ORIENTAL DESPOTISM AND MUGHAL IMPERIAL IDEALS: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS

Dr. Faraz AnjumAssistant Professor, Department of History, University of the

Punjab, LahoreEmail: faraz@history.pu.edu.pk

This research paper examines the notion of ‘Oriental Despotism’

which was initially propounded by the European travellers of the

seventeenth century and later during the colonial period

developed into a fundamental theoretical framework to understand

or rather criticise the governments of the East. It also seeks to

examine, in a comparative perspective, the Mughal concept of

kingship which was put forward by the Indian writers,

particularly by the Mughal theorist and ideologue, Abul Fazl.

Introduction

The notion of ‘despotism’ dates back to ancient period1 and

Thomas Metcalf has pointed out that “from the time of Aristotle,

‘despotism’ had existed as a description of a style of governance

in which legitimate royal power was nearly the same as that of a

An earlier draft of this article was presented in 22nd

International Pakistan History Conference at Bahauddin Zikriya University,Multan on 17-18 March 2010. The author is indebted to theconference participants for their critical remarks on the paper.

master over a slave.”2 However, it was French Philosopher

Montesquieu who popularized the notion of Oriental despotism in

the West in the Seventeenth and early Eighteenth centuries.

Montesquieu was greatly influenced by travel accounts of

seventeenth century, particularly of Jean-Baptiste Tavernier and

John Chardin.3 Though a majority of European writers propounded

this idea in one form or the other, it was Francois Bernier who,

in quite unequivocal terms, categorised the Mughal Emperor as an

‘Oriental Despot’. The other Europeans, though not so explicit,

also delineated its concomitant ideas: Emperor as absolute master

of his subjects’ life and deaths, his being a proprietor of all

their lands, his being a foreigner and outsider, his

artificiality and hollowness, and his fondness for tyranny and

oppression. All these ideas provided inspiration to Montesquieu

for developing a conceptual framework for Oriental despotism and

contrasting it from two other forms of governments, namely,

Republicanism and Monarchy. According to the philosopher, in a

monarchy, the King ruled by following fixed often written laws

and principles while in despotism, the King was bound by no laws

and ruled arbitrarily. Montesquieu, thus, believed that in the

Orient, the King enjoyed absolute powers on the life and death of

his subjects ruled by terror and had no regard for the people.4

The first part of this paper presents the ideas of the

Europeans about the Mughal emperor5 and his relations with his

subjects and the second part focuses on the indigenous writers’

description of Mughal imperial ideals and a critique of European

representations.

Mughal Emperor as Oriental Despot

One of the dominant representations of European was the

arbitrariness and fickle-mindedness of the Mughal Emperor and

whimsical nature of his government. According to them, he ruled

by a particular style of government, where he was the master and

all his subjects were his absolute slaves. He owned all the

property and wealth of his nobles. No man in India had the right

to own any thing. His rule was totally arbitrary and based on his

own sweet will. De Laet emphasised that point when he wrote:

The Emperor of India is an absolute monarch: there are nowritten laws; the will of the Emperor is held to belaw . . . the government is purely tyrannical. For the kingis the sole master of the whole kingdom, and gives estatesat his will to his subjects, or takes them away again.6

Edward Terry believed that the Emperor “makes his will his guide”

and his government was “arbitrary, illimited, tyrannical.”7

William Hawkins contended that the Mughal Emperor was “barbaric,”

“cruel” and “headstrong” who had the right to deprive any one of

his landed property. He did not allow anyone to keep it for more

than six months. The emperor entrusted it to someone else before

long or confiscated it if it happened to be valuable thus robbing

him of whatever he possessed. According to Hawkins, “by this

means he racketh the poore to get from them what he can, who

still thinketh every houre to be put out of his place.”8

1Notes and References? For the use of the term, despotism, by the ancients and itssubsequent translation and modification by the early modernwriters and political thinkers, see, R. Koebner, “Despot andDespotism: Vicissitudes of a Political Term,” Journal of the Warburgand Courtauld Institutes, 14 (1951): 275-302.

2 Thomas Metcalf, Ideologies of the Raj, III. 4: The New Cambridge Historyof India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, (Paperback ed.)2001), 6.

3 David Young. “Montesquieu’s View of Despotism and His Use ofTravel Literature,” The Review of Politics, 40 (July 1978): 392-405.

