Imagining Lahore

  Aurangzeb’s attitude towards music and his ‘banning’ of all performances is identified as a manifestation of his puritanical zeal, reflected in the increasing Islamization of the Mughal Empire, laying the seeds of its imminent destruction. Some historical evidence suggests that Aurangzeb’s revulsion towards music began with a youthful affair with a famed singer, Hira Bai Zainabadi. Tragically, Hira Bai died within nine months of their association. It is falsely argued that Aurangzeb gave up listening to music after the sudden death of his lover.29

  While there is historical evidence to suggest there was some sort of a ban on music, what the ban meant and why it was implemented is open to competing interpretations. First, it needs to be borne in mind that the ‘ban’ was ordered around 1668–69, almost a decade after Aurangzeb’s ascension to the throne. Before this, musical performances were a regular feature of court life, much like they had been throughout Mughal history. Second, there is enough evidence to suggest that the ban applied only to the court of the emperor and not the entire empire. Several close associates of Aurangzeb, including his family members such as his father-in-law Shah Nawaz Khan Safavi, his sister Jahanara, and his daughter Zeb-un-Nissa, continued to patronize musicians and dancers. While Aurangzeb was away in the Deccan, Delhi, due to the patronage of Mughal nobility, became an important centre of the performing arts.30 Powerful allies of the emperor who remained in close proximity to him during his campaigns continued to enjoy music as well.31

  Despite the ban on music, Aurangzeb did not render his court musicians and performers unemployed. They received court patronage even though music no longer featured in the royal court. In the rest of the empire, the patronage and performance of music continued unabated. So it can be argued that Aurangzeb’s banning of music was a personal decision, part of his notions of piety, a process of exhibiting ‘self-control’ for the fulfilment of his political ambitions.32

  While there is no doubt the Mughal Empire went through a process of ‘Islamization’ during the reign of Aurangzeb, this process cannot be attributed to the iconoclastic, missionary zeal of the emperor as is popularly imagined. There were political reasons behind the implementation of several religious laws, even when the rhetoric was religious.

  Aurangzeb was a crafty politician who used religion when it suited him and became ‘tolerant’ when needed. Perhaps Dara Shikoh, had he succeeded the Mughal throne, might not have reimposed jizya, but his lack of military and administrative skills would have hardly ensured that the Mughal Empire survived longer than it did.

  A group of men sat under the shade of an old tree next to the mausoleum. For a moment they paused their conversation and looked towards me. I walked inside, stopping in front of a board that recalled its story, ‘Noor Jahan’s Tomb’, with a faded picture of the empress in the background.

  The mausoleum, a single-storey structure with no minarets or domes typical of Mughal architecture, was in one corner of a garden, protected by a boundary wall. Raised on a small platform, a heap of bricks lay at its base to be used in its renovation. Several masons worked in and around the mausoleum. The fresh tiles of the facade of the building shone in the bright sun as the government officials supervising the renovation lost interest in me soon enough and resumed their conversation.

  This was once a vast garden, merging into an accompanying garden that contained the mausoleums of Asaf Khan, her brother, and Emperor Jahangir, her husband. Behind the web of electrical wires, the oval dome of Asaf Khan’s mausoleum is still visible, separated from the grave of his sister by a railway line laid during the colonial era. The garden of the mausoleum, in perfect symmetry with bricked pathways running down its middle, must have once been a sight to behold, with its fruit trees, flowering plants and waterways, an imperfect attempt to replicate the Garden of Eden. It was now struggling to retain its grass. Only a few trees remained.

  In the last years of her life, when the empress was completely divorced from the Mughal political life of which she had once been a central figure, even overshadowing her alcoholic husband, Nur Jahan had vast financial resources at her disposal, granted to her by Jahangir, inherited from her powerful father and raised through her own system of taxation and duties as she single-handedly ran the affairs of the Mughal court.

