Book review: Michael H. Fisher,A Short History of The Mughal Empire

The Mughal Empire manifested a distinctly fascinating phase in the history of India that has kept generations agog with the enormous power that it wielded, its wealth, stability, territorial extent, in other words, its general characteristics including its disintegration. Arousing widespread interest, it has engrossed historians in contentious debates with regard to its idioms and institutions and the regions that constituted it. Whatever it be, it is hardly a matter of dispute that it was marked by social and economic dynamism and cultural vibrancy, that it bound together persons of different ethno-racial, religious and linguistic backgrounds though ‘regional centralisation’ remained its distinguishing feature, stimulated further in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries by the political and military expansion of the East India Company. Michael Fisher’s book discusses these varied aspects of the Mughal Empire.

Written for Tauris, the book is a short history of the Mughal Empire. Nevertheless, its engagement with the scholarly debates, significant themes and events and its chronological historical narrative is insightful and cogent. Captivating in style, the book focuses on not only the Chingizid and Timurid origins of the Mughal emperors but also the issues of environment, economics, gender, cultures, communities, religious identities, varnas and the power of languages and literature that dominated South Asia during the period. Fisher argues that though Babur undertook no serious investigation about the cultures or internal social divisions of the people he ruled, he was aware that they included several distinct Muslim and non-Muslim groups. In fact, the author says that the elite and popular beliefs, customs and habits of the different communities in South Asia were widely distinguished by social class and region. Describing the politics of Hindustan in the early sixteenth century, Fisher explains the creation of the Mughal Empire by Babur facilitated by military technology and weaponry that continued to evolve and develop through the Mughal Empire. Explicating Mughal court culture, the author persuasively narrates the problems of a patrimonial Mughal state, the conflicts around succession and the obsessive behaviour of each male member of the royal family to fulfil his dynastic ambition and claim individual sovereignty—a cumbersome attitude evidently seen from the time of Humayun’s accession. Yet the Mughal emperors never attempted to institutionalise primogeniture. Fisher’s sensational, theatrical depiction of the events preceding the accession of Akbar is absolutely enthralling!

Akbar ruled for five decades (1556–1605) strengthening and consolidating the patrimonial state of the Mughals facilitated by his political marriages that allowed him to define and extend his household, allies and officials, giving his relatives by marriage access to powerful and prestigious administrative positions. As Akbar evolved and matured into a transformed personality from the age of 14 to 64, he along with his coterie and close confidantes, developed, as Fisher narrates, capitals, ideologies, territories and made his court elaborately ritualised and hierarchic rather than collegial like Babur’s. Even as Jahangir emulated the standards set by Akbar in civil and military administration, his reign was marked by several compositions on etiquette and patronage of arts and literature. A connoisseur of art, he patronised art for its own sake as well as for political propaganda. Fisher tells us that Jahangir expanded his library of individual paintings and illustrated manuscripts, which he sorted by quality and subject matter: for example, he graded manuscripts into five classes based on the quality of calligraphy, illuminations, paper and content. Fisher suggests that the emperor’s patronage of poets and other literati who wrote in Persian and Indic regional languages was conditional, that is, they had to necessarily eulogise and locate him in a divine cosmology. Shahjahan’s reign was distinguished by splendour in art and architecture, notwithstanding the administrative tensions and conflicts that he inherited from Jahangir. He is known to have personally supervised and inspected the imperial architectural projects. His court was ‘gloriously stately’ as Fisher remarks and ‘his demeanour remained grave, solemn and elevated’ as compared to Akbar and Jahangir. His atelier represented his formalistic tastes in art that displayed his imperial power and he commissioned portraits that presented him in full profile with a halo.

It is pertinent to move beyond the general appraisal of Aurangzeb as a pious Muslim and a paradox, who achieved the climax of territorial limits and was yet held responsible for the dismantling of power. Audrey Truschke’s 2017 biography and somewhat differently, Katherine Butler Brown (MAS 2007) have been useful attempts in this direction.

Tracing the history of the Mughals from the early sixteenth century to contemporary perceptions, this book reflects Michael Fisher’s erudite understanding of the Mughal Empire. Written with ease, it is remarkably eloquent and lucid with almost every detail and theme packed in this ‘short history’ of the Mughal Empire. Given the tenor of the book, the discussion on each of the issues may be brief but it is an invaluable interlocutor, pointing to further fields of inquiry. The charts, maps and illustrations add to the value of the book. This splendid book will be of interest to both students of history and general readers.