The Crimson Throne

by Sudhir Kakar

  At the court, news trickled in every day of the activities in the far-off provinces of Bengal, the Deccan and Gujarat, where Shuja, Aurangzeb and Murad prepared to make their bid for the imperial throne. Even though Prince Dara was impatient to act fast and foil his brothers’ plans at the earliest, the emperor’s reluctance to accept that the other princes had turned against their father held him back. With the convenient memory of old age, the monarch had erased all recollection of his own rebellion against his father and the murder of his brother and rival to the throne, Shahryar, carried out under his orders. He insisted that his sons, isolated as they were from their father and from Delhi in their distant posts, had been misinformed about the severity of his illness and that their concern for his health was leading them to take unwise action. Perhaps I, too, should be less harsh in judging the emperor as a foolish and stubborn old man. It is an unfortunate fact that parents love their children more than they are loved in return. As humans, we are deeply moved when we listen to songs of legendary lovers bemoaning the loss or the turning away of their beloved, but often remain oblivious to the mute, unrequited love of countless fathers and mothers.

  Although still ailing and weak, the monarch decided to leave Delhi for Agra, a distance of sixty-six leagues. After a week, the Wali Ahad’s court followed suit. Emperor Shah Jahan was convinced that when people saw him and his train on the road, the news would spread throughout the empire that he was alive and well. His sons would rediscover their filial sentiments, or at least be intimidated, and banish all traitorous thoughts from their minds. Under the circumstances, with not much room to manoeuvre, Prince Dara sought to raise a large army to supplement the imperial forces at his disposal and ordered that men be enlisted in the cities of Agra, Delhi and Lahore. He also sent word to a large section of the imperial army led by battle-hardened commanders, now stationed in the Deccan to subdue the sultanate of Bijapur, to immediately return to Agra. Word had come in that Aurangzeb had been trying to cajole and bribe the commanders to embrace his cause but most of the veterans obeyed the imperial summons and returned to the capital.

  People who say Prince Dara was ignorant of military affairs and irresolute in pursuing them have not been witnesses to the activity that gripped his court in the following days. The libel that he was merely an impractical dreamer has been spread by Aurangzeb and his lapdog historians. It is wrong to assume that a man of action cannot be sensitive, that a good general must be a boor and never a poet. In times of peace, the Wali Ahad might have banished all thoughts of war from his mind and it may have appeared to onlookers that he was born only for pleasure and for the love of religion and philosophy. But once war was imminent, the warrior blood of his Mogul ancestors coursed mightily through his veins, transforming him from a genial scholar and bon vivant to an intrepid general.

  The first decisive move on the part of the rebels was made by Shuja, the youngest of the princes, who proclaimed himself emperor at Rajmahal, the capital of Bengal, ordered coins to be struck in his name, and began to move westwards with his army. Prince Dara had always believed that as both warrior and consummate diplomat Shuja posed a graver threat to him than Aurangzeb. Aurangzeb he had despised for years as a hypocritical namazi. He now took Aurangzeb’s caution and prudence in not marching immediately to Agra as a lack of decisiveness and dash.

  His father did not share the Wali Ahad’s apprehension about Shuja, nor his underestimation of Aurangzeb. ‘Shuja may have been hardy and resolute once but his seventeen-year viceroyalty of Bengal has recast him in the softer mould of that province,’ the emperor said. ‘His sword has grown rusty in its scabbard for want of action in that land of peace, plenty and pestilence. He possesses no other quality now than an appetite for the enjoyment of life. Aurangzeb, if he ever decides to rebel, will be a more dangerous adversary. Remember that, my son.’

  Yet, when news came of Shuja’s act of rebellion—it was reported that he had led his commanders on their westward march with the cry of ‘Ya takht, ya tabut! (The throne, or the coffin!)’—the emperor was reluctant to initiate action against him.

  We saw the prince’s frustration mount every time he returned from his daily audience with his father. ‘The emperor refuses to recognize the threat. He has sent a farman yet again that Shuja should immediately withdraw,’ he fumed.

  ‘The emperor should understand by now that farmans are no longer enough to overawe any of those rebellious ingrates,’ said Wazir Khan, voicing a sentiment that the Wali Ahad’s filial loyalty prevented him from expressing.

