The construction of the Escorial, one of the largest palaces in Europe commissioned by King Philip II in the mountains above Madrid, was begun in 1563, almost 100 years before the Red Fort. At about 206 by 161 metres (675 by 528 feet), its size made it closer than most other Renaissance royal buildings to the scale of a small city. Yet, it was more than five times smaller in plan area than just the inner palace of the Red Fort.
Originally, each of the pavilions within the inner palace of the Red Fort were constructed with their own individual courts separated by arcades, colonnades and buildings, through which there were limited points of entry and exit. Movement was planned and organised carefully in this part of the palace which was reserved solely for Shah Jahan and his numerous wives whom he wed in the polygamous tradition of the Mughals.
In addition, the Mughal seraglio was also the residence of the emperor’s female relatives and concubines and their attendants. The Mughal emperors only occasionally gave their daughters in marriage to foster political alliances, ostensibly since no man was considered good enough to marry a Mughal princess,24 but more probably to limit contenders for the throne.
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Outsiders were therefore forbidden to enter this part of the palace, both to ensure the emperor’s safety and to prevent the large number of royal women in the seraglio from contracting any misalliances. The strict practice of segregation of the inner palace was aided by its maze-like quality with shifting axes and protected entry points. Nevertheless, it is said that some ingenious and daring young men did manage to enter this area, aided by the women within. An old woman, a half-caste Portuguese who was a slave in the seraglio, apparently related one such story to Bernier, as recorded in his memoirs.
One day during the reign of Emperor Aurangzeb, a young man was secretly smuggled into the inner part of the Red Fort, with the help of some of the inmates. The object of his visit was the emperor’s younger sister, Roshanara Begum. The princess, after contriving to keep the youth hidden in her part of the palace for some days, entrusted him to her personal attendants to lead him out of the Fort in safety. Promising faithfully to do so, the attendants guided the youth out from the seraglio under cover of darkness.
But, before they could even lead him out of the inner palace, the women fled, perhaps for fear of discovery. The youth, terrified and lost, tried all night to find a way out. In the morning, he was discovered, still wandering in the maze of passages and gardens. The presence of a strange man in the seraglio was a serious matter, and he was summarily brought into Aurangzeb’s presence. Well aware what an admission of his presence in the royal seraglio might result in, the youth insisted even on repeated questioning, that he had merely scaled the high walls of the Fort on the riverbank and gained entry into the Imperial Quarter. The sceptical emperor ordered him to descend in the same way. And the palace eunuchs, in an excess of zeal, threw the young man down a height of sixty feet on the river-bank.
The final fate of Roshanara’s unfortunate suitor is not recorded, though it is unlikely that he would have successfully survived such a descent from the Fort walls. This news must have increased the vigilance of the eunuch guards (who were, it seems, punished severely for this security lapse) as well as discouraged prospective visitors to the seraglio.
This excerpt from Anisha Shekhar Mukherji’s ‘The Red Fort of Shahjahanabad: An Architectural History’ has been taken with permission from Westland Non-Fiction, an imprint of Westland Books.