Tushar Goel’s film, ‘The Taj Story’, has reignited controversy over the Taj Mahal’s origins, claiming it is a Hindu temple rather than a mausoleum built by Mughal emperor Shah Jahan. The film’s debut highlights debates about the interplay of history and ideology in contemporary India.
Scaffoldings are pictured as restoration work goes on at the dome of the Taj Mahal in Agra on October 17. | Photo Credit: AFP
A little over 60 years ago, Purushottam Nagesh Oak slept and dreamt. He woke up and claimed that the Taj Mahal in Agra was actually a Hindu palace going back all the way to 4th century. Friends of Mr. Oak, an English teacher-turned-lawyer-turned-journalist but never a historian, told him that the Taj Mahal couldn’t have been a fourth century structure as the technology employed in building the Taj in the 17th century didn’t exist back then. The fantasist turned a pragmatist, and Oak brought his argument forward by a few centuries. The Taj was now claimed to be a Hindu temple. This was in 1989. He wrote articles and a book too, but found no support from historians. Even the Supreme Court dismissed his claims as “a bee in his bonnet” in 2000.
But post-2014, history is like a revolving door, you enter and exit at your ease and pleasure. You pick and choose, you circumvent and invent. Dress it up as a movie and claim you are looking at history anew. That is how we get a movie like Tushar Amrish Goel’s The Taj Story, starring former BJP MP Paresh Rawal; just like we had The Kashmir Files and The Bengal Files, starring Anupam Kher and Mithun Chakraborty, all ideological partners of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
With The Taj Story, Goel goes where no historian has gone. Proof, evidence and knowledge amount for nothing as the director makes a case for the Mughal monument being actually a Hindu temple, much like the BJP leader Sangeet Som who called it alternately a Shiva temple and a monument built by a man who incarcerated his father. Mr. Som obviously couldn’t make out a Shah Jahan from an Aurangzeb and hence got mixed up. Much like Oak, oops, Goel, who sees no difference between history and mythology, facts and fantasy.
Recorded history
Talking of facts, the Taj Mahal was built by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan after his favourite wife Arjumand Bano Begum breathed her last after bearing the last of their 14 children. Its chief architect was Ustad Ahmed Lahori. The land for her last resting place was procured from Mirza Raja Jai Singh of Amber who had inherited it from Raja Man Singh, a celebrated general of Akbar, who was Shah Jahan’s grandfather. Shah Jahan compensated Jai Singh with four havelis from the royal property for the massive haveli in which rests Mumtaz Mahal. His firman to Jai Singh, the latter’s agreement and the Mughal emperor’s subsequent letter of granting him four havelis in lieu of one, are all part of history; unlike the claim of The Taj Story which talks in terms of a massacre and genocide of the locals for fulfilling the wishes of an emperor and his consort!
The work on the tomb started in 1632 with the finest craftsmen from across the country and West Asia. The chief mason was Mohammed Hanif from Baghdad who earned ₹1000 a month for his efforts. The pinnacle was built by Qayam Khan of Lahore and its Quranic inscriptions were done by Amanat Khan Shirazi. The mosaic work was done by local Hindu workers. Above all, some 20,000 workmen toiled for 22 years to build the monument to love. Its white marble came from Jaipur, lapis lazuli from Sri Lanka, crystal from China and coral from Arabia. The monument uses the double dome technique, previously seen only in the Humayun’s tomb in Delhi, and never seen in the country before the arrivals of the Turks.
Not the first time
Over the years, many have tried to appropriate credit for its beauty and majesty. In the 17th century, it was claimed by many in the West that the architect of the Taj was Venetian Geronimo Veroneo, a jeweller by profession. Then came the claim by Mughal Beg in Tarikh-e-Taj Mahal that it was designed by Muhammad Effendi, an architect supposedly sent by the Sultan of Turkey. Effendi though was as much an architect as Oak was a historian. In the mid 19th century it was claimed that the monument was the result of the genius of Frenchman Austin de Bordeaux, a jeweller. However, Austin died in 1632, the year the work on the Taj began. With his death all claims of Austin being the Taj’s architect were buried. And facts began to be raised.
As for fantasy, well there is Goel’s film, never mind its claim of presenting the “untold history of the Taj Mahal”. The film, replete with stereotypes of kohl-lined, skullcap-donning Muslims aims at building a nation’s memory on unreasoned mythology, far removed from the well argued debates of history. Much like Oak’s view that Christianity was nothing but Krishan-Niti. Not game for any ridiculous claims in an insipid film which opened with a mere 14% attendance in the first show? Watch M. Sadiq’s 1963-saga Taj Mahal. Sure, you would remember its song, ‘Jo wada kiya woh nibhana padega’, penned by Sahir Ludhianvi and sung with much love by Mohammad Rafi and Lata Mangeshkar. Sadiq’s film with Pradip Kumar and Bina Rai in the lead cast, made no effort at replacing history with mythology.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Entertainment> Movies> In the limelight / by Zia Us Salam / November 07th, 2025
Muslim-majority Malerkotla has been declared as the 23rd district of the state, with the Punjab government fulfilling a decade-long demand of its residents.
The government college in Malerkotla | Wikimedia commons
Chandigarh:
On the occasion of Eid-ul-Fitr Friday, Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh declared the Muslim-majority Malerkotla as the 23rd district of the state, while announcing a slew of projects for the development of the historic city.
The move fulfils an at least decade-old demand in Malerkotla and a promise that the ruling Congress had made in its manifesto ahead of the 2017 assembly elections.
Punjab’s decision, however, hasn’t gone down well with the BJP, particularly Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath.
Adityanath tweeted Saturday that the move was “proof of the Congress’ divisive politics”.
“Any distinction on the basis of religion is contrary to the basic spirit of the Constitution of India,” the Uttar Pradesh CM said. “Presently, the formation of Malerkotla (Punjab) is a reflection of the divisive policy of the Congress.”
मत और मजहब के आधार पर किसी प्रकार का विभेद भारत के संविधान की मूल भावना के विपरीत है।
इस समय, मलेरकोटला (पंजाब) का गठन किया जाना कांग्रेस की विभाजनकारी नीति का परिचायक है।
Tarun Chugh, the BJP’s national secretary from Punjab, weighed in, saying the decision was clearly “communal” and that it was for the first time in the history of Punjab that an administrative decision was taken to further communal interests.
None of these charges, however, will find any resonance in Punjab, where Sikhs and Malerkotla’s Muslims share historically harmonious ties. So entrenched is this solidarity, that the Muslim-majority region saw no violence even as the rest of Punjab went up in flames during Partition in 1947.
The Punjab chief minister even alluded to this while responding to his UP counterpart.
“What does he (Yogi Adityanath) know of Punjab’s ethos or the history of Malerkotla, whose relationship with Sikhism and its Gurus is known to every Punjabi? And what does he understand of the Indian Constitution, which is being brazenly trampled every day by his own government in UP?” Amarinder asked in a statement issued Saturday evening.
A 300-year-old legacy
Punjab Sikhs’ reverence for the Muslims of Malerkotla dates back chiefly to one singular event in history.
According to Anna Bigelow, associate professor of Islamic Studies in the Department of Religious Studies at Stanford University, the Nawab of Malerkotla, Sher Muhammad Khan, had in 1705 opposed the death penalty handed out to nine-year-old Baba Zorawar Singh and seven-year-old Baba Fateh Singh — the sons of Guru Gobind Singh, the 10th Sikh Guru.
Bigelow, who has researched Malerkotla’s history, writes that despite Khan’s protests, the then Mughal governor of Sirhind, Wazir Khan, bricked alive the two children.
The Malerkotla nawab’s defiance, referred to as “ha da naara (cry for justice), however, earned him the respect and adoration of Sikhs.
“Guru Gobind Singhji blessed Sher Muhammad Khan and ever since Malerkotla has become an icon of Sikh-Muslim brotherhood,” said the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) general secretary Dr Daljeet Singh Cheema. “Even during Partition, this town remained completely peaceful.”
The new district will also have a government medical college in the name of Nawab Sher Muhammad Khan.
The Opposition SAD has backed Chief Minister Amarinder, with Cheema issuing a statement that Adityanath’s tweet was in bad taste and symbolic of his complete lack of historical knowledge about Malerkotla town and its significance for Sikhs.
“Malerkotla town is a unique example of Sikh-Muslim communal harmony that has lasted for over 300 years,” Cheema said.
A Muslim-majority region
Malerkotla was part of a jagir of several villages that the then Delhi Sultan Behlol Lodhi granted as dowry to the Afghani Sufi Saint Sheikh Sadruddin-i-Jahan (also called Haider Sheikh) in 1454.
According to Bigelow, the original settlement was called “Maler” and it remains the name of the neighbourhood surrounding the Sheikh’s tomb.
Following the advent of Mughal rule in India, the descendants of the Sheikh became the nawabs of Malerkotla.
Bigelow writes that Kotla came to be in 1657 when Mughal emperor Aurangzeb granted permission to Bayazid Khan, the first ruler of Malerkotla, to build a fortified city.
Bigelow also states that during British rule, Malerkotla was as turbulent as the other smaller principalities of the time, marked by infighting and ever-changing loyalties. The last ruler of Malerkotla was Nawab Iftikhar Ali Khan.
During Partition in 1947, Malerkotla remained absolutely peaceful and when the princely state merged with India, Iftikhar Ali Khan was its first chief minister.
Malerkotla was later merged with other princely states of the region to form the Patiala and East Punjab States Union (PEPSU). During the reorganisation of states in 1956, Malerkotla became a part of Punjab.
Modern-day Malerkotla
With almost 70 per cent of its population comprising Muslims, the Malerkotla assembly constituency has always been represented by a Muslim.
Nawab Iftikhar Ali Khan served as MLA twice while his second wife Begum Yusuf Zamani and fourth wife Begum Sajida were legislators as well. All of them were part of the Congress party.
The Malerkotla seat has, in the last few decades, been alternating between the Congress and the Akali Dal.
Razia Sultana, the current Congress MLA from Malerkotla, is representing the constituency for the third time (2002, 2007 and 2017). She is the wife of former Punjab DGP Mohammad Mustafa. In 2012, however, Farsana Alam, the wife of another IPS officer, Izhar Alam, was elected as the Akali MLA from here.
The constituency’s politics has not been without its intrigue. In 1981, the last nawab divorced Sajida Begum. She then went on to marry Anwar Ahmed Khan of the Shiromani Akali Dal, against whom she had fought multiple elections.
The nawab died in 1982 and Sajida Begum in 2006. The legacy of the last nawab continues as an ugly family litigation for property and palaces.
On Friday, Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, himself the scion of the Patiala royal family, recalled his ties to the last nawab of Malerkotla, whom he fondly called Chachaji (Uncle) and who he said lovingly addressed him Bhateej (nephew).
Amarinder also said he had written to the Aga Khan Foundation to undertake conservation and restoration of Mubarak Manzil Palace, occupied by Begum Sahiba Munawwar ul-Nisa, the wife of the last nawab.
The Punjab government, the chief minister said, has acquired the Mubarak Manzil Palace, adding that “its restoration and upkeep would be a fitting tribute to the nawabs of Malerkotla”.
A decade-long demand
The demand for district-hood is not new.
Malerkotla falls on the Ludhiana-Sangrur road and is part of Sangrur district. It’s almost equidistant from the district headquarters of Ludhiana and Sangrur and for every administrative work residents had to go to Sangrur, which is over 40 km away.
The town is full of small steel units and is specially known for manufacturing badges and uniforms.
The Congress’ manifesto had also promised district status for Malerkotla.
According to the government’s order Friday, the subdivisions of Malerkotla and Ahmedgarh, as well as the sub-tehsil of Amargarh, would be included in the newly-created district. The process of bringing villages under the jurisdiction of Malerkotla district would begin later, after the conclusion of the census operations, the order said.
The chief minister has also directed the Sangrur deputy commissioner to find a suitable building to immediately start the functioning of the district administration office. The deputy commissioner for the newly-carved district would be appointed soon.
(Edited by Arun Prashanth)
source: http://www.theprint.in / The Print / Home> India / by Chitleen K Sethi / May 16th, 2021
Clothed in layers of legend and folklore, Fatehpur Sikri, the city that Akbar built and made his capital, was an architectural marvel of medieval India. A journey back in time to explore its real historical importance.
The Badshahi Darwaza through which Akbar entered the Masjid-Dargah complex.
LOCATED around 35 kilometres from Agra, the famous capital of the Mughals, and about 30 kilometres from Bharatpur, the heartland of the Jats, is one of the finest cities of medieval India, Fatehpur Sikri. Nestled on a ridge of the Vindhya mountain range, it represents a unique architectural experiment of the Mughals. Declared a World Heritage Site in 1986, it remains frozen in time and space. In its majesty and grandeur, Sikri is perhaps second to none, but it has always lived in the shadows of its world-famous neighbour, the Taj Mahal.
Connected with the life and times of the famous Mughal emperor Akbar and a crucial period in Indian history, Fatehpur Sikri is of great historical importance but remains one of the less-understood heritage complexes. The popular understandings of the site (and connected histories) are largely informed by guide culture and folk narratives. Some questions continue to haunt visitors. Why was the city built and abandoned within a span of just 14 years? Who was Jodha Bai? Did the Navratnas (“Nine Jewels”, talented and famed courtiers at Akbar’s court) really exist in an institutionalised form? Did the city decline because of shortage of water?
One area where the huge gap between the academic and popular understanding of the site gets reflected starkly is in the nomenclature and functionality of monuments. The nomenclature of the structures is informed by the occurrence of “matching”/“near matching” descriptions of events/anecdotes connected with Akbar in contemporary accounts—principally by Abul Fazl, Badauni and the Portuguese Jesuit missionary Monserrate. Archaeological findings and Mughal paintings also help us reconstruct the history of individual monuments. Two things complicate our understanding of the city and the monument complex. First, as the historian and expert on the site Nadeem Rezavi points out, the names of the structures on plaques put up by the administration are mostly taken from tourist guides of the 19th century who were often local residents with no professional training in archaeology or history. Second, the original architectural designs have, in some cases, been demolished or altered in the process of renovation and restoration.
