You're Dead to Me - The Mughal Empire

Episode Date: April 3, 2020

Greg Jenner is joined by historian Dr Mehreen Chida-Razvi and comedian Sindhu Vee to explore The Mughal Empire and its legacy in art and architecture. We learn why an Emperor always needed to be wary of his siblings and how a zebra came to cause disbelief in court, and we hear the real story behind the wondrous Taj Mahal.A Muddy Knees Media production for BBC Radio 4

This is the BBC. This podcast is supported by advertising outside the UK. BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello and welcome to You're Dead to Me, a history podcast for people who don't like history, or at least people who forgot to learn any at school. My name is Greg Jenner. I'm a public historian, author, and I'm the chief nerd on the BBC comedy show Horrible Histories. In this podcast, we mash together top-notch academics and comedians at the top of their game to transform you into a connoisseur of historical know-how.

And today we are mounting our war elephants and travelling back 500 years to 16th century India as we get to know the Mughals. No, not the unmagical peeps in the Harry Potter universe. That's Muggles. We are talking about the Mughals. No, not the unmagical peeps in the Harry Potter universe. That's Muggles. We are talking about the Mughal Empire. And to help us do that, we're joined by two very special guests in History Corner. She's an expert in the art and architecture of Mughal South Asia. She works for the Nasser Di Khalili Collection of Islamic Art and regularly teaches both at SOAS in London and Oxford. It is Dr. Maureen Chida-Rasvi. Hello, Maureen. How are you? Hi, I'm very well, thank you.

You are an expert on art and architecture. Presumably you are an art historian and a historian. Is that fair? I think that's fair, yes. I consider myself a historian who looks at history through objects. Nice. Good way to do it. And in Comedy Corner, she was nominated for Best Newcomer at Edinburgh Fringe in 2018 and since then has skyrocketed to success in things like Live at the Apollo, QI, The Tezza Clock Show and lots more. She is ridiculously brainy and according to her Twitter bio, she is both crazy and classy. What a combination. It's Sindhu V. Hello.

Hello. In fact, my Twitter thing says I'm a crazy but classy comedy cow. I mean, I didn't want to say that. You can't say it, but I can. Yeah, it's so great to be here. I'm so excited to be talking about South Asia and about the Mughals, who I also love, and about art, which I know nothing about because I'm a, is it Philistine or Philistine? How do you say it? Philistine is what I always say. I'm a Philistine. Sure, I'd probably go Philistine, but that's simply because I

haven't thought about it. It could also be because, yeah, I'm partly American, partly British, so I sometimes pronounce things very strangely compared to other people. Well, we've got off to a great start here. I've said one English word that no one can decide on. So, hey, good way to go. Your CV is absurd, Sindhu. You have studied in more places than most of us have lived. You have four degrees?

Yeah. You've lost count. That many degrees? Well, I mean, I accumulated a lot of master's degrees because, especially in the American university system, ahead of a PhD, you do your coursework and you get a master's. And I changed where I wanted to do my PhD. But I didn't really work for those. I just kind of went to class and then you get a master's at the end of it. You know, it wasn't a specific master's degree, which I think requires more work. Do you love history? Did you love it at school? Yeah, I chose to do political science over history, but they were all in the same ballpark.

Historians hate it when I say that. But, you know, I always say political science is like history and then with some edge. But no, I do love history. And I think the love of history comes with when you've moved a lot and you kind of have to locate yourself. You become automatically more aware of history because you're constantly explaining where you're from. And that becomes a story about the past. And that's history.

So what do you know? And we begin as ever with this. So what do you know? And this is where I summarize all the things that listeners at home might know about today's subject. And let's be honest, you probably know very little, really, about the Mughal Empire. You've probably heard of or even visited the Taj Mahal, which is a glorious feat of architecture

and not your local curry house. Or you're familiar with perhaps Indian cinema. You might have seen the 2008 historical epic Jodha Akbar, which I believe is on Netflix. It stars Aishwarya Rai and the Times of India's most desirable man of 2010, Hrithik Roshan. Is that right?

That's right. By the way, he's desirable across time. I don't know why we're stopping at 2010. It says here 2010 on my screen. He's such a hottie. And by the way, he's got two thumbs. Well, I mean, you know. Which is a sign of good luck.

Yeah, he has two thumbs. If you ever look in any of the movies on, I think it's his left hand. I don't want to say which hand, but I don't know which hand, but he's got two thumbs and it's gross, but hot. So three thumbs in total. Yeah. And my mother, I remember saying, oh, that is because he was twin and then he ate the twin. I'm like, what? I've never heard such a bizarre experience. I'm like, he ate his twin and just the thumb remained. She said he could have had three legs. I'm like, all right, let's move on.

Well, the film is a lot of fun. But if we're talking Indian history in general, people at home are probably conjuring up images in their heads of war elephants and bejeweled turbines and huge white marble buildings. But is that sort of a romanticised Orientalist view of the world? Or is it true? Let's find out. Dr. Mehreen, some very basic stuff, please. Where and when was the Mughal Empire?

And how big is it? So the Mughals were a Muslim dynasty. The empire was founded in 1526 by Babur, who was a Timurid princeling actually from the Valley of Fergana in Central Asia today. The empire lasted until 1857, so about 330 years. Pretty good. At its height, the empire encompassed almost the entirety of South Asia. Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, parts of Nepal. It covered the entire region.

So it's bigger than India now. Yes, absolutely. Population wise, around 1600, so very early in the history of the empire, we have a population which was estimated to be between 100 and 145 million. estimated to be between 100 and 145 million. And that's before the Mughals then conquered the Deccan and pushed all the way south to the end of the peninsula. So the number at its height would have been much, much higher. That's absolutely vast. I mean, Tudor England at this point is 4 million people. Yes.

And you're saying 145 million people. And then it gets bigger. Okay. So pretty big empire then. And you've mentioned Babur, who is kind of the first great name. Sindhu, does his name immediately in your head go, yeah, of course, Babur. He's like, you know, the first person we do at school. No, he's not the first person we do at school because India had a huge history prior to that.