  It was a foregone conclusion that Shuja would ignore the imperial order. He announced that he knew his father was dead and the said farman was forged by Prince Dara in the name of the monarch. But if Shuja should find the emperor alive when he reached Agra, the prince would beg the emperor’s forgiveness and submit to his authority.

  Still, the monarch remained unmovable. ‘You need patience, my son,’ he counselled the anxious Prince Dara. ‘This is your only failing, the lack of patience. You will see that Shuja will soon come to his senses and turn back.’

  In early December there was further news: Shuja had crossed into Bihar with a large army that was coordinating its march with war boats sailing up, the Ganges. The emperor reluctantly gave in to Prince Dara’s entreaties, reinforced by Jahanara Begum’s vigorous appeals, that they needed to act immediately. An army, 22,000 strong, under the command of Prince Dara’s eldest son Sulaiman Shukoh, was asked to proceed against the rebels. Raja Jai Singh of Jaipur, an experienced and able commander, was appointed guardian and adviser to the young prince.

  A brilliant and valorous youth of twenty-two, Prince Sulaiman was a loveable young man who was unfailingly courteous to high and low alike. I had met him but a few times at his father’s palace, but he never failed to enquire after my health and even good-humouredly asked if he could be of any assistance.

  ‘Perhaps a few flagons of my father’s excellent liquor?’ he would offer with a wink, alluding to my well-known weakness. ‘When you return to farangi lands, Manucci, let no one there say that the Mughals do not know how to look after their guests.’ Invariably, the wine, including at least two flagons of the highly regarded Persian Ab-i-Naad, would be delivered to my house the very next day.

  On a crisp winter morning we gathered to witness the Wali Ahad bid farewell to the young prince. The sky was a clear azure blue. Drops of dew glistened on the freshly mowed grass of the lawn and on the poppies and rose petals in the flower beds. When father and son emerged from the prince’s apartments, their faces showed contrasting emotions. Pride, worry and love were writ on the face of our prince, while Sulaiman’s indisputable love for his father was veiled at this moment in impatience. He was in high spirits, eager to leave on an expedition that promised him glory. Fame beckoned, and he was keen to embrace it. Prince Dara held the reins as Sulaiman mounted his horse, and continued to deliver to the young man a stream of instructions till the very last moment before the young prince and his guards trotted out of the gate and disappeared down the road. A soft silence surged back once the plunging of hooves faded away, broken momentarily by Khwaja Younis who, exercising the privilege of a eunuch, began to weep noisily.

  Moved by the moment and in the unease of what the ensuing days would deliver, I could not anticipate that Prince Dara’s concern for his son’s welfare was to have, instead, an unforeseen and most unfortunate consequence. In his anxiety, the prince had deputed his most faithful and able officers to serve under his beloved son. It was an act of fatherly love, the purest of impulses, but one which lacked foresight and was ill-advised for his own fortune. Thus are a man’s noblest acts of love laid low by the indifference of fate.

  In his preoccupation with Shuja’s advance from the east and of his son’s departure, the Wali Ahad did not ignore the danger from his two brothers in the west and the south. Everyone in the capital knew that Murad Baksh and Aurangzeb had formed a secret alliance, but were unaware of its full import. Prince Dara looked for w
ays to break the coalition. Initially, he succeeded in persuading the emperor to send a farman to Murad ordering him to take over the governorship of Berar, which was under Aurangzeb’s control.

  ‘If Murad obeys His Majesty’s order, it will set him up in conflict with Aurangzeb,’ the prince confided to his closest advisers. ‘If he refuses, then his rebellion is out in the open, a circumstance the emperor is not always willing to recognize as fact.’

  Murad ignored the order and continued his preparations to declare himself as the emperor of Hindustan.

  The tidings from the Deccan, where Aurangzeb was making his plans, were sketchy but ominous. He had secured all the ferries at the crossing of the Narmada, the river that forms a natural boundary between Hindustan and the Deccan, thus interdicting the courier routes. Yet sufficient news trickled through to fuel our unease. Aurangzeb, normally short and reserved with people, had apparently become all sweetness and honey in trying to woo the Deccan kings whom he had so recently fought and defeated, evidently in order to ensure his army’s safety from an attack from the rear when he finally made his move in the direction of Agra.