Early History Though the city was built during Akbar’s time, the place has a history going further back in time. Archaeological findings from the region include painted grey ware sherds, beads and artefacts belonging to the Kushana and Sunga periods, besides pre-medieval rock shelters. A large number of Jaina sculptures (including one Shruti Sarasvati) were excavated around Birchhabili Tila on the eastern bank of the lake in 1999-2000. Sikri and Bayana came under the control of the Sikarwar Rajputs in the 12th century and there is evidence of fortifications built by them. According to one tradition, the word “sikri” comes from them. The region was subsequently taken over by the Delhi Sultans and the remains of mosques and tombs testify to the site being a flourishing township during the Sultanate period. The Mughal connection comes with Babar, who defeated Rana Sangram Singh at the Battle of Khanwa (located 16 km from Sikri). According to legend, he renamed the place “Shukri” (meaning “thanks”) to acknowledge the support of the local populace during the battle. It is said that after capturing Gujarat, Babar’s grandson Akbar built the commemorative monumental gateway called Buland Darwaza (The Lofty Gate) and changed the name from Sikri to Fatehpur, the “City of Victory”. Rezavi, however, prefers to call it Fathpur Sikri, connecting its nomenclature to the garden named Bagh-i Fath (The Garden of Victory) built by Babar. He says this connection later inspired Akbar to rename the area Fathpur or Fathabad.
According to chronicles, Akbar’s decision to build an imperial city was largely based on his reverence for Shaikh Salim Chishti, who had predicted that the heirless emperor would be blessed with three sons. Akbar shifted his pregnant queen to Sikri and later ordered the construction of the city. It is believed that the Rangamahal (which is now closed) was the place where the queen first resided. Under Akbar, this village became the cultural, commercial, and administrative centre of the empire. It is estimated that around 1580, the total population of this city was just short of a quarter million. Ralph Fitch, the English traveller who visited the city around 1585, wrote: “Agra and Fatehpore are two very great cities, either of them much greater than London and very populous.”
Situated strategically close to Agra Fort (located within a day’s march), the town was enclosed with walls, some 6 km long, from north to south-west and protected by a lake (now dry) on the western side. The planning of the city aligned with the contours of the ridge. The mosques, imperial palaces and offices, bureaucratic establishments, and nobles’ mansions were located on top of the ridge. The civic population and the gardens were located around the official zone below the ridge. Access to the city was controlled by a series of eight identical gates (prominent being the Agra and Ajmer Gates) which restricted movement from public spaces into imperial zones.
The Imperial Complex According to Monserrate, the imperial complex consisted of four great royal dwellings—the king’s palace, the palace of the queens, the princes’ quarters and a store house and magazine. The king’s palace, generally known as Daulatkhana (“Abode of Fortune”), was divided into the Daulatkhana-i-Khas (private/restricted space) and the Daulatkhana-i-Aam or the Diwan-i-Aam (Hall of General Audience).
The Diwan-i-Aam is possibly the place Abul Fazl describes as the site of an open court which lasted for four hours. The structure, as it stands now, consists of an extensive courtyard enclosed by cloisters of 114 bays and a centralised raised pavilion. Entry was through the northern gateway opening towards the Hauz-i-Shirin (Sweet Tank) and further to the Hathi Pol, the ceremonial entrance to the imperial complex. The original plan stands modified now, with the addition of a municipal-style garden and the creation of an opening in the wall of the courtyard for visitors entering from the Agra Gate side. The huge stone rings at the foot of the colonnade opposite the imperial pavilion were possibly used for inspection of animals from the royal stable or exhibiting captured war elephants rather than publicly trampling those condemned to death as the guides would say.
The Daulatkhana-i-Khas consists of the Diwan-i-Khas, the two-roomed Diwankhana-i-Khas, the Khwabgah, the Anup Talao, the Turkish Sultana’s Chamber and some minor structures. The Diwan-i-Khas, or “Jewel House”, is a square-shaped chamber with openings on all four sides. The interior has a richly carved pillar at the centre supporting a circular platform connected with four diagonal bridges emanating from four cardinal directions. This is a monument whose functionality is difficult to establish. Historians and scholars have variously identified it as a storehouse for imperial gems and jewels, with the emperor inspecting them from the suspended capital (S.A.A. Rizvi); a place where the emperor, enthroned in the central circular platform, listened to ministers seated at the corners (Y.D. Sharma) or to arguments from different religions—symbolising “Akbar’s Dominion over the Four Quarters” (Percy Brown); or, symbolically, of Akbar ceremonially occupying the axis of the world (represented by the column) in Hindu cosmology and, therefore, wielding supreme power (G.H.R. Tilotsan). Still others have tried to symbolically equate the emperor with a chakravartin sitting or a God-like Vishnu seated on a lotus, or like the sun domineering over all regions (Catherine Asher).
Next to the Jewel House is the so-called Aankh Michauli (literally, “blind man’s buff”—by implication, a place where Akbar played this game with the women of the harem), or the treasury, containing three large aiwan s (porticos). Like the Jewel House, this building also has concealed coffers and lockable doors in the thick walls. Historians have suggested that this was a part of the treasury where gold and silver coins were stored, while the copper coins were kept in the building behind this one which collapsed in 1894. To the south-west of the treasury stands a kiosk known as the “Astrologer’s Seat” modelled on a Cambay-style building, according to the art historian Ebba Koch. This was possibly the site from where the emperor watched the distribution of copper coins to subordinate officers and the needy.
The large red sandstone courtyard between the Diwan-i-Khas and the Anup Talao is known as the Pachisi—after the cruciform board on which this popular Indian board game was played. Local legend has it that the emperor played the game using slave girls as living pieces.
The Diwankhana-i-Khas, containing Akbar’s imperial chambers (Khalwatkada-i-Khas) and resting place (Khwabgah), was a restricted area. The Khalwatkada-i-Khas was also a place where learned discussions and, sometimes, official transactions took place. It had a projecting balcony where the emperor received royal guests such as Mirza Sulaiman of Badakshan. The lower walls of the rooms were hollow with sliding stone panels and were probably used to keep rare books and gifts. A large room behind this chamber contained a platform against the southern wall, with a window above it. Some historians think that the window was used for a practice Akbar instituted at Sikri—Jharokha Darshan, whereby the emperor showed himself to his subjects every day.
The Khwabgah is a beautiful chamber on the first floor of the Diwankhana-i-Khas. This is the place where Akbar rested and also had informal discussions. Badauni narrates the story of a Brahman named Devi who used to be pulled up on a charpai (traditional Indian cot) to instruct the emperor in the myths and legends of Hinduism. A cloistered passage from the west connected the Khwabgah with the principal Haramsara, the Panchmahal, “Mariam House” and the Hathi Pol. This offered a secret and unhindered passage to the emperor and the royal ladies from one palace to another.
The Anup Talao (literally “peerless pool”) has a central island linked by four bridges to its sides. To the north-east of the pool is a beautifully carved structure called Turkish Sultana’s Pavilion. It needs to be clarified that there was no one called Turkish Sultana in Akbar’s court. Further, it would have been impossible to have a zenana (female) pavilion/chamber within the mardana (male) section. The pavilion has beautiful carvings on brackets, pillars and pilasters, and gives the semblance of intricate woodwork rather than stone masonry. Rizvi identified this pavilion (and the cloistered verandah around it) with the Hujra-i-Anup Talao (the room of the Anup Talao)—which Badauni mentioned as a structure where the emperor used to hold religious discussions. In fact, he also mentions a cell which Akbar named Ibadatkhana (House of Worship). Through an insightful reading of Badauni (who talks about an Ibadatkhana with four aiwan s near the new palace), Abul Fazl and Nizamuddin Ahmad, and correlating them with Monserrate, Rezavi persuasively identifies the Ibadatkhana with what is now known as the Daftarkhana (Secretariat/Records Office). This was the place where Akbar’s famous religious discussions or disputations were held until around 1580. The Anup Talao is connected through a pillared verandah to a structure known as the Abdarkhana (again wrongly called the “Girl’s School”), where fruits, water, food and beverages were kept for the emperor.
Between the Daulatkhana and the Haramsara complex are located three intermediate structures: the Panchmahal, Mariam’s House and the “hospital”; the last two can even escape a visitor’s attention. The wall separating the Haramsara from this area was, unfortunately, removed during renovations carried out in the 19th century.
The Panchmahal is a four-storeyed, entirely columnar structure of diminishing sizes surmounted by a domed kiosk. It is screened on all floors except the ground. Interestingly, none of the columns on the first floor are alike (some circular, some octagonal) and they are ornamented with the typical Hindu bell and chain motifs. The building may have served a recreational purpose and offered a good panoramic view of the surroundings.
Mariam’s House is not named after a Portuguese queen called Marie as the guides would have us believe. The structure is also called Sunhara Makan, or “Painted House”, after the beautiful murals and gold-coloured paintings that once decorated it. Rizvi thought it belonged to the queen mother Mariam Zamani (Hamida Banu Begum). After a careful reading of Monserrate, however, Rezavi says it was some kind of a private dining chamber of Akbar. Mariam’s House was connected to the Abdarkhana, where food and beverages were laid out, through a private door. Further, its central hall had portraits of women and angels and the building was profusely painted with court scenes, elephant fights, polo games, and so on. Separated from the zenana Haramsara segment and located outside the mardana Daultakhana area, this may have been a special dining hall where the emperor could be joined by the women of the haram .
The structures that form the Haramsara complex (or Shabistan-i-Iqbal) include the principal Haramsara (the Imperial Haram), popularly known as Jodha Bai’s palace, and Birbal’s house. The former was the private zenana area where Akbar’s wives lived. Accessible through a single gate with a staggered entrance, the double-storeyed structure was once guarded by eunuchs. Its privacy was only partially disturbed by the jharokha windows on the first floor. The principal Haramsara consists of unconnected chambers and porticos on all four sides and a large square courtyard in the middle. The bases, columns and capitals in the central rooms have carvings inspired by Rajput traditions. The monotony of the red sandstone is broken by the azure blue tiles (originally found in Multan) on the ribbed roof of the upper rooms on the northern and southern pavilions.
It is important to clarify here popular misconceptions surrounding Jodha Bai. Her very existence is negated by several historians. Irfan Habib argued in an interview that a historical character called Jodha Bai did not exist. It’s true, he says, that Akbar married the eldest daughter of the Amber ruler Raja Bharmal, but her name is not mentioned anywhere and she was certainly not Jahangir’s mother. “The myth can be attributed to some guide who may have taken British officers around Fatehpur Sikri arbitrarily referring to various palaces as Todar Mal’s, Birbal’s or Jodha Bai’s.” Shireen Moosvi also clarifies that there is no mention of Jodha Bai in Akbarnama or other Mughal documents of the period.
Like Jodha Bai’s palace, “Birbal’s House” is also erroneously named. Rezavi says it is impossible for Birbal to have occupied the building—no male, not even a prince, was allowed to enter the female quarters. The corbels, exquisitely carved brackets, together with the chajja of this palace exhibit typical Hindu influences, while the pilasters have Islamic geometrical patterns. Birbal’s house was one of the earliest palaces to be constructed at Sikri (1571) and has a relatively independent character. It might have been used to house someone holding high esteem at Akbar’s court—probably the queen mother or the senior queens. The other ladies-in-waiting were presumably housed in the so-called Meena Bazar, which could have been the minor Haramsara. The Nagina Masjid (meant for the women of the Haramsara) and the beautiful small garden to the north also formed a part of the Haramsara complex.
Where did the princes stay? Rizvi and V.J.A. Flynn have identified the so-called Tansen Baradari (in front of Curzon’s Dak Bungalow) as Prince Salim’s quarters. On the basis of its vicinity to the Daulatkhana and the royal waterworks, Rezavi has identified the Hakim’s House with the princes’ quarters.
A number of offices and bureaucratic establishments were situated within and around the Daulatkhana complex, such as the departments dealing with kitchen, mints, tents and carpets, translations, paintings, arsenal, etc. The complex was also surrounded by rings of bureaucratic establishments, nobles’ houses, office-residences of bureaucrats and habitations of common people. Among the famous nobles’ houses, we may include what are popularly known as Abul Fazl Faizi House, Hakim’s House, Birbal’s House, Khan-i-Khanan’s House and Tansen Baradari. The presence of waterbodies—lakes, hammam s (public baths), baoli s (stepwells), tanks, garden channels and waterworks—indicates how availability of water was integral to the planning of the city. They served a variety of aesthetic, utilitarian and recreational purposes. Water was brought from the lake and supplied to the official/semi-official areas through a network of storage tanks and aqueducts. Fatehpur Sikri probably constitutes the largest surviving concentration of hammam s in Mughal India.
The Masjid-Dargah Complex
The other part of Sikri is the Masjid-Dargah complex (“private property part” as guides tell visitors), made famous because of the Sufi saint Salim Chishti. Belonging to one of the most influential Sufi sects in India, the Chishtis, he was a descendant of Fariduddin Ganj-i Shakar and had stayed in Mecca for some time before settling down in Sikri. It is said that the local quarrymen working on the ridge for the stone required to build the Agra Fort constructed a red sandstone mosque for the saint around 1565. This came to be known as the Stone Cutters’ Mosque. Akbar later built the Jami Masjid, conceived as one of the largest mosques of its times, and ascribed it to the saint. Legend has it that Akbar himself occasionally cleaned the floor of the mosque and called the azan . The mosque also played an important role in Akbar’s political ascendancy. It was here, in 1579, that Akbar read the khutba (recitation) to proclaim his sovereignty and also issued the mazhar (declaration) by which he arrogated substantive powers in religious matters. The mosque follows the traditional style of a central courtyard, with cloisters on three sides and the west side being the prayer hall or sanctuary. Divided into seven bays, the prayer hall is an arcade of pointed arches. The central dome is dwarfed by the central iwan while the lateral domes get somewhat blurred behind a row of chattri s.
Towards the end of his life, Salim Chishti moved from his house near the Stone Cutter’s Mosque to a new khanqah (hospice) near the Jami Masjid. The present tomb was built over the saint’s zawiya (meditation chamber) around 1580-81 and several additions accrued over a period of time. Known as “an architectural cameo”, the tomb is particularly known for its ornate brackets, chajja s (eaves) and the parapet. Adjoining the saint’s tomb is the Jamatkhana (also called the “Tomb of Islam Khan”), a red sandstone structure encircled by perforated stone screens. Its large dome is surrounded by 36 small-domed kiosks. Originally meant to be a common religious place for Chishti’s distinguished disciplines, it later became a tomb for his descendants. The Masjid-Dargah courtyard is crowned by the famous Buland Darwaza. Measuring 40 metres in height (add to that another 12 metres by way of stairs), it is an imposing structure with a huge arched iwan around a human-scaled doorway similar to the Badshahi Darwaza (emperor’s entrance) and the Masjid’s prayer hall entrance.
The architecture of Sikri
Irfan Habib says that Fatehpur Sikri was the nursery of Mughal architecture. Akbar’s reign not only saw the establishment of the Mughal Empire but the beginnings of a new style of architecture. It saw the amalgamation of the Timurid and Central Asian architectural styles with more indigenous ones of the Delhi Sultanate, Bengal, Rajputana, Malwa and Gujarat.
