One group of historians offers a sanitised version of the Mughal Empire. Another gravitates towards vile condemnation. The art of the historian is to look beyond black-and-white characterisations and uncover complexity, context, and the grey areas. The aim must not be uncritical reverence or baseless slander, but reasoned critical scrutiny in light of historical facts.
Irshad Rashid & Ishfaq Abdullah
The Mughal past of India is deeply contentious. Many historians have offered their perspectives on the subject. Yet, what has become obvious in recent times is that Mughal history has been subjected to opposing narratives that elide historically grounded interpretation, sacrificing complexity on the altar of political myth-making.
One group of historians tends to offer a more sanitised version of the Mughal Empire, while the other gravitates towards a vile condemnation of all that the Mughals contributed. The art of the historian is to look beyond black-and-white characterisations of historical figures and periods and to uncover complexity, context, and the grey areas. Even so, when there are spots of black and white, those must be pointed out as well. The aim must not be uncritical reverence or baseless slander, but reasoned critical scrutiny in light of historical facts.
However, facts do not speak for themselves. Facts are interpreted and reinterpreted in light of the present. As E.H. Carr, a prominent historian, remarked: “The facts speak only when the historian calls on them: it is he who decides which facts to give the floor, and in what order or context.” Carr argued that facts are “dead and meaningless” without the historian to interpret them.
We see the recent piece by Syed Ali Nadeem Rezawi, “The Mughals and the Making of India”, in Frontline, as an invitation to engage more critically with the legacy of the Mughal Empire. So we would like to offer our own two cents in the spirit of dialogue on this question. The article by Rezawi makes some insightful points about Mughal history, but we believe the story is more complex than what the author has offered.
Rezawi advances “five interconnected claims” to make us acknowledge a “debt to all Mughal emperors, including those who presided over decline.” Let us take up some of these claims and try to unpack them, examining how they stand up to scrutiny.
First, he argues that the Mughals created a uniquely cosmopolitan and bureaucratic ruling class, open to Persians, Central Asians, Indian Muslims, Rajputs, and Marathas alike. This claim conflates inclusion within the higher echelons of power with social equality. It is true that the Mughal darbar often included people from these ethnic groups and communities. Yet a multi-ethnic aristocracy is still an aristocratic set-up.
Why should one assume this was any different from the tokenism we see even in modern democracies? This kind of symbolism often works to conceal social hierarchy and give a veneer of legitimacy to an otherwise elitist system. Diversity in positions of power does not automatically translate into justice and accommodation below.
His second claim about the debt that contemporary India owes to the Mughals is written in poetic language. Yet close scrutiny would unravel the blind spots. No country owes a debt to any particular dynasty, as civilisational legacies are accretions of countless historical layers that span many epochs and ruling dynasties. Even though Rezawi briefly qualifies his claim here, the overall estimation of the Mughals reads like a panegyric.
Let us offer one example to bring out the force of our argument. For centuries, Eurocentric accounts positioned Greece, particularly Athens, as the singular, immaculate “cradle of intellectual thought,” suggesting that modern civilisation owes an unparalleled debt to its cultural and intellectual genesis. However, contemporary historiography challenges this myth of the homegrown, original brilliance of Greece. It asserts that what we identify as “Greek” was, in reality, a profound cultural transmutation. Athens was not always the creator of all ideas, but, in many cases, a sophisticated synthesiser of knowledge from ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Phoenicia, and even India.
This is not to take away anything from what Greece has contributed to the world of ideas, but to recognise that no single civilisation has a monopoly over thought. Ideas about philosophy, politics, science, and the arts developed in other ancient societies, too. We have been oblivious to their contributions as we have marvelled too much at just one civilisational legacy. This is what critical historiography teaches us.
The making of contemporary India is a by-product of multiple historical trajectories rather than a legacy of a single empire. From the Mauryas and Guptas to the Delhi Sultanate and multiple regional polities, each has contributed to the layered and intertwined fabric that constitutes India today. Extensive and wealthy as the Mughal Empire was, it forms an important chapter—but only one among many that together shaped India’s historical, cultural, and political landscape. It is tempting to equate the modern identity of a particular nation with an imposing empire, yet rigorous historical analysis demands recognition of a more complex, layered historical landscape.