4 See for details, Inge E. Boer, “Despotism from under the Veil:Masculine and Feminine Readings of the Despot and the Harem,”Cultural Critique, 32 (Winter, 1995-1996): 45-48.

5 The term, Mughal Emperor, here signifies, not a particularindividual, but an institutional head, and therefore, thesingular, instead of the plural, appellation has been used.

6 De Laet, The Empire of the Great Mogoll, a translation of De Laet’sDescription of India and Fragment of Indian History by J. S.Hoyland and S.N. Banerjee (1927; reprint, Delhi, 1975), 92-94.

According to Ovington, “the whole kingdom of Indostan is intirely

in the possession of the Mogul’s, who appoints himself heir to

all his subjects . . . His will likewise is the law, and his word

incontestably decides all controversies among them.”9 Bernier

contended that “actuated by a blind and wicked ambition to be

more absolute than that is warranted by the laws of God and of

nature, the kings of Asia grasp at every thing, until at length

they lose every thing.”10 Thomas Roe also conceded that “they

have no written law. The King by his owne word ruleth.”11

Tavernier emphasised that “all the Kingdoms which he possesses

are his domain, he being absolute master of all the country.”12

Bernier has elaborated on the theme when he wrote:

They [the Princes] appear on the stage of life as if theycame from another world, or emerged for the first time, froma subterraneous cavern, astonished like simpletons, at allaround them. Either, like children, they are credulous inevery thing, and in dread of everything; or with theobstinacy and heedlessness of folly, they are deaf to everysage counsel and rash in every stupid enterprise. Accordingto their minds, such Princes, on succeeding to a crown,affect to be dignified and grave, though it be easy todiscern that gravity and dignity form no part of theircharacter that the appearance of those qualities is theeffect of some ill-studied lesson, and that they are in factonly other names for savageness and vanity; or else theyaffect a childish politeness in their demeanour, childishbecause unnatural and constrained. . . . It is indeed a rare

exception when the Sovereign is not profoundly ignorant ofthe domestic and political condition of his empire. Thereins of government are often committed to the hands of someVizier, who . . . considers it an essential part of his planto encourage his master in all his low pursuits, and diverthim, from every avenue of knowledge. If the sceptre be notfirmly grasped by the first minister, then the country isgoverned by the King’s mother, originally a wretched slave,and by a set of eunuchs, persons who possess no enlarged andliberal views of policy, and who employ their time inbarbarous intrigues; banishing, imprisoning, and stranglingeach other, and frequently the Grandees and Vizier himself.Indeed under their disgraceful domination, no man of anyproperty is sure of his life for a single day.13

The absolute rule of the Mughal Emperor, according to

European travellers, naturally resulted in lamentable conditions7 Edward Terry, A Voyage to East-India, Wherein Some Things are Taken Notice of,

In our Passage Thither, But Many More in Our Abode There, Within that Rich and MostSpacious Empire of the Great Mogul, Mixt with Some Parallel Observations andInferences upon the Story, to Profit as well as Delight the Reader (London: J.Wilkie, 1777[1655]), 370.

8 Account of William Hawkins, in William Foster, (ed.), EarlyTravels in India 1583-1619 (New Delhi: Oriental Books ReprintCorporation, First Indian Edition, 1985), 114

9 J. Ovington, A Voyage to Surat in the Year 1689, ed. H. G. Rawlinson(London: Oxford University Press & Humphrey Milford, 1929;reprint, New Delhi: Asian Educational Services, 1994), 197.

10 Francois Bernier, Travels in the Mogul Empire, A.D.1656-1668, ed. andtr. Archibald Constable (London: Archibald Constable andCompany,1791; reprint, Karachi: Indus Publications, n.d.), 231

11 Thomas Roe, The Embassy of Sir Thomas Roe to India, 1615-19 as Narrated in hisJournal and Correspondence, ed. William Foster (Jalandhar: AsianPublishers, 1993 [1926]), 89.

12 Jean-Baptiste Tavernier, Travels in India, trans. from the French byV. Ball and ed. by William Crooke, Second ed. 2 vols. (London:Oxford University Press & Humphrey Milford, 1925; reprint, NewDelhi: Asian Educational Services, 2001), I: 260.

of other sections of society, particularly of umara who were at

the beck and call of their master. Pelsaert deplored the

condition of the umara who, though themselves were wont to

oppress the common people, were inhumanly treated by the Emperor.