However, he is the first one that we do when we say, when we learn where the Mughals came from. We say, oh, Babur. Everyone says he came from Persia. I'm sorry, I'm talking in the accent of all the teachers I've ever had. But he came from Persia. And according to my mother, he was so beautiful. I don't know how she knows that. We've only seen these Mughal miniatures, but it's because the Persians were fair. I don't know if he was fair, but fair skin in North India is a big deal. So they were fair and they had these beautiful features. In fact, my mother, when we went to see Jodha Akbar, said to me, look at his face. It's as if God took a pencil, took a picture of the Persians and then made Hrithik Roshan. His features are seen to be

the classic Persian features, which, by the way, are also mixed in with Alexander the Great. Persians are good looking. They are very good looking. Listen, a big shout out to all my Persian friends. You are so good looking. But also it's that sort of Greek god kind of look. We learned about Babur. He came and Babur was important, but he was what we learned about him.

Dr. Mehreen, correct me if I'm wrong, but Babur, he wasn't the most gracious, laid back, super artsy Mughal emperor as we then came to see later in the dynasty. He was a street fighter. He had to scrap with other invaders. And he was not like, oh, gracious. He was like, I'm coming for you. And he's the one that stayed. And the reason that we were taught that Babur was special and different was he didn't come, ravage and leave.

He didn't do the Viking thing. Right. Where you come, rape and pillage and then go back. And row back to Scandinavia. No, he came and he stayed. He cared. The conqueror who cares. He cared about conquering.

And also he didn't take it back because he had nowhere to go, per se. Well, I mean, he did. And I'm going back to Kabul after he took that. Yeah, so he's from Kabul, which is in Afghanistan. Well, he's from Fergana. Babor is the great, great, great grandson of Timur, who was the founder of the Timurid Empire.

He's sort of another Timur the Great, isn't he? Yeah, he's one of these great Central Asian conquerors. And so when Babor becomes the leader of his tribe, he's just one of many, many Timurid princelings who are vying for power in this region. And he comes out of the Fergana Valley and tries to conquer Samarkand, which was Timur's great capital. He takes it.

He loses it. He takes it. He loses it again because he doesn't have the manpower to keep it. Right. But he wants an empire. So then he starts to look elsewhere. He finally is able to move a bit south. He takes Kabul and it becomes his power base.

And it's from there that he then looks into South Asia because Timur had, in 1398, come through, sacked Delhi, claimed it for himself. So Babur has this preconceived idea that it's mine and I'm just taking it back. Right, because his great, great, great grandfather had sacked it. Yeah, exactly. It's mine. It's always been mine. It's part of my inheritance. It's a bit like the International Congress now. Priyanka Gandhi's like, this is part of my inheritance. Why am I not the prime minister? Babur had a nickname. Do you know what it is, Sindhu?

Babur had a nickname? Oh, I don't think we were taught that in school. Dr. Marine, what is it? Tiger. Really? Oh, I didn't even know that. What would your nickname be if you were going to conquer South Asia? What would you go with? Because I'm very tall, I'm 5'10".

There's a huge monument in Delhi that was pre-Mughal, the Qutub Minar. And it was Qutub Uddin Ebak who made that, right? He's the one who started it. Yeah, he started it. And it was the tallest building for a very long time. So every time I'd walk down the street, I'd get EVE teas, which is Indian for cat gold. Everyone would say to me, Kutub Minar, where are you going? Kutub Minar. So if I

ever conquered South Asia, I'd be known as Kutub Minar. Not bad. Not bad at all. It would upset my father. It's an iconic building. Yeah, it would upset my father because he'd be like, why can't you be named after a Hindu monument? I'd be like, because they're very short there. Maureen, what would you be known

as if you were a conqueror? I mean, you seem very nice, but if you were a conqueror? Oh, dear. One of my favorite animals is the wolf. And I know it's not native to the region. No, but that is a good name. That's what I would want to go with. My conquering name would be the weasel because I look like a weasel. Not because I'm cunning, but just I have the face and body of a weasel.

So not very glamorous. Babur starts, he's a Chagatai Turkish ruler. I mean, he's from that as you say that wider part of the world kabul becomes his power base and then he peeks into essentially what is now northern india and things that feels like my territory i'll have a bit of that and he succeeds in conquering it he's awesome and he's rawsome because he's the tiger but he doesn't just descend from timur the great he also descends from genghis khan yes but he's a bit embarrassed about it.

I don't know if embarrassed is the right word. So yes, on his father's side, he's a descendant of Timur. And from his mother's side, he's a direct descendant of Genghis Khan. Yeah. It's not that he was embarrassed of that line, but it was more the fact that the Timurids were this settled, elaborate, courtly culture. And they had this incredible artistic tradition and built great cities, very much established the notion of what a Persianate court should be. Whereas the Mongols

of Genghis Khan were nomadic and savage, and they didn't have that same refinement associated with them. Babur has the blood of these two great conquerors going through him. And what's quite interesting is, although he and his successors placed much more store by their Timurid ancestry, they used the line of Genghis Khan as well because there's this book called The Secret History of the Mongols, and it gives a mythical origin

to the line of Genghis Khan. So they use that. It's part of how they claim a divine right to rule over their empire. Okay. So Timur is a little bit classier, but Genghis Khan, Genghis Khan thing gives you, it's still handy. It's still useful. It's still useful, yeah.

His first great enemy in northern India is Ibrahim Lodi. There was a huge battle called the Battle of Panipat. Is that right? Yes. In 1526. And now forgive me if I'm being a bit silly here, but it sounds like Lodi should win that battle. He seems to have a much larger army. The 100,000 men, 1,000 war elephants, which is too many war elephants.

I mean, that's a real logistical challenge to feeding them. And then Babur has like 12,000 men. So how did he win that then? Or let's put that in perspective. 250 Britishers showed up on our shores and look what happened. It's not numbers. Ibrahim Lodi is the last Delhi sultan ruling out of Delhi over this northern part of the region. And Babur has established himself in Kabul.