  During the last seventeen years of her life, as her stepson, her sworn enemy during the final years of Jahangir’s reign, Shah Jahan, sat at the head of the Mughal Empire, using all the resources at his disposal to discredit Nur Jahan’s legacy, she was granted permission to stay in the city and regularly visit her husband’s grave. While Jahangir died far away from Lahore, in the foothills of Kashmir, he had expressed the desire to be buried here.

  As the battle of succession hastily unfolded in the aftermath of Jahangir’s death, Nur Jahan, despite her years of planning and manoeuvring, was quickly outsmarted and imprisoned by Asaf Khan. With various forces looking to secure the throne for themselves, including Jahangir’s youngest son, Prince Shahryar, with a concubine who had been backed by the empress, Nur Jahan was cut off from the events and forced to travel to Lahore from Bhimber with her husband’s body. With the defeat and subsequent death of Shahryar, Nur Jahan’s political influence died as well.

  It is believed that the mausoleum of Emperor Jahangir was built by Nur Jahan, who took an active role in its design and construction just as she had in the building of several other gardens and monuments during her reign as empress. Another opinion is that while Nur Jahan may have been involved in the initial planning, the structure was raised by Shah Jahan, for whom the mausoleum might have been a way of legitimizing his ascension after his earlier falling out with his father.33

  While tension had been brewing between father and son for years, Prince Khurram openly rebelled against the emperor in 1621 upon hearing of his father’s illness and anticipating his imminent death. Jahangir survived and Khurram, despite his initial success in Bengal, was eventually left high and dry, with his army routed. He had to go into exile with his family to the Deccan.

  Relations between the two remained fraught till the spring of 1626, when Khurram, defeated and stripped of his political support, sought his father’s mercy and was granted it, on the condition of abandoning a couple of forts in his possession and sending his young sons, Dara Shikoh and Aurangzeb, to the Mughal court. As the princes travelled to the court, Khurram, utterly dejected, remained in the Deccan which had for years served as his power base.

  It was the Deccan that had once raised the prince to the penultimate position, outgrowing his other brothers in stature and establishing firmly his position as the favourite to succeed his father. Even though the prince had already proven himself to be a successful military commander in campaigns to Mewar and Gujarat, it was his success in the Deccan in 1616, when others before him had failed, that was the decisive feather in his cap. For this, he was given the title of Shah Jahan, king of the world, by Emperor Jahangir upon his return. It was the title he would adopt when he ascended to the Mughal throne. He was also awarded the right to sit next to his father during the emperor’s assemblies.34 However, what should have cemented the authority of the young prince eventually resulted in undermining it.

  Prince Khurram’s rise had been engineered by powerful allies, often referred to as ‘junta’ in the Mughal court. It is believed that soon after his marriage to Nur Jahan, the emperor handed over the reins of administration to the empress and the junta, happy to spend his days consuming alcohol and opium and enjoying the benefits of his vast empire. His desire was not to further expand the already stretched borders but to simply retain them. Nor was he particularly keen on engaging in the day-to-day affairs of the kingdom, like his father, and was more than willing to allow the empress an active role in its administration, for which she had a flair.

  In this, she was accompanied by her father, the charismatic Mirza Ghias Beg, who after migrating from Persia under dire circumstances with his family during the time of Akbar, had risen through the hierarchy of the Mughal bu
reaucratic administrative structure to secure for himself the position of wazir. He had been awarded the title ‘Itimad-ud-Daula’, pillar of the state. The third most powerful member of this junta was Asaf Khan, Nur Jahan’s elder brother and the father of Mumtaz Mahal, Khurram’s wife.

  While this alliance of convenience functioned smoothly, there were inherent contradictions which would soon surface. One of the biggest concerns was the question of succession. With Khurram proving his military skills, it was clear that he was the likeliest to succeed the emperor. The eldest prince, Khusrau, had lost his father’s support after a failed rebellion, soon after Jahangir’s ascension to the throne.

