Glimpses of World History

by Jawaharlal Nehru

  Although third in the line from Babar, Akbar was the real founder of the Moghal dynasty in India. Like Kublai Khan’s Yuan dynasty in China, the Moghal rulers become, from Akbar onwards, an Indian dynasty. And because of the great work that Akbar had done in consolidating his empire, his dynasty endured for over a 100 years after his death.

  There were three able rulers after Akbar, but there was nothing extraordinary about them. Whenever an emperor died, there was an unseemly scramble among his sons for the throne. There were palace intrigues and wars of succession, and revolts of sons against fathers, and brothers against brothers, and murders and blinding of relatives—all the revolting accompaniments of autocracy and absolute rule. There was pomp and splendour, unequalled anywhere. This was the time, you will remember, when Louis XIV, the Roi-Soleil, flourished in France and built Versailles and held a magnificent Court. But the Roi-Soleil’s magnificence paled before the magnificence of the Grand Moghal. Probably these Moghal rulers were the richest sovereigns of the age. And yet famine came sometimes, and pestilence and disease, and wiped off vast numbers, while the imperial Court lived in luxury.

  The toleration of religions of Akbar’s time continued in his son Jahangir’s reign, but then it faded away and there was some persecution of Christians and Hindus. Later on, in the reign of Aurangzeb, there was a determined attempt to persecute Hindus by destruction of temples and a re-imposition of the hated jizya poll-tax. So the foundations of the empire, which Akbar had laboriously laid, were removed one by one, and suddenly the empire tottered and fell.

  Akbar was succeeded by Jahangir, his son by a Rajput wife. He carried on to some extent his father’s traditions, but he was probably more interested in art and painting, and gardens and flowers, than in government. He had a fine art-gallery. Every year he went to Kashmir, and I think it was he who laid out the famous gardens near Srinagar— the Shalimar and Nishat Baghs. Jahangir’s wife, or rather one of his many wives, was the beautiful Nur Jahan, who was the real power behind the throne. It was in Jahangir’s reign that the beautiful building containing the tomb of Itmad-ud-Daula was built. Always, when I go to Agra, I try to visit this gem of architecture to feast my eyes on its beauty.

  After Jahangir came his son Shah Jahan, who ruled for thirty years (1628–58). In his reign—he was the contemporary of Louis XIV of France—came the climax of Moghal splendour, and in his reign also are clearly visible the seeds of decay. The famous Peacock Throne, covered with expensive jewels, was made for the King to sit on. Then also was made the Taj Mahal, that dream of beauty by the side of the Jumna at Agra. This is, as perhaps you know, the tomb of the wife he loved, Mumtaz Mahal. Shah Jahan did much that does him no credit or honour. He was intolerant in religion, and he did next to nothing to give relief to the Dekhan and Gujrat when a terrible famine raged there. His wealth and magnificence appear most odious when contrasted with the misery and poverty of his people. And yet much, perhaps, may be forgiven him for the marvels of loveliness in stone and marble that he has left behind. It was in his time that Moghal architecture reached its height. Besides the Taj, he built the Moti Masjid—the Pearl Mosque in Agra; and the great Jami Masjid of Delhi, and the Diwan-i-am and Diwan-i-khas in the palace in Delhi. These are buildings of a noble simplicity; some of them enormous and yet graceful and elegant, and fairy-like in their beauty.

  But behind this fairy-like beauty were the poverty-stricken people, who paid for the palaces, though many did not even have mud huts to live in. There was unrestrained despotism, and fierce punishments were given to those who happened to displease the Emperor or his great viceroys and governors. The principles of Machiavelli governed the intrigues of the Court. Akbar’s clemency and toleration and good government were things of the past. Affairs were heading for trouble.

