by S L Bhyrappa
All the back-breaking work of planning, management, transport and supervision of a movement on this scale was beyond my imagination—it was a mobile capital. All I could learn was that two groups were appointed. One group was a sort of advance party. It identified the best spots to erect a large swathe of camps. Once the zenana reached the camp, the second group would have already left the first camping site to search for similar camping spots further on the road towards Agra. The two groups had to work in perfect coordination to avoid delay and confusion.
Hamdullah Sahib told me the extent of preparation involved in transporting Arsh Asyani Jalaluddin Akbar Badshah’s zenanas—one hundred elephants, five hundred camels, four hundred bullock carts and one hundred palanquin-bearers were employed for this purpose alone. Five hundred armed soldiers were engaged to guard this retinue and one hundred cleaners to clean and look after the members of the zenana. Five hundred servants were further hired to clean and smoothen the road. Not to mention the one hundred water-carriers, fifty carpenters and the many assorted servants for menial jobs in the camp. And then there were those who held the torch at night. Fifty leather-workers and about 150 sweepers were also included as a part of this retinue.
It was impossible to have an accurate count of the number of beasts and people in this vast human sea but I could discern, as a safe approximation, at least two thousand elephants, three or four thousand camels and thousands of servants. Hamdullah Sahib told me that he obtained the accurate count much later. Actually, a lot of workers weren’t really necessary, as a well-made highway already existed between Delhi and Agra. It was just a question of pitching tents in the most comfortable locations and providing supplies to the members of the zenana. The camps followed the strict grading system as always: the Diwan-e-Khaas and the Diwan-e-Aam, reserved for the badshah and his inner circle, were kept separate. Tents for the badshah’s favourite women followed a similar pattern. These special women had tents that measured ten yards long and six yards wide. The inner walls were decorated with exquisite paintings and embroidered with thin strands of silver and gold. A thick cloth, similarly decorated, separated the room of one begum from the other. The ground was covered with a luxurious carpet, three inches thick.
The same stricture was followed—no male eye could fall upon the women of the zenana. The guards, palanquin-bearers and every other male had to keep their eyes on the road at all times. Even an accidental glance elsewhere meant inviting hell at the hands of the nazar, whose band of eunuch-soldiers formed the first line of defence of these women. These eunuchs would flog the deviant man till the skin on his body was torn. This would be followed by a proper enquiry, resulting in some suitable sentence, like blinding or amputating hands or legs.
It took two weeks for us to reach Agra. Larger the size, slower the pace.
I retained contact with Hamdullah Sahib with the same frequency even after coming to Agra. The archives too, were shifted to Agra and before long Hamdullah Sahib had a palatial house just outside the Agra Fort, befitting his stature. I visited him regularly as if it was my duty whether or not I had lessons on that day. This pleased him immensely. He used to caress my head at every meeting and talk to me in affectionate tones. In a few weeks, I had earned his love and trust so completely that he began to whisper the innermost secrets of and the goings-on in the Mughal Empire.
Very soon, I had first-hand—well, almost first-hand—information of the rebellions erupting in various parts of the empire and the schemes the badshah had hatched to subdue them. I knew in advance where war would break out. I knew the names of the generals who had been selected for promotion. I learned of Konkan, a place dotted with large mountains, and of the people who lived there, called Marathas. Some upstart leader of the Marathas, named Shiva, had dared to pose a challenge against Aurangzeb Badshah’s might.
Hamdullah Sahib told me that Shiva was a coward who didn’t have the guts to fight the badshah’s army in an open field. He was a cunning strategist who had a thousand tactics in his arsenal. He would storm in usually at night or when the Mughal army’s guard was slightly down and kill at random. Or he would lie in wait in strategic places and when the Mughal army passed, pounce from nowhere, cause confusion, and kill indiscriminately. In every attack he and his band would loot the Mughal army.
‘In a very short time, Shiva’s name has inspired fear in the hearts of not just our army, but in the entire Konkan area. Shiva had declared that his life’s mission was to completely root out Muslim rule and establish a Hindu Empire. He had reached Surat and there, it was said that he had managed to destroy and loot large merchant establishments of foreigners engaged in marine trade under the protection of the Mughal Empire. The foreigners now respected him and openly ridiculed the Mughal army.’
