author justifies all the wicked acts of Aurangzeb in a rather unabashed way. She somewhat assumes a ‘So-What?’ attitude to the emperor’s most heinous depredations. He banned public festivities in the kingdom. Truschke justifies it on concerns with public safety. He resorted to forcible conversion of Hindus. The author does not deny it, but counters it with the laughable claim that some individuals found compelling reasons to adopt Islam so as to climb Mughal hierarchy and conversions made people eligible for jobs reserved for Muslims. Thus, she indirectly admits that there was indeed discrimination of the worst kind. Aurangzeb executed several prominent members of the Shiite Mahdavi sect? No problem, the Mahdavis had political ambitions. He destroyed temples? No problem, they acted against imperial interests. He demolished Vishwanath temple at Benares in 1669 and Keshav Dev temple at Mathura in 1670? No problem, this was just to punish political missteps by the temple associates. Aurangzeb desecrated Ahmedabad’s Chintamani Parshwanath Jain temple? No problem, the evidence is fragmentary, incomplete or contradictory. Aurangzeb recalled all endowed lands given to Hindus and reserved all future land grants to Muslims only? No problem, this was possibly just a concession to the ulema (Muslim clergy). So goes the author’s justifications. Trushcke’s arguments can be summarized thus – Aurangzeb could have destroyed all the temples in India. He didn’t and hence you must be grateful to his generosity! This is as ridiculous as positing that since Hitler could have killed all the Jews in Germany but didn’t, is a valid reason the Jews must regard him as a level-headed great ruler.

The book devotes only a short space to Aurangzeb’s role in the scrapping of the Mughal kingdom which labored on for only 150 years after his death. It is wrong to ascribe all blame on a single person, but it is undeniable that the seeds of destruction was planted well within the lifetime of the last great Mughal. Truschke doesn’t mention anything about the slide towards disaster. Persians and Afghans robbed the country at their sweet will. Warlords roamed the kingdom and often kept the royal family in hostage. Mughal princesses were forced to dance without veil in front of their lustful eyes and lewd gestures. Emperor Shah Alam II’s eyes were gouged out of its sockets by the bare hands of such a warlord in a fit of rage. The penultimate Mughal king Akbar Shah II (r.1806-37) charged foreign visitors for an audience with him to make both ends meet. The last one, Bahadur Shah II sided against the British and ended up transported for life in Burma, while his lineage was brutally cut short by the arms of the British army. Thus ended the Mughal dynasty in 1857.

The book is a total disappointment because of the single-point agenda of the author in justifying Aurangzeb by whatever means. It includes a few colour paintings on the life of the emperor. The book includes a good index.

The book is recommended.

Rating: 2 Star

The Travels of Marco Polo

Title: The Travels of Marco Polo

Author: Aldo Ricci

Publisher: Rupa and Co, 2003 (First published 1931)

ISBN: 9788171678122

Pages: 440

In this age of information revolution, we can hardly appreciate the state of things a thousand years ago, when people in each country or kingdom were practically unaware of what happens across their borders. Whatever information available was collated by traders who travelled across countries in search of profit. The data was often exaggerated and embellished with frills and fantasies so as to endear them to the listeners and also to enhance the self-importance of the storyteller. Distant lands were the substance of legendary tales about demons and strange beings. The most famous among the medieval anthologies that dealt with travel is that of Marco Polo in the thirteenth century. Polo was born in 1254 in Venice and started on a journey to Asia with his father and uncle. They reached the palace of Kublai Khan, which was the richest and most magnificent in the whole world at that time. The Mongols, racing out of the barren wastes of Mongolia a generation before – under the leadership of Chengiz Khan – had run over all the empires that stood in their way, and was at the pinnacle of their glory. The Polos travelled by land to Khan’s capital at Cambaluc (modern Beijing) and travelled along the length and breadth of China and Central Asia. On the return journey, he sailed through Southeast Asia, India, the east coast of Africa and Arabia. Marco compiled his adventures into a nice collection that continues to amaze readers on account of the outlandish fables interlaced with accurate descriptions of the lands through which he traversed and the people who inhabited them. This book is based on one of the authentic texts by L F Bendetto in Italian and is translated into English by Aldo Ricci.

Polo describes the magnificence and technological superiority of China in the thirteenth century. They used paper currency and coal on a large scale. Coal was such a novelty to Polo that he describes it as ‘a kind of black stone, which is dug out of the mountains like any other kind of stone and burns like wood’. The social life in Chinese cities was very advanced than that of Europe or any other part of Asia itself. The author tells of the city of Kinsai (modern Hangchow) where the municipal authorities had built fabulous city halls where the public could throw sumptuous wedding feasts or other banquets. People of the city went on picnics in carriages to gardens for the day and returned to their homes when it was dark. Boating for pure pleasure was done in the lake in the centre of Kinsai. This book is really a tribute to the glory of China at that time, even though they didn’t enjoy political freedom. The Mongols had firmly put China under their hegemony nearly seventy years before Polo had visited them.

