Indians | Ep 9: The Mughals and Bernier | A Brief History of a Civilization

Research, Script and Narration by Namit Arora;
Producer: The Wire;
Director: Natasha Badhwar;
Camera: Ajmal Jami;
Video Editor: Anam Sheikh.

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The story of India is one of profound and continuous change. It has been shaped by the dynamic of migration, conflict, mixing, coexistence, and cooperation. In this ten-part web series, Namit Arora tells the story of Indians and our civilization by exploring some of our greatest historical sites, most of which were lost to memory and were dug out by archaeologists. He will also focus on ancient and medieval foreign travellers whose idiosyncratic accounts conceal surprising insights about us Indians. All along, Arora surveys India’s long and exciting churn of cultural ideas, beliefs, and values—some that still shape us today, and others that have been lost forever. The series mostly mirrors—and often extends—the contents of his book, Indians: A Brief History of a Civilization. Bibliography appears below.

EPISODE 9: THE MUGHALS AND BERNIER
The Mughal Empire was founded in 1526 by Babur, who was part of a long line of people—since at least the Indo-Aryans—to have entered and settled in the subcontinent. It grew to become the largest, most opulent empire yet in India. As with most long-lasting, multi-ethnic, and multilingual empires, most Mughal rulers too espoused pragmatic ideals, especially Akbar and Jahangir. Co-opting elites from diverse groups of Hindus into their administration, they presided over a brilliant fusion of Indo-Persian culture and syncretic creations in art, architecture, literature, music, dance, painting, cuisine, dress, crafts, and more.

In 1658, a French doctor, François Bernier, came to Delhi as a physician to Dara Shikoh, and wrote about the bloody war of royal succession and the first decade of Aurangzeb’s rule. Bernier’s insightful account describes Mughal courtly culture in Delhi, the economic condition of Indians, their science and intellectual life, and Hindu cultural and religious customs. Scholars routinely critique the Mughal Empire’s record on many fronts, but the Mughals have lately also attracted much cultural vilification, especially from Hindu nationalists. They allege that the Mughals persecuted and forcibly converted Hindus to Islam on a large scale, and indiscriminately desecrated tens of thousands of temples. Is that true? Arora will explore the evidence behind such allegations—and a lot more—in this episode.

PARTIAL BIBLIOGRAPHY / FURTHER READING
Alavi, Seema (Ed); The Eighteenth Century in India; OUP, 2002

Asher, Catherine B.; Cynthia Talbot, India before Europe; CUP, 2006

Babur; Hiro, Dilip (Editor); Babur Nama: Journal of Emperor Babur; Penguin India, 2006

Bernier, Francois; Travels in the Mogul Empire: AD 1656–68; Trans. by Archibald Constable. 2nd Ed. by Vincent. A Smith. Low Price Publications, Delhi

Chakravarty, Manas; 'World History by Per Capita GDP'; 25 Aug 2010, Livemint.com

Doniger, Wendy; The Hindus: An Alternative History; Penguin, 2009

Eaton, Richard M.; India in the Persianate Age 1000–1765; Allen Lane, 2019

Eaton, Richard M.; Temple Descecration and Indo-Muslim States; Journal of Islamic Studies 11:3 (2000) pp. 283–319 © Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies 2000

Kumar, Sunil; Demolishing Myths or Mosques and Temples?: Readings on History and Temple Desecration in Medieval India; Three Essays Collective, 2008

Maddison Project Database 2020 (Bolt and van Zanden (2020)) on comparative economic growth and income levels over the very long run

Raychaudhuri, Tapan; Habib, Irfan (Editors); The Cambridge Economic History of India; CUP, 1982

Richards, John F; The New Cambridge History of India: The Mughal Empire; CUP, 1993

Roy, Tirthankar; An Economic History of India 1707–1857; Routledge, 2021

Salam, Ziya Us; 'Imaginary Enemies'; Frontline, Mar 06, 2021

Sen, Sudipta; Ganga: The Many Pasts of a River; Gurgaon, Viking, 2019

Tambiah, S. J. (1998); 'What did Bernier actually say? Profiling the Mughal empire'; Contributions to Indian Sociology, 32(2), 361–386

Ticku, Rohit and Shrivastava, Anand and Iyer, Sriya; 'Holy Wars? Temple Desecrations in Medieval India'; SSRN Electronic Journal, January 19, 2017.

Truschke, Audrey; Aurangzeb: The Life and Legacy of India’s Most Controversial King; Stanford University Press, 2017

Truschke, Audrey; The Language of History: Sanskrit Narratives of Indo-Muslim Rule; Columbia University Press, 2021

Thapar, Romila; Noorani, AG; Menon, Sadanand, On Nationalism, Aleph, 2016

Thapar, Romila, The Past as Present, Aleph, 2014