  Then came Aurangzeb, the last of the Great Moghals. He started off his reign by imprisoning his old father. For forty-eight years he reigned, from 1659 to 1707. He was no lover of art or literature, like his grandfather Jahangir, or of architecture like his father, Shah Jahan. He was an austere puritan, a bigot, tolerating no religion but his own. The pomp of the Court continued, but in his personal life Aurangzeb was simple and almost an ascetic. Deliberately he laid down a policy of persecuting the followers of the Hindu religion. Deliberately he reversed Akbar’s policy of conciliation and synthesis, and thus removed the whole foundation on which the Empire had so far rested. He reimposed the jizya tax on Hindus; he excluded Hindus from office as far as possible; he gave offence to the Rajput nobles, who had supported the dynasty since Akbar’s time, and brought on a Rajput war; he destroyed Hindu temples by the thousand, and many a beautiful old building of the past was thus reduced to dust. And while his empire spread in the south, and Bijapur and Golkonda fell to him, and tribute came to him from the far south, its foundations were sapped and it grew weaker and weaker, and enemies sprang up on every side. A Hindu petition to him against the jizya tax stated that the tribute “is repugnant to justice; it is equally foreign from good policy, as it must impoverish the country; moreover, it is an innovation and an infringement of the laws of Hindustan.” Referring to the conditions prevailing in the empire, it said:

  During your Majesty’s reign many have been alienated from the Empire and further loss of territory must necessarily follow, since devastation and rapine now universally prevail without restraint. Your subjects are trampled under foot, and every province of your Empire is impoverished, depopulation spreads, and difficulties accumulate.

  It was this general misery that was the prelude to the great changes that were to come over India during the next fifty years or so. Among these changes was the sudden and complete collapse of the great Moghal Empire after the death of Aurangzeb. Great changes and great movements almost always have economic causes at their backs, and we have seen the fall of great empires in Europe and China heralded and accompanied by economic collapse and subsequent revolution. So also in India.

  The Moghal Empire fell, as almost all empires fall, because of its own inherent weakness. It literally went to pieces. But this process was greatly helped by a new consciousness of revolt among the Hindus, which was brought to a head by Aurangzeb’s policy. But this religious Hindu nationalism of a kind had its roots even earlier than Aurangzeb’s reign and it may be that it was partly because of this that Aurangzeb became so bitter and intolerant. The Marathas and Sikhs and others were the spearheads of this Hindu revival, and the Moghal Empire was finally overthrown by them, as we shall see in the next letter. But they were not to profit by this rich inheritance. The British, quietly and cleverly, were to step in and take possession of the booty while others fought each other for it.

  It may interest you to know what the royal camp of the Moghal Emperors was like when they set out with an army. It was a tremendous affair, with a circumference of thirty miles and a population of half a million! This population included the army accompanying the Emperor, but there were vast numbers of other people, and hundreds of bazaars in this huge city on the march. It was in these moving camps that Urdu— the “camp” language—developed.

  There are many portraits of Moghal times still existing, fine and delicate paintings. There is a regular gallery of the portraits of the Emperors. They bring out wonderfully the personality of these men from Babar to Aurangzeb.

  The Moghal Emperors used to display themselves at least twice a day from a balcony to the people and receive petitions. When the English King George V came to India for the coronation durbar at Delhi in 1911 he was made to display himself in a like manner. The British consider themselves the successors of the Moghals to the dominion of India and try to copy them in pomp and vulgar display. As I have told you, the English King has even been given the title of the Moghal rulers—the Kaiser-i-Hind. Even now, probably there is nowhere in the world so much pomp and pageantry as there is round the person of the English Viceroy in India.

  I have not told you yet of the relations of the later Moghals with foreigners. In Akbar’s Court t
he Portuguese missionaries were great favourites, and Akbar’s contacts with the European world were mainly through the Portuguese. To him they appeared to be the most powerful of European nations, and they controlled the seas. The English were not in evidence. Akbar coveted Goa and even attacked it, but without success. The Moghals did not take to the sea kindly and were powerless before a naval Power. This is curious, as there was much ship-building in eastern Bengal at the time. But these ships were mostly meant for carrying merchandise. One of the reasons for the fall of the Moghal Empire is said to have been this powerlessness at sea. The day of the naval powers had come.