The religious policy of barbarians and Semitic religions can be understood from the narrative. The Mongols were a culturally primitive people who were practicing ancestral worship and shamanism. By a stroke of extreme luck, they found themselves masters of the great civilizations of China and Islam. Both Beijing and Baghdad lay under their yoke. The refreshing part of the ruthless occupation was the syncretism of the nomad emperors as compared to the bitter rivalry between the civilized religions. They equally respected the superior religions of Buddhism, Islam, Christianity and Judaism with which they came into contact. Kublai Khan is quoted to have opined that “there are four prophets who are adored and worshipped by the entire world. The Christians say their god was Jesus Christ, the Saracens Mahomet, the Jews Moses and the idolaters Sagamuni Borcan (Buddha), the first man of whom an idol was made. I honour and revere all four, and thereby also the one who is the Most Powerful in Heaven and the most true, and I pray him to aid me” (p.110). Semitic religions couldn’t even dream about the enlightened secularism practiced by the Mongols. Gradually, the rulers accepted the religion of the people over which they ruled, and soon they turned bigots and thirsted for the blood of the non-believers as evidenced in the case of Timur, who was a descendant of them. In fact, the Polos and European traders could make an undisturbed journey through Central Asia only because the Muslim warlords were firmly under the leash of Pax Mongolica. The Khans intervened in the case of some barbarous custom followed by his subjects, particularly a case of people prostituting their own womenfolk in favour of itinerant traders and travelers. Kublai Khan forbade this practice, but when the people appealed to him to allow this custom handed over to them by their ancestors, he relented and resigned himself to permit those people on their request.

On the other hand, Christians and Muslims were at each other’s throats most of the time. Polo remarks that the Saracens (Muslims) were most evil and treacherous and believed that there is no sin in doing any amount of evil to all those who are not of their faith. Absolution of sins among Muslims is said to be very easy because all they had to profess was belief in the prophet. Polo ruefully alleges that because of the ease with which they grant absolution, they had converted many Mongols. He quotes another incident of the Bishop of Abash forcibly circumcised at Aden (p.349). The author himself is not above religious bigotry as he refers to the enemies of his faith as ‘Saracen dogs’. So much for his objectivity! We find the legend of a Christian king called Prestor John in the narrative, but there is no clear historical personage answering to that name. His legend had so widely circulated in Europe that one of Vasco da Gama’s purposes of his mission was to make an embassy to the court of Prestor John.

Polo’s account is greatly exaggerated. So fantasized in fact that he describes about a group of people having tails! Regarding the hyper-inflated descriptions of civilized cities and people, we can pardon him if you stop and reminisce for a moment the gibberish we hear from tourist guides and such people. Polo had no way of ascertaining the truth of what he had heard, because Google was not available to him just yet. So he copied most of that was recounted to him and added something out of his own volition in the bargain. The book could have included the modern names of the cities and kings Polo mentions in the narrative. We can discern patterns from the tales of Sinbad the Sailor in some of the descriptions. Polo was very appreciative of women in general and presents several lewd accounts of them. His depiction of Zanghibar’s women is truly atrocious and that of Russian women is scandalous. It is not proper to reproduce the comments here, but interested readers can find them on pages 345 and 391. The book is provided with a very fine Index. The maps reproduced are not very legible.

The book is highly recommended.

Rating: 4 Star

I Contain Multitudes

Title: I Contain Multitudes – The Microbes within Us and a Grander View of Life

Author: Ed Yong

Publisher: The Bodley Head, 2016 (First)

ISBN: 9781847924186

Pages: 354

Individuality is a cherished trait of sagacious beings. Man is the only such animal which is conscious of its self. Man stands alone in his mental transactions with the outside world. This aloofness is way off the true state of things. Very small microbes and other inanimate objects thrive in our body and are present in very large numbers on all our body parts. The presence of microbes is thought to be a bad thing in routine awareness sermons, but this is not necessarily so. Microbes are beneficial or neutral to us on most of the occasions and provide immense service to us. They keep our guts healthy, calibrate our immune systems, make us less sensitive to allergens and can even exert influence on our brains. This horde of microbes in our body makes each individual human being a multitude which acts in tandem to work as a symbiotic whole. Ed Yong is an award-winning science writer who regularly contributes to leading journals and scientific publications.

The author makes a brilliant comparison scheme to present the contrast between life forms almost perennially lived on earth against others who are relatively latecomers to the party of life. He equates our planet’s entire life to a human year in which the present is just before midnight on December 31. On such a scale, the entry of humans was just half an hour ago, at 11.30 pm, while microbes ruled the globe between the months of March to October, that is, between their entry and the advent of higher organisms. This ingenuous example clarifies all doubts on the antiquity of microbes as compared to mammals or other higher forms of life.