He actually gets invited by one of the Lodi governors of the Punjab to come into the region and make a bit of military and political turmoil to weaken Ibrahim Lodi. Oh, I see. And then in 1526, he comes back and this time doesn't retreat like he did before. When he meets Ibrahim Lodi, he gets to Panipat, which is just north of Delhi, without really meeting any resistance. And when he gets there, he starts out this campaign with about 12,000 men. By the time he gets to Panipat, he's up to about 20, 25, because people are joining him along the way. He is vastly outnumbered, as you say, and with the war elephants as well. So you would assume, just looking at the numbers game, he's going to be crushed.

But Babur has the latest artillery and the latest weaponry. And he knows from experience that the cavalry is no match for that. And he assumes the war elephants won't be any match for that either. And he's absolutely right. So the battle of Panipat takes like half a day. And he uses a combination of these cannons and this latest artillery warfare, which he's bought from the Ottomans. But he also combines that with Mongol flanking techniques with his cavalry and this combination Ibrahim Lodi's army can't deal with. The guy's a gangster. Basically, let's just break this down. this down. First of all, he has the advantage, which has been a disadvantage in all of South Asian history, where you have local people who are not happy with, you know, the people around

them. So then they let, you know, they kind of let the enemy in and they never realize how bad it's going to be. So completely treacherous on the inside, we've been to ourselves, first of all. Second of all, Babar's a gangster. He's got Genghis Khan's blood in him. He's like, what are you talking about? Who do you even think you are? He's got that DNA. Genghis Khan was scary. And he gave zero things. Things that start with S and end

with S and have a H-I-T-S in the middle. He had huge ambition. And again, the Lodhis, like any empire that is at its end, they were a bit cocky. Oh. Well, I mean, the Delhi Sultanate never really recovered from Timur's invasion. When Timur came through in 1398 and sacked Delhi, it was devastating. So they're sort of a wounded, not fully at strength.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And so Babu was allowed to sort of turn up and he's got people letting him through the gates. And he's got a very loyal following. So they fight better and they've got the latest gadgets, the latest artillery. Okay, well, fair enough. And then his next enemy, I mean, this sounds like bullying to me, is a one-eyed, one-armed man with 80 scars on his face called Rana Sangha. I mean, that sounds like cheating. If your enemy doesn't even have the same number of limbs as you. That doesn't really matter. His official name was Maharana Sangham Singh, and he's the leader of the

Sisodia clan of the Rajputs. Now, the Rajputs are groups of Hindu warrior clans. They were ruling over their own territories. They were coexisting with the Delhi Sultanate. Rana Sangha was the leader of one of the most important of these Rajput clans based in an area called Mewar. was the leader of one of the most important of these Rajput clans based in an area called Mewar. He combined the different Rajput clans together and he was their leader. So he didn't lose his arm until one of the battles with Ibrahim Lodi. He had a sword wound which got infected and then it had to be removed. I'm not quite sure when he lost his eye as well.

But yeah, but these were marks of honour more than anything else. So it wasn't detrimental that he had these. And he said he had 80 scars. He's been in a few scraps. He's been in battle. Yeah. And there is this great honour in getting wounded for the Rajputs and coming out of it alive and winning. But unfortunately, it doesn't help him though, does it? He does not win against Babur. The two armies meet in March of 1527 at a site called Canwa. And it's Babur who ends up being victorious. The history of Babur's reign is actually autobiographical. He changes how he starts referring to himself and the other army in this context because he's not fighting other Muslims.

He's been doing his entire life. He's now fighting a Hindu army. And he refers to Rana Sangha as an infidel. His army is the army of Islam and the holy warriors. And so he brings religion into it as a way of further pushing his soldiers and giving them more of a reason to fight against this group. And when he does defeat them, he then proclaims himself to be a Ghazi, and it becomes part of his official title. It means a warrior of Islam.

It's this first inkling we have of how religion can be used in this new context of the region. Okay, so that's really interesting. And then he's established this empire, and then sadly he dies, because that's what happens to humans, we all die. And his son takes over, and his son is called Humayun and is not very good at being an emperor. I mean, it's not it's not gone well, quite quickly. 1540, he has to flee. Yes, poor Humayun. So Humayun is Babur's eldest son. He's got three stepbrothers as well. And what Babur does before he dies is he follows the classic

Timurid tradition of dividing his lands between his sons. So as the eldest, Humayun gets this new region and the other brothers get other parts on the periphery of this, and they're not happy about it. So from the very beginning, Humayun has to contend with his brothers trying to replace him. And at the same time, he also has to contend with two key individuals in South Asia as well. One is the Sultan of Gujarat, Bahadur Shah. And the other is Sher Khan, who was one of Babur's generals and then became the governor of Bihar. And his best friend is not Balu. Very true.

Every time someone says Sher Khan, everyone's like, is that a tiger? It's like, it is a tiger in a book that Rudyard Kipling wrote much later. But he does sing songs, yes? Yeah, he sings songs

and he doesn't like fire. So actually, he's got several enemies. He's got several enemies, yeah. What happens is that Humayun, he doesn't have the military prowess

that his father had. He's a chilled out guy. But he does win battles, though. No, no, I know. I think at this point, what we have to say is that the way that we're talking about it now, for sake of simplicity, makes it sound like the entire North region was super unified. And there were the Mughals and there were the not Mughals. No, no, no. There was all kinds of language, dialect. In Humayun's time, it wasn't like everything was settled. And now this was the Mughals. No, no. First of all, the Muslim invaders of India, whether it was Bahadur Shah or they were fighting with each other. That was not jihad.

That was just fun. Yeah. And then every time they came for the Hindus, that was jihad. Right. So there was lots of different kinds of wars going on. It would have taken the mindset of someone who was a conqueror and Humayun just didn't have that mindset. He was like, I'll go win some wars, but can I just go chill here with my babes? And the other thing as well is that Babur made him promise before he died that he would never raise a hand against his brothers.