Two things need to be underscored here. First, Sikri presents a combination of the trabeate (of pillar and bean) and arcuate (using arches and domes) styles. Second, its colonnaded and flat-roofed structures drew inspiration from a Mughal campment and sometimes used the same fluid vocabulary. Rezavi says some buildings are similar in form to tents described in Ain-i-Akbari , with an added architectural feature—the central chambers are vaulted or domed from within but appear flat from the outside.
While accepting that Mughal campment did inspire the development of Fatehpur Sikri’s architecture, the art historian R. Nath says that it also represented an efflorescence in Indian art. He emphasises the role of regional and local influences which were systematically incorporated into classical imperial art. This could be seen in the use of indigenous forms and features in the plan and design of buildings —poli entrance, tibara-dalan , duchhatti rooms in the Raniwas (Haramsara) area; in the facades—arch and lintel entrance, bracket and eave compositions, jharokha windows and khaprel tile-roofs; and, in the superstructure—sloping khaprel , chhatri and chhaparkhat .
He says local idioms were introduced into the Mughal style of architecture by anonymous artisans drawn from areas annexed to the empire, particularly from the Malwa-Gujarat-Rajasthan region and especially from the Jamuna-Chambal region (Delhi, Agra, Fatehpur, Dholpur and Gwalior).
The use of malleable and locally available red sandstone served as some kind of a unifying agent. According to Ebba Koch, it glossed over stylistic clashes resulting from the amalgamation of various forms, besides imparting it the colour of the sovereign. It should be noted that the non-imperial structures were mostly built of rubble held together with lime and gypsum mortar and were covered with lime plaster.
The decline There are several theories regarding the decline of Fatehpur Sikri, the most important being that the city declined because of shortage of water. It is also commonly believed that the city was “abandoned” or “deserted” soon after Akbar left. According to a popular local myth, the waterbodies in the region dried up because of the curse of a dancer named Zarina who was falsely implicated in a case involving the theft of Jodha Bai’s golden bangles. Most guides taking visitors around the monument complex attribute the decline to scarcity of water. This has been systematically countered by historians working on the site. They say the city had enough water. Besides the lake, there were at least 13 step-wells and eight tanks, apart from several others spread across the city. Water was, therefore, not the reason for the decline. It was political expediency.
In July 1585, Akbar’s half-brother Mirza Hakim died in Kabul. The emperor also expected trouble from rivals in the north-west region, including the Shah of Persia and the Uzbek ruler of Badakshan. He, therefore, shifted his base to Lahore and ruled from there for the next 13 years. When he left Lahore in 1598, he came back to Agra instead of Fatehpur Sikri and the fortunes of this imperial city changed.
Rezavi says that Fatehpur Sikri’s “decline” has to be seen in terms of decline in the status of the city from an imperial capital to an ordinary town. It, however, continued to remain an important mercantile centre, flourishing in carpet-making and indigo-manufacturing. It also retained its imperial connection at least until the reign of Shah Jahan, the fifth Mughal Emperor. It has also survived as a pilgrimage centre for the disciples of Salim Chishti. Akbar himself visited the town in 1601 to pay a visit to Maryam Makani, the queen-mother who continued to live there. Both Jahangir and Shah Jahan took refuge in Sikri when Agra was hit by plague. Jahangir ordered the chaugan (polo) ground near the lake adjacent to the Hiran Minar to be enclosed and converted into a reserve for antelopes, while Shah Jahan (who made several visits to this place, including one encampment as the rebellious prince Khurram) got his own palace constructed outside Akbar’s after he became the emperor. Further, in 1719-20, the coronation ceremony of the captive king Muhammad Shah Rangila was also held in the city.
Misconceptions about Akbar and his court continue to haunt Fatehpur Sikri. In 2014-15, newspapers reported the district administration’s plans to install the statues of Akbar’s favourite navratna s at the monument complex. Historians strongly opposed this. It is true that several talented minds existed at Akbar’s court, counselling and helping him immensely in administering various matters. What is also true is that that the legends surrounding Akbar’s famed courtiers were born here. There is no textual evidence for any institutionalised existence of the navratna s in any contemporary Mughal source—a notion which remains embedded in popular imagination. As R. Nath says: “[T]here is no authentic list of nine jewels in any work of a contemporary historian.” The proposal was also opposed on the grounds that the 1958 Ancient Monuments Act did not permit the addition or deletion of any new structures within the complex.
Shashank Shekhar Sinha has taught history in undergraduate colleges in the University of Delhi.He now does independent research on issues relatingto culture and heritage.
source: http://www.frontline.thehindu.com / Frontline / Home> Arts & Culture> Heritage / by Shashank Shekhar Sinha / June 22nd, 2016
Lover of wildlife, celebrated hunter, sharp-shooter, tranquillising expert and more…
Dwindling forest covers, rampaging rogue elephants, man-eating tigers and man-animal conflict are all very frightening realities in today’s world, especially in our country. The Forest Departments across the country are faced with these huge challenges. In spite of their best efforts, the problems persist.
However, the solutions by a few who have grown up understanding wildlife like the back of their hand are hardly taken.
One such Wildlife Conservationist is Nawab Shafath Ali Khan from Hyderabad, who had been invited by the Jharkhand government last month to put down a rogue elephant that had killed 15 people. He is the most celebrated hunter and the only tranquillising and culling expert in the country.
He also runs a chain of resorts in Masinagudi, Tamil Nadu.
Star of Mysore Features Editor N. Niranjan Nikam travelled all the way to meet the Sharp-Shooter at his den in the midst of the jungle at the Safari Land Resorts in Masinagudi.
The Nawab opened his heart out for nearly two hours in this exclusive interview and spoke about royalty, how to manage forests, man-animal conflict, radio-collaring, culling, animal right activists and his anguish about the villagers and forest-dwellers. Excerpts…
Star of Mysore (SOM): You are not only a Nawab at heart but also a real Nawab from Hyderabad. How much of ‘Nawabipan’ is still there in you?
Nawab Shafath Ali Khan: Well, in well-bred horses the genes carry on in the blood. So I am a Nawab. But I devoted my life to the cause of poor Indians who suffer silently, like forest-dwellers, tribals, aborigines, having lost their lives and property to wild animals.
SOM: You are the most celebrated hunter in the country. Where did it all begin?
Shafath Ali Khan: Hunting was a family ritual. And my grandfather Nawab Sultan Ali Khan Bahadur was Advisor to the British Government on man-animal conflict. I grew up at a time when the Wildlife Protection Act came into being and from controlled hunting the transition to a total ban on hunting was introduced in the country. With the royalty and nobility hanging up their hunting rifles there was a vacuum of traditional knowledge of tracking animals that had generated over generations. I tried to fill this vacuum and worked for saving India’s wildlife as a Conservationist. Hunting is a tool of conservation and all advanced countries across the world are practicing and encouraging controlled hunting and their wildlife is growing.
SOM: You are the only authorised tranquillising expert and culling officer in the country. When there is a Forest Department, which has a rich history, what are the Officers doing?
Shafath Ali Khan: As I said, traditional knowledge acquired over generations cannot be found in textbooks. The art of reading pug marks, identifying it as a tiger or tigress just by seeing it or coming to conclusions about the height of an elephant by measuring the circumference of pad mark of the forefoot is traditional knowledge. Rulers had Shikaris who managed their forests with a vested interest of hunting. The rulers’ passion for hunting not only saved trees and grasslands but also kept a check on excess animal population. Unfortunately, after Independence forest management came into the hands of Officers who were bereft of ground realities. Large scale deforestation started and wildlife mismanagement reached its apex. Certain species grew in numbers beyond controllable figures like wild boar and blue bull. Across the country, tiger population reduced due to habitat destruction and revenge killings.
Large scale destruction is caused by elephant herds that have strayed considerable distances away from protected areas into agriculture fields. Neglected National Parks are overridden with noxious weeds like lantana and parthenium forcing our precious wildlife outside protected areas.
This is the crux of man-animal conflict that has frustrated farmers and forest-dwellers; giving them no option but to poison or electrocute elephants. According to project elephant figures, there were 15,700 elephants in the country in 1980 and today we have over 32,000. The forest cover on the other hand has reduced. The think-tanks who manage wildlife in the country did not plan this explosion in elephant population resulting in excessive man-animal conflict that we face today.
SOM: As a boy of 19 years you were in Mysore Race Club (MRC) as Assistant Secretary. How did this happen?
Shafath Ali Khan: My grandfather was India’s senior-most Handicapper (a person appointed to fix or assess a competitor’s handicap, especially in golf or horse-racing) and my father was Senior Stipendiary Steward and Secretary of Bangalore Turf Club (BTC).
High taxation on horse-racing was killing the industry and both BTC and MRC were finding it difficult to even pay salaries to their staff. My father Nawab Arshad Ali Khan started off-course betting between BTC and RWITC (Royal Western India Turf Club) in 1977 and this gave a new lease of life to the racing industry across the country.
Jawa motorcycle factory Founder Farookh Irani whom I always called Uncle Irani, Chairman of MRC, in consultation with my dad, started off-course betting between BTC and MRC and soon the fortunes of MRC blossomed. MRC was setting up photo-petrol cameras to record the races and I was sent, raw out of school, to Mysore to identify where the twin towers of the cameras had to be installed. I was already a National Champion in Equestrian sports and a top rider in the country. When I finished identifying the setting up of photo-petrol camera towers, having worked under Uncle Irani for a week, he decided to absorb me under MRC and I had the good fortune of learning from him. I was there for three years.
The crux of the man-animal conflict today is that old, weak and handicapped species are pushed out of the forest by the younger and stronger animals. These animals before they could create havoc were eliminated. The village folks were happy, revenge killing was never heard of and we didn’t have elephants straying into private lands like Hassan and Coorg like we are facing today.
Star of Mysore (SOM): The fight between humans and elephants, in other words man-animal conflict is resulting in shocking number of deaths. Planters in Kodagu are facing the heat with their crops being destroyed because of huge elephant menace there. What do you think can be done about this?
Nawab Shafath Ali Khan: The problem is not only in pockets of Karnataka but across the country. Any wild animal requires space. We cannot comprehend compressing them into smaller forest areas. With the number of elephants increasing in the country, the land to animal ratio has gone haywire. National Parks are not being de-weeded and cleared of noxious weeds; to provide enough fodder to the elephants and to restrain them within the parks. Hungry elephants are forced to stray out into agricultural lands for their survival.
Elephant is wise to the fact that nutritional value is found more in sugarcane, bananas, paddy and jackfruit compared to what it gets in barren government-controlled forests. So the Department is putting animals under tremendous pressure. This pressure is changing the metabolism of elephants making them aggressive, attacking people and raiding crops with impunity.
This man-made pressure on elephants and tigers have changed their psychological persona and they are also attacking humans. We have left the problems drift so much that it’s hard to find a win-win situation at this point of time. Anyway my thinking after spending 40 years in the field is that 70 per cent of our wild elephants are outside the forests. This is a very alarming figure. There is no shortage of fund as far as Forest Department is concerned. We are sitting on Rs. 35,000 crore of CAMPA (Compensation Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority) Funds. The States can utilise this money and have an elephant-proof trench all around government protected forests. All stray elephants outside this trench will be herded in or translocated.
The carcass of the man-eating leopard stretched out on the lawns of Thunag Rest House in Himachal Pradesh.
Wildlife management and human habitations have to be compartmentalised. Solar powered borewells have to be erected every 5-km radius within the National Parks. Clean and sufficient drinking water should be provided to the animals. However, the hard decision that we need to take but from which we have drifted for decades is, how many animals can survive in the relatively small National Parks and buffer areas.
Excess animals sadly will have to be culled not only for their own survival but also to maintain a healthy forest. Overgrazing and over-browsing is casting tremendous pressure on our precious forests.
SOM: There is a story that late Srikantadatta Narasimharaja Wadiyar fell in love with the Land Rover you were driving and bought it. Is this true?
Shafath Ali Khan: Yes, it is true. We were all fond of cars and I had a Land Rover that I had maintained in immaculate condition. The Prince (as Srikantadatta Narasimharaja Wadiyar was called by many who were close to him) fell in love with it and wanted to buy it. But, I was reluctant to sell it. Soon, the Prince and the Princess (Pramoda Devi Wadiyar) came to attend my wedding and the Prince brought a Convertible Red Triumph Sports Car which he gifted to me at the wedding. Now, I had no option but give my Land Rover to him. He enjoyed the Land Rover and I and my wife, newly-married, thoroughly enjoyed the Convertible Sports Car. Prince was very close to me and I was one of the few who had access to the gun rack that was just beside his bedroom. I had the pleasure and honour of cleaning and repairing those beautiful rifles which belonged to the late Highness Jayachamaraja Wadiyar.
The young bridegroom Nawab Shafath Ali Khan (third from left) seen with (from left) late Sirdar K.B. Ramachandra Raj Urs, late Srikantadatta Narasimharaja Wadiyar, bride Begum Shaheen Khan, Pramoda Devi Wadiyar and the Nawab’s mother Begum Arshad Ali Khan at his wedding reception in Bangalore Turf Club (BTC) in 1976. Picture right shows Jawa Factory Founder F.K. Irani greeting Nawab Shafath Ali Khan at the wedding.
SOM: Isn’t there a contradiction when you say nobility indulged in hunting but they also protected forests?
Shafath Ali Khan: It was a paradox that controlled hunting that had a code and a strict set of rules where only males of deer were shot subsequent to the breeding season. Old rogue elephants and dying tigers beyond breeding age were painlessly shot using high-powered rifles in the hands of our expert shooters. Survival of the fittest is the law in the jungle.
The crux of the man-animal conflict today is that old, weak and handicapped species are pushed out of the forest by the younger and stronger animals. These animals before they could create havoc were eliminated. The village folks were happy, revenge killing was never heard of and we didn’t have elephants straying into private lands like Hassan and Coorg like we are facing today.
Wildlife management was much better balanced compared to what it is today. Across the world animal population have reduced or gone haywire wherever government imposed total ban on hunting.
Meet Nawab Shafath Ali Khan- 3 (September 08th, 2017)
When Star of Mysore Features Editor N. Niranjan Nikam travelled all the way to meet the Sharp-Shooter at his den in the midst of the jungle at the Safari Land Resorts in Masinagudi, Tamil Nadu, Nawab Shafath Ali Khan and his son Asghar Ali Khan, drove this writer in the jungle in their American Jeep M-38 A1, a 1952 model four-wheeler late in the evening and it was a hair-raising experience as the young driver at the wheel negotiated the tough, lovely, Blue Nilgiri Hills range.
Both of them are attuned to every sight and sound in the forest even as the Nawab spotted two elephants and a calf at quite a distance instinctively. Later, the Nawab sat in his unique restaurant and for nearly two hours spoke freely in this exclusive interview about royalty, how to manage forests, the officials in the department, man-animal conflict, his views on radio collaring, culling, animal right activists and his anguish about the forest-dwellers and the villagers living in the fringes of the forest.