Microbes are everywhere, but due to the very small size of them, they remained invisible to mankind till the seventeenth century. It was then Antony van Leeuwenhoek, a pioneering lens-maker in Holland, witnessed these organisms everywhere – in water, in hand tools, in his body, home and everywhere! For a time, others couldn’t make lenses with the resolving power as Leeuwenhoek’s, but when at last they did, the scholars were shocked to find themselves colonized by these microbes. It took nearly another century to distinguish the good from the bad. Many microbes live in symbiosis with their hosts. It can also be said that microbes help us become what we are by modifying the genes of parent organisms in subtle ways. Biologists have experimentally demonstrated that organisms that live in sterile Lab-like environments where the microbes are strictly controlled suffer growth problems in the absence of friendly bacteria. Yong includes examples where the microbes affect the growth of brain. Specific strains of bacteria can be encouraged with the help of probiotics (the reverse process as antibiotics). Lack of exposure to symbiotic microbes had resulted in depression and anxiety in the hosts.

The book argues that the sharp distinction between good and bad microbes is an oversimplification. Even the good ones create life-threatening situations when their position is changed, say from the gut to the blood stream. Mitochondria are present in every mammal cell, which generates the energy the cell so dearly needs. Scientists presume that mitochondria were independent microbes in the beginning of life and later settled inside the animal cell in a case of mutually beneficial symbiosis. Even with a history of living together for billions of years, if the mitochondrion is to enter the blood stream somehow, the immune system of the host attacks it with vigour as if it was a foreign particle and not a part of its own body. Yong presents the case of Helicobacter pylori, the bacterium in our gut that causes ulcer and stomach cancer. A very bad guy, obviously. But what will happen if we kill all of them in our guts? Scientists warn that we are in for more trouble, as these bacteria also protects against oesophageal cancer! As in life, it is a fine line that separates the good from the ugly in the case of microbes as well.

The clever ways in which mothers help their babies grow microbes in their guts is interesting to read. The author has used many scientific terms to describe the process, but one such case is very noteworthy. Human breast milk contains a family of chemicals called Human Milk Oligosaccharides (HMO) which can’t be digested by the infant! Why on earth are such chemicals present in mother’s milk? The shocking answer is that these are good for a specific species of bacteria in the child’s long intestine. HMO nourishes these microbes, which in turn produces short-chain fatty acids. These feed the infant’s gut cells by making adhesive proteins that seal the gap between gut cells and anti-inflammatory molecules that calibrate the immune system. Needless to say, babies nurtured with bottled milk don’t develop this familiarity of the immune system to microbes. This results in inflammations where the immune system overreacts even to benign external particles. The book also speculates that microbes control obesity. Obese people have more Firmicutes and fewer Bacteroidetes than their leaner counterparts in their stomach. Transferring these microbes among lab mice showed that those mice which received microbes that characterized obesity put in more weight and vice versa. There is, however, no assurance that this result can be repeated in humans.

Do you remember the scary day when New Scientist magazine trumpeted on its cover that Darwin was wrong? It talked about a system of gene transfer which is horizontal, that is, from one individual to another without any reproductive act called Horizontal Gene Transfer (HGT). This differed with the vertical scheme Darwin had in mind, that is, from parent to offspring. The devil was in the details, and if you had read the whole article, it emphasized Darwin’s theorem rather than upsetting it. But for those who judge a book by its cover, it presented an avoidable opportunity to score on the supposed ‘error’ in Darwinism. HGT is widely seen in the world of microbes. Yong presents the curious case of the ‘nori’ seaweed that is a delicacy in Japan. Humans normally can’t digest the seaweed as the gut bacteria are unable to process them. But those who ate them first ingested marine bacteria skilled in the job. It exchanged genes with normal gut bacteria and entered its genome. Then it proceeded to colonize people via the normal biome transfer between parent and child.

In the latter chapters of the book, the author describes about several revolutionary techniques of healing with bacteria, which are generally interesting but revolting at times. The faecal microbiota transplant (FMT) techniques may provide a fast cure for stomach-related issues, but it shows that a microbiologist’s career is not always glamorous! Manipulating the microbiome of an entire region or a person is discussed at length, but Yong tactfully stops short of anticipating repercussions that may arise when one plays with an entire biome. If the author is to be believed – and there are many solid reasons to do so – microbes are definitely going to play a significant part in formulating the therapies of the future. The book is neatly written and displays the confidence of the author in the beneficence of what he describes to mankind. A number of colour plates add to the visual appeal. A good number of Notes and a comprehensive index enhance the utility of the book.

The book is highly recommended.