  In addition, he had apologized to the king of Bijapur for invading his kingdom and had even made placatory moves to gain the loyalty of Shivaji, a rebel chieftain who was proving to be a nuisance by carrying out swift guerilla attacks on the Mogul forces. Not only had Aurangzeb sent Shivaji presents and a gold tablet, but he had also promised the Hindu ruler one-fourth of the revenue of some of the Mogul provinces in the Deccan if the latter remained neutral in the approaching conflict.

  Prince Dara listened to the reports in amusement. ‘That must have been especially galling. Aurangzeb hates the Shias, whom he calls apostates, as much as he despises the Hindus,’ he remarked. He called for a copy of a letter Aurangzeb had written to Jahanara Begum some fourteen years earlier and proceeded to read from it: ‘“Of all the wild beasts on land or water the wildest is an apostate, one who casts even the slightest doubt on the supremacy of Prophet Mohammed…” What a hypocrite, that namazi

  ‘Do not underestimate him, O Prince,’ Wazir Khan cautioned. ‘Aurangzeb’s moves show him to be a realist who can temporarily sacrifice matters of faith for political necessity. That makes him all the more dangerous.’

  ‘A snake is dangerous but will slink away if met with determined force,’ Prince Dara retorted.

  As it happened, it was not Aurangzeb but Murad Baksh in Gujarat who followed Shuja in having himself crowned emperor, first in secret and then, two weeks later, in a public ceremony. Again the emperor did nothing more than send his usual/farman ordering Murad to desist from rebellion.

  Prince Dara was not unconcerned about Murad’s proclamation, nor was he indifferent to Murad’s further action of dispatching an army of three thousand horsemen, under the command of his loyal and wise eunuch Shahbaz, to pillage Surat and take control of the imperial treasury. What worried him more were the details of the secret pact between Aurangzeb and Murad that were made available to him by a highly placed spy in Murad’s entourage who was successful in making copies of the letters exchanged between the two younger brothers and smuggling them to the prince.

  ‘Be it known to the mighty Prince Murad Baksh that I have received word that Prince Dara has killed our father by poison and has taken possession of the government,’ Aurangzeb’s letter said. It went on to accuse Prince Dara of being an infidel and idolater, and declare Shuja to be a heretic, a follower of the sect of Ali. Thus there was no one except Murad who was worthy of ruling the Mogul empire. Aurangzeb himself, the poseur declared, had renounced the world a long time ago and had made a solemn vow to end his days at Mecca. It was only his ‘zeal for the Quran’ that had spurred him to devote his strength to ensuring that the empire was left in Murad’s capable hands. All he asked was that after Murad was seated on the throne, he should look after Aurangzeb’s family. ‘I send you one hundred thousand rupees, in order to establish between us a firm and perpetual union and friendship, being brothers as we are, of one father and of one faith, and both defenders of the Quran.’

  Murad had replied to the letter confirming his allegiance to Aurangzeb and to his cause of safeguarding the religion of the Quran, and accepting his brother’s proposal.

  After he had read out the exchange in court for all to hear, Wazir Khan fastened on the closing lines of Murad’s letter: ‘I am making ready for the joining of our two armies, to carry out what Allah the Most High shall inspire. Awaiting further news, and believing that there can be no doubt of what you have promised me, your faithful brother, Murad Baksh.’ Handing over the scrolls to an attendant, he commented thoughtfully, ‘He is still not quite certain of Aurangzeb’s intentions. We need to exploit his doubt. We can arrange for another, similar letter from Aurangzeb but addressed to Shuja to fall into Murad’s hands. To sow discord between allies is equal to neutralizing an army of fifty thousand soldiers.’

  Before the prince could reply, Khalilullah Khan, commander of the imperial cavalry and Prince Dara’s most trusted adviser on military affairs, rejected the suggestion. ‘Dissimulation is a weapon of the weak. We are strong and assured of victory in battle. We must act now, and act decisively,’ he said, vigorously massaging his right earlobe, as was his habit.