Star of Mysore (SOM): How much of preparation goes when you shoot man-eating tigers and rogue elephants?
Nawab Shafath Ali Khan: Bascially physical fitness and mental alertness are the major factors. A hunter is a complete man. He knows how to repair his vehicle, stitch his shoes in the forest, carry out minor repair to his weapons and who could read the forest, pick up the slightest sound and check the direction of the wind. Patience has to be in abundance. I don’t remember how many nights I have spent on a tiny machan on a tree in freezing cold and rainy night.
Tracking rogue elephants one has to walk 10-20 kms a day and this can be quite taxing. Preparing for these operations has become a way of life for me. I live on the most wildlife rich area of the sub-continent where I see wild elephants, tiger, leopard and sloth bear in my morning and evening walk. This keeps my mind alert and greatly helps in dangerous and close encounters with dangerous beasts that I have to tranquillise or eliminate as per government orders.
When Star of Mysore Features Editor N. Niranjan Nikam travelled all the way to meet the Sharp-Shooter at his den in the midst of the jungle at the Safari Land Resorts in Masinagudi, Tamil Nadu, Nawab Shafath Ali Khan and his son Asghar Ali Khan, drove this writer in the jungle in their American Jeep M-38 A1, a 1952 model four-wheeler late in the evening and it was a hair-raising experience as the young driver at the wheel negotiated the tough, lovely, Blue Nilgiri Hills range. Both of them are attuned to every sight and sound in the forest even as the Nawab spotted two elephants and a calf at quite a distance instinctively. Later, the Nawab sat in his unique restaurant and for nearly two hours spoke freely in this exclusive interview about royalty, how to manage forests, the officials in the department, man-animal conflict, his views on radio collaring, culling, animal right activists and his anguish about the forest-dwellers and the villagers living in the fringes of the forest.
SOM: There is no scientific basis in culling and it is not very successful in Africa as you claim, criticise a few. How do you react to this?
Shafath Ali Khan: There is no place for sentiment and religious connotation in wildlife management. I have been asked this question in several national workshops that I have attended. But when I ask them for an alternate solution no doable common sense approach has come forth.
I basically don’t like culling or shooting. I am now an authorised tranquilliser and resource person for six States and run an NGO ‘Wild Life Tranquil Force.’
SOM: What do you do here in the NGO?
Shafath Ali Khan: We are training front-line forest staff and veterinarians of six States in the country. I don’t see any alternative to scientific culling as far as our country is concerned. As an advisor and culling officer to Forest Department of Bihar, I have conducted several experiments to arrest the exploding population of blue bulls. Bihar is a fertile State with Ganges and several rivers flowing. The Gangetic plains are rich in crops. Overpopulation of the blue bulls from the forest, which consist of only 5 percent has found its way into agricultural fields causing as much as 35 percent damage to the farmers.
If at all there is a substitute to culling, it would have been adopted long ago and population controlled. Today UP, Jharkhand, Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra, and Uttarakhand are reeling under the problem of overpopulation of wild boar and blue bulls and no solution is in sight.
Animal right activists might have a vested interest. These organisations get funds from abroad and with politicians and muscle power they arm-twist the senior forest officers to do what they want them to do rather than what is in the interest of the country. They are often bulldozed to falling in line and let matters drift.
Don’t be surprised if the price of Dal becomes Rs. 600 a kg as blue bulls, antelopes deliver two calves annually and wild boar sow delivers anywhere up to 19 piglets in a span of three months. There are virtually no carnivores to control this population explosion outside the forest. So, what are we heading for is anyone’s guess.
Shafath Ali Khan with his son Asghar Ali Khan.
SOM: As a wildlife conservationist, what is your view on radio collaring of tigers and other animals?
Shafath Ali Khan: In my opinion it is an utter failure. The reason why I say this is, it affects the breeding of tigers. Because when the tiger mounts a tigress, he starts biting on the top of her neck and it is a natural instinct. When the radio collar is there, the tiger bites into the radio collar and finds something hard and abnormal and it withdraws. I have seen this phenomenon physically.
In Siriska Tiger Reserve, when they introduced tigers with radio collar there was no breeding at all and I had predicted this 30 years ago.
Each radio collar weighs almost 1.5 Kgs and when a wild tiger is all of a sudden burdened with it then his entire movement and body language changes. This famous tiger Jay, which was tranquillised and radio collared, his home range, which was 38 sq. metres before the radio collaring, increased to 58 sq.mtrs.
SOM: Why is that?
Shafath Ali Khan: When you have something implanted in an animal, then its entire movement changes and it may come closer to human habitation also.
Also, the battery life which is supposed to last one year, never lasts that long. For instance, in this tiger Jay in Umed Sanctuary in Maharashtra, the battery ran out in two months and it disappeared. It was a pretty tiger and later it even died.
Then each radio collar costs about Rs. 3.5 lakh to Rs. 5 lakh and the cost involved in catching a wild tiger is another Rs. 5 lakh. With all this operation, it does not come cheap.
There is my own experience of a leopard that I tranquillised in Gundlupet in Muntipara village. This leopard had a radio collar, which had gone dead long time back. This animal entered a house and but for my early intervention, the girl living in that house would have been dead. It was a problematic leopard which was caught, radio collared and released and it again entered human habitation. The biggest problem of radio collaring is it gives the Forest Department a false sense of temerity to release the animal that should not be released. As a result the lives of villagers and poor forest dwellers are shackled.
SOM: Have you had any near-death-like experiences as a sharp-shooter in all these years?
Shafath Ali Khan: The most memorable day in my life was on Dec.17, 1976, when I was called by Van Ingen and Van Ingen (the famous taxidermists in the country) to shoot a rogue elephant that had killed 12 people. Since, late Uncle Joubert Van Ingen (who, at the age of 100, had written a foreword to the book ‘Man-Eaters And Wildlife Challenges’ by the Nawab. He dictated the foreword at one breath without a single mistake!) thought he was too old to trace the rogue elephant, he requested the Forest Department to invite me to shoot it at H.D. Kote. I traced the elephant and shot it and this incidence is rich in my memory.
The other near-death-like experience I can recall was just last month, on Aug. 11, 2017, when I was invited by the Jharkand Government to put down a rogue elephant that had killed 15 people and we tracked it for three days in most difficult terrain and thick impenetrable jungle, the rogue tusker turned around and came for us.
My two trackers fled leaving the Veterinarian Dr. Ajay Kumar and me. I saw the 10-foot tall tusker from hardly 10 metres coming for us like a railway engine with a loud trumpet. He raised his head to grab me with his trunk covering the forehead which is the only vital spot to shoot at that close range. A wrongly placed shot would have ended me in a fraction of a second. I took him at 9 metres and shot him in the mouth. The heavy bullet from .458 Magnum brought him to his knees. But he tried to get up in a fraction of a second. Working the bolt fast I fired the second shot in between the eyes and brought him down painlessly and death was instantaneous.
I often strive hard to see that the animal is put out with least pain and agony. Shooting, for me is the last option, when all other remedies have exhausted.
SOM: What about the experience of shooting a man-eating tiger?
Shafath Ali Khan: In July 2017, I was invited by the Maharashtra Government to tranquillise a man-eating tigress that had claimed four human lives. I darted from a distance of 15 metres when she was galloping away. But the most hair-raising incidence was shooting a man-eating tigress in 2009 in UP, where I tracked her for 35 days and nights and shot her when she charged from a distance of six metres.
SOM: Asghar Ali Khan, your son is also an authorised shooter. So, the family tradition continues?
Shafath Ali Khan: Asghar, is an authorised shooter and a crack shot. He has a .470 double rifle on his licence and helps me in dangerous tranquillising operation. But he along with my wife Shaheen keep the fire burning and looks after our chain of resorts in the Nilgiris. Often when a long drawn operation is coming to a conclusion, I summon him to join me as a backup.
SOM: Running Safari Land Resort must be a great experience for you and your family?
Shafath Ali Khan: Definitely yes. The very thought of living in a deep jungle arouses a sense of bliss within me. Forests and wildlife are very close to my heart. Riding in the jungle every morning is a thrill that I have no words to explain. Safari Land has given what no other luxurious Palace in the world can give us.
SOM: But are you related to the Nizam family of Hyderabad?
Shafath Ali Khan: Yes, yes. We are from the royal family of Hyderabad. We were equal to the Nizams, like you had the Maharajas and Ursus in Mysuru. The Nizam married into our family, our daughters were given in the Nizams family. So we were equals.
SOM: How long do you think you can carry this crusade of yours as a hunter and sharp- shooter?
Shafath Ali Khan: My priorities are no longer shooting. Having worked for several assignments for the past four decades, I have been involved in 24 dangerous operations and have culled thousands of animals. No one in the country has shot as many animals as I have done. My priority is not shooting or culling any more. My focus is to help those five crore people who are living in 1,87,000 villages and the forests across the country in most adverse conditions. Since I have worked, stayed and eaten with them, I know what it means by hunger.
Several interior villagers are living in a state of anarchy, in constant fear of wild elephants that raid the villages, break their huts, and eat away their rations. Women with infants in their arms run in the middle of the night to the next village 3 kms away. There is no one to wipe their tears. This is fresh in my mind from Jharkhand. I sometimes wonder whether the Constitutional rights, the right to life and liberty is guaranteed only for the elite and not my brothers and sisters who suffer in silence.
My passion now is to work for them, get them the due compensation, get the government to erect solar fencing to protect them. I don’t charge the government for service and time that I give. Tears of gratitude from underprivileged forest-dwellers when I shoot down a rogue elephant or a man-eating tiger, give me energy to work for them for another 100 years.
[Concluded]
source: http://www.starofmysore.com / Star of Mysore / Home> Feature Articles / by N Niranjan Nikam (3 part feature articles) / September 18th, 2017
Begum Qudsia Aizaz Rasul was one of the 28 Muslim League members to join the Constituent Assembly of undivided India, and she was the only Muslim woman to be a part of the assembly.
Begum Qudsia Aizaz Rasul was born to the royal family of Malerkotla (situated in erstwhile united Punjab) on 4th April, 1908. Her father was Nawab Zulfiqar Ali Khan. Qudsia had a progressive upbringing and was encouraged from a very early age to lead a modern life, as opposed to several stringent restrictions imposed upon other contemporary Muslim women, such as that of the purdah.
She got married at quite an early age to Nawaab Aizaz Rasul from the erstwhile province of Awadh. Her husband held the position of a taluqdar, or a landowner. Qudsia had political exposure both before and after marriage, and her formal political participation took place after she got married.
Qudsia, along with her husband, joined the Muslim League in mid-1930s, soon after the passing of theGovernment of India Act in 1935. This was also her official entry into electoral politics, as she contested in the elections of 1937 from the U.P. legislative assembly, where she successfully held her seat till 1952. Aizaz was one of the very few female candidates to have contested and won from a non-reserved constituency during the pre-independent times.
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She was the first Indian woman to achieve such feats, and this was truly commendable and noteworthy at a time when most formal political positions were almost implicitly reserved for men.
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As an MLA, she also held several important posts, such as the Leader of Opposition (1950 to 1952) and the Deputy President of the Council (1937 to 1940). She was the first Indian woman to achieve such feats, and this was truly commendable and noteworthy at a time when most formal political positions were almost implicitly reserved for men. Moreover, to rise to prominence at a politically significant province such as the U.P. indeed made Qudsia Aizaz Rasul a trailblazer.
She is well known for her progressive, anti-feudal stances, such as the abolition of the zamindari system. Qudsia was a strong advocate for the abolition of communal electorates as well, as she believed it divided the society more than it united – which was counterproductive for the Indian electoral candidates at a time when there was an urgent need of a united Indian front to oppose the colonial rulers. She went on to create a strong and convincing case for the abolition of electoral reservations for religious minorities during her tenure as a member of the Constituent Assembly.
Qudsia was one of the 28 Muslim League members to join the Constituent Assembly of undivided India, and she was the only Muslim woman to be a part of the assembly. Her contributions in the assembly debates remain monumental till date and have been recorded in many official sources.
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Her contributions in the assembly debates remain monumental till date, and have been recorded in many official sources.
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After the dissolution of the League, she joined the Indian National Congress, and served as a member of the Rajya Sabha from 1952 to 1958. Later, she became a member of the legislative assembly of Uttar Pradesh from 1969 to 1989.
Other Achievements
Begum Qudsia Aizaz Rasul is also well known for her autobiography, titled From Purdah to Parliament: A Muslim Woman in Indian Politics. It provides excellent insights into the intersectional aspects of organised politics as it functions in our country. Other than this, she also wrote a travelogue titled Three Weeks in Japan.
Besides her literary prowess, Qudsia had also served as the President of the Indian Women Hockey Federation for over fifteen years, and went on to become the President of the Asian Women’s Hockey Federation.
Begum Qudsia Aizaz Rasul was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 2000 for immense, invaluable contributions to the field of social work.
The wider Indian audience, including many women in the 21st century believe that this is the most emancipated age of women and the women who proceeded them from centuries gone by were powerless dolls dressed in finery and painted and wooed by the men of the ancient and medieval world.
Compared to most countries of the world, India has had a longer and a more complex story, where the fortunes of women advanced and regressed from time to time. India is the only country of the time where a Muslim woman was chosen by her father to be the heir of his throne, we are ofcourse referring to Razia Sultan and her father Iltutmish of the Delhi Sultanate period in the 13th century.
After Razia and into the Mughal period, we increasingly see the growing power of the Mughal women which was not just limited to women of the royal family. Many icons of Delhi, some of which are even part of the UNESCO World Heritage Sites have been built by women for their husbands.
Bega Begum was the senior wife of Emperor Humayun, who got his incredible mausoleum built. Similarly Fatehpuri Begum was one of the wives of Emperor Shah Jahan and she has left us with the iconic Fatehpuri Mosque situated at the heart of Chandani Chowk.
Born in 1617, Roshanara Begum was a Mughal princess and the second daughter of Emperor Shah Jahan and his wife, Mumtaz Mahal. Roshanara was a brilliant woman and a talented poet. She was a partisan of her younger brother Aurangzeb and supported him during the war of succession which took place after Shah Jahan’s illness in 1657. After Aurnagzeb’s accession to the throne in 1658, Roshanara was given the title of Padshah Begum by her brother and became the First Lady of the Mughal Empire. She became a powerful political figure.
Roshanara’s rise to power began when she successfully foiled a plot by her father and Dara Shikoh to kill Aurangzeb. According to history, Shah Jahan sent a letter of invitation to Aurangzeb to visit Delhi, in order to peacefully resolve the family crisis. In truth, however, Shah Jahan planned to capture, imprison and kill Aurangazeb in prison as he viewed his third son as a serious threat to the throne. When Roshanara got wind of her father’s plots, she sent a messenger to Aurangzeb, outlining their father’s true intentions, and warning Aurangazeb to stay away from Delhi.