Of course, any serious engagement with history must acknowledge the enduring imprint of the Mughals, but overplaying that hand risks flattening the more complex and diverse inheritance of modern India.
When Rezawi writes that a “Kashmiri intellectual could find advancement under the same imperial umbrella,” we must not forget one of the most egregious transgressions that the Mughals committed in Kashmir. The last independent Kashmiri ruler, Yousuf Shah Chak, was taken to Delhi by his court officials with the promise of negotiations with Akbar. Instead of a treaty, he was imprisoned in Bihar, where he died in forlorn condition while his beloved wife, Habba Khatoon, was left wailing for his return in excruciating pain.
Her soulful songs, which describe the agony of waiting for Yousuf, are legendary in Kashmir. Of this betrayal by Akbar, she mourns: “Which rival of mine has lured you away from me? Why are you cross with me?”
Her songs depict a situation of “half agony, half-hope,” which in a way becomes a metaphor for Kashmir’s loss of political sovereignty in 1586, when it was annexed to the Mughal Empire by Akbar. This is well documented in historical records. The sole aim was to bring Kashmir under the suzerainty of the Mughal Empire, marking the first wave of outside occupation, followed by the Afghans and Sikhs.
The point about the architectural contribution of the Mughals also glosses over some harsh facts. India does and must celebrate the architectural contributions of the Mughals. Their architectural specimens, like the Taj Mahal and Red Fort, are marvellous. They add to the aesthetic elegance of India. But a full historical account must also highlight the dark side of this phenomenal architectural marvel. Monuments conceal a great deal of brutality and embody condensed social relations. The labourers who built them are erased. The emperor receives immortality, but those who built them are thrust into oblivion. Any serious account of architectural glory must not overlook this.
The evidence of urban coexistence, while important, requires caution as well. Mixed neighbourhoods did exist during the Mughal era, but that does not necessarily imply social equality. Proximity is not the same as equality. Communities may share boundary walls while remaining secluded by caste, class, religion, and so on. More often than not, shared spaces in those days were a marriage of convenience and collective utility.
Finally, portraying Akbar’s forays into reason (aql) as a harbinger of modern India’s scientific and technical innovations and institutions stretches the argument too far. Courtly engagements with astronomy, medicine, and logic in the sixteenth century should not be retroactively projected onto the origins of the IITs or space research. History is not a linear path leading from Akbar to contemporary space programmes.
Akbar did emphasise a rational approach, and we must acknowledge it. His pursuit of the path of reason (rahi aql), as opposed to what he described as the “marshy land of tradition,” is quite remarkable. It was indeed a progressive enterprise. But reading too much into it risks romanticising it by putting on rose-coloured glasses. There is no point in writing hagiography. The constitutional secularism of independent India may share some elements with Akbar’s secular attitude, but it is also fundamentally different in intent.
Akbar’s secular project was perhaps born of political expediency, as his empire was not only multi-cultural but also had a majority of subjects belonging to a religious faith other than his own. The constitutional secularism of India is less a matter of statecraft and more a recognition of the fundamental inviolability of all religious minorities and their right to practise their faith. It is not merely a utilitarian project but a recognition of the intrinsic worth of the freedom of religion of all individuals in and of itself.
There is no denying that the Mughal darbar patronised art, architecture, and translations. Yet to move from this recognition to a language of civilisational gratitude—claiming that India owes the Mughals its modern inheritance, from space programmes to IITs and other post-colonial institutions of technical education—is to mistake empire for community and grandeur for civilisation.
We must be wary of the vilification of the Mughals aimed at weaponising contemporary religious or political cleavages. But we must also steer clear of wistful nostalgia that errs in the opposite direction by exalting their rule as a response to that vilification. Both are misleading and flawed, though perhaps not in equal measure.
The real task of a historian of the Mughal period—or, for that matter, any period—is to move beyond denigration and nostalgia, as Rezawi acknowledges. Yet he inadvertently drifts into the latter, even while reminding himself not to.
Irshad Rashid teaches Political Science. Ishfaq Abdullah is an Assistant Professor of History, Higher Education Department, Jammu and Kashmir.
ir***********@***il.com