  It was left to the prince to convince the emperor to initiate appropriate action. At first, the monarch insisted that the letters were forgeries. Roshanara Begum, the emperor’s devious and illiterate younger daughter, much given to lasciviousness, forcefully supported the emperor’s view. She was firmly in Aurangzeb’s camp. We waited impatiently for the prince to convince the emperor otherwise and allow him to take whatever steps he thought necessary to checkmate the rebels.

  It was almost the end of December when two armies, one under Qasim Khan and the other under Raja Jaswant Singh of Jodhpur, were sent to the south. Their mission was to block Aurangzeb from crossing the Narmada and prevent the armies of Murad and Aurangzeb from coming together. Whereas the courage and loyalty of the Rajput chief was beyond doubt, Qasim Khan was not well inclined towards our prince and accepted the imperial command most reluctantly.

  In the days when we had first heard rumours of Aurangzeb’s alliance with Murad, I was, one evening, summoned to Khalilullah Khan’s mansion. It seemed that the noble’s fourth wife, a girl of sixteen he had recently married, had been behaving strangely. She was completely listless, refusing to wash her body or comb her hair, and her eyes appeared unfocussed at all times. This, in combination with her lately developed habit of spending entire days leaning against a wall and swaying her head from side to side had convinced the hakims that she was possessed. A renowned Muslim exorcist, Pir Elahi, had attempted to free her of it but her condition had shown no improvement. The summons for me would have come earlier but for the fact that Muslim exorcists did not demand that the strict purdah of the harem be violated, whereas I always insisted on coming face to face with the possessed woman. In any event, I was successful in getting the satanic spirit to leave the poor girl’s body after a single session lasting no more than an hour, and this even without a light beating with the cane, the final part of my exorcism ritual.

  Before I left the harem, I was discreetly informed that Khalilullah Khan’s first wife wished to speak to me privately and was escorted to the inner apartments by a eunuch, who was subsequently dismissed. The lady, I recalled, was rumoured to be one of the emperor’s paramours, the famed ‘Shah Jahan’s lunch’.

  I heard a strong but mellifluous voice from behind the curtain. ‘Doctors are used to keeping secrets. What I want to tell you, farangi hakim, is only meant for the Wali Ahad’s ears. Tell him to place no reliance on my husband nor trust his soft speeches. I know him well. At home, where he takes off his mask of good cheer and ingratiating manner, I am privy to the malice submerged in his cold smile and the malevolence he hides behind his hooded eyes. Given the occasion, he is bound to engineer some treachery. Remember to convey my words to the Wali Ahad.’

  I was to le
ave for Delhi immediately after and did not get a chance to meet the prince. Instead, I passed on the message to Wazir Khan, who had looked upon me favourably ever since I had cured his wife. I have no doubt he conveyed the message further, if only because of his rivalry with Khalilullah and for the prince’s ear and favour. I only know that the Wali Ahad did not take the warning seriously. Perhaps he attributed it to Khalilullah’s wife’s jealousy of her husband’s new wife and dismissed it as the rants of a slighted woman.

  ‘Aurangzeb may have dissembled often, But he was not a hypocrite’

  FRANCOIS BERNIER

  WE BEGAN OUR JOURNEY to Aurangabad, the new capital of the Mogul dominions in the Deccan, in the middle of February 1658 when the heat and dust were no longer intolerable. I was proud that the Agha had entrusted me with an important mission and excited that I would finally come face to face with the prince whose shadow loomed so large on the future shape of the empire. I was equally happy that I would no longer have to consume the badly baked bazaar bread of Delhi, crackling with sand and dust, or drink the capital’s river water, whose impurities exceed my power of description since it is equally accessible to all men and animals and a receptacle of all manner of filth.

  When we reached Gwalior, intending to halt there for a few days, we heard from the governor of the province that Aurangzeb had set out towards Agra with a large army. The Agha had indicated to me that the governor of Gwalior sympathized with Aurangzeb’s cause but was as yet unaware of the Agha’s own leanings. All he knew about us was that we served the powerful foreign minister of the imperial court and were on our way to the Deccan to confer with Mir Jumla, the chief commander of the section of the imperial army that had been sent to assist Aurangzeb in his conquest of the kingdom of Bijapur.