Aurangazeb was extremely grateful to Roshanara for her timely warning. When the war of succession was resolved in favour of Aurangzeb, she quickly became a very powerful and effective figure at court. Fearing that Dara Shikoh would kill her for her role in the war of succession if he ever returned to power, Roshanara insisted that Aurangazeb order Dara’s execution. Legend has it that Dara was bound in chains, paraded around Chandni Chowk and beheaded. Roshanara then had his bloody head wrapped in a golden turban, packaged neatly and sent to her father as a gift from Aurangzeb and her. Shah Jahan, who opened the package just as he was sitting down to dinner, was so distressed by the sight of his favorite son’s head that he fell unconscious to the floor. He remained in a stupor for many days after the incident.
Eventually, however, Roshanara and Aurangzeb fell out with each other. Mughal princesses were obliged to remain single since the time of Akbar so their offspring would not make a challenge for the throne. Roshanara was rumoured to have taken on lovers, which was not viewed well by Aurangzeb.
After her fall from grace, she chose to leave the court at the Red Fort and built for herself the Roshanara Bagh complex which is about six kilometres from the Red Fort. She was a lover of the arts and music and didn’t prefer the austere lifestyle promoted by Aurangzeb. This is proven by the fact that when one visits Roshanara Bagh the remaining building itself is built in a very romantic style, a Baradari (open on all sides) built surrounded by a pool of water apart from the canals and gardens surrounding it.
Even within the Baradari the main motif for decorations seems to be nature, one can see remnants of blooms on every wall, arch and even the capitals of the slender pillars. The fades blue, green and red colours gives us an idea as to how brilliant and bright the designs were when Roshanara herself was in residence.
The main gate of entry into the gardens still has mosaics left on its upper parts, which show that a bright hue of yellow was used apart from the blue, green and red. One can imagine, how this gate shone in the brilliance of the sun with such a colour combination.
The brief history that has remained about the life of Roshanara Begum shows us what a woman she was and more importantly how open Mughal society was at least for the women of the royal household and nobility.
The fact that she was capable enough to understand the intrigues of Shah Jahan along with Dara Shikoh in order to get Aurangzeb eliminated shows us that she had a perfect understanding of such matters and how to play a role in it.
Her warning to Aurangzeb guaranteed her power when he acceded to the throne and in return she became the most powerful woman in the Mughal Empire. The fact that such a rank existed in the first place showcases how Mughal princesses were considered an integral part in the proper functioning of the State.
She had her own sources of income which no doubt increased after she was bestowed with the rank of Padsha Begum. The fact that she bought land, had a beautiful and very extensive garden complex built for herself and lived a life of luxury shows to us that she was a highly educated woman understanding the complexities of titles, deeds, interests, savings etc.
She even had the power to decide where she wanted to be buried. She didn’t choose a pious cemetery but rather had herself buried within the Baradari of her beautiful gardens, the gardens which we still get to enjoy after more than three centuries of her passing and have made her name immortal in annals of time.
source: http://www.thewomb.in / The Womb / Home> Blog> Entertainment> Lifestyle / by Barun Ghosh / October 29th, 2020
Marathi actor Kiran Mane has sparked widespread discussion with a social media post highlighting an overlooked aspect of history—the compassion of Mughal emperor Aurangzeb’s daughter, Zeenat-un-Nissa, towards Chhatrapati Shahu Maharaj.
Mane revealed that Zeenat-un-Nissa played a crucial role in raising Shahu Maharaj and ensuring the well-being of his mother, Maharani Yesubai, during their captivity, reported the INN.
According to Mane, after Chhatrapati Sambhaji Maharaj was executed, his five-year-old son, Shahu Maharaj, was taken prisoner by the Mughals. Despite the captivity, Zeenat-un-Nissa treated Shahu Maharaj like her own son and cared for Maharani Yesubai as a sister. This humane side of Aurangzeb’s daughter, often ignored in historical narratives, is now being recognized through Mane’s revelations.
Mane further shared that, in gratitude for her kindness, Shahu Maharaj later constructed the historic Begum Mosque in Satara, naming it after Zeenat-un-Nissa. The mosque stands as a testament to her generosity and the bond that transcended political hostilities.
His post has ignited debate on social media, with many expressing surprise at this lesser-known chapter of history. Mane also criticized historians who have misrepresented Zeenat-un-Nissa’s role, urging people to acknowledge historical truths backed by evidence.
Zeenat-un-Nissa was known for her compassion toward the poor and underprivileged, which even influenced her father, Aurangzeb, to grant her the title of Padshahi Begum. Her charitable works and humane nature set her apart, making her an inspiring figure in an era marked by conflicts.
At the time of Chhatrapati Sambhaji’s death, Shahu Maharaj was still a child, and his mother was held captive. Despite the circumstances, Zeenat-un-Nissa’s care left a lasting impact, prompting Shahu Maharaj to honor her memory through the construction of Begum Mosque, which still stands in Satara today.
source: http://www.radiancenews.com / Radiance News / Home> Latest News> Report / by Radiance News Bureau / March 09th, 2025
The Lahori Gate of the Red Fort that the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan built in Shahjahanabad, the new capital city he moved to from Agra in 1638, which is now know as Old Delhi.
ON the eastern edge of Delhi along the banks of the Yamuna river, which has shifted its course considerably today, and adjacent to the older Salimgarh Fort is situated the Lal Qila, or the Red Fort, one of the most iconic representations of India’s Independence Day celebrations. Declared a World Heritage Site in 2007, it was built by the fifth Mughal emperor Shah Jahan (regnal years 1628-1658) as the citadel of his new capital city, Shahjahanabad (literally the abode of Shah Jahan). Known by different names at different points of time such as Qila-i-Mubarak (the Fortunate Citadel), Qila-i-Shahjahanabad or Qila-i-Mualla (the Exalted Fort), the Red Fort represents the pinnacle of Mughal palace-fort building activity.
Shah Jahan constructed Shahjahanabad after he changed his capital from Agra to Delhi in 1638. The French traveller Francois Bernier said the scorching heat of Agra forced the emperor to look for a new capital. But there were clearly other deeper reasons. Delhi’s geographical location was more strategic for the control of the empire. Further, as the author of the 19th century biographical work Maasir al-Umara said: “Exalted sultans always had it in mind to cause the world to remember [them] by a permanent monument.” Agra had by then become a little too small for Shah Jahan’s grand and ambitious building plans. Overbuilding and encroachments had led to huge congestion in a city getting progressively eroded by the Yamuna. There had also been incidents of people getting killed/injured during processions/festivals. In 1639, Shah Jahan instructed his architects, engineers and astrologers to select a new site in a mild climate somewhere between Agra and Lahore.
The choice of Delhi was facilitated by many factors. It had been the capital and a centre of Muslim rule since the times of Qutbuddin Aibak until around 1506 when the Afghan ruler Sikandar Lodi (regnal years 1489-1517) shifted his capital to Agra. Later, Shah Jahan’s grandfather, the Mughal emperor Humayun, laid the foundations for a new capital called Dinpanah in the modern Purana Qila /Old Fort area. Delhi had also been an important religious-spiritual and pilgrimage centre housing tombs and graves of several holy men, including Nizamuddin Auliya, Qutbuddin Bakhtiyar Kaki and Nasiruddin Chirag Dehlavi. Hakim Maharat Khan Isfahani, writing in the early 18th century, says: “It was always the dar al mulk [seat of empire] of the great sultans and the centre of the circle of Islam [ markaz-i dairah Islam ].” The historian Swapna Liddle argues that the specific spot—the right bank of the Yamuna and south of the Salimgarh Fort, which Islam Shah Suri built in 1546—is regarded as auspicious in Hindu mythology. It was believed to have been blessed by Vishnu as a place where knowledge of the Vedas could be had by just taking a dip in the waters. It was called Nigambodhak , meaning that which makes known the knowledge of the Vedas. Nigambodh Ghat continues to be regarded as a holy site by Hindus.
Scholars have suggested various models to comprehend the city. The historian Stephen Blake argues that like many other capital cities, such as Istanbul, Isfahan (Persia), Tokyo and Peking, Shahjahanabad was also the “exemplar” of the sovereign city model—the “capital of the patrimonial-bureaucratic empire”, a type of state that characterised Asian empires from about 1400 to 1750. Others, such as E. Ehlers and Thomas Krafft, have characterised Shahjahanabad as an “imperial Islamic city”. An important factor to bear in mind is the way the Mughals, or for that matter even Hindus, viewed capital cities. The capital was an axis mundi —or the centre of the earth where the celestial and the mundane intersected. In the words of Muhammad Salih, an official historian of Shah Jahan’s reign: “Its four walls… enclosed the centre of the earth [ markaz-i khak ].” While the nature of the city continues to be debated, there is no doubt that it was one of the finest imperial capitals of the time. It had all the features of a great Mughal city: a palace-fort, enclosure walls, streets with squares, bazaars, mosques, gardens, imperial buildings, commercial neighbourhoods and industrial establishments, some within the palace-fort complex and some outside it.
On April 29, 1639, at a time determined by imperial astrologers, the subahdar (governor) of Delhi ordered the architects Ustad Ahmad and Ustad Hamid to begin the excavations for the new capital. After nine years, on April 19, 1648, Shah Jahan entered the Daulatkhana-i-Khas / Diwan-i-Khas (Hall of Special Audience) through the gate fronting the river.
The palace-fort was built at a cost of around one crore rupees, half of which was spent on the construction of the palaces within. It occupied the north-eastern edge of the new imperial city. Later, Shah Jahan also constructed a wall around the city, which Bernier found to be inadequate. The wall was punctuated by towers, bastions, gates and entryways. Of its 14 major gates, the important ones are the Mori, Lahori, Ajmeri, Turkomani, Kashmiri and Akbarabadi (later known as the Delhi Gate) Gates.
Fort wall and entrances The palace-fort complex together with the Salimgarh Fort occupies an area of 121 acres (one acre is 0.4 hectare). It is an irregular octagon with its two longer sides in the east and west. According to the art historian Percy Brown, most of it was laid out in squares and there was hardly an oblique line or curve in the entire scheme. The riverfront section contained important royal buildings. A water channel, called Nahar-i-behisht (Stream of Paradise), ran through these buildings. The fort complex was surrounded on three sides by a moat and by the Yamuna on the eastern side. The wall on the north-eastern side borders the Salimgarh Fort, which served as a prison during Mughal times. The wall of the palace-fort covers a perimeter of 2.41 kilometres. Along the river, it is 18 metres high and on the other sides it is 33.5 m high. The wall was built of red sandstone (hence the name Red Fort) brought upstream on the Yamuna from Fatehpur Sikri.
The archaeologist Y.D. Sharma pointed out that there were five grand entrance gates to the fort, only two of which are still in use: the imposing three-storey Lahori (facing the direction of Lahore) Gate and the Delhi Gate (facing Delhi). The latter, which Shah Jahan used to go to Jama Masjid, is similar in layout and appearance to the Lahori but is notable for the two life-sized stone elephants on either side of it. Aurangzeb, Shah Jahan’s son and successor, demolished the elephants, but the British Viceroy Lord Curzon had them restored in 1903. Lying under the Musamman Burj , the riverfronting octagonal tower, was a third gate that the emperor used as a private entrance.
The bazaars The fort was characterised by rectangular buildings laid out in a symmetrical arrangement with intersecting thoroughfares. There were two principal streets/thoroughfares, which also served as bazaars. They emanated from within the fort-palace but went beyond to the city. They intersected at right angles in the courtyard outside the Naqqar Khana (Drum House). The principal imperial street, running from east to west, began at the Rang Mahal (Palace of Colour) and ran through the Lahori Gate of the fort to Fatehpuri Masjid. This street was divided into three bazaars separated by two squares. The first, lying between the Lahori Gate and the chowk (square) of the Kotwali Chabutra (City Magistrate’s Platform), was called Urdu Bazar (Bazaar of the Royal Camp). The second part, commissioned by Shah Jahan’s daughter Jahanara Begum, extended from Kotwali Chabutra to the octagonal Chandni Chowk (Silver Square) and was called Ashrafi Bazar (Moneychangers’ Market) or Jauhari Bazar (Jewellers’ Bazaar). It had a hammam (bathhouse), a sarai (inn) and a garden (Bagh Sahibabad) near it. The final section, from Chandni Chowk to Fatehpuri Masjid, was called Fatehpuri Bazar . The Nahar-i-behisht , bordered by trees, ran down the middle of the bazaars.
The second street, in the north-south direction, stretched from the Akbarabadi Gate of the fort to the Akbarabadi Gate of the city and had a market that later came to be known as the Faiz Bazar (Bazaar of Plenty). As in the case of the first street, a stream from the Nahar-i-behisht ran down the middle of this bazaar. There was also a bazaar, a small one, that connected Jama Masjid and the palace-fort and it was inhabited by dancing girls, medicine men, jugglers, storytellers and astrologers.
The Lahori Gate remains the main public entrance to the palace-fort. The pointed arched entrance has kangura s (ornamental merlons) on the parapet and a row of dwarf chhatri s (canopy), each with a small marble dome. It is flanked by octagonal towers with sandstone domes and marble finials. Since 1947, Prime Ministers have made Independence Day speeches from the ramparts adjacent to this gate. Aurangzeb added barbicans to the Delhi and Lahori Gates and made the former the headquarters of the qiladar (fort commander). When Shah Jahan was imprisoned by Aurangzeb, he apparently wrote to his son from Agra saying: “You have made the fort a bride, and set a veil before her face.” The historian Percival Spear points out that Aurangzeb built the great wall in front of the Lahori Gate to save nobles the trouble of having to bow constantly as they walked the length of Chandni Chowk , which court etiquette required them to do when they were in the view of the emperor. Blake, however, says the wall was built to strengthen the outworks of the structure.
After entering the Lahori Gate, one comes to a vaulted arcade, or a covered bazaar ( Bazaar-i-Mussaqaf ). Blake says that establishing roofed bazaars was a common practice in Iran and West Asia but was unusual in India. This was a double-storey structure with arcaded shops at both levels, and there were shops on sides of the street too. Here, merchants of Delhi sold their goods to the nobles. In the middle of the bazaar is an octagonal court known as Chhatta Chowk with an open roof to allow in air and light. Going past the covered bazaar, one reaches the three-storey sandstone pavilion Naubat Khana (Music Gallery), or Naqqar Khana , where once ceremonial music was played five times a day and from where the arrival of the emperor and other dignitaries was announced. The Indian War Memorial Museum now occupies its upper storey. Between Naqqar Khana and Chhatta Chowk is an open square forecourt ( Jilau Khana ) on the sides of which were small rooms for officials connected with the daily guard. It is in the Jilau Khana that the people attending daily audience, ministers, bureaucrats, amirs and others waited. Only the princes could go beyond this point on their horses; all others had to dismount here.