  When the English tried to come to the Moghal Court, the Portuguese were jealous of them and tried their best to prejudice Jahangir against them. But Sir Thomas Roe, an ambassador of James I of England, managed to reach Jahangir’s Court in 1615, and he gained concessions from the Emperor and laid the foundations of the East India Company’s trade. Meanwhile the English fleet had defeated Portuguese ships in Indian seas. The star of England was slowly rising over the horizon; Portugal was fading away in the west. The Dutch and the English gradually drove the Portuguese from eastern waters, and, you will remember, even the great port of Malacca fell to the Dutch in 1641. In 1629 there was war between Shah Jahan and the Portuguese in Hugli. The Portuguese were carrying on a regular slave trade and were making forcible conversions to Christianity. Hugli was captured by the Moghals after a gallant defence. The little country of Portugal was exhausted by these repeated wars. She retired from the contest for empire, but she clung on to Goa and a few other places, and there she is still.

  The English meanwhile started factories in the Indian coast towns near Madras and Surat. Madras itself was founded by them in 1639. In 1662 Charles II of England married Catherine of Braganza of Portugal and he got the island of Bombay as dowry. A little later he sold this for a trifle to the East India Company. This took place during Aurangzeb’s reign. The East India Company, proud of having driven away the Portuguese, and thinking that the Moghal Empire was weakening, tried to increase its possessions in India by force in 1685. But it came to grief. Warships came all the way from England and attacks were made on Aurangzeb’s dominions both in the east in Bengal and in the west in Surat. But the Moghals were still strong enough to defeat them severely. The English learnt a lesson from this, and were much more careful in future. Even on Aurangzeb’s death, when the Moghal power was obviously going to pieces, they hesitated for many years before venturing on big enterprises. In 1690 one of them, Job Charnock, founded the city of Calcutta. Thus the three cities of Madras, Bombay and Calcutta were founded by Englishmen, and they grew up in the beginning largely with British enterprise.

  Now France also appears in India. A French trading company is formed, and in 1668 they start a factory at Surat, and some at other places. A few years later they buy the town of Pondicherry, which becomes the most important commercial port on the east coast.

  In 1707 Aurangzeb died at the great age of nearly ninety. The stage is set for the struggle to possess the magnificent prize left by him—India. There are his own incompetent descendants and some of his great governors; there are the Marathas and Sikhs; and men looking covetously from across the north-west frontier; and the two foreign nations from across the seas—the English and the French. And what of the poor people of India?

  91

  The Sikhs and the Marathas

  September 12, 1932

  A strange patchwork was India during the hundred years following Aurangzeb’s death, a kaleidoscope, ever changing, but not very beautiful to look at. Such a period is an ideal one for adventurers and those who are bold and unscrupulous enough to seize opportunities without caring for the means or methods adopted. So adventurers rose all over India, adventurers who were native to the soil, and those who came across the north-west frontier, and those, like the English and French, who came across the seas. Each man or group played his or its own hand and was prepared to send all the others to the devil; sometimes two or more combined to crush a third, only, later, to fall out among themselves. There were frantic attempts to carve out kingdoms and to get rich quickly, and to plunder, often undisguised and unashamed, sometimes under a thin disguise of trade. And behind all this was the vanishing Moghal Empire, disappearing like the Cheshire cat, till not even the smile remained, and the so-called Emperor was an unhappy pensioner or prisoner of others.

  But all this upheaval and turmoil, and turning and twisting, were the outward indications of a revolution going on below the surface. The old economic order was breaking up; feudalism had had its day and was collapsing. It was not in keeping with the new conditions in the country. We have seen this process in Europe, and we have seen the merchant classes rise, only to be checked by absolute monarchs. Only in England, and to some extent in Holland, were the monarchs subdued. When Aurangzeb came to the throne, England was under the short-lived republic which followed the execution of Charles I. And it was during Aurangzeb’s reign also that the British revolution was completed by the running away of James II and the victory of Parliament in 1688. The fact that England had a semi-popular council like Parliament helped greatly in the struggle. There was something which could be set up against the feudal nobles and later, the king.

