Akbar: The Great Mughal

Title: Akbar: The Great Mughal – The Definitive Biography
Author: Ira Mukhoty
Publisher: Aleph, 2020 (First)
ISBN: 9789389836042
Pages: 544
 
There are numerous accounts of Akbar in current day circulation. Akbar was different among Mughal emperors in consolidating the dynasty’s power through incorporation of Hindus in the power structure of his empire. Make no mistake about it; their representation was only marginal and limited to the very powerful rajas. The Muslims who constituted just ten per cent of the population still occupied eighty per cent of the aristocracy. But, medieval India was not a democracy and Akbar’s reforms made his polity markedly different from his sultanate predecessors and bigoted successors. The image of Akbar as a benevolent monarch is fused into folklore and he is given a respectable position in the popular imagination even today. However, a full-length biography of Akbar is rare and this book seeks to fill that gap. It divides the Mughal emperor’s life into six sections in this comparatively large book. Ira Mukhoty is a Cambridge-educated Indian author who lives in Delhi and writes about historical and mythical literary work. Most of her effort is directed at clarifying the faded outlines of women characters in them. This book on Akbar may seem at first not to be in the author’s genre, but the long descriptions of Akbar’s wives, mothers and aunts and their influence in the administration makes it clear that she has not veered much from her objectives.
 
Mukhoty constantly seeks to show how important Mughal women were in the life of Akbar. She provides poignant portraits of their lives too. In the early years of Mughal rule, the Timurid women led unfettered lives. They accompanied Humayun in his wanderings and rode into India on horseback. These women were thinly veiled and participated in the public life of the emperor and their advice was constantly sought. As the empire consolidated, more formal zenana came into being, but the influence of elderly women never waned. They even took part in clashes for gaining favour at the court. Bairam Khan, Akbar’s guardian while enthroned as a minor, had many tugs of war with the harem in his attempt to nestle the young price under his wings. Akbar had implicit faith and profound trust in these women which included his mother Hamida Banu, his aunt Gulbadan, stepmother Bega Begum and his milk mothers Maham Anaga and Jiji Anaga. Throughout his life, he showed them extravagant devotion and would grant them their smallest wishes. The senior women once engaged in a Hajj pilgrimage lasting nearly three years without a male relative’s escort. They also moderated the severity of succession struggles by acting as intermediaries between the contenders.
 
Readers get a fancied picture of the role of Hindus in the administration through this book. The author narrates the accounts of a few nobles to present a rosy picture of accommodation in Akbar’s bureaucracy. Raja Man Singh, ruler of Amer/Jaipur, was the powerful governor of Bengal and he seems to have enjoyed much freedom in doing what he thought best. He performed an elaborate and ostentatious shraddha (a post-cremation rite) at Gaya for 45 days and built temples there. This is claimed to be a testament not only to the wealth he commanded but also to the ambition he rightly claimed as a highly successful commander in Akbar’s service. However the author fails to mention India’s cultural unity, the motive force that propelled a Rajasthani aristocrat to perform the funeral rites of his ancestors on the shores of a river in Bihar. Keeping with the book’s theme, the author argues that Akbar’s Hindu wives influenced his religious policy. He prohibited enslavement of prisoners of war, the practice of imperial soldiers making captive the women, children and kinsmen of opposing soldiers. If this is true, Akbar was clearly ahead of his times. Still, one wonders if this basic principle of humaneness needed to be told to convince an ‘enlightened emperor’. This book blows up the liberal fiction that destruction of temples in medieval times was only a strategy of the winning party to humiliate the loser and that this happened during battles between Hindu kings also. Raja Man Singh, governor of Bengal, defeated Kedar Rai of Jessore in 1594. Singh seized the black stone idol of Sila Mata and instead of smashing it to smithereens, took it to Jaipur, built a temple and worshipped it. The temple can still be seen there.
 
Akbar was the most liberal of Mughal emperors regarding toleration of non-Muslims. People of all faiths were inducted into the nobility. The author states that Akbar even stopped performing namaz, though the veracity of this statement is doubtful. However, the ulema rose in rebellion in Bengal and Bihar over the emperor’s eclecticism. A disaffected mullah, Qazi Muhammad Yazdi, went to the extreme act of denouncing Akbar as an infidel and issued a fatwa of kufr (disbelief) calling on all righteous Muslims to take up arms and revolt against the emperor. The cause of Islam was just a convenient rallying point for disgruntled officers who were deeply resentful of the measures taken by Akbar to reduce the rampant corruption and nepotism in his administration. This is a typical left-liberal justification to push bigotry under the carpet and to suggest economic interests as an alternative. The mansabdars (nobles) had to fight shoulder to shoulder irrespective of their religion, but the fanaticism exhibited by some of them was shocking. Raja Man Singh led the Mughal assault in the 1564 Battle of Gogunda against Rana Pratap of Mewar. At one point, the Rajputs on the Mughal side got so entangled with the Mewar warriors in the heat of battle that it was difficult to distinguish friend from foe. At this time, the chronicler Badauni asked Asaf Khan, a prominent noble battling alongside, how to tell them apart. Asaf Khan told him to continue firing indiscriminately, as ‘on whichever side they may be killed, it will be a gain to Islam’ (p.206). Similarly conspicuous by hatred is Badauni’s reporting of the deaths of two Rajput nobles in 1589. Raja Todar Mal and Bhagwant Das were those two Rajputs with decades of selfless service of Akbar. Badauni 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’ (p.358).
 
Surprisingly for a well-researched book, this one shows some inconsistencies which the author should have tried to avoid. One is regarding an incident extolled as Akbar’s kindness. A courtier named Muhammad Hussain Mirza led a rebellion against the emperor which was brutally crushed by imperial forces. But Akbar granted pardon to the rebel and confined him to the custody of one Rai Singh (p.151). However, right on the next page she tells that ‘the heads of Muhammad Hussain Mirza and Ikhtiyar ul-Mulk were sent to Agra’ (p.152). Another instance of ambiguity is a little more serious. Mukhoty states that ‘Akbar left Fatehpur Sikri for the Punjab in 1585. When he left, there was no indication that he would never return and that the great lively discussions of the Ibadat Khana were forever silenced’ (p.317). With this in black and white she narrates in another part of the book that to counter Salim’s insurrection, ‘Akbar finally returned to Fatehpur Sikri in 1601’ (p.433). Admittedly, the emperor stayed in his old capital for only a few days, but the imagery of farewell in the first case is however rendered pointless.
 
The book digs its roots to very good reference sources, but its reliance on Audrey Truschke for the role of Sanskrit in the Mughal court adversely affects its credibility. As is well known, Truschke’s works are often a compendium of arguments with an agenda and with a smattering of the subject matter than a product of impartial and genuine scholarship. The low status of women in Mughal period is examined in detail, but the author arraigns the Rajput courts for controlling their women strictly within defined notions of honour. This is very strange since it is clear that they were emulating their Mughal masters in this regard. A considerable number of reference sources in this book are women. It also contains a fine sampling of Mughal paintings and the narrative gives special emphasis on art in general. The blending processes of Indian, Persian and European artistic styles are lucidly explained.
 
The book is recommended.
 
Rating: 3 Star