Hamdullah Sahib then told me about Afzal Khan, the dreaded general of the sultan of Bijapur. Shiva accepted Afzal Khan’s offer for negotiations and when they met, he killed the giant of a warrior by plunging iron claws into his body. After this, he launched a swift attack that shattered Afzal Khan’s army and whatever remained of it fled in all directions.
Aurangzeb Badshah soon realized that Shiva had grown too big too quickly. Shiva was now known as Shivaji, the ‘ji’ suffix indicating respect. And so, the badshah entrusted the task of cutting down this upstart to Jai Singh, one of his ablest generals. Jai Singh was a hardened veteran and a master strategist. He was from Amber, a once-powerful kingdom of Rajputana. He had lost his father when he was just eight years old and was immediately appointed as a general in the Mughal Empire. When he was thirteen, he ascended the throne of Amber and swore his loyalty to the Mughal badshah. Ever since, he participated in several decisive wars and proved that his allegiance was firm. He was familiar with Muslim traditions because he grew up amidst those traditions and spoke Farsi, Turkish and Arabic. He was well-versed in the principles of Islamic statecraft, administration, diplomacy and cunning battle strategies. Jai Singh was older to Aurangzeb Badshah by ten years but he was the most trusted among the badshah’s generals. Jai Singh had stood by the badshah when he had rebelled against his own father and captured the Mughal throne. But nobody knew why he had supported Aurangzeb Badshah…was it because he was convinced of Aurangzeb Badshah’s eventual victory? Or was it simply prudence—or fear—that if he had not supported him back then, the badshah would trample him to dust? The answer was beyond even Hamdullah Sahib’s guess.
The first thing Jai Singh did upon his arrival in the South was to instigate all the kings there against Shivaji. He lured Sultan Adil Shah of Bijapur with a promise of reducing the annual tribute he had to pay to Aurangzeb Badshah. He entered into secret negotiations with the Portuguese, who had set up a flourishing port in Goa, promising them Mughal support if they joined hands with him to destroy Shivaji’s naval fleet. The Portuguese agreed because if Shivaji’s navy was destroyed, they would command a monopoly over the sea.
Jai Singh sent personal invitations to the heads of hundreds of tiny Hindu kingdoms and dispatched Brahmin officers under his command to carry out the actual negotiation. These Brahmin officers relayed a crafty message: ‘The mighty Jai Singh, who has come to give battle to Shivaji, is a Hindu. And we are Brahmins who feel honoured to work for him. But who is Shivaji? A petty mountain robber. What assurance do you have from him that he won’t loot you? If you join us, he will be powerless against our combined strength and you can forever eliminate your fear of being attacked by him.’
Jai Singh also made a clandestine deal with Atmaji, the chief of Shivaji’s cavalry, which consisted of more than three thousand horses. He bribed Atmaji’s two brothers and another general, Kaharkoli, with enormous sums of money. In return, they had to open up the ranks upon receiving Jai Singh’s signal while the battle was raging. Jai Singh’s intrigues worked. The battle ended in a fort called Purandhar, where a hopelessly-cornered Shivaji was left with no other option but to call for truce.
An overwhelming number of warriors who fought under Jai Singh were Rajputs. W
hile Shivaji agreed to the terms of the truce, he did not fully trust the Mughals. That was because Jai Singh promised him that Aurangzeb Badshah would make him the overlord of Deccan if he accepted his suzerainty. Jai Singh invited him to come to Agra to personally meet the badshah. Shivaji’s trusted aides warned him against the journey as they were certain the badshah planned to murder him at Agra. But Shivaji went nonetheless.
Once there, he was treated dishonourably, in stark contrast to what Jai Singh had promised him. He was insulted in the open durbar and Shivaji retorted harshly. Aurangzeb Badshah was furious. The plot to murder him had already been hatched. This incident was the exact excuse they were looking for. He is now under house arrest. We need to wait and watch how he’ll actually be murdered.