And this proves quite detrimental because his brothers, especially his brother Qamran, are constantly scheming against him. He doesn't retaliate because of this promise that he supposedly made to his father. And it's only after he's been run out of the region and once he comes back with help from the Safavid Shah that he realizes he has to be a bit more ruthless with them. Does he kill them? He blinds his brother Kamran and his brother Asgari basically gets put in chains. The thing with the Mughals is, not all of them, but many of them, because of this way of dividing things equally, the dads would make like a pit and throw all of them in it and say, whoever comes out, you are the emperor. And they would fight each other. Aurangzeb was nasty.

But also the brothers, they came up with the craziest punishments, like blinding you. It wasn't like, dude, you're going away. It's like, dude, you're going away with yourself, and I'm going to make you 16 pieces, and then you can go away. This is part of this kind of wider Timurid tradition, in a way, of fathers rebelling against sons and brothers.

It wasn't that if you were the eldest, you became the next ruler. It was whoever proved themselves to be the most capable. That's why Hindu kings were looking at these jokers like, what are they doing? What is the need for so much bloodshed? Rolling on the floor and punching each other. No, but also we didn't understand the notion of bloodshed.

In the wider tradition of Muslim kingship, there is this idea that in order to be the ruler, you have to be physically whole and you have to be physically perfect. Blinding somebody was a key way of then saying, no, you cannot be a ruler. So it was a way of taking them out of the picture. You don't see murders happening for the throne until Shah Jahan actually comes to the throne.

And this is, I mean, it's quite funny if you look at what's happening in the Ottoman period at the same time. Oh, well, yeah. You know, you get all the princes who don't become sultan get strangled. And also, one of our big kings,

even though it's mythological, Dhritarashtra, he was blind. And being blind and being able to rule was a sign of wisdom because it means you used your other senses. You know,

like say you're a kid, you go to nursery and you know, there's a bunch of kids and this is how you play and you share and then some kid comes up and says,

I want your thing and I'm going to blind you. Everyone's like, that's a bit, what? It was, I mean, it was a crazy time. That nursery would get shut down by Ofsted, I think. I'm going to blind you. Everyone's like, that's a bit, what? It was, I mean, it was a crazy time. That nursery would get shut down by Ofsted, I think. I would say so, yes.

So, Humayun does return. He does essentially end up conquering what he'd lost. So, fair play to him. But he does die in quite a slightly dramatic way. Sindhu, do you know how he dies? Did he get really ill? Not ill. No.

Did he fall off something? Still tripped. Yeah, yeah. I mean, like one of those lame things, which was like growing up, you were like, you were an emperor, you could have done better. He was at the top of a tower in one of his palaces, this kind of tall two-story tower. They had a lot of beautiful palaces and towers. Oh, absolutely.

And he heard the azan, the call for prayer. And then he starts down the steps, and he trips on his robe, and he falls, bashes his head. And a few days later, he dies. And this is only a year after he has come back and been able to reconquer Delhi and these lands that his father had left him. But, you know, he died and that was bad. But it was good because who came next?

Well, who comes next? Akbar. There we go. Oh, Shahanshah Jahanpana. Akbar the Great comes to power aged 13, which is young to be great. Yes, indeed. Presumably he's not like immediately like, hi guys, I've got this. Presumably there's a sort of phase of him going, all right, what do I do?

He was actually born in Sindh while Humayun is on the run. So it's not born into a court. And then when it emerges that Humayun has to properly flee and go into Safavid, Iran, Akbar gets left with Humayun's brother, Asghar. When Humayun comes back with the aid of the Safavid Shah is when him and his wife, Hamida Banu Begum, are reacquainted. They re-meet their son. But then before Humayun dies, he's already set one of his generals, Bayram Khan, to be kind of a guide. And also his mother, Hamid ibn Baygam, is a very important figure as well. So these are two key people who are teaching him about rulership, training him. So he's a very good learner. He's a very intelligent

guy. And he gets to the point a few years in where he's then able to dismiss Bayram Khan and take the reins of rulership properly to himself. I mean, we call him the great Great because presumably he's pretty good. Well, Akbar also means the Great. Oh, really? He's Great the Great? Yeah, he's Great the Great. Yeah.

Wow. I mean, that feels unnecessary, but fair play. He didn't call himself Akbar the Great. The British did. So why is he great? What is he doing that's so significantly better than other kings of the time? Well, when we talk about the Mughal Empire, we're really talking about an empire that Akbar is the one to establish. Because what Babur conquered from the Lodhis was this small region.

So that's what Akbar inherits. And then from that, he conquers. And he then ends up taking the entirety of the northern part of South Asia. And I think it's really important to remember that when we're talking about the Mughals, it's a Muslim minority ruling over a non-Muslim majority. And that creates obviously some very interesting dynamics. And for that to work, you have to have a tolerant attitude, which then permeates the society. The aristocracy didn't depend on religion. It depended on competency. And Akbar brings into the court hierarchy Rajputs,

and he brings in the Hindu nobility. He actually marries into the Hindu nobility as well. So he understands the need to do these alternate things that his father and grandfather didn't do in order to rule over this larger region that he ultimately conquers. And also from what I remember, Akbar is the first one who feels like he owns the subcontinent as the place as his own. And I think speaking as a Hindu, so I went to school in India and you learned history, but then your parents had an alternative history, the history of their culture. You know, I mean, they didn't like the

fact that their moor had come. And my father's a South Indian, so he's a Tamilian. India for them was destroyed by the Muslim invasions. Whereas my mother was from North India. She was like, but we're more fun, which they are in some ways. He behaved more like the ruler of the whole place as opposed to a foreign ruler who has just come in. It's a bit problematic if you're going to tax your father-in-law. There you go. It's very awkward. I mean, that is.

