Banyan Tree Adventures

by Keith Forrester

  Chapter 3

  Fighting over the past

  Navigating history; Akbar and the Mughals

  “Why did you first come to India? Where did you go? How many times have you returned to India?” were some of the questions I asked the ‘regular returners’. Other people who I haven’t talked to or even know have some answers. “It seems to me that nowhere on Earth can you find all human histories, from the Stone Age to the global village, still thriving, as you can in India,” as Michael Wood puts it in his wonderful television series The Story of India. Most visitors both foreign and domestic would probably agree with Wood. It is one of the great attractions about the country. On the other hand, getting a feel for ‘all these human histories’ is no easy task. So dramatic and dominant are the stories of India in the twentieth century – famine, Independence, Partition, assassinations – that they risk overwhelming all other understandings and dramas. Comfortable definitions and narratives seem impossible to grasp – re-evaluating and reconsidering are par for the course. In the main, however, our ignorance as foreign tourists is always evident and often a great source of frustration. It’s rare for example to visit say the ruined city of Vijayanagara (commonly known as Hampi, in the southern state of Karnataka) and not leave a day or two later exhilarated and exhausted but also painfully aware of a lack of any historical narrative that allows you to situate the rise and fall of the Vijayanagar Empire. The almost surreal, boulder-strewn, once-dazzling Hindu capital of the Vijayanagar Empire spread over 26 kilometres reached its peak of power in the 15th century with a population of over 1.5 million people. What happened to the Empire? What are the archaeologists working on the site today looking for and expecting to find? Where does Hampi fit in with other earlier and later Empires? I keep buying these guidebooks at the sites but rarely finish them as I’m soon off on the train somewhere else. I do have, however, a wonderful collection of these guides on the bookshelves at home.

  Unlike Britain with its more ‘theme park’ conception and practice towards its ‘heritage industry’, India’s civilisation, or its particular historical forms of social development, appears real and continuing – an everyday experience that links the past with the present. Few countries manage to infuse these meanings and rituals of the past in pointing to acceptable boundaries and behaviours of the present. While the unlocking of British culture and history is largely a detailed exercise in class analysis, the situation is altogether more complex and mysterious in India, to the outsider anyway. At times, this everyday weight of the often-distant past can seem a little overwhelming. The seemingly simple task ‘of being a tourist’ risks mental exhaustion and often frustrations in that more questions and puzzles are raised than answered. Take for example the Taj Mahal, arguably the most iconic tourist site in the world, although only ranked Number 10 in the world’s top ten tourist sites with 2.5 million visitors a year. Few overseas visitors leave India without a visit to “the teardrop on the face of humanity”. Irrespective of the hassles on arrival by train at Agra with the ‘guides’, the crowds, the queues, the heat… it is all soon forgotten. Everything about a visit to the Tomb is cliché-ridden and yet these clichés seem to capture many of the experiences and sensations of the visitors, including ourselves. Just watching the expressions on the faces of the steady stream of tourists (mainly, Indian) as they come round the corner of the massive red sandstone gateway and see for the first time the luminescent white marble of the Taj laid out before them rekindles faith in the discoveries and joys of old-fashioned tourism. Most of these visitors will have a general understanding of the Taj Mahal story – the grief-stricken Mughal emperor’s memorial to his recently departed wife Mumtaz Mahal who died at the age of 39 in 1631 while giving birth to their 14th child. This story will be examined in more detail once inside the tomb. Here at the viewpoint at the gateway though, the 64 raised gardens are not visible, the cypress and fruit trees hidden – only visible is the raised pool and the tomb itself. Nothing is allowed to intrude, complicate or detract from this first sight. Inevitably and seemingly uncontrollably, people stop to gawp in an attempt to ‘capture’ this special moment. Like us, they will have worked out the best time to visit so as to maximise the constantly changing hue of the white marble against the changing light. And like us, they will be aware that the Taj is seen as the jewel of Muslim art in India.

  It is only later, while reflecting on the time in front of that bulbous dome protected by its four minarets, that other issues begin to emerge such as questions between the ‘then’ of 1631 and the ‘now’. Who were the Mughals and where do they fit within the wider historical development of India? What contribution did Islamic influences – architecturally, spiritually or culturally – make to modern Hindu India? What sort of ‘India’ made possible the Taj Mahal and associated artistic endeavours, and how are they understood today? How did the British react to this and other monuments and behaviours that confronted and challenged their ‘civilised’ mercantilist rationales? Who were the Muslims of then and where do they fit in within the rising Hindu nationalism in today’s India? It’s always safer to de-contextualise tourist sites through an exclusive focus on the ‘then’ divorced from the ‘now’, and yet in today’s India there have been some violent confrontations over this legacy. Perhaps at the end of the day, it’s best not to move from the particular to the general; just enjoy another bottle of Cobra or Kingfisher. After all we are tourists, visitors, or perhaps travellers. But it is difficult, especially in India where ancient but continuing cultural configurations appear as essential aspects of the Indian pathway to modernity, and eventually perhaps, a world economic power. Could any other country, for example, have as one of its recent towering historical figures Mahatma Gandhi? What is there about this country that raises Gandhi to a semi-god status while most countries would have locked him away as a dangerous loose cannon? For the outsider, Gandhi seemed to embody this ancient with the modern, albeit in a highly original and particular manner much to the bewilderment and frustrations of the imperial British political class and their aristocratic outriders.

