Excellent account of history. Review on Last Mughal, The - William Dalrymple

This is a fantastic book. It reveals a lot of history which has been ignored by our school texts, maybe knowingly or unknowingly. But it's a shame that once again, a foreigner has to tell us our own history. It was extremely intriguing to know the state of the country in the nineteenth century. Some facts are striking, and I'll try to summarize some of these.

1) The cultural superiority of  Mughal Delhi- The author mentions this throughout the book. Zafar - the last - was a keen patron of the arts, especially poetry. Ghalib, and his rival, Zauq's ghazals flourished during this time, as did the miniature painting and Mughal architecture. Many of these arts were destroyed by the British as an extended punishment to the Mughals for their part in the Uprising.

2) The concept of India - While some reviewers have commented that there was no notion of "India" before the British, I dont think this is correct. It's true that there was no nation of India, but the concept of India as a subcontinent was very much present. Maybe it was something like Europe today - multiple nations but with similar cultures, languages etc. Hindustan existed as a unit comprising of what is now Delhi, Haryana, UP and parts of MP & Bihar. Bengal, Rajasthan and Punjab were seperate states, and indeed the king of Punjab actually helped the British by providing soldiers, and elephants for the seige of Delhi.

3) Was it a War of Independence or Mutiny- Well, this is quite a thorny issue. Many of us have read in our school days that the Uprising should be called the First Indian War of Independence. While foreign historians classify it as a Mutiny. From the events which took place, it's evident that it was a Mutiny at first. Individual regiments of Sepoys rebelled against British officers. However, it had the potential of turning into a full fledged War of Independence. After the initial rioting and looting by the Sepoys (interestingly, they looted and plundered Indian and British houses alike), there was a bit of order and the Sepoys were organized into an Army, swearing allegiance to the Mughal empreror, Zafar. What is most striking is that the Sepoys were really close in defeating the British(at least in Delhi). Had they had a proper experienced commander or general, they would have struck a crushing blow to the British Empire. Unfortunately, neither Zafar, nor the Sepoy leaders were that charismatic to command the Sepoy's respect. Zafar was a good king, with a sense of right and wrong, but he did not know what to do in this situation. In fact, the author shows that the Sepoys almost forced him to support their cause. Zafar initailly thought that the Sepoys were up to no good, rebelling against their masters, and never trusted them fully.

3) Religion- Contrary to popular notion, there was surprising harmony between Hindus and Muslims during Zafar's reign. There were hardline fundamentalists, but Zafar made it a point to keep them under check. Majority of the Sepoys were Hindus, but they recognized Zafar, a Muslim ruler, as their legitimate king. They even joined hands with Muslim jihadis to fight against the Christians, who they felt were treathening both Hinduism and Islam in India. There were incidents of communal tensions, but Zafar controlled these with surprisingly good sense - for example, he ordered all cows in Delhi to be registered, to prevent irking Hindu wrath due to cow slaughter. The final twist in the tale was that even though the Uprising was started by predominantly Hindu Sepoys, it was the Muslims who suffered the most after the British recaptured Delhi, because of one of the British officials, who had the wierd idea that the whole thing was an Islamic agenda against Christianity, and according to him, Zafar had accomplices in Iran and Turkey! The result of this was that most Muslims were banished from Delhi, while the Hindus were allowed to continue living there, and in some cases were even sold Muslim houses and property at cheap prices. This probably started the divide-and-rule tactic of the British.

4) Crime **- Then as now, there were people who took advantage of the crisis situation to make a quick buck at the expense of innocent victems. Initially the Sepoys ran amok in Delhi, looting shops and carrying off dancing girls from kothas. Then, the petty criminals of the city noticed this, and they started their own looting by dressnig up as Sepoys! Others waited in the outskirts of the city for fleeing British civilians and looted their carraiges. The situation was so bad, that when the British finally charged the city, Zafar himself could not escape Delhi for fear of the robbers in the outskirts!