So in that way, Akbar really has a wonderful place in the mind of those people. Prior to him, everyone else was a foreign leader and was there doing terrible things. At least that's how the history was taught to us when we were little, you know know there's so many local language songs in India which villagers who only have an oral tradition are singing and that's what they're singing he was just the bomb he was so great and also he gave us Urdu which is one of the most

beautiful languages in the world okay but then we get to some bad guys. We then, Akbar dies and we have Jahangir, who is not chill. I'm going to challenge that one. Oh, really? Come on then. I mean, I think Jahangir, if anything, is in the line of his grandfather. Jahangir is a bit fascinating. Do you think?

Yeah, he's my favorite Mughal emperor. Oh, well, okay, come on then. So Jahangir is born Prince Salim. He's actually named after a Sufi sheikh that Akbar goes to visit. And Salim is the future Jahangir is born Prince Salim. He's actually named after a Sufi Sheikh that Akbar goes to visit. And Salim is the future Jahangir. Now, Jahangir, he's very fond of opium. He's an alcoholic. He's a bit of a drunkard, yeah. But he is also really, really interesting. He does this classic, you know, rebellion against his father about five years before Akbar dies. Jahangir goes off to Allahabad, sets up a rival court, starts calling himself Shah, which is treason. But then they're reconciled before Akbar dies and he becomes the next ruler. And he takes as his title the name Nur ad-Din Muhammad Jahangir. Jahangir meaning the world Caesar or the world

grasper. Yeah, it's a great name. Like his father, he's very interested in other religions. He's interested in Christianity. He's interested in European imagery. And these are things which arrive at the Mughal court during Akbar's reign. He reigns from 1605 to 1627. And it's a time when the world is coming to the Mughal court. Ambassadors and diplomats and merchants and visitors from throughout Europe and Asia are coming to this court.

He's very interested in depicting the reality of the world around him. So we get this really amazing thing in the artistic production of the time where you have proper portraits of people being produced. But also he has a very scientific mind. And so you see portraits of people being produced. But also, he has a very scientific mind. And so you see portraits of animals. There's this great painting in the V&A of a zebra, which he ordered to be painted for inclusion in his autobiographical history, the Jahangir Name. The zebra was being taken from the port through the Mughal Empire as a gift to the Safavid Shah. Jahangir hears about it, has it brought to the court firstid Shah. Jahangir hears about it, has it brought to the court first, doesn't believe it's real. He thinks it's a painted horse.

And so it's not until he has people washing it that he realizes it's not paint. It's actually the fur of the animal. That's amazing. He tries to scrub down. He tries to scrub it off. And he writes in the Jahangir Name that this was so strange, so interesting, I ordered my artists to paint it. You have these examples of how he thinks about things more analytically and scientifically. And it's quite a fascinating mind and looked at everything in like the minutiae and you could have these great discussions with him. I feel like Jahangir was like that. He wasn't a jock. He wasn't going to eat like a smoothie and then go beat you up. But he was going to be able to discuss stuff with you. I mean, in the 1600s for someone in the subcontinent to see a zebra.

I don't know how many people in England had seen a zebra at that point. Exactly. But to then look at it from a sort of not, oh, my God, what is this freak? Let's put it in a zoo. But what is this being? What is this animal? He had that guy. He just didn't smoke gulwaz.

That was the only thing we needed. The roll neck jumper. Yeah, gulwaz. Yeah, he had people out and about, actually agents at the ports, like to see what was rare and strange and have it brought to the court for him to see. And a lot of art came out of his time, didn't it? Some of the most amazing arts of the period came out of his reign. Did they already have miniatures at that point? Yeah, absolutely. The miniature tradition is very strong by this point. But it gets transformed

under Jahangir. That visualization of power starts in his reign and then becomes ubiquitous in Mughal material culture. But not everything's rosy under Jahangir. He has two sides of his personality. He could be open and tolerant, and he was a great estate, but he could also be tyrannical and cruel. When he comes to the throne, his son, Khosrow, actually rebels against him. Because for that period of time when Selim is rebelling against Akbar, Akbar was favoring Selim's son, Khosrow, as the next ruler.

Oh, I see. So when Selim comes to the throne and takes the title of Jahangir, his son is then rebelling against him. Yeah. And there's a couple plots which are really not very nice. Jahangir won't hurt his own son now.

But what happens, basically, two of the key conspirators of Khosrow are sewn up in fresh skins, one of a donkey, one of a ox, and are sat backwards on a donkey, which is a very insulting position to be in, paraded around the city for a day in the hot Indian sun. And so these fresh skins start to constrict and dry out, and one of them suffocates to death as a result. And then the rest of the followers are impaled alive, studded along a road, and Khosrow is seated on an elephant backwards and paraded down to see all his followers, to see what his actions have resulted in. You know, you get the message loud and clear. If you're going to do that against your dad and your dad's the emperor,

you're going to expect some, I mean, if you get caught, then bad things are going to happen. You know what I mean? Just the other day I was saying to my kid. Hang on, where's this going? I came into the room and she hid her iPad under a cushion. And I just stopped and I said, look, man, we've got some clear rules about iPads here.

And you know I don't play. I'm not your dad. My husband's Danish, so I never said anything to kids. And I just stopped and I said, look, man, we've got some clear rules about iPads here. And you know, I don't play. I'm not your dad. My husband's Danish. So, you know, I never said anything to kids. And I know where your iPad is. It's under this cushion. Next time I come in here and you're not studying and you're on your iPad, things are going to get hairy, man. Like you're probably going to lose your iPad for three years. She was like, she's very young. She's 10. That's a long, long part of her life. She's like three years. I'm like, yeah, three years, no iPad, no TV. My husband's like, this is not a threat you can carry out. I'm like, it's a threat I can make. At least he kept his life this time. Well, for now. For now. No, no. But I mean, come on, how many times can you brother, Khurram, who then gets titled Shah Jahan.

Khusro is ultimately blinded to remove him from being. And then he's given into the protection, I put in air quotes, of his brother Khurram, the future Shah Jahan. Who's like, ha ha ha, come here, my blind brother. Khusro does not survive for very long after that. Shocking. Let's talk about Shah Jahan. He's going to be perhaps the one name that might resonate. I live in Woking.