  It was in fact our Taj Mahal visit that led to my continuing but intermittent interest in the Mughal Empire. When back in England for example, I’ll spend a relaxing hour or so on YouTube flicking through some of the numerous videos that focus on the Mughals. Or I’ll seek out the appropriate rooms in the British Museum while I am down in London. It was on one of these visits that I learnt about the museum’s interactive, 3D videos on aspects of Mughal history such as the Taj Mahal. Moreover, Michael Wood’s enthusiasm and wanderings around relevant spots and sites in modern India in his search for a dynasty whose rulers were, as he puts it, “among the greatest and most glamorous rulers in the world,” can’t but enthuse visitors or those interested in the history of the country. For any tourist and especially foreign tourists to India today, it is impossible not to see a landscape that is dominated by the beauty and grandeur of this Mughal legacy. Most of the memorable snapshots of India retained in the years after a visit or even the images used in the country’s marketing publicity stem from the nearly two centuries rule by the Mughals – Taj Mahal, the Red Fort or the ghostly splendour of the old Mughal capital Fatehpur-Sikri. It is this city of Agra that perhaps best represents the pinnacle of Mughal architectural masterpieces and continues today to pull in the tourists. But it is not only some foosty old history that leads to the Mughals; the language, customs, dress and food of today’s India incorporate the Mughal influence. And unlike most of the earlier episodes in the country’s history, the rule and achievements of the Mughals can be deciphered from a wealth of diverse sources including written documents (biographies, poetry) and paintings from many of the leading lights of the period through to visiting Europeans.

  There is one name from this period that I kept coming across – namely, Akbar (1542–1605). The achievements of the founder of the Mughal Empire, Babur (1483–1530), are recognised widely in the historical accounts of “one of the most glorious a
nd fascinating episodes in Indian history”. But it was Akbar that kept reappearing and who dominates the histories. The accolades for Akbar from then to now could fill another book. “The reign of Akbar is one of the most significant and decisive epochs in the history of India” (Sinharaja Tammita-Delgoda) or “one of the most extraordinary figures in Indian and world history” (Michael Wood) or “Akbar bestrides all accounts of the Great Mughals… because without him there might not have been a Mughal empire” (John Keay). What then in a nutshell characterised this major figure of “world history”?

  Decisively in his forty-year reign, Akbar was a soldier and warrior. Although only 13 years of age when coming to the throne, his conquests led to the consolidation of Mughal power that eventually incorporated most of India. Similar to most conquering armies in India, the Mughals arrived from central Asia. Babur managed to subdue the north of today’s India and established an empire stretching from Afghanistan through to Bengal. Akbar militarily extended this empire (brutally in a number of instances) south into the Deccan plateau. It wasn’t only military conquest, however, that was important – perhaps of greater significance was what followed in the aftermath of conquest. As Akbar’s biographer of the time noted, “The emperor was aware of the fanatical hatred between Hindus and Muslims.” Through a number of imaginative initiatives over subsequent decades, these divisions were confronted and minimised. “Ignorance above all was the cause of this ‘fanatical hatred’,” Akbar reasoned. No religion be it Hindu or Muslim could claim absolute truth. Violence in the name of religion, forced conversions or intolerance of other faiths had no place in a civilised society. Moreover, religious divisions threatened the stability and functioning of a stable society. “Justice and reason should be our guide,” argued Akbar. Discussions were held with all the major religious faiths be they Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, Parsis or Jains. In contrast to previous Muslim conquerors in India, Hindu temples were safeguarded from destruction and the building of new temples encouraged. Two particular taxes – a pilgrimage tax and the hated jizya tax – seen as oppressive by most Hindus were abolished.

  Being seen as ‘the protector of the people and guardian of all’, however, required Akbar moving beyond the religious realm. Marriage alliances and personal privileges were used to incorporate the old enemy – the Rajputs who assumed governing and military roles in the new empire.