The Naqqar Khana led to the rectangular Diwan-i-Aam (Hall of Public Audience) open on three sides with a courtyard in front. It is an arcaded structure consisting of nine engrailed arches supported by double columns made of sandstone. It has 27 bays, and the ceiling and the columns were originally decorated with gilded stucco work and hung with heavy curtains. Set against the centre of the eastern wall is a marble canopy known as the Nashiman-i-Zill-i-Ilahi (Seat of the Shadow of God). This canopy with fluted/baluster columns, inlays of precious stones and a Bengal-styled roof once stood over the emperor’s throne. Here he sat and listened to complaints and suggestions from the general populace and deliberated upon routine military, administrative and financial matters. A railing separated him and the common people. Below the throne was a marble dais decorated with semi-precious stones to be used by the wazir (prime minister). The wall behind the throne was ornamented with beautiful panels of pietra dura work, said to have been executed by the Florentine artist Austin de Bordeaux. The panel has beautiful flowers along with birds and animals. It also has a representation of the Greek god Orpheus playing the flute to animals, including a hare, a leopard and a lion. The art historian Ebba Koch says this symbolised the ideal rule of Shah Jahan “whose justice would make the lion lie down with the lamb and, in the human world, free the oppressed from their oppressors”.
The Diwan-i-Aam was sometimes used for state functions, and the courtyard behind it leads to the imperial apartments. In order from north to south, they are Mumtaz Mahal , Rang Mahal , Khas Mahal , Diwan-i-Khas , the hammam and Hira Mahal . Built along the Yamuna, these palaces now overlook the traffic-heavy Mahatma Gandhi Road. The eastern ramparts are flanked by two towers, Asad Burj (Lion Tower) and Shah Burj (Emperor’s Tower) respectively, on the south and north ends. Raised on a common marble platform, these were mostly open marble pavilions with perforated screens, inlaid with precious stones and decorated with moulded plaster and paintings. They had walled courtyards on the western side to give them privacy from the rest of the palace. The Nahar-i-behisht brought water from the river by way of a marble ramp that led into a lotus-shaped pool in the north-eastern building. From here, it filled the royal baths, ran through the Diwan-i-Khas and the emperor’s private chambers and beneath the marble trellis screen that carried the carving of the Mizan-i-Insaf (Scales of Justice), through the section reserved for the royal women.
Behind the Diwan-i-Aam and separated by a court is the Rang Mahal , a huge hall whose name is derived from its painted interior. It had a facade of five engrailed arches set on piers. The ceiling was originally built of silver and, in the words of Muhammad Salih, was “gilded and ornamented with golden flowers”. The central hall was divided into 15 bays formed by intersecting arches. The structure had two vaulted chambers on either end that were adorned with wedges of mirrors embedded in the ceiling. These apartments are popularly called Shish Mahal (House of Mirrors) because of the effect they produced.
Beyond this is the Mumtaz Mahal (Distinguished Palace), a building that now houses the Fort Archaeological Museum. It had a brightly coloured ceiling inlaid with gold and at four corners were reed houses ( khas khanas ). There was a large garden with a pool and a marble basin between this palace and the Diwan-i-Aam . Between the Mumtaz Mahal and the Asad Burj were living quarters for women of the imperial household. Small gardens laid around central pools dotted the courtyard.
Emperor’s living quarters Immediately north of the RangMahal were the emperor’s living quarters called the Khas Mahal (Special Palace). This composite palace consisted of three segments: a beautifully carved marble building inlaid with precious stones called the Aramgah or Khwabgah (Place of Sleep) flanked by the Tasbih Khana (Chamber for counting beads for private prayers) and the Tosha Khana (Robe Chamber). The Tasbih Khana was a set of three rooms facing the Diwan-i-Khas . This was separated from the central Khwabgah by a marble screen containing a representation of the Mizan-i-Insaf suspended over a crescent amidst stars and clouds. The Tosha Khana , also known as the Baithak (Meeting Hall), faced the Rang Mahal and had painted walls and ceiling and a perforated screen. The Musamman Burj , with its beautifully painted interior, protruded from the eastern wall of the Aramgah . It served as a place for the Jharoka Darshan (Balcony of Audience)—a practice borrowed from Hindus whereby the emperor appeared before his subjects every morning. In 1808, Akbar Shah II added a small balcony to this burj . It was from this balcony that King George V and Queen Mary appeared before the people of Delhi during the Durbar of 1911.
To the east of the Diwan-i-Aam and along the riverfront is the Diwan-i-Khas . The location of this hall, deep within the living quarters of the imperial family, indicated its special, private character. This rectangular chamber was a place for exclusive and private audience. Built of pure white marble, it was one of the most elegant buildings in the palace-fort. Its roof has pillared umbrellas at the corners. The chamber has engrailed or scalloped arches resting on a set of 32 piers with square shafts. The lower walls were studded with agate, pearl and other precious stones while the upper portion had fruits and flowers painted in colourful and intricate designs. Takht-i-Taus , the famous peacock throne with the Koh-i-Noor diamond embedded in its canopy once stood in the centre of the room on a wide marble platform. The Nahar-i-behisht flowed right through the middle of the hall, adding to the beauty of the place. The Diwan-i-Khas inspired the poet Amir Khusrau (1235-1325) so much that he left a quote in the building wall: “If there be a paradise on the earth, it is this, it is this, it is this.”
North of the Diwan-i-Khas lay the hammam , which was a three-storey structure built of marble. While one storey was used as a dressing room, the other two were for hot and cold water baths respectively. It was decorated with mosaic and pieces of glass and nicely painted. At the north-eastern corner of the palace-fort and along the riverfront, lay the Shah Burj .
North of the Diwan-i-Khas was the marble Moti Masjid (Pearl Mosque) built around 1659 for exclusive private use. This is the only building that Aurangzeb erected within the palace-fort and is now closed to the public. The northern sector of the imperial quarters was occupied by the gardens, primarily the Hayat Baksh Bagh (Life Bestowing Garden) and Mahtab Bagh (Moonlight Garden). The Hayat Baksh Bagh was a paradise garden with tanks, fountains, tunnels, pavilions and all the other structures typical of such gardens in the West Asian countries. It had a rectangular pool in the centre beside which stood an open summerhouse ( barahdari ). At the north and south ends of this garden stood two identical pavilions named after the monsoon months of the Hindu calendar: Sawan (fourth month) and Bhadaun (fifth month).
After Shah Jahan The fortunes of the fort started disintegrating after the death of Aurangzeb, a period that witnessed battles for succession, dissensions within the royalty, the rise of ambitious nobles, invasions from abroad and natural calamities. The palace-fort was a centre for artistic and cultural performances during some periods. Muhammad Shah, one of the later Mughals, patronised Urdu, Qawwali and music, particularly khyal . Paintings of Holi celebrations during his period are well known.
In 1739, Nadir Shah, the Turk ruler of Iran, crossed over Afghanistan and Punjab and defeated the Mughals at Karnal. In the subsequent display of power, his name was proclaimed as the sovereign in the khutba read in the mosques in Shahjahanabad. He also got Muhammad Shah to receive him at the fort where he symbolically returned the throne to the defeated emperor. On March 22, 1739, infuriated by attacks on his army, Nadir Shah ordered a massacre of citizens of Delhi and witnessed the barbarity sitting on the roof of Sunehri Masjid near Chandni Chowk . He also plundered the fort and the city and carried away a booty with an estimated value of 700 million rupees, including the Peacock Throne and the Koh-i-Noor .
The destroyed city and plundered empire was further weakened by the raids of the Marathas, the Sikhs, the Jats, the Gurjars, the Rohillas and the Afghans around the mid to later 19th century.
The historians Percival Spear and Amar Farooqui argue that the Mughal Empire as an imperial raj or a political entity ceased to exist in the 1750s. But the “imperial” aspect of the emperor and his distinctive social status as the foremost resident of Delhi ensured that his position remained central to the identity of the city even after British occupation. In 1803, Lord Lake defeated the Marathas near Patparganj and gained control of the Ganga-Yamuna plains and the Delhi-Agra region. The city became a part of the North-Western Provinces and was governed from Agra. A British Resident was stationed in Delhi. He started functioning from an office at Dara Shukoh’s Library on the right bank of the Yamuna close to the imperial palace.
Rebellion of 1857 The early decades of the 20th century, sometimes described as the “English Peace”, were also the period of the “Delhi Renaissance”, which was characterised by literary greats such as Ghalib, Momim, and Zauq; the intellectual endeavours of the faculty at the Delhi College and its English institute; and the coming of printing presses and newspapers. This was disrupted by one of the most serious challenges to the British colonial rule, the Rebellion of 1857.
The year 1857 witnessed armed revolts in parts of central and northern India, leading to a loss of British control over these regions. It began with a mutiny of sepoys but acquired a civil and popular character in parts of Upper India. The historian Eric Stokes says that the rebel sepoys showed a “centripetal impulse to congregate at Delhi”. The Red Fort thus emerged as a focus centre for the rebellion. Under pressure from the rebels and princes, the reluctant 82-year-old Mughal emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar, became the titular leader of the rebellion, while Prince Mirza Mughal (commander-in-chief) and Jiwan Bakht ( wazir ), along with other princes and nobles, exercised the real power.
The palace-fort soon became the seat of new power and Bahadur Shah a symbol of the rebellion. There were attacks on Europeans, Christians and those connected with the British government. The British army waited for reinforcements from Ambala. Once the army started gaining control of the city, it went on an offensive against both Hindus and Muslims. The population of the city was driven out and took shelter around the Qutb and the Nizamuddin and could only re-enter the city the following year. Mosques were taken over. After September, the British forces unleashed a reign of terror that saw indiscriminate shootings, courts martial and summary hangings.
Bahadur Shah had escaped via the Yamuna and taken refuge in Humayun’s tomb. He was arrested along with three princes who were killed on the way back near the Delhi Gate by Major William Hodson. Bahadur Shah returned to the Red Fort as a prisoner of the British, was tried in the Diwan-i-Khas in 1858 and exiled to Rangoon, Burma (now Yangon, Myanmar), on October 7.
The fort complex also incurred the wrath of British officials. More than two-thirds of the inner structures were destroyed. Henceforth, the palace was to be used as quarters for the British garrison and the famed Diwan-i-Aam as a hospital. The buildings south of the Diwan-i-Khas were found to be “of little architectural interest” and were declared suitable for troops. Most of the jewels, precious stones and artworks of the Red Fort had been looted and stolen during Nadir Shah’s invasion and after the “Great Indian Rebellion” was suppressed. Several existing Mughal structures were demolished, including the harem courts and gardens to the west of Rang Mahal and the royal storerooms and kitchen to the north of Diwan-i-Aam and the Mahtab Bagh . British buildings such as army barracks, hospitals, bungalows, administrative buildings, sheds and godowns became a part of the palace-fort complex.
The rebellion ended the rule of the East India Company, and an Act passed in the British Parliament in August 1858 made Queen Victoria the sovereign head of British India. The office of Secretary of State was created to rule India. The new power dynamics were sought be cemented through imperial durbars held in 1877, 1903 and 1911. The author Pran Nevile says this was in keeping with the Indian tradition of the durbar, which celebrated the coronation of a new ruler to mark his/her sovereignty over his/her subjects. The third durbar also saw a surprise announcement from King George V of the transfer of the capital from Calcutta (now Kolkata) to Delhi. The next few decades were spent on building the last imperial city, New Delhi, also known as Lutyen’s Delhi.
The Red Fort became visible again in the years preceding Independence. The chambers within the baoli , or stepwell, believed to predate the Red Fort, were converted into a prison. It housed Colonel Shah Nawaz Khan, Colonel Prem Kumar Sahgal, and Colonel Gurbaksh Singh Dhillon during the Indian National Army (INA), or Azad Hind Fauj, trials in 1945-46. The massive nationwide campaign for their release reinforced the public perception of the former Mughal palace as the symbol of anti-colonial resistance. On August 16, 1947, Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India, raised the Indian national flag above the Lahori Gate. Farooqui says that the act of replacing the British flag with India’s national flag—a day after the swearing-in of the first Cabinet—amounted to reclaiming this contested site for the nation.
After Independence, the Red Fort witnessed a few changes but continued to be used as a military cantonment. A large part of the palace-fort remained under the control of the Indian Army until 2004 when it was handed over to the Archaeological Survey of India for restoration.
Shashank Shekhar Sinha has taught history in undergraduate colleges at the University of Delhi. He does independent research on tribes, gender, violence, culture and heritage .
source: http://www.frontline.thehindu.com / Frontline / Home> Arts & Culture> Heritage> Agra Fort / by Shashank Shekhar Sinha / January 30th, 2019
A Mughal painting of Akbar with Jesuits. The Great Mughals are well known in history, but few people are aware of the story of Gujarat’s Sultan Bahadur Shah. | Photo Credit: Getty Images
This fictionalised narration of the life of the 16th-century monarch of Gujarat is enjoyable but does not provide a coherent narrative.
The year 1526 was a watershed in the history of India. It was the year of the First Battle of Panipat, when Zahiruddin Babur defeated the last ruler of the Delhi Sultanate, Ibrahim Lodhi, and founded the Mughal dynasty. The Mughals went on to form a part of India’s most colourful, extravagant period in history: an era of cultural efflorescence and impressive art and architecture. A larger-than-life dynasty that drew the attention of faraway lands.
Bahadur Shah of Gujarat: A King in Search of a Kingdom
By Kalpish Ratna / Simon & Schuster India, 2023 / Pages: 395 pages / Price: Rs.809
What few people know is that 1526 also marked the ascension to the throne of another historical figure, Sultan Bahadur Shah of Gujarat. Caught between the Portuguese—then tightening their hold on western India—and the Mughals, Bahadur Shah is an enigmatic figure, a man of whom too little is known, far less remembered. As Kalpana Swaminathan and Ishrat Syed, writing as Kalpish Ratna, mention in the introduction to their novel Bahadur Shah of Gujarat: A King in Search of a Kingdom, most people coming across Bahadur Shah’s name confuse him with Bahadur Shah II “Zafar”, the last of the Mughals.