We have the Shah Jahan Mosque, which is the first purpose-built mosque in the country. And he built the Taj Mahal, which is the most iconic building, perhaps, in India. Why does he build it? Love. Is it love? Is it grief? Is there more to it? It's a combination of things.

I mean, the story is that it's for his deceased beloved wife. Yes, no, no, and that is absolutely true. So Shah Jahan is married to Arjuman Bano Begum, who is the daughter of one of the high courtiers in the Mughal court and the niece of Jahangir's last wife, Nur Jahan. The love that Shah Jahan and Arjaman Banu Begum had was real. She was his favorite wife. He basically ignores the rest of his wives once he marries her. She would go with him everywhere, including on military campaigns. And they had 14 children together, seven of whom survived.

It was while giving birth to their 14th child that she dies. She's titled by this point, Mumtaz Mahal. So Arjaman Bona Begum gets titled Mumtaz Mahal, the crown of the palace. He apparently retreats for like a week and is just so grief stricken by this. And then when he emerges, he orders the construction of this incredible mausoleum for her. And construction starts in 1632 in Agra. I think by the time of her first death anniversary, her body is moved from the Deccan to Agra and buried. It's one of these buildings, which is just so iconic that when I went to see it for the first time, I was really afraid of being disappointed. It does take your breath away when you see it. Of the Mughal mausoleums, it is the most perfect one. And we can actually consider it to be like the zenith of Mughal architecture.

And the fact that it was built for a queen is basically unheard of at the time. Oh, really? Yeah, because the other queen's tombs are always smaller. And this was built on par with the three pre-existing monumental imperial tombs where emperors were buried. Taj Mahal ultimately becomes an imperial tomb when Shah Jahan is also buried there. Alongside his wife. Alongside his wife. But he was never intended to be buried there. It's a perfectly symmetrical space. It's got all kinds of things going on, like the turrets kind of are built coming in, so it looks like it's slightly out. It's like the architectural part, it looks beautiful, blah, blah, blah.

But the things they've done, the sort of geometry and math and stuff around it is amazing. The concept of building for Shah Jahan, architecture was his greatest form of self-expression. And he was very good at it. And we can actually consider him to be one of the architects of all of his constructions. So he's not just a patron. He was very involved in the planning. So he would have loved Lego. He was a master builder.

He's actually there with the drawings, with the architects. He would go through the plans on a regular basis. There was this notion for Shah Jahan that the perfection of what he built represented the perfection of his rule. And so when we talk about the Taj Mahal, yes, it's built for this wife that he loved dearly. Sure. complex is that you are creating paradise on earth for Mumtaz Mahal. And so you go through the gateway into the tomb garden, and there's a Quranic inscription on it, which explicitly states that as a believer, you're entering the gardens of paradise. So you are physically walking into them on earth. And does it have a team of gardeners working there all the time? Are there people snipping the grass, dusting the flowers, making sure that it's perfect? What does perfection

look like from a horticultural point of view? So it's quite interesting because gardens were a really important part of the architectural production of the Mughals. All the Mughal gardens were transformed during the British era when the concept of like these manicured English gardens was very popular. And so the joy of the Mughal garden, which was the abundance of trees and fruit trees and flowers and scent, which was present in these sunken gardens, just completely disappeared. And you had these like well manicured lawns that were placed. But if you read descriptions of the time, and even if you look at photographs, like from the 19th century, the gardens are kind of overgrown. That's more like how they actually were.

They were full. They were fragrant. Abundant. You had running water, you know, going through them. Yeah, they were like orchards and magical and that kind of thing. And yeah, you had a whole slew of people working there regularly in order to keep the upkeep of the garden going. You also had the establishment of a wakf, a deed, which tells you how the upkeep of a space is going to be kept. And for the Taj Mahal, it's something like the revenue of 18 villages around Agra was

given for the continuous upkeep of the monument. Yeah, I mean, that's the thing about Taj Mahal. It looks beautiful. I mean, Shah Jahan seemed really great, wonderful for Mumtaz, but for pretty much everyone else involved in the building of it, some of the people really had to go through a lot. It wasn't the easiest thing to be a construction worker on the Taj Mahal. Am I right? Where did the marble come from? The marble came from Makrana in Rajasthan. So it's local, and the best sandstone came from a quarry outside of Fateh Borsikri.

And so these were the kind of key materials used for the imperial monuments. The mausoleum itself, fully faced in white marble and decorated with either carvings or pietra dura, which is an Italianate style of inlay, where you have slivers of semi-precious and hard stones, which are fitted together to make the design. So when you look at the Taj Mahal and you see those, you know, the floral decoration, that kind of arabesque decoration on it, it's all done in Pietra Dura. And then you've got calligraphy, Quranic passages on the exterior as well. Again, black marble inlaid into the white marble.

It's some of the most beautiful, fine work. There's a couple of myths associated with the Taj Mahal. One, that the chief architect had his hands chopped off so he could never build again. I'm not sure that was true. That's a lie. The other is that there is this myth of the Black Taj that Shah Jahan intended to build across from the Taj Mahal on the river an exact same structure,

but in black marble rather than white. And that's not true? And that's a rumor that was started by a French jeweler who visited the court in the 17th century during Aurangzeb's reign. And so he wrote about this but it then spread like wildfire. It's a great story.

So Shah Jahan's peak in the 17th century Mughal where really everything is going great. We've already mentioned Aurangzeb before who is not quite as chill

and cheerful when it comes to Dude, he's the worst. He's the worst. I was trying to be gentle in my introduction. No, he's the worst and He's the worst. I was trying to be gentle in my introduction. No, he's the worst. And his rule has a lot to do with

a lot of things weakening in India to the point where when the East India Company shows up and says, hi, can we just hang out a little bit? He's not as tolerant of multi-faith. He's not at all tolerant. We're all his brothers. So this is the thing.