  In most other countries of Europe conditions were different. In France there was still the Grand Monarque, Louis XIV, who was a contemporary of Aurangzeb right through his long reign, and who survived him by eight years. Absolute rule continued there till almost the end of the eighteenth century, when there was a famous and a tremendous outburst—the great French Revolution. In Germany, as we saw, the seventeenth century was a terrible period. It was during this century that the Thirty Years’ War took place, which broke up the country and ruined it.

  Conditions in India in the eighteenth century were, to some extent, comparable to the Thirty Years’ War period of Germany. But do not drive the comparison too far. In both the countries there was an economic breakdown and the old feudal class was out of place. Although feudalism was collapsing in India, it did not disappear for a long time. And even when it had practically disappeared its outward form continued. Indeed, even today there are many relics of feudalism in India and in some parts of Europe.

  The Moghal Empire broke up because of these economic changes, but there was no middle class ready to take advantage of this break-up and seize power. There was also no organization or council representing these classes, as there had been in England. Too much despotic rule had made the people generally rather servile, and the old ideas of freedom, such as they were, were almost forgotten. Yet, as we shall see later, in this very letter, there were attempts, partly feudal, partly bourgeois and partly peasant, to seize power, and some of these attempts came near success. The main thing to note, however, is that there seems to have been a gap between the fall of feudalism and the rise of the middle class, sufficiently prepared to assume power. When there is such a gap there is trouble and turmoil, as there was in Germany. So it happened in India. Petty kings and princes fight for mastery in the country, but they are representatives of a decaying order, and have no secure foundations. They come up against a new class of persons: the representatives of the British bourgeoisie, which had triumphed recently in its own country. This British middle class represents a higher social order than the feudal; it is in keeping with the new conditions developing in the world; it is better organized and is more efficient; it has better tools and weapons and can thus wage war more effectively; and it has the command of the sea. The feudal princes of India cannot possibly compete with this new Power, and, one by one, they go down before it.

  This is a long enough prelude to this letter. We must now go back a little. I have referred in my last letter and in this to popular risings and to a religious Hindu nationalistic revival during the later days of Aurangzeb’s reign. We must now say something more about this. We find quite a number of semi-religious popular movements growing up in various parts of the Moghal Empire. They are
peaceful movements for a time, having little to do with politics. Songs and religious hymns are written in the languages of the country—in Hindi, Marathi, Punjabi—and become popular. These songs and hymns raise mass consciousness. Religious sects are formed round popular preachers. Pressure of economic circumstances gradually turns these sects to political questions; there is friction with the ruling authority—the Moghal Empire—then there is repression of the sect. This repression converts the peaceful religious sect into a military brotherhood. This was the development of the Sikhs, and of many other sects. The Marathas have a more complicated history, but there also we find a mixture of religion and nationalism taking up arms against the Moghals. The Moghal Empire was not overthrown by the British, but by these religious–nationalist movements, and especially by the Marathas. These movements naturally gained strength by Aurangzeb’s policy of intolerance. It is also quite possible that Aurangzeb became more bitter and intolerant because of this rising religious consciousness against his rule.

  As early as 1669 the Jat peasants of Mathura rose in rebellion. They were suppressed repeatedly, but they rose again and again for over thirty years, till Aurangzeb’s death. Remember that Mathura is quite near Agra, and these rebellions were thus taking place near the capital. Another rebellion was that of the Satnamis, a Hindu sect consisting mainly of common folk. Thus this was also a poor people’s rising, and was quite different from the revolts of nobles and governors and the like. A Moghal noble of the time describes them in disgust as “a gang of bloody miserable rebels, goldsmiths, carpenters, sweepers, tanners, and other ignoble beings”. In his opinion it must have been a scandalous thing for such “ignoble persons” to rise against their superiors.