New Delhi: From Madhubala’s Anarkali to a love struck Hrithik Roshan in Jodhaa Akbar—the Mughals are firmly entrenched in pop culture, enticing even the chroniclers of Delhi with their gilded charm. But this ongoing obsession among the city’s historians with the Mughals, the British Raj or Partition has resulted in a selective, restricted history.
“More needs to be written about the Delhi Sultans,” said scholar and author Rana Safvi in conversation with Madhulika Liddle at New Delhi’s India Habitat Centre on 8 May. Liddle’s new book An Unholy Drought, the second installment of her Delhi Quartet series, provided the backdrop for a discussion on how the capital city is represented in literature.
In An Unholy Drought, Delhi frames a family saga that spans a hundred years as an old man living during Akbar’s reign, archives his family’s history.
The emperors and their devotion to recording everything offers a rare insight into the period, and a readymade tapestry for fiction. The result is a perfect concoction of intrigue, romance, and attraction. But these easy pickings leave the rest of Delhi’s labyrinthine history unexplored.
There is so much history left to uncover, Safvi pointed out.
In fact, Liddle moved away from the Mughals in the first book of the series, Garden of Heaven. It’s set in the backdrop of the Delhi Sultanate spanning a period of two hundred years between two invasions of the city—that of Muhammed of Ghur in 1192 CE, and Taimur in the winter of 1398.
But the problem with writing such historical fiction in periods other than the Mughal era, is the lack of sources. Mughal history, in contrast, is rich and pompous; with its sources ranging from Persian, Jain to Jesuit.
“It’s a very juicy period,” said Liddle.
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Beyond politics and power
Liddle’s fiction is also an attempt to look beyond the political clout surrounding Delhi, which has been extensively written about in fiction and nonfiction. But apart from a few books, there isn’t much work done on the cultural diversity and complexity that used to exist in the city. According to Liddle, Urdu poet and author Shamsur Rahman Faruqi did this. She recalled a character in his novel, Kai Chaand the Sar-e-Aasman, who was preyed on by thugs—they were Muslims who worshiped Hindu goddesses.
“This is the cultural diversity, the give and take and elasticity of customs that I’d like to write about,” Safvi said. While writing her first book on Mehrauli, her research showed that before going into the Battle of Panipat, Hindu king Hemu went to Qutub Sahab’s dargah to pray.
“Religion falls prey to politics,” said Liddle.
This syncretism is often scribbled over by the “Whatsapp world”, as Liddle calls it. She shares her research anecdotes about Hem Chandra or Hemu who is now portrayed as a propagator of Hindu Rashtra on social media and forwards. But this same Hemu had Afghan generals which virtually turns the entire narrative around.
In her latest book, she explores Delhi’s spirituality through the Sufi saints, the Yogmaya temple and lastly, the city’s climate. The Unholy Drought is set in 1556 CE right after the death of Humayun when his 13-year-old son and heir, Akbar, must battle to save his throne, even as a drought devastates the northern plains.
The idea was to explore Delhi’s history in an entertaining way, “to reach out and show people who may not read non-fiction some idea of what Delhi’s history is,” said Liddle.
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From lecture halls to page-turners
The last few years have seen an explosion of popular history. It’s not just historian William Dalrymple holding forth on India’s past. Today, historians and authors like Manu Pillai and Anirudh Kanisetti are filling in the gaps for the non-academic reader.
Such narrative history only started becoming popular over the last 20 years. When Safvi was a college student, other than academia, historical novels or fiction were not accepted.
But recently, academics have also started writing narrative history for the public who “for the last 15 years have been fed WhatsApp”, she said wryly to the majorly salt and pepper haired audience at the Gulmohar Hall. But admittedly, according to Safvi, this narrative history is a far more reliable and an interesting way to engage with and learn about history as opposed to Whatsapp.
“If you understand and relate to history, maybe you’ll care more for it,” Liddle said, recalling her trip earlier this year to Ahmedabad in Gujarat where she saw the sites of Mahmud Begada. “I was so excited,” she said, but her husband and daughter were clueless.
One of the things about Begada that Liddle remembers from her 11th grade history textbook is that he was the Sultan of Gujarat with a huge appetite. He used to sleep with two huge platters of meat samosas on either side of the bed. “It’s been more than 30 years but this has stuck with me.”
Lidde’s love for history runs in the family. She was inspired by her sister, the historian Swapna Liddle, the chronicler of Delhi’s past.
Answering questions from the audience, Madhulika Liddle revealed that her other big inspiration, one that pushed her into writing the Muzaffar Jung series, was The India Habitat Centre itself. Her first job was in The Habitat World in 1994 and one of its first initiatives were historical walks. “That got me even more interested than I already was.”
In a room full of friends, family, readers, history and literary enthusiasts, she pointed to the projector screen where the cover of An Unholy Drought was on display with its intricate golden patterns creeping into a royal purple. The cover was inspired by the iconic Shikargarh Brocade motifs, which were found during and even before the Mughal and Sultanate periods.
“I was just wishing it was winter and we could have worn Shikargarh sarees,” laughed Safvi as the audience joined in.
(Edited by Theres Sudeep)
I was not at this event, that quote is probably from one of the speakers there?