Word of Shivaji’s arrest reached the ears of regions far beyond the borders of Agra and Delhi. The mountain rat that had eluded every trap set by the formidable Aurangzeb Badshah and become the lone challenger to his might for so many years was now, finally in prison. The badshah had emerged once again as the supreme strategist. Courtiers, mansabdaars, subedaars, ministers were dumbfounded with amazement. The badshah was unchallengeable, he knew no defeat. ‘His father, Shahjahan Badshah, didn’t come anywhere close. As for Dara, Murad, and Shuja…hah! It’s purely Allah’s grace, which has put such a strong emperor on the throne!’ was the general refrain that echoed throughout Agra. Citizens did their namaz with greater fervour than before. On his part, the badshah clandestinely instructed his courtiers to ensure that the news of Shivaji’s arrest reached everybody. Gradually, this instruction was altered. The ‘ji’ suffix of respect was to be dropped whenever anybody wanted to take his name. He was now just ‘Shiva’. Every day, new instructions emerged from the durbar. His prowess, fame and name were steadily being debased, yet this served to increase the number of people who were curious to see the Maratha. Around the time he was imprisoned, Yusufzai and the Afridis in Afghanistan revolted against Aurangzeb Badshah. But this was another opportunity sent by Allah—the badshah decided to send Shiva, the nimble mountain rat, to quell them. His undisputed command in mountain warfare would be of enormous value to the badshah’s troops. Once the job was completed, he could arrange for Shiva’s murder and blame it on the rebels. However, Shiva fell mortally ill and it was pronounced that he would die from this illness. This was good—the badshah would now be spared the disgrace of being called the murderer of Shiva. When it was clear to Shiva that he wouldn’t recover, he took the durbar’s permission and dispatched his personal bodyguards to his home country. A dying man had no need for bodyguards.
The summer that year was exceptionally severe. Or was Agra’s summer crueller than Delhi? Heat sores erupted on our backs, forcing us to sleep face down. Life was comparably tolerable in the palace and zenanas. Kanchinis and other servants hung large mats of khuskhus grass and splashed water on them every hour or so to keep the heat down. A fan measuring three yards long and a yard wide made of khuskhus reeds was suspended by a rope from a beam above, which was continuously tugged to fan the begums. These servants earned their respite from the killing heat in this manner, a respite that was denied to eunuchs. We drank copious amounts of water. Agra never ran dry.
The recompense for that insufferable summer arrived in the form of timely monsoon. As was the practice, nobody wanted to miss the first drops of rain. The begums ran out into the courtyard and got drenched, still fully covered in their burqas. The Yamuna looks more enchanting in Agra than in Delhi. It filled up quickly and the non-stop rain swelled it enough to touch the fort walls.
With the rains came a sudden, unexpected tiding, which quickly transformed itself into a city-wide whisper: the mountain rat had outmanoeuvred the badshah. The rat had escaped but the badshah had responded instantly by dispatching a small army on swift horses, which were specially trained for lightning-fast pursuits. They sped in the direction of the mountains. The guards who had patrolled Shiva’s prison were as good as dead. To the citizens, the story of Shiva’s escape was more daring and romantic than his capture by the badshah. He was undoubtedly made of different mettle to actually escape from the hawk-like clutches of Aurangzeb Badshah.
‘The badshah is anxious now. If this wretched mountain rat manages to reach his hole in the Deccan, the Alamgir’s dream of bringing the whole of South under the Mughal Crown will be dashed forever,’ Hamdullah Sahib said.
The badshah shifted his entire administration back to Delhi after his birthday durbar festivities concluded. By now, I could converse with Udaipuri Mahal in fluent Farsi and I could sense that her kindness towards me had increased. She promoted me as the junior supervisor of her mansion. This meant that I had more free time on hand, most of which I spent at Hamdullah Sahib’s house. I also had relatively more freedom. I was not confined to the zenana. I wandered in the affluent localities and the gullies and sometimes went to the deserted and weather-worn areas built by the earlier sultans in the old city. My solitary journeys revealed that Delhi was not one single city but a cluster of many old cities, and each one had a history of its own. I decided to find out these histories from Hamdullah Sahib.
After his return from Agra, the badshah began a major exercise of tightening the administration. One prominent change was to fortify all those principles of Islamic administration and jurisprudence that had fallen lax, owing largely to Akbar Badshah. He personally examined every law and purged any law that violated Islamic tenets.