He employed the metaphor of meanest animals and their bondage to

impress his point. He wrote about the Mughal umara that:

these poor wretches, who, in their submissive bondage, maybe compared to poor, contemptible earthworms, or to littlefishes, which, however closely they may conceal themselves,are swallowed up by the great monsters of a wild sea. . . .in the palaces of these lords dwells all the wealth thereis, wealth which glitters indeed, but is borrowed, wrungfrom the sweat of the poor. Consequently their position isas unstable as the wind, resting on no firm foundation, butrather on pillars of glass, resplendent in the eyes of theworld, but collapsing under the stress of even a slightstorm. . . . while the servants of the lords may justly bedescribed as a generation of iniquity, greed and oppression,for, like their masters, they make hay while the sum shines.Sometimes while they [the nobles] think they are exalted toa seat in heaven, an envious report to the King may castthem down to the depths of woe.14

13 Bernier, Travels, 144-46. Chardin’s portrayal of Persian Emperormatches this depiction even in minutest details, “There issurely no sovereign on earth as absolute as the King of Persia;for whatever he utters is carried out precisely, with no regardeither for funds, or for the circumstances of the case, eventhough it be plain as day that there is usually no justice inhis orders, and sometimes (as when the Shah is drunk) no commonsense.” Chardin, Voyages, I: 219-20 cited in James D. Tracy,“Asian Despotism? Mughal Government as Seen from the Dutch EastIndia Company Factory in Surat,” Journal of Early Modern History, 3 No.3 (August 1999): 258 n.

Thomas Roe also remarked that “if they [Emperor Jahangir and

Prince Khurram] are pleased, the crie of a million of subjects

would not bee heard.”15 Geleynssen de Jongh, the Dutch factor in

India, also endorsed this view when he recorded that the umara

possessed no security of their positions or even of their lives,

as they could be accused of anything at anytime.16

A corollary to the concept of oriental despotism was the

assumption that the Emperor owned all land in India and the

inhabitants of India, including the nobility, did not enjoy any

proprietary rights. Bernier vehemently testified that:

14 Francisco Pelsaert, Jahangir’s India: The Remonstrantie of Francisco Pelsaert,tr. W.H. Moreland and P.Geyl (Cambridge: W. Heffer and Sons,1925), 64

15 William Foster, ed., English Factories in India, 1618-1669, 13 Vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906-27), 17.

16 W. Caland, ed. De Remonstrantie van W. Geleynssen de Jongh,Linschoten Vereeniging, vol. 31 (The Hague, 1929), 18, writtenca. 1624, cited in James D. Tracy, “Asian Despotism? MughalGovernment as Seen from the Dutch East India Company Factory inSurat,” Journal of Early Modern History, 3 No. 3 (August 1999): 267.Peter Mundy related an incident about Asaf Khan, who was thefather-in-law of Emperor Shahjahan and the most powerful amir atthe Mughal court. He described that on a minor offence, “put toopen disgrace, beinge made to ride through the Cittie inweomens attyre.” Peter Mundy, The Travels of Peter Mundy in Europe andAsia, 1608-1667, ed. Richard Carnac Temple, 3 Vols. (Cambridge: TheHakluyt Society, 1907-1914), II: 203-04. It may be mentionedthat this incident finds no mention in indigenous sources.

The Great Mogol constitutes himself heir of all the Omrahs,or lords, and likewise of the Mansebdars, or inferior lords,who are in his pay; and what is of the utmost importance,that he is proprietor of every acre of land in the kingdom,excepting, perhaps, some houses and gardens which hesometimes permits his subjects to buy, sell and otherwisedispose of, among themselves.17

Edward Terry reported that “no subject in his Empire had land of

inheritance, nor can have other title but by the King’s will.”18

De Laet observed that “the King is the sole master of the whole

kingdom and gives estates at his will to his subjects or takes

them away again.”19 J. Xavier, a Portuguese missionary to Mughal

court, also attested to the same view when he wrote that “the

King is absolute Lord of all his kingdoms; and great and small

have only as much land and property as he wishes to give them.”

He believed that “when he gets angry, he deprives them of the

lands and gives them to others.” He informed his readers that

some of the land was reserved by the Emperor who “farms them out

to the highest bidder, and the lessees, in order to extract from

them what they promised to pay and derive profit, rob the

labourers and oppress them in a hundred ways.”20

17 Bernier, Travels, 204.

The principle of escheat introduced by Emperor Akbar and

continued with minor variations by the later Mughal rulers also

came under strong criticism from European travellers. This

principle envisaged that on the death of a mansabdar, his

property would immediately be appropriated by the Emperor.