  Khusrau’s action was in turn the result of another rebellion, of Salim (Jahangir) against his father, Akbar, during the last years of his life. With Salim defeated and already showing signs of alcoholism, a powerful lobby gathered around the young Khusrau. It was even rumoured that Akbar was planning to bypass his son for his grandson, Khusrau. Akbar did eventually forgive Salim and appointed him his successor. Perhaps it was Salim’s own rebellion against his father that led him to understand Khurram’s revolt and forgive him in the aftermath of his defeat. During Akbar’s lifetime, the relationship between Salim and Khusrau remained tense.

  After he became emperor, Jahangir had Khusrau ‘jailed’ at Agra Fort. However, the prince, using the excuse of an excursion, escaped and, gathering his supporters, rebelled against the rule of his father. He was defeated soon after and brought to the emperor in Lahore.

  Every evening, dozens of boatmen gather on the banks of the Ravi, offering to take tourists to a little island in the middle of the river, upon which stands a Mughal structure, believed by many to be the oldest building in the city of Lahore. Known as the baradari of Kamran Mirza, the structure is an open room surrounded by a little garden. Originally constructed on the western bank of the river, the baradari eventually found itself in the middle, as the whimsical Ravi changed its course.

  Kamran Mirza was the younger brother of Emperor Humayun who too rebelled against his brother for the throne. Soon after his ascension, Humayun turned his attention to Bengal, the eastern frontier where unrest was brewing, handing over the western frontier to his brother. With the emperor away, Kamran established his suzerainty over Punjab. He is believed to have constructed this baradari in Lahore around this time.

  With the temporary overthrow of the Mughal Empire and the rise of Sher Shah Suri, a commander who had accompanied Babur to India, Kamran is believed to have reached out to him to grant him control over Punjab for his support against Humayun. He was turned down by the Afghan king. The conflict between the brothers continued as Humayun sought refuge in Persia while Kamran found his way to Kandahar. Kamran was eventually defeated by Humayun, blinded and exiled to Mecca.

  Perhaps it was to remind Khusrau of the fate of Kamran Mirza that Jahangir set up court at the baradari as he waited for the arrival of his defeated son. While Khusrau’s life was spared, his allies were not as lucky. Mounting him on an elephant next to himself, the emperor marched towards Lahore with the bodies of his allies impaled and hung along the way.35 In fact, the fifth Sikh Guru Arjan also lost his life for his alleged sympathy towards the prince. Despite his defeat and a lenient punishment, almost a year later, Khusrau is believed to have planned an assassination attempt while imprisoned in Lahore. When his plan was disclosed, Jahangir had the prince blinded and incarcerated under a stricter watch.36

  While Khusrau was incapacitated, the second son, Parvaiz, was ‘dull and incompetent’37 and, like his father, fond of drinking. Shahryar, the fourth son, had earned the nickname ‘good-for-nothing’ and is believed to have been easily manipulated.38 It was therefore not a surprise that Khurram emerged as the likeliest candidate. He understood that if he wanted to rise to the top, he needed powerful allies close to the seat of power. Who could be better than Nur Jahan and her family! Thus Khurram became the fourth and final member of the powerful junta that was in complete charge of the functioning of the Mughal state.39

  Soon enough, fissures in the junta were visible as Nur Jahan became aware of the increasingly independent power of Khurram. Within the junta he was firmly backed by Asaf Khan, his father-in-law, to whose daughter, Mumtaz Mahal, Khurram was completely devoted. Nur Jahan realized that in the new political dispensation that would arise after Jahangir’s death, her role would be particularly diminished as her brother’s fortunes would increase exponentially. She thus made a move that would change the nature of Mughal battles of successions, making them bloodier.

  Mehr-un-Nissa or Nur Jahan married Emperor Jahangir in 1611 after his gaze fell upon her during the Nauroz festival in the palace, which she had attended with her patron, Ruqayya Begum. She was given the title of Nur Jahan by the emperor after marriage. Ever since the death of her first husband, Sher Afghan, a few years ago, Mehr-un-Nissa had moved to the royal court to serve Ruqayya Begum, the chief consort of Emperor Akbar. Sher Afghan was serving in Bengal when he was killed during a skirmish with the Mughal forces. Even though he had been appointed on the orders of Emperor Jahangir, he was later accused of negligence and asked to present himself at the royal court. When Mughal forces were sent in to arrest him, he sensed foul play and attacked and killed Qutbuddin Khan Koka, who had been tasked with bringing him in. He was killed subsequently by Qutbuddin’s soldiers.