I must step in just to say that, yes, Aurangzeb has this reputation. So Aurangzeb is Shah Jahan's third son. He is an Orthodox Sunni, so he's a much more religious character, Orthodox religious character than any of the rulers we've had so far, and also compared to his brothers. And it does impact elements of his rule and of his policy and politics. of his rule and of his policy and politics. But this reputation he has of being completely anti-Hindu and destroying temples and all of that, that's not true. I mean, you still have artistic production, you do still have music for a period of time and dancing, his patronage of temples and the Hindu community. It's, I think, important to remember that he gets

this reputation because he is more Orthodox and because, yes, he kills his brothers and prisons his father. At the end of the day, it's politics. So yes, he does destroy temples, but it's for political rather than religious reasons. Can we say that the 18th century is an era of discord and of troubles? Aurangzeb was obsessed with conquering the Deccan, pushing the borders of the empire as far south as they could go. And it's under him that the Mughal Empire reaches its greatest extent. But the thing is, is that he

didn't prepare his sons for rule. And so when he did die in 1707, and he takes the throne in 1658, so he rules for a very long period of time, this myth of the power of the Mughal emperor dies with him. Because from 1526 to 1707, you have this reign of six incredible emperors. From 1707 until 1719, 12 years, you have five. Because we're in a period of time where the people who initially are put on the throne don't know how to rule properly. And you have two key courtiers who are generals in the army pulling strings in the back. And so you've got, yeah, these series of five rulers who get put on the throne and then

get removed from the throne. Either violently or some of them a bit violently. Yeah, there's some, you know, blindings and stabbings which take place. Blindings is a real theme today. It's a big thing. It's because Aurangzeb, he didn't train because he was very obsessed with pushing the borders. He was involved in a lot of wars in the South. Yeah, he was a very military minded individual. Yeah, and his successors.

Because then it was like one year, two year, one year, six months. It was like a joke. It was like bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing. His sons weren't ready to rule. They weren't given any kind of opportunity. Because it was the case as a prince, you would be given a governorship to kind of prove your mettle. Aurangzeb's sons didn't really get that opportunity. He didn't give his sons to his brothers.

He wasn't very nice to his brothers, Aurangzeb. Oh, he killed them all. Yeah. So it's not. Remember when Babur left? He still left Akbar with one of his brothers. They had an idea of kingship and the court and so on, which I don't remember reading Aurangzeb having. Aurangzeb was like, I'm just going to go into the deck and that's where I'm going. And he forgot about everything going on. And it really harmed the empire because they just weren't ready.

There was a lot happening. and because he was so focused on conquering south he actually kind of moves the capital to Dalatabad in the Deccan for a while. So Delhi

kind of loses the central importance and when he dies Delhi is the capital still Shah Jahanabad and Shah Jahanabad named after Shah Jahan

Yeah who builds a new capital city I love that he named after himself. I should build a new capital, it should be called me. The city of me, yes. So today's old Delhi is actually Shah Jahanabad. So we get into this period then after Aurangzeb dies where you get a complete loss of centralized power at the Mughal court. And as I said, this myth of the Mughal ruler being this all-powerful being is just shattered.

So you have this period of these five rulers who are there for just short periods of time. And then another ruler comes in, Muhammad Shah. And he has a relatively long rule from 1719 to 1748. And he tries to kind of reclaim this power. But we're now in a period where there's just a perfect storm of too many things happening and too many problems happening. You have an immediate shrinking of the borders after Aurangzeb's death. He took the south, he took the deck end, but then it gets lost very quickly. And you also have individuals who are ruling over spaces as governors, and they start to proclaim their own independence. At the exact same time, you have the rise of the British East India Company. Hello. Yes, hello.

Can we offer you a trade deal? This is all on you. The British East India Company actually gets its first firm to set up factories and to officially trade with the Mughal Empire during Jahangir's reign. When the ambassador from James I, Sir Thomas Rowe, is sent to Jahangir's reign when the ambassador from James I, Sir Thomas Rowe, is sent to Jahangir's court. But he's actually there

more as an agent of the East India Company rather than an agent of James I. He gets the official right to trade for the East India Company. There were lots of

European people trading. Well, the Portuguese had it wrapped up. And the British had been trying for ages to get this for men. But it's not like Jengel was worried. It was like you traded and it was fine. No, exactly. It was fine. But then what happens is that the British East India Company is also given permission to have their own standing army.

Because they said they needed to protect their interests from the Portuguese. Don't trust them. So they then have this standing army for themselves. And what happens once we get into the 18th century is that that army becomes a bit more powerful, a bit larger, and they start to become puppet masters themselves and pull strings. The French are around as well at this time. Everyone's coming.

There's a lot going on. One of the key events which happens is that the Battle of Plassey. 1757. 1757. We all know it very well. My history teacher said 1757 Battle of Plassey. It was the end because we had no self-respect in front of British. That's how we learned history.

We were like, it's our fault. But 1757 Battle of Plassey, that is seared into my brain as that moment when we didn't do the right thing. It really is the turning point because that's when the East India Company finally then is in political control of this incredibly important province.

And can levy taxes. And they're taking that finance away then from the Mughal ruler. I mean, if 1757 hadn't happened, we could all have been sitting here speaking Urdu. And then Bengal was actually formally conceded to Clive in 1765. And then the East India Company starts taking control of more and more land, supporting different factions against the Mughal ruler. And of course, this means that you don't have an empire anymore of the Mughals.

You don't have an emperor. You have a figurehead who is sitting in the fort in Delhi. Just sort of playing his Xbox. It's very sad. The British recognize the need to keep the emperor in place as a figurehead. But they're very mean. Yeah, they humiliate him a lot. They do. In 1835, the title of the Mughal emperor is officially changed to the King of Delhi by the British. So it really shows this kind of complete shrinking of power. And then obviously this all culminates in 1857.