Rating: 3 Star

The Indian Ocean in World History

Title: The Indian Ocean in World History

Author: Milo Kearney

Publisher: Routledge, 2004 (First)

ISBN: 9780415312783

Pages: 188

Indian ocean had traditionally been the hub of world trade over which the destinies of many a nation and civilization ebbed and flowed. Spices dominated trade in the ancient period, whereas oil does it now. The world’s slavish dependence on fossil fuels tie the industrial nations to the disturbances and disruptions in Indian ocean’s commerce. The rise and fall of the leading states and regions of the world through history is linked in an important measure to the extent of their participation in Indian ocean trade. Egyptians, Mesopotamians, Romans, Arabs, Ottomans and all of history’s Who’s Who had taken part in it, right up to the U.S. which came on the scene since the last century. Milo Kearney presents the entire history of Eurasia condensed into a nice little book, with the Indian ocean as the fulcrum around which the action is played out. This volume is one in a series titled ‘Themes in World History’. The author is the Professor of History at the University of Texas at Brownsville and has authored many books.

Trade and civilization are intimate companions throughout the history of the world. Surplus food production and division of labour paved the way for urbanization to sprout in isolated pockets, which transformed gradually into a full blown civilization when traders stepped in and exchanged men and material with other cultures in the neighbourhood. Just as in land-based trade routes, the entrances to sea lanes in an ocean are limited in number and jealously guarded. The Strait of Malacca, the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea and the Cape of Good Hope were the doors that accorded entry into shipping lanes of the Indian ocean. We can see five distinct phases in the growth of trade through this ocean, which are, a) the original monopoly of the trade by lands lying either directly on its shores or on seas immediately leading from it (down to sixth century BCE), b) the first period of intrusion of Mediterranean European and Chinese influences (sixth century BCE to sixth century CE), c) the receding of the European and Chinese impact in the Arab golden age (seventh to eleventh centuries CE), d) a period of resurgence of Chinese and European influence (twelfth to fifteenth centuries CE) and e) dominance of the lands of the North Atlantic (sixteenth to twentieth centuries CE). The book then goes on to explain each stage in some detail.

Historically, the major items traded through Indian ocean were spices, rice and cotton from India, silk, porcelain and steel from China and slaves and ivory from East Africa. It is sobering to realize that the history of the present, with its full panoply of modern appurtenances and enlightened thought, were shaped by the ages-old rush for merchandise and profit in the Indian ocean. The material and spiritual transactions between the world’s religions are more profound than at first meets the eye. Buddhism’s contributions to Christianity is listed as the mitre, the crozier, the five-chained censer, the hand blessing, monasticism, the worship of saints, processions, fasting and holy water.

The book is written in a textbook style, with terse statement of facts and no analysis. A clear American bias is visible in the handling of Asian politics. Kearney lacks a clear understanding of Indian social life, even though he prominently dwells on India in the book. His explanation for India’s wealth being shared and exploited by foreigners borders on naiveté, as ‘Hinduism and Jainism turned the attention of the people from struggling for position in this life toward a spiritual ascent and a final escape from the material world’ and this orientation is assumed to be a reason for the country’s poor show in fighting off its enemies (p.21). This is way off the mark as far as truth is concerned. Except for a few ascetics and philosophers, nobody took these renouncing theses seriously. The Bible exhorts its adherents to turn the other cheek when one is slapped in the face. But do we seriously expect the Western Christian nations to follow this dictum in international politics? The author’s assertion that Tantric Hinduism sapped India’s ability to ward off foreign exploiters (p.58) is not even remotely true! Tantrism was a highly local sect that developed around the tenth century CE in Bengal, which didn’t make much of an impact elsewhere. Factual accuracy of the book is not beyond doubt, as far as regional references are concerned. Sikhism’s holiest shrine – the Golden Temple at Amritsar – is termed as the ‘Golden Mosque’ (p.163). This book sources history from other reference works on ‘as-is-where-is’ basis. A refreshing variation in naming convention is seen in the book in the case of emperors where their indigenous names are used throughout. Thus, Trajan becomes Traianus, Cyrus turns Koresh, Cambyses is Kambujiya, Darius is Daryavaush and Xerxes changes to Khshayarsha.

The book presents some sensational facts which startle the readers. Lord Bentinck was the Governor General of the English East India Company in India. He had become so confident of the stability and unchallenged continuity of the company’s administration that he dared to plan to have the Taj Mahal dismantled and its marble sold in London! Cranes for this purpose were put into position, but the plan was dropped at the last minute when Bentinck realized that his previous shipment of marble stripped from Agra Fort failed to bring in a good profit (p.135). It is outrageous now even to contemplate disfiguring one of the seven wonders of the world, but the veracity of this episode narrated by Kearney must be verified before forming any adverse conclusions about this otherwise benevolent administrator’s colonial mindset.

The book is highly recommended.

Rating: 3 Star