This fictionalised retelling of Bahadur Shah’s story sets out to explore his life and times. The book, divided into five parts, does not go the usual way of biographies: in fact, Bahadur Shah does not put in an appearance until the fifth chapter, “14 February 1537”. The first four chapters are all quite different from each other in style, setting, and narrative structure. The first chapter, for instance, centres round a village in North Konkan, its inhabitants trying as best as they can to deal with the firangi. The second chapter, narrated as a fast-paced, larger-than-life performance by a professional storyteller, a daastaango perhaps, is about Babur, “The Shining Sword of Samarqand” that came sweeping down on Hindustan. Chapter 3, “Hokka”, takes the form of a poem about (and narrated by) the two-headed doum palm of Diu, known locally as hokka:
“I’m prized here by only one man,
I’ve known him for years, and not a year goes by without his coming to see me.
Like me, he’s two-headed.
I’m the only two-headed palm in this part of the world, and he’s the only two-headed man I know.
Like a hokka, he’s hired for impossibilities.”
Just when the reader begins to wonder which way this novel is going, there comes Chapter 4, “Diu”, a somewhat dry essay on the history of this much-coveted, intensely fought-over port.
Too many threads in narrative
Is Bahadur Shah of Gujarat poetry? Is it a story? Is it factual essay? Is it adventure, ribaldry, bloodshed, politics?
It is a combination of all these and then some more. The canvas is enormous, stretching from Delhi to Chittorgarh, Diu to Shashti Pranth (now on the fringes of Mumbai), even going as far as Lisbon. The cast of characters is proportionately vast, reading like a who’s who of Indian politics in the early 16th century: Ibrahim Lodhi, Rana Sanga, Babur, Humayun, Afonso de Albuquerque, Malik Ayaaz. There are other famous names (Bhakti poet Meera Bai among them) and an array of people not so well-known: diplomats, warriors, cooks, librarians, interpreters. Plus, of course, there are fictitious characters.
There is war, revenge, lust, some farcical humour, and there are conspiracies galore. Most of it is based on fact, on events that actually happened, but narrated with a hefty dose of imagination thrown in. For instance, the attempted poisoning of Babur by Ibrahim Lodhi’s mother, Dilawar Begum, is narrated with a long prelude. It is heavily embellished with concocted details and some fairly juvenile humour: the cooks use unconventional (if that!) ingredients, the “poison” is not quite toxic after all; and the results are bizarre.
The scope of this book is so huge that it is hardly surprising that it ends up being confusing. Part of this confusion stems from the fact that the authors seem to have tried to include just about every aspect of Bahadur Shah’s struggle to get to and retain his throne. The conspiracies, plots, dialogues, and events are multifarious, and they are not tackled in a chronological or even logical fashion. Random chapters wander off here and there, telling an anecdote from the point of view of, say, Ibrahim Lodhi or Sikandar Shah (Bahadur Shah’s elder brother). Other chapters are devoted to a jewelled kamarband, to the Kohinoor, Meera Bai, the hokka. People reminisce, pontificate, and have conversations that are often obscure, leaving the reader baffled.
There are footnotes scattered through the pages and copious endnotes for almost each chapter, but these are often carelessly dealt with. The footnotes, which mostly explain a Hindustani/Persian word, are somewhat arbitrary, often explaining one fairly common word but omitting another. Some are repetitive, others are mirrored in the endnotes.
If the objective was to convey a sense of the turmoil and chaos of the era, Bahadur Shah of Gujarat achieves it. The best way to enjoy this book is to savour its language, to appreciate the somewhat quirky humour of it, and to take it one chapter at a time. To understand the many threads criss-crossing the life of its protagonist and get a firm grasp on what really happened may be a bit too much to ask of it.
Madhulika Liddle is a novelist and short story writer.
source: http://www.frontline.thehindu.com / Frontline / Home> Books> Book Review / by Madhulika Liddle / December 14th, 2023
The Agra Fort, a World Heritage Site, is the only fort in India to have been inhabited by all the early Mughal emperors.
The Amar Singh Gate of the Agra Fort is on the southern side of the fort complex and is its public entrance.
SITUATED on the right bank of the Yamuna river, very close to the iconic Taj Mahal, is the Agra Fort, also known as the Red Fort. Declared a World Heritage Site in 1983, it is the only fort in India that was inhabited by all the early Mughal emperors. The fort, therefore, provides a useful template not only for the development of Mughal and Indo-Islamic architecture but also the evolution of Mughal palace forts, polity and ideas of kingship. The fort’s palaces and pavilions inspired the Red Fort (Lal Qila) in Delhi and buildings in Fatehpur Sikri and Lahore. However, the history of the Agra Fort is not just connected with the Mughals—who held sway over the fort, certainly between Akbar and Aurangzeb—but also with Mahmud of Ghazni, the Rajputs, the Lodis, the Surs, the Marathas, the Jats, the Durranis and finally, the British, before the greater part of the complex was handed over to the Indian Army in 1947.
The fort complex
A poem written in 1134 C.E. by Masud ibn Saad Salman, a Persian poet, mentions that the fort of Agra was captured by Mahmud of Ghazni. Later, towards the second half of the 15th century, a Rajput king called Badal Singh constructed a brick fort at the site and called it Badalgarh fort. The fort gained prominence when the Sultan of Delhi Sikandar Lodi (regnal years 1489-1517) decided to shift his capital from Delhi to Agra. Thereafter, the Badalgarh fort became the residence for the Lodi sultans.
From the Lodis, the fort passed into the hands of the Mughals. After defeating Ibrahim Lodi at the First Battle of Panipat (1526), Babur (regnal years 1526-30), the first Mughal emperor, ordered his son Humayun to take charge of Agra and the fort’s treasures. Babur built some paradise gardens in Agra and a baoli (stepwell) within the fort complex. Humayun (regnal years 1530-40 and 1555-56) was crowned at the fort in 1530 but preferred to rule from Delhi. The Afghan chieftain Sher Shah defeated him at Bilgram in 1540, occupied the Agra Fort, and garrisoned it thoroughly. An exiled Humayun could recapture his throne only in 1555 but died soon afterwards.
With the arrival of Akbar (regnal years 1556-1605) in 1558, Agra’s and the fort’s fortunes changed completely. After staying in the Badalgarh fort for a few years, he decided to rebuild it as the site of his government, and the old brick fort gave way to a new one in red sandstone. Approximately 4,000 builders are said to have worked every day for eight years (1565-73) to complete this renovation task. The historian Michael Fisher points out that Akbar created his court complex within the existing fort, demonstrating his early architectural aesthetic—uniform red sandstone surfaces highlighted with white marble. A new citadel-city came into being. The Jesuit missionary Antonio Monserrate, who saw the fort complex in 1580, recorded that besides the emperor’s palace there were “mansions of his nobles, the magazines, the treasury, the arsenal, the stables of the cavalry, the shops and huts of drug-sellers, barbers, and all manner of common workmen”. Abul Fazl, Akbar’s court historian, records that 500 buildings were built there in the Bengali and Gujarati styles.
Akbar’s successor, Jahangir (regnal years 1605-27), used to visit Agra at regular intervals and even stayed in this fort. However, he focussed his efforts more on building forts and palaces in Lahore and Kashmir. The Agra Fort was modified considerably during the reign of Shah Jahan (regnal years 1628-58). Between 1628 and 1637, he destroyed many existing buildings, renovating some and constructing three new marble palace courtyards (alongside three mosques) according to his own architectural taste. Aurangzeb (regnal years 1658-1707) deposed Shah Jahan, his father, to take control of the fort and built two barbicans around the gates and on the riverside to strengthen its defences. When the British took over the fort in 1803, they destroyed many buildings to make way for military structures. The complex now has only around two dozen monuments left, mostly those built by Akbar and Shah Jahan.
Gates, palaces and courtyards
The fort has a semicircular shape and is surrounded by a broad deep moat. Its eastern side, some 725 metres long, faces the bank of the Yamuna. Spread over 94 acres (38 hectares) of land, the fort complex is enclosed by a double-battlemented wall of red sandstone punctuated at regular intervals by massive circular bastions. It has a circumference of almost 2.5 kilometres and its walls are around 21 m high. The fort has four gates, one on each side. Of these, the Delhi Gate (in the north) and the Amar Singh Gate (in the south, now the public entrance to the fort) are the most prominent ones. The other two gates are the Elephant Gate (Hathi Pol Gate) and the Khizri Gate (also known as the water gate because it opened on the eastern riverfront side where the ghats were located). R. Nath, a historian of Mughal architecture, points out that the Delhi and Amar Singh Gates are architecturally similar: both have a drawbridge, a crooked entrance with dangerous trap points and a steep rise.
Most buildings are concentrated in the south-eastern corner of the fort complex in a band-like succession of courtyards along the riverfront. Shah Jahan did not alter Akbar’s riverfront alignment in his building programme. The Yamuna, Nath says, provided a river frontage, a pleasing landscape and fresh air and a constant supply of water. After ascending the ramp through the Amar Singh Gate, one can see, on the eastern side, two courtyards of Akbar’s time: Jahangiri Mahal and Akbari Mahal. In the south to north direction, there are three courtyards that Shah Jahan rebuilt along the riverfront: the Anguri Bagh (Grape Garden), the Machli Bhawan (Fish House) and the Diwan-i-Aam (Hall of Public Audience). The overall symmetrical planning of imperial residences, the art historian Ebba Koch argues, became mandatory only during Shah Jahan’s reign. In Akbar’s time, the regular planning of large-scale residential architecture was deployed only in temporary Mughal camps. In the Agra Fort, she clarifies, the residential axis was met at an angle by the (broken) public axis formed by an open bazaar street stretching from the Hathi Pol Gate to the Diwan-i-Aam courtyard.
Nath says both Akbari Mahal and Jahangiri Mahal were built in the mid 1560s and formed a part of the original Bengali Mahal , which according to Abul Fazl was the newly constructed palace where Akbar seemingly moved in on May 11, 1569. Nath opines that the two palaces probably got separated and acquired their respective nomenclature through guidebooks written in the 19th century. The oldest red stone palace in the southern part of the fort complex became known as Akbari Mahal, and the stone palace in the northern part, where a monolithic granite bowl (7.62 m × 1.42 m) built by Jahangir in 1611 was discovered, became known as Jahangiri Mahal.
Both palaces have a crooked entrance and enclosing walls to ensure privacy and security. While Akbari Mahal is in a partly preserved state, Jahangiri Mahal is in reasonably good shape. Faced with finely carved red sandstone, Jahangiri Mahal, Nath tells us, presents a complex arrangement of verandas, courtyards, galleries and rooms and halls around a quadrangle. While historians agree that the palace represents an amalgamation of various architectural styles and techniques, they differ on the exact nature of these influences. Ebba Koch contends that it combines (a later altered) symmetrical Timurid ground plan patterned on the mausoleum of Khwaja Ahmad Yasawi, a famous Sufi poet and teacher, in Turkestan, which was built between 1394 and 1399 and has the elevation of an open courtyard building. Further, the building brings together various Transoxanian features, such as the veranda of the east front with its high slender columns, along with courtyard halls styled in the broader Gujarat-Malwa-Rajasthan tradition, which the Mughals learned from the early 16th century architecture of Raja Man Singh (a noble at Akbar’s court) of Gwalior. Nath maintains that the multi-storey arrangement of palaces around inner courts reflects the catuhsala (four-sided) plan of the elevation of the chowk (quadrangle), a part of ancient Indian residential architectural tradition.
The indigenous component, according to Nath, further manifests in the duchhati (double ceiling, one above the other) composition with a central, three-openings dalan ; double floor apartments on the sides; a whispering gallery around a hall; and a portal composition with jharokha (balcony) windows. Ebba Koch and Nath have different opinions on the architecture of the rooms, halls and ceiling inside the complex. Ebba Koch feels that most of the rooms are not trabeate (a form of architecture that uses horizontal beams, or lintels, as distinct from the arcuate style, which uses arches and vaults/domes) but are a veritable pattern book of the vaulting of the time: stucco domes with geometrical patterns and/or arch netting, ribbed domes, lotus domes carved in sandstone, pyramidal vaults with a cut top, coved ceilings, etc. To Nath, the dominant architecture is trabeate as evidenced by the pillars, beams and lintels, flat ceilings (sometimes ladao ceiling consisting of ribs and panels), chajja s (eaves) and chattri s (pavilions).
The historian William G. Klingelhofer says the striking architectural elements of Jahangiri Mahal include the innovative use of Timurid geometric designs, creative adaptations of Indian art forms such as makara (crocodile) and peacock brackets and various vault designs, and the inclusion of creatures from indigenous art tradition such as the hamsa (swan), the parrot and the elephant.
As far as the functionality of the palace is concerned, most scholars, including Ebba Koch and Nath, hold that it was primarily meant for imperial women and served as Akbar’s harem and residence. Klingelhofer, however, argues: “Architectural space and design seem to have been a flexible commodity in early Mughal building, adaptable to many and diverse purposes.” It is therefore not really important to understand the exact function of each space or for that matter which rooms were provided for the palace harem, the library, temple and audiences. The palace, he elaborates, served a much broader purpose; it “was constructed at the conceptual centre of a larger Agra scheme and was intended to serve as the primary architectural embodiment of the imperial seat”. Between the red sandstone Jahangiri Mahal and the white marble Khas Mahal (Special Palace) lies a palace called Shahjahani Mahal, though there is not enough evidence to claim that Shah Jahan built it. It has a hall, side rooms and an octagonal riverside pavilion. The brick mason and red sandstone construction was plastered in white stucco and painted in colourful floral designs. The so-called Somnath Gate is kept here in one of the rooms on the western side. The subterranean three-storey chambers below Jahangiri Mahal and the area lying to the north contain the phansighar (gallows) and Babur’s baoli.
Anguri Bagh
The Anguri Bagh complex is a three-layered architectural zone set in the harem complex: the upper riverfront terrace is occupied by the Khas Mahal flanked by two identical oblong pavilions; the intermediate layer is occupied by a scalloped, trefoiled tank; and the lower zone is occupied by the Anguri Bagh (one can see a grapevine on the lawns). The Khas Mahal is built along the lines of what Ebba Koch says is the favourite Mughal pavilion theme: the combination of an enclosed inner hall (now called tanabi khana or tambi khana ) with a pillared porch or veranda (the Mughal iwan ). The court historian Lahauri calls it Aramgah (bedchamber). The spacious inner hall has beautiful Yamuna-facing marble screens with glasswork while the white marble surface is beautifully painted in floral and stylised patterns. It also has a number of oblong niches in its wall meant possibly to hold portraits of emperors and princes. The exterior porch is made up of five nine-cusped arches (popularly known as the Shahjahani arches) supported on square piers and is three-aisles deep. It has a chajja , supported by beautifully carved and moulded brackets, projecting from all sides. There are two chattri s on the parapet on the riverside but not on the Anguri Bagh side. The marble building is secured on the north and south by thin marble curtains ( sarapada ) to ensure purdah, or seclusion.