Yeah, which is the first Indian War of Independence. In Britain it's often been called the Indian Mutiny, but obviously we don't call it that anymore. So 1757 is the Battle of Plassey. 1857 is essentially the end of the Mughal Empire, except it hasn't been an empire for a long time, really. You know, it's a very sad ending to this great empire. The last Mughal ruler, Bahadur Shah Zafar,

he reluctantly becomes the figurehead of the Sepoys who start this war. The British are given the opportunity to then say, right, you killed all of these Europeans, and so it's our perfect excuse to come in. He takes refuge in Humayun's tomb. His sons are shot in front of him. He's put on trial, found guilty of all the charges against him, and yeah, is exiled

to Rangoon where he dies. And this is all before Victoria showed up and took it all over and it became just a massive money-making machine. The ATM of the subcontinent. The Nuance Window! That brings us really to my favourite part of the podcast, which is called The Nuance Window.

This is where Sindhu and I go quiet and we allow our experts to go full mega-drive into the stuff that we need to know. Mehreen, you are an art and architectural historian. I know you also have something you really want to say here. So, two minutes on the clock. Here we go. The Nuance Window.

I'm going to go a bit off script as an art historian. In light of what's happening in India today, I want to use this to stress how incredibly syncretic the Mughal court was, particularly during the reigns of the first six rulers. The current BJP government is pushing a Hindu nationalist agenda, which is amongst other things, actually rewriting history in order to effectively remove India's Muslim past. Yet you have as a resounding symbol of the country, the Taj Mahal, which is a Mughal Muslim tomb. And just the other week, the American president was in India. He was gifted a portrait of him and his wife in front of this monument by one of the BJP politicians. But this really emphasizes that this building is a symbol of India still, and it's used by the government to promote their country.

It's the same government which is trying to remove from the country's history this culture and society which constructed it. The Mughal court came to be defined by many things, and today it seems that the Indian government wants to define it solely by religion and by othering them to make it okay that it becomes expendable. In the Mughal Empire, there was a Muslim minority ruling over a non-Muslim majority, and things weren't perfect. But a balance was created and maintained between the different religious groups and sections of society. And that's true even during Aurangzeb's reign, who despite his reputation as being an

ultra-Orthodox Sunni, was not anti-Hindu. Hindus worked alongside Muslims in many walks of life, in the court administration, on the battlefield, in the artistic workshops. And it's in this material culture that the promotion of different religions by the Mughal rulers is evident. For example, the great Hindu epics of the Mahabharata and the Ramayana. Akbar had them translated from Sanskrit into Persian. He also had translated into Persian a history of the life of Christ. Jahangir utilized European and Christian imagery in his paintings and architecture. And then Dar Shako, Shah Jahan's eldest son, had many Sanskrit religious texts translated into Persian. But there's so many more examples of this type of religious freedom.

And I think it's important to keep them in mind when certain narratives are being pushed in India today. Thank you very much. You used the word syncretism there, which people at home might not know. We mean parallel ideas working together? Yeah, different ideas coming together or being utilized at the same time. This idea that you can live side by side with people who are not the same as you, who practice different religions, but you meld together and you mesh together.

So what do you know now? Well, we have reached the end of the podcast. So we had the so what do you know at the beginning and now it's the so what do you know now? Sindhu V. Are you ready to be quizzed? Are you feeling confident? Yes. All right.

60 seconds. Here we go. Question one. How many people roughly were in the Mughal Empire in about 1600? Around 145 million. Absolutely. It was huge. Second, what was Babu's nickname?

Tiger. Tiger, yes. Not the weasel. What was unusual about Rana Sangha in terms of his body? 80 scars. Yes. Didn't have an eye and I think he lost one limb. Absolutely.

Name two of the measures that Akbar took to make his empire more Hindu inclusive. Married Hindu ladies. Yes. And took advice from Hindu leadership as well. He did. And he also abolished the Jizya, the poll tax on Hindus. What was the name of Shah Jahan's glorious capital city that he built? Shah Jahanabad.

Yes. The city of me. Question six. Why did Shah Jahan build the Taj Mahal? It was a mausoleum for the big love of his life. But it was also so everyone in the world could see that he was such a dude. Absolutely. Question seven.

Why did arts and culture suffer under Auram Zeb? Or at least why is that claimed to be true? Well, I don't think it's just a dude. Absolutely. Question seven. Why did arts and culture suffer under Aurangzeb? Or at least why is that claimed to be true? Well, I don't think it's just a claim. Just to make it very clear. I think Aurangzeb, as a Mughal, was more obsessed than his predecessors with the boundaries of his empire. How were rebellious royal sons and brothers punished in the court? They were often blinded. Yes.

Or sewn into a donkey's... Or they were sewn into the skins of animals, turned around and put on another animal and paraded around, which is a thing of huge shame. The art, poetry and music of the Mughal court was influenced by which culture? Which language in particular was used? Turkish and Persian.

Yes, and the final question. In which year did the British Raj abolish the Mughal Empire? It's painful for me, but I'll say it. 1857. Absolutely true. 10 out of 10. Sindhu V, you are ridiculously knowledgeable as we knew you would be. We literally just talked about it. I would have to have amnesia for this not to have worked out. Thank you so much for that. I mean, I've learned a huge amount here. I did not know much of this stuff before coming into the podcast and I've been really, really fascinating how much there is to know and we've

raced through nearly 400 years of history as well actually, so we have crammed it in. Join us next time as we uncover more secret histories hidden from you by the UK curriculum. If you've enjoyed the show, please do share it with your friends or leave a review online and make sure to subscribe to You're Dead to Me. It's on BBC

Sounds. In the meantime, we have lots of episodes from previous series, the series two. So if you fancy hanging around in the 17th century for a bit, why not go and check out the Mayflower episode? But for now, let me say a huge thank you to my brilliant guests. In History Corner, Dr. Merrin Chida-Rasvi from SOAS and Oxford. Thank you. Thank you. My pleasure to be here. And in Comedy Corner, the hilarious Sindhu V. Thank you for having me.

I'm off to go and build a Lego Taj Mahal. I think I'll need about 10 years, but I'm sure I can get it done. And with that, bye. Your Dead to Me was a Muddy Knees media production for BBC Radio 4. The researcher was Emmy Rose Price-Goodfellow. The script was by Emmy Rose Price-Goodfellow and Emma Neguse. The project manager was Isla Matthews. And the producer was Cornelius Mendes.

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