Jahangir Badshah had not been as religiously corrupt as his father, but his devotion to Islam was not absolute either. To his credit, he ordered the destruction of temples here and there and commanded his men to piss and shit on the idols. But it was Shahjahan Badshah who had instituted the systematic destruction of Hindu temples. He had prohibited both the construction of new temples and the renovation of existing temples throughout the Mughal Empire and embarked on a policy of converting the infidels into Islam using any device that worked. He tried to allure his Hindu courtiers, officers and common citizens to Islam by offering them higher salaries, gold, power and pelf. Where it did not work, he threatened stubborn Hindu officers with transfers to remote provinces and, in some cases, with dismissal. He introduced a hefty pilgrim tax for Hindus who went on pilgrimages. He appointed Shamir La Houri and Muhib Ali Sindhi as officers whose task was to create appropriate positions for Hindus who were willing to convert to Islam.
The grandfather’s efforts were half-hearted and his father, though zealous, was slovenly. What they had begun was completed by Aurangzeb Badshah with none of the tepidity and sloth that characterized his predecessors. He pursued his goal of Islamizing the entire Mughal Empire with single-minded zeal and discipline—Islam determined what was permitted or forbidden. Every law that was written and every order that was pronounced was utterly faithful to Islamic tenets. Nobody could fool the badshah, who had the Koran right on the tip of his tongue. His command over the Holy Book surpassed that of the brightest scholars and theologians. He could accurately interpret even the most obscure and tough verses and he had an infallible understanding of the aims and goals that the Koran laid down for the Faithful to follow. Allah was the only true king. The badshahs who ruled various parts of this earth were mere representatives of Allah. Every badshah’s goal and duty was to propagate Allah’s name to all corners of his empire.
No subject was allowed to worship, indeed, even to take the name of a god other than Allah, for nobody was equal to Allah and any person who did this was a traitor. Taking the name of any other god was the highest crime that a citizen could commit, the punishment for which was death. It was the sacred duty of every Muslim to strive in the path of Allah and every such effort to discharge this sacred duty was known as jihad. Jihad included all endeavours to convert infidel kingdoms, Dar ul Harb—to the kingdoms of the Faithful, Dar ul Islam—by waging war against them. If the Faithful won the war, the vanquished infidels automatically became slaves of the Faithful. Jihad was a perpetual struggle because thousands of infidel kingdoms exis
ted in the world and they all needed to be converted to the Kingdom of Islam, because the ultimate goal of the Kingdom of Islam was to erase all divergent beliefs until the Only True Faith stood firm on this earth.
Aurangzeb Badshah, being one of the purest Muslims, put all his energies into carry out his part in fulfilling this noble goal. He was a benevolent badshah who spared the lives of those who converted to Islam. He knew what the Sacred Koran said, ‘When the forbidden months are past, then fight and slay the Pagans wherever you find them, and seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem; but if they repent, and establish regular prayers and practise regular charity, then open the way for them: for Allah is Oft-forgiving, Most Merciful.’ (Koran,9.5.6) And further, ‘Say to the Unbelievers, if now they desist from Unbelief, their past would be forgiven them; but if they persist, the punishment of those before them is already a matter of warning for them. And fight them on until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in Allah altogether and everywhere; but if they cease, verily Allah doth see all that they do’ (Koran, 8.38–39).
A non-Muslim had no political rights. Not just that. He had no right of any kind to live in a Muslim kingdom. If indeed he was allowed to live, it was a temporary reprieve. His position was slightly better than that of a slave and he was recognized by the title of zimmi. A zimmi was allowed to live only because he agreed to bind himself with a zimma, a contract with the government. He was prohibited by law from enjoying the same rights that a Muslim citizen did, and he had to pay the jaziya, a tax that allowed non-Muslims to live in a Muslim kingdom. He had to bend down from the waist while paying the jaziya, according to the stricture that the Holy Prophet (Peace Be Upon Him) had laid down: ‘Fight those who believe not in Allah… until they pay the Jaziya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued’ (Koran, 9.29). The Muslim who collected the jaziya was to sit in an elevated seat at all times while accepting it.