  And in his spare time Akbar turned to the issue of statecraft. Underpinning these initiatives dealing with religion was above all his ‘political nous’, as we might put it today. His empire which by now covered most of today’s India (apart from the far south) and included parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan was given a firm basis with a clearly developed, organised system of government. Characterised by an extensive centralised bureaucracy with the king as the unquestioned authoritative centre, the empire was divided into eighteen provinces each with its own governor. A new civil service was created and arranged into 33 grades with fixed salaries. A new tax system based on land revenue was introduced. Recording all cultivated land, their use and potential was seen as providing a fairer, more efficient and more effective means of delivering the revenue needed to fund the state apparatus.

  As Michael Wood writes, “No Renaissance ruler in Europe, not even the brilliant Elizabeth I, tried so consistently as Akbar to bring in the rule of reason… it is an idea whose time has yet to come.”

  And all from an innocent touristic visit to the Taj Mahal. Things might have been a bit more relaxed if we missed Agra on our travels.

  The ‘Indic civilisation’

  Whether it is the Taj Mahal and the Mughals, Mahatma Gandhi, Hinduism, the hymns and chants of the Vedas or even of Bollywood movies, there is this encouragement to the outsider to examine the new and recent through the prism of the past. Why we are who we are continues to inform and drive most people’s curiosity, arguments and inquiries; in the case of India, the effort promises rich dividends in any analysis of the tourist experience.

  In between our visits to India, I have found numerous texts and videos that have gradually, and without needing any specialised knowledge, introduced me to some of the intricacies of this complex and earliest of civilisations. Goran Therborn’s recent book The World: A Beginner’s Guide for example situates this history through using the wider notion of ‘civilisations’. It’s the big comparative picture that he is after and, like my ‘working geographical knowledge’ of India, provided me with a basis of ‘working historical knowledge’ of the country’s civilisation. He understands civilisations as those “large, enduring cultural configurations, pertinent to our contemporary world”. Five ancient major civilisations of enduring importance are identified. These are first, the Sinic civilisation (centred in China and encompassing Korea, Japan and Vietnam). There is then the Western Asian civilisation (origins in the Arab peninsula but incorporating Istanbul and Western cultural centres in Cordoba, Spain, Fez in Morocco, Tunis and Cairo through to Persia and Uzbekistan in the east). Thirdly is the European civilization followed fourthly, by the sub-Saharan civilisations, and finally, the Indic civilisation. Centred in India, the Indic civilisation incorporated Sri Lanka, moved eastwards through to Bali and Java, Burma, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and southern Vietnam and northwards across the Himalayas into Nepal and Tibet. Indic civilisation, suggests Therborn, emerged around 3,500 years ago but had no known direct connection with the earlier Indus valley civilisation despite both originating around the River Indus, in today’s Pakistan. From these origins in the north-west, the Indic civilisation spread eastwards along the Ganges river plain, reaching southern India much later.

  Although knowing nothing about these very early civilisations, I found Therborn’s periodisation interesting – not only because of historical inadequacies on my part but, more importantly, because of raging arguments and controversies happening today in India over the early origins and nature of modern India. Associated recently with the rise to government of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) with Narendra Modi as Prime Minister, this is a hot, hot topic. Bitter disputes between intellectuals, passionate newspaper editorials, controversial political appointments and vindictive articles today characterise this seemingly arcane issue on the origins and nature of the country.

  In terms of making sense of Indian culture today, Therborn identifies a number of distinctive features that characterises the Indic civilisation. First, it “is soaked in religion”. It permeated everyday life and was remarked upon by early visitors such as the Greeks. So nothing new, then. It was importantly a religiosity that was pluralistic; a variety of religions were managed and tolerated. Given that Hinduism is a polytheistic religion – a belief or worship of more than one god – it coexisted with the gods and beliefs of other great religions such as Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism or Islam. Secondly and perhaps most distinctively, the Indic civilisation has this central notion of transmigration or the rebirth of souls. Common to both Hinduism and Buddhism, there is this idea that lives today are determined by incarnations of things done in a previous life. It is this view of transmigration that morally and religiously underpins the hierarchical social division or caste system that even today baffles visitors to India. This varna or caste system will be explored in a later chapter when discussing everyday life in modern India. It is not, however, the only or the most visible feature of this religious character to the Indic civilisation; pride of place for outside tourists probably are the extraordinary religious rituals and performances that pepper travels around the country. These range, for example, from the pilgrims visiting some of the great devotional temples or sacred rivers through to the various ‘holy men’ or wandering sadhus. Thinking of these sadhus reminds me of the time in 2013 when I was poring over the daily newspapers on another great religious theatrical spectacular – the Maha Kumbh Mela in Allahabad, North India. Lasting 55 days and held every 12 years at the confluence of the holy rivers of the Ganges, Yamuna and Saraswati, the 2013 Mela attracted some 100 million pilgrims. How ma
ny Londons, New Yorks or Tokyos is that? Watching the ritual bathing and the mass feeding of the holy men and women on Indian television was mesmerising – only in India, I kept thinking.