  Years later, when Emperor Shah Jahan was secure on the Mughal throne, historians would note how Sher Afghan was killed on the orders of Emperor Jahangir so he could marry his wife. She had one daughter from her first marriage, Ladli Begum, who would remain her only child. Ladli Begum is buried in Nur Jahan’s mausoleum, next to her.

  There are rumours that Nur Jahan wanted Ladli Begum to marry Prince Khurram to attach her fortune to the rising sun, but the prince turned down the offer. The empress is even believed to have approached Khusrau in imprisonment with the offer of marriage and an incentive of freedom if he agreed, but he too turned it down. The empress then approached the youngest son of Jahangir, the easily manipulated Shahryar. The two were married in 1621.

  With this marriage, Nur Jahan’s intentions became obvious to the other members of the junta. The battle for the throne had begun. The relationship between Asaf Khan and his sister worsened. Keeping a lid on this tension was their father, Mirza Ghias Beg. But with his death in 1622, the relationship quickly deteriorated.40 What aggravated the situation was when, upon his death, the emperor turned over all his possessions to Nur Jahan instead of his eldest son, as was the convention. To Asaf Khan it was clear that the emperor had done this at the behest of the empress to undermine Asaf Khan’s authority.

  The single greatest blow to the junta came with the worsening of the situation in the Deccan in 1620. On the basis of his past success, the emperor asked Khurram to head south to handle the matter, but the latter was aware of the changing circumstances at the court and was also cognizant of the emperor’s failing health. Khurram had noticed the growing leniency of the emperor towards Khusrau, whose terms of imprisonment had been relaxed over the past few years. He realized that being far removed from the seat of power, he would be in the least advantageous position in case of the emperor’s death.

  Thus Khurram decided to march to Deccan but on condition that Khusrau be handed over to him. In this demand he was supported by both Asaf Khan and Nur Jahan who understood that with Khusrau and Khurram away, she would be in a better position in case of the emperor’s death. She was also aware of the fact that if any harm were to befall the eldest son of the emperor while in Khurram’s custody, he would be isolated from not only his father but also his powerful allies.

  The expedition down south, as expected, was a success and within six months the unrest was subdued. Khurram, while still in the Deccan, was gifted awards and properties for his accomplishments.

  Soon after, on 29 January 1622, Jahangir received a message from Khurram that Khusrau had died of colic pain.41 Initially receiving the news without scepticism, the emperor began
doubting Khurram’s intentions when he heard an official who was present with both brothers blaming Khurram for Khusrau’s murder. It is likely that upon hearing the news of Jahangir’s failing health, Khurram acted pre-emptively to remove the eldest prince from his path. But now his position had been compromised. The emperor ordered the prince to report back to him in person, an order that Khurram refused to acknowledge.

  While these events were unfolding in the Deccan, there was unrest on the eastern front of the empire as well, with the city of Kandahar under siege. It is believed that it is during these last few years of Jahangir’s life that Nur Jahan acquired unprecedented power. With the junta dismantled and Asaf Khan still serving in the court of the emperor but with his loyalties attached to the rebel prince, Nur Jahan ran the show single-handedly. It is she who is believed to have convinced the emperor to order Khurram to move eastwards to subdue Kandahar, thus making it difficult for him to capture the throne when the moment came. Khurram could hardly refuse to obey the command of the emperor, else he would be declared a rebel.

  Khurram, realizing the empress’s intention, refused to head to Kandahar, forcing the emperor to order Shahryar to address the issue, which met with little success. As a punishment to Khurram, the emperor ordered the confiscation of certain properties of the prince to fund the expedition to Kandahar. Even as Jahangir took away some properties from Khurram, he awarded a few others as compensation, which shows that the emperor at this point still had no intention of completely isolating the most competent of his sons.