Kings, kebabs, and culture

In 1504, Zahir-ud-din Babur, a young Turko-Mongol prince captured the city of Kabul after the humiliating loss of his Central Asian kingdom to a rival clan. His kingdom which included the splendid cities of Samarqand, Badakhshan and Farghana was a proud legacy of his illustrious forefather, Taimur Lang, the 14th century Turko-Mongol conqueror who had succeeded in subduing large parts of Persia and Northern India. Babur’s losses in Central Asia forced him to turn to Hindustan or India which he conveniently claimed as a part of Taimur’s legacy in view of the latter’s brief occupation of Delhi, the capital city of Hindustan during a brutal sack of the city and its countryside in 1398 A.D.

Babur thus began a series of attacks on Hindustan from Kabul which also became a refuge for other fugitive princes from Central Asia. Taking advantage of his new-found status among the refugee Timurids, Babur shrewdly declared himself a Padishah, the King of Kings. Babur finally succeeded in capturing Delhi-Agra along with most of North India on his fifth campaign in 1526 after winning the first battle of Panipat against Sultan Ibrahim Lodhi. The victory laid down the foundation of the Mughal Empire in India which was enlarged by Babur’s grandson, Jalal-ud-din Akbar during his five-decade rule through a policy of energetic conquests and consolidation of newer regions in the Indian sub-continent.  

The Mughal tax system

The Mughals refined the quality of governance of the Indian sub-continent by creating a separate military and civilian bureaucracy with distinct powers and functions; importantly, each department was accountable only to the central government in Delhi or Agra. We see this dual system still being maintained in modern India unlike its neighbouring country of Pakistan. Additionally, the Mughals divided their empire into larger administrative units called Subahs which were further divided into smaller units of Parganas and Tehsils formed out of a certain number of villages. This system is much similar to the modern Indian system of dividing the country into federal states which are then divided into districts, tehsils and talukas for efficient governance.

Akbar’s finance minister, Todar Mal devised a relatively humane system of tax collection called Dahsaal, which took into consideration the average ten-year production of crops, failed monsoons and other local factors affecting farmers in each region before applying the taxes on them. This system also called as Todar Mal ka bandobast, made provisions for agricultural loans to the peasants called Taqavi to promote agriculture and relief in revenue collection for failure of crops. This system brought prosperity both to the rulers and the ruled till it was implemented in the right spirit. In fact, most revolts against the Mughals in the later periods owed their origin to the excesses committed by local faujdars, the local military representatives during revenue collection. We see the same spirit in today’s governance where the ruling government, which is sympathetic to the plight of farmers, wins their confidence and loses it if it ignores or acts insensitively towards them.    

Evolution of the currency, arts and culture

Akbar also improved India’s currency system by adopting the currency reforms of Sher Shah Suri, a rival Afghan ruler who briefly ruled Delhi-Agra between 1540 and 1545. Sher Shah introduced the silver Rupaiya and its lower unit, the copper Paisa. Akbar improvised the system by adding a gold coin called the Ashrafi and introduced a dynamic exchange rate between the three coins. This tri-metallic currency innovated during Akbar’s reign outlasted even the Mughal Empire and became the base of the British India’s currency till the beginning of World War II. It was also adopted by the Republic of India in 1950 in a modified form where One Rupee was deemed as equal to 64 Paisa or 16 Annas. This stable currency system has lent the modern Indian Rupee not only its name but wider acceptance due to its long history of four centuries.

The Mughals were also responsible for bringing in the prevailing Persian culture in the arts and sciences of the Indian sub-continent. Persian language then the lingua franca of Asia flourished at the Mughal courts in the form of poetry and literary arts. The turn to Persian culture can be attributed to both Babur and later Humayun during his exile to Persia between 1540 and 1553 A.D. Humayun was so enamoured of the language that he returned to India in 1556 with an army of Persian poets, calligraphers, architects and mason artisans.

In terms of language, the Mughal culture gave rise to a syncretic Indian language first termed as Hindavi or Dehlavi and later called Zabaan-i-Urdu (lit. Language of the Army) shortened to Urdu. Urdu largely drew its vocabulary from Indic languages like Sanskrit and its Prakrits with a dash of Persian, Arabic and Chagatai Turki. Urdu developed under the patronage of later Mughals and the successor kingdoms of Awadh and Hyderabad. It soon developed its own idiom which gave rise to modern Urdu poetry utilised by the first generation of Bollywood writers like Shakeel Badayuni and Shailendra. The Mughals also brought to India Persian painting which was nurtured in the karkhanas of Akbar and his successors growing into a distinct style of Mughal miniature painting.

Art and architecture

There was a rise in the fusion between Indian and Islamic architectural elements creating what is termed as the Indo-Saracenic school of architecture. The distinct style matured with the building of Humayun’s tomb and the Agra fort during Akbar’s reign, the Sikandara and Itimad-ud-daula’s tomb during Jahangir’s reign and finally the Taj Mahal and the Red Fort at Delhi during Shah Jahan’s reign. It later inspired the twentieth-century British architect Edwin Lutyens to employ these elements in designing the splendid buildings of the modern capital city of New Delhi in 1911. Lutyens’ Delhi still functions as the seat of the government of India in the twenty-first century. Their love for nature cannot be missed, thanks to the Mughal gardens, the first one in Agra, built under the instructions of Babur and later completed during the rule of Jahangir and Shah Jahan. Mughal arts have also impacted modern Indian garments especially the style of weaving and printed designs. Empress Noorjahan can be aptly described as Mughal India’s haute-couture specialist as she designed her own dresses and jewellery with great style and aplomb as the First Lady of the empire, under Jahangir. Modern fashion designers continue to employing the vibrant Mughal styles in embroidery, jewellery and garment printing. And how can one forget Mughlai food which grew from a simple Central Asian repast to a richly flavoured and aromatic cuisine in the hands of Mughal khansamas who also incorporated regional recipes to cook various meats with a liberal dash of Indian spices.

Lessons in harmony

However, the most important contribution of the Mughals to India has been lessons from its long history especially its mistakes which led to a break in the process of building a nation in the nineteenth century. The third Mughal ruler, Akbar recognised the importance of amiable relations between India’s multitudes of faiths early in his reign. He employed an official policy called Sulh-i-Kul, Universal Peace by imposing a ban on the much hated Jaziya tax, which made him the most successful Mughal emperors. This policy was also adopted in spirit by his son, Jahangir and grandson, Shah Jahan, giving the empire a century of peaceful and prosperous existence. However, the policy was overturned by his great-grandson, Aurangzeb who reimposed the Jaziya along with other orthodox measures like the destruction of temples during his fifty-year long reign. He thus faced a series of revolts all over the Empire which ultimately led to its ruin. This is a valuable lesson for modern India as harmony between its different faiths will help the country rise to its actual potential while a confrontational attitude between its communities will only mar its chances.