The Khas Mahal is flanked by two identical buildings with gilded bangladar/bangla roofs (a curved circular roof and a chajja ): on the left (north) is the Bangla-i-Darshan (Imperial Viewing Pavilion), and on the right (south) lies the bangla of Jahanara, a pavilion that belonged to Shah Jahan’s daughter Jahanara. Bangladar was an architectural device used in buildings in the Bengal region. After Akbar annexed the Gaur kingdom, Nath says, many Bengali craftsmen dispersed to other regions, and some naturally sought patronage at the Mughal court. Both these pavilions were originally made in red sandstone but stuccoed with white shell-plaster later to give them the semblance of white marble. There are square rooms towards the side of the pavilions.
In the Bangla-i-Darshan, which has pillar brackets and lintel openings, the emperor made an appearance every morning to his subjects gathered below the fort. Ebba Koch points out that the bangla of Jahanara, with its multi-cusped Shahjahani arches, had no ceremonial function but indicated her status at the court and provided imperial symmetry. It formed a part of Jahanara’s apartments located towards the end of the southern wing, and the three courtyard wings and northern rooms of Jahangiri Mahal were adopted for her and other women.
The Anguri Bagh happens to be the only garden in the main palace complex. It is laid out in the form of a rectangular charbagh (fourfold garden) divided by marble walkways intersecting at the centre in a marble pool. Each quarter has geometrically drawn parterres. The garden is enclosed by two-storey living apartments formed of a modular sequence of open, pillared verandas and small enclosed rooms ( hujra s). Nath underscores that the water devices at the Anguri Bagh—tanks, fountains, waterfalls, candle niches and water channels—demonstrate how running and splashing water had become an integral part of Shahjahani architecture. Akbar, on the other hand, was more fond of hammam s (bathhouses). Water was supplied to the fort through well-laid-out water systems from the Khizri Gate and the overhead tanks in the Jahangiri Mahal complex.
‘Chain of justice’
Located between the Anguri Bagh and the adjoining Machli Bhawan is a spacious octagonal tower called the Muthamman Burj or Shah Burj (imperial/king’s tower). This housed the original jharokha from where Akbar and Jahangir appeared before the people every morning ( jharokha darshan ). The burj was also where Jahangir instituted his famous “chain of justice” in 1605 to redress the grievances of the people. The tower was rebuilt by Shah Jahan in white marble, profusely inlaid and roofed with a gilded copper dome. Five of its sides project outward towards the river and are rotated by a chajja supported by brackets. Pillars, brackets, and a railing/balustrade with jali work decorate the structure. On the western side, the tower leads to a dalan /hall with three alcoves and a shallow water basin sunk in the centre. The palace has deep ornamental niches along with dados (bas reliefs) inlaid in polychrome stones and carved plants. Ebba Koch mentions that this was where the emperor met his highest dignitaries and his sons in secret council and also worked with the court historians Qazwini and Lahauri on editing the official history of his reign. Shah Jahan was imprisoned in this burj by Aurangzeb and died there in full view of the Taj Mahal. His coffin was taken out of the door at the base of the tower and then transported on a boat over the Yamuna to the Taj where he was eventually buried.
To the west of the Muthamman Burj is the entrance to a group of basement rooms with waterfalls and pools called Shish Mahal (Mirror Palace, which Lahauri called tahkhana ) because the facade has mirror mosaic set in white stucco ( ayina bandi or ayina kari ). The structure (now closed to the public) has extra thick walls and ceilings to ensure coolness and a dim interior to allow for the play of light and mirrors. Nath argues that the art of glass mosaic was originally Byzantine and spread with Islam. The Mughals Indianised it by associating it with exquisite relief and incised stucco work, something lacking in the Byzantine glass art. Further, he elaborates, unlike the saintly figures and florals featured in Byzantine glass art, the Mughals used Persian motifs, floral and stylised.
The Machli Bhawan complex, lying north of the Anguri Bagh, contains the Hall of Private Audience (earlier known as the ghusl khana or bathhouse but popularly called the Diwan-i-Khas) and the hammam , which are both on the riverside terrace on the pattern of the riverfront gardens. Below, on the ground floor, were vaulted rooms housing government offices, including the treasury.
The Diwan-i-Khas, occupying the south-eastern corner of the complex, is a large pavilion meant for meetings of the private council, exclusive law court, musical performances or inspection of the work of artists employed by the emperor. According to Lahauri, it was built in 1635, around the same time when other buildings of the harem were being completed. The exterior is protected by a broad chajja supported by brackets. The chattri s, pinnacles and kangura s (merlons) that once adorned the building are now missing. This marble building has two halls with coved ceilings, both connected by three archways—the enclosed inner hall/ tanabi khana and the outer dalan /Mughal iwan. The outer hall, having double pillars, is beautifully inlaid with floral designs and carved dados similar to the Taj Mahal and multi-foiled niches. Lahauri describes the oblong inner hall as being ornamented with paintings and floral designs and adorned in gold.
Opposite the Diwan-i-Khas, on the northern side of the terrace, lies the hammam rebuilt and refashioned by Shah Jahan. Consisting of various rooms and halls, the structure was decorated among other things by inlay work on the dados and glass mosaic on the walls and arches. It had provisions for both cold water ( sard khanah ) and warm water ( garmkhanah ). The structure now lies in a ruined state and is closed to the public. Ebba Koch points out that parts of the hammam were taken down by Lord Hastings in 1815 and its pillars were scattered. The facing and some pillars, she mentions, were sold at an auction by Lord William Bentinck (Governor General from 1828 to 1835), giving rise to the rumour that he also wanted to take down and sell the Taj Mahal.
Along the riverfront, between the Diwan-i-Khas and the hammam lies Jahangir’s finely carved black throne, which was brought from Allahabad in 1610. The crack in the throne is attributed to the uprising of the Jats of Bharatpur who temporarily controlled the fort around 1765. (There is another white throne lying opposite the black one on the terrace.)
The ground-level courtyard is enclosed by two-storey-high arcaded wings with Shahjahani columns and multi-cusped arches. It contained government offices behind the arcaded galleries. The open court in the centre was used by the emperor to inspect his hunting animals—hounds, hawks and cheetahs—and horses working out. It was also used for animal fights. A marble seat with a baldachin projects from the centre of the southern wing. It is decorated by baluster columns and semicircular arches with a rich naturalistic acanthus decoration—inspired by European engravings—which Ebba Koch argues was of a type first used exclusively in the architecture framing the appearances of Shah Jahan.
Located in the middle of the eastern side of the fort is the spacious court known as the Diwan-i-Aam. According to Lahauri, a cloth tent and, later, a wooden hall were used for the purposes of Diwan-i-Aam before the present structure came into being under Shah Jahan.
The main audience hall is a rectangular, pillared building standing on a red sandstone plinth. It has four rows of pillars and pilasters on the north-south axis and 10 along the east-west alignment. The hall has double columns on all the three external sides (similar to the Chaunsath Khamba at Nizamuddin in Delhi, which is square in shape though). Resting on square bases, these pillars were once carved or stuccoed and the outlines of the bases, shafts, capitals and cusps were gilded. They support engrailed or nine-cusped Shahjahani arches. The emperor’s jharokha , or throne chamber, projects from the eastern wall of the hall. Its walls, pillars and even the ceiling have stylised floral designs in pietra dura inlay, which is characteristic of Shahjahani architecture. Ebba Koch says that the naturalistic plant decoration symbolically represented the bloom brought about by the just rule of Shah Jahan. The jharokha walls have china khana niches—possibly used to keep porcelain vessels—which the contemporary poet Kalim wrote was a tribute of China to the court of Shah Jahan. The hall has a flat roof and the exterior is protected by chajja s in turn supported by brackets. While the hall is made of red sandstone, it is white-plastered to give the effect of marble. The courtyard of the Diwan-i-Aam is surrounded by narrow galleries/ dalan s/verandas with multi-cusped arches. Shah Jahan held court at the Diwan-i-Aam twice a day and attended to administrative matters. All the courtiers and honoured visitors who assembled there, Fisher points out, “would stand deferentially with crossed arms in hierarchically arranged semicircles [separated by railings] centred on his throne, moving outward from highest to lowest”. The audience hall served a larger symbolic purpose that went beyond being a place where administrative matters were dealt with or foreign dignitaries were received; it also reinforced Shah Jahan’s position as the head of the spiritual domain.
On account of its 40 pillar sites, the Diwan-i-Aam was also known as Chihil Sutun (Forty-Pillared)—the name by which the ruins of Persepolis (in present-day Iran) were widely referred to then. By recreating the famous audience halls of the ancient kings of Iran, Ebba Koch argues, the Mughal emperor claimed the status of these kings, who were considered exemplary rulers in the Islamic world. However, unlike the original Iranian halls, she substantiates, those of the Mughals followed the plan of a mosque (the closest parallel could be the Pathar Masjid in Srinagar) with a wider aisle in the centre. While in the mosque the central aisle leads to the mihrab (the niche that shows the direction of Mecca), in the case of the Diwan-i-Aam, it leads to the emperor’s jharokha . Ebba Koch points out that the idea that Shah Jahan’s authority was not only worldly but also spiritual was further reinforced by the presence of a mosque right opposite the audience hall at the centre of the west wing. Nath puts forward a somewhat similar concept albeit rooted in Indian thought and philosophy—the 40-pillar sites made up of 27 bays, representing the 27 nakshatra s (constellations) denoting the incarnation of the jagat (universe) presided by the emperor sitting like a sun. The audience hall of the Agra Fort served as a model for those in the palaces of Lahore and Shahjahanabad.
Scholars are divided on whether or not Akbar built a mosque within the fort premises. There are, however, three surviving mosques built by Shah Jahan. Describing the Shahjahani mosques, Ebba Koch says they are of two main architectural types and both had already started becoming distinct during Jahangir’s time. To the first category belong the great city mosques, such as the Jami Masjid of Agra built by Jahanara in 1648, which has prayer halls with massive pishtaq s (having a high portal/facade gateway) surmounted by three or five domes and courtyards surrounded by continuous arcaded galleries with axial gates. To the second category belong smaller mosques, mostly with a direct imperial connection, which have an additive system of vaulted bays—they may have flat or coved ceilings, domes or even high bangla vaults—and could appear without pishtaq s and outer domes. Also unlike the first category, they do not have minarets, for example, the Moti Masjid (Pearl Mosque, 1647-53), the Mina Masjid (or Gem Mosque, completed in 1637, it was the emperor’s private mosque) and the Nagina Masjid (Jewel Mosque). The Nagina Masjid is covered by bangla vaults and chajja s, which, according to Ebba Koch, is the first time such a motif appears in a Mughal mosque.
Agra Fort after Akbar/Shah Jahan
Akbar’s fort was one of the strongest and most defensible structures of its times. Even rebellions carried out by his son Jahangir (1599) and grandson Shah Jahan (1622) failed to break through its defences. The complex took much of its current form during the reign of Shah Jahan, and it continued to remain his imperial residence even after 1638 when he shifted his capital to Delhi. Aurangzeb’s efforts to capture the fort with the help of military power and guns proved futile, and he finally succeeded in breaking its defences by cutting the water supply through the Khizri Gate side. A desperate Shah Jahan wrote:
“…Only yesterday, I was the master of nine hundred thousand troopers
and today I am in need of a pitcher of water…”
The emperor finally surrendered in 1658 and spent the rest of his life imprisoned in the fort. Agra began to lose much of its imperial charm after Shah Jahan’s death (1666) even though Aurangzeb continued to hold court at the fort. In 1666, during Aurangzeb’s reign, the Maratha king Shivaji visited Agra to meet the Mughal emperor in the Diwan-i-Khas. Aurangzeb’s death in 1707 threw both Mughal power and the imperial stronghold into disarray. The history of the Agra Fort, for most of the 18th century, remains a story of multiple sieges and pillage, and it changed hands many times, including those of the Jats and the Marathas. The Marathas gained control of the area south of Delhi after defeating the Mughals around the mid 18th century. After their loss to the Afghan and Rohilla forces led by Ahmad Shah Durrani at the Third Battle of Panipat (1761), the fort came under the control of the Durranis. The Marathas were able to regain control in 1785 under the reign of Mahadji Shinde. Subsequently, the Marathas lost to the British in the Second Anglo-Maratha War (1803) and with it the fort. Colluding with European officers working in the Maratha garrison, Lord Lake was able to breach the fort in the south-eastern side (Bengali Burj).
With the establishment of the British military garrison at the fort, many Mughal structures were pulled down to construct residential quarters, barracks, stores and so on. The grand courtyard of the Diwan-i-Aam, for example, was converted into an arsenal, and many buildings and pavilions were whitewashed and subdivided with mud partitions for the private use of officers.
It is interesting to note, however, that the British used the artefacts associated with the fort to play divisive politics. Nath says that the British deliberately planted the torso of a horse at the edge of the moat near the public entrance to perpetuate the escape story of Rao Amar Singh, a Rajput nobleman affiliated with the royal house of Marwar. Amar Singh killed Salabat Khan (one of Shah Jahan’s important officers) in front of a full court in 1644. It was popularly believed that he escaped the Mughals by jumping across the moat on his horse. The fact is, Nath says, that Amar Singh and his followers were killed while trying to escape. Thanks to this episode, however, the gate eventually became known as the Amar Singh Gate. A big statue of him stands at the traffic intersection in front of the fort. Another such artefact—now kept in a glass enclosure in the Shahjahani Palace but not related to the fort or the Mughals in any way—is the Somnath Gate, which was brought to India from Afghanistan in 1842. To enlist the support of Hindus, Governor General Lord Ellenborough made a speech on the occasion wherein he proclaimed that he had brought back the sandalwood gate taken away by Mahmud of Ghazni from the Somnath temple. A historical insult, he claimed, had been avenged after 800 years. It was soon discovered that the gate, made of deodar wood and carrying Islamic motifs, actually belonged to the tomb of Mahmud of Ghazni, a fact corroborated by the Arabic inscription on the structure. Thereafter, it was left abandoned in the Agra Fort.
The fort came under some conservation efforts towards the late 19th century with the involvement of the Public Works Department. Lord Curzon’s restoration campaign at the beginning of the 20th century saw many military structures being removed from the premises. Independence, however, brought the military back to the Agra Fort, and a large part of the complex, including the Khizri and Hathi Pol Gates, the Meena Bazaar and the Moti Masjid, remains under the control of the Indian Army and is inaccessible to the public. In recent decades, there has been a growing demand from archaeologists, historians, conservationists and heritage enthusiasts that the Army vacate the premises.
Shashank Shekhar Sinha has taught history in undergraduate colleges of the University of Delhi. He does independent research on tribes, gender, violence, culture and heritage .
source: http://www.frontline.thehindu.com / Frontline / Home> Arts & Culture> Heritage> Agra Fort / by Shashank Shekhar Sinha / January 30th, 2019