Hawkins wrote that “the custome of this Mogoll Emperour is to

take possession of his noblemens treasure when they dye, and to

bestow on his [their] children what he pleaseth.” Though he

reported that generally the Mughal Emperor dealt with the family

of the deceased noble quite compassionately and returned to them

much of the wealth and the titles, 21 the other European

travellers of the period did not present the scheme in such a

positive colour. Pelsaert provided a detailed graphic picture of

such an episode. One can conveniently discern the dramatic

elements in his description:

Immediately on the death of a lord who has enjoyed theKing’s jagir, be he great or small, without any exception—evenbefore the breath is out of his body—the King’s officers are

18 Terry, Voyage to East-India, 326.19 De Laet, Empire of the Great Mogoll, 94.20 Xavier’s Letter dated 14th September 1609, H. Hosten (ed. &trans.), “Eulogy of Fr. J. Xavier, S.J. a Missionary in Mogor”Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, XXIII (1927): 120-21

21 Account of William Hawkins, in Foster, Early Travels, 104-05.

ready on the spot, and make an inventory of the entireestate, recording everything down to the value of a singlepiece, even to the dresses and jewels of the ladies,provided they have not concealed them. The King takes backthe whole estate absolutely for himself, except in a casewhere the deceased has done good service in his lifetime,when the women and children are given enough to live on, butno more. It might be supposed that wife, or children, orfriends, could conceal during his [the lord’s] lifetimeenough for the family to live on, but this would be verydifficult. As a rule all the possessions of the lords, andtheir transactions, are not secret, but perfectly well-known, for each has his diwan [steward], through whose handseverything passes; he has many subordinates, and for workthat could be done by one man they have ten here; and eachof them has some definite charge, for which he must account.[When the lord dies,] all these subordinates are arrested,and compelled to show from their books and papers where allthe cash or property is deposited, and how their master’sincome has been disposed of; and if there is any suspicionabout their disclosures, they are tortured until they tellthe truth.22

Bernier called the Mughal practice as “barbarous” and listed the

disastrous consequences on the family. According to him, “the

widows of so many great Omrahs are plunged suddenly into a state

of wretchedness and destitution, compelled to solicit the Monarch

for a scanty pittance, while their sons are driven to the

necessity of enlisting as private soldiers under the command of

some Omrah.” He then related the anecdote of a Mughal noble,

Naiknam Khan, who, at the time of his death, distributed all his22 Pelsaert, Jahangir’s India, 54-55.

treasures amongst the needy and filled his treasure-chests with

old iron, bones, worn-out shoes and tattered clothes. When

afterwards, these chests, without being opened, were sent to

Mughal Emperor Shah Jehan, who in anticipation of the great

treasures, opened them in the full view of the court and it

caused a great embarrassment to him.23

It was natural that the European travellers, while

attributing unlimited and arbitrary powers, should have generally

presented Mughal Emperors as cruel and fond of tyranny. Hawkins

has recalled an eyewitness account of Jahangir’s court. He

reported that the Emperor was fond of watching elephant fights

and during the time of their fighting, “either coming or going

out, many times men are killed or dangerously hurt by these

elephants. But if any be grievously hurt which might very well

escape, yet neverthelesse that man is cast into the river,”

because the King believed that “as long as he liveth he will doe

nothing else but curse me, and therefore it is better that he dye23 Bernier, Travels, 163-64. Bernier has quoted a letter of EmperorAurangzeb to his father Shah Jahan, who was prisoner at thattime, in which Aurangzeb spoke against this principle,referring to its obvious ‘injustice and cruelty’. He cited theepisode of Naiknam Khan to prove his point. See for the letter,Travels, 167.

presently.” His overall judgement was that “hee [Jahangir]

delighteth to see men executed himselfe and torne in peeces with

elephants.”24 Hawkins’ companion, William Finch, has described

Jahangir’s manner of hunting which included not just beasts but

also men. According to him, the King with the help of his men

used to first cordon of an area

and whatsoever is taken in this inclosure is called theKings sikar [Hind. Shikar] or game, whether men or beasts;and whosoever lets ought escape without the Kings mercy mustloose his life. The beasts taken, if mans meat, are sold andthe money given to the poore; if men, they remaine the Kingsslaves, which he yearly sends to Cabull to barter for horseand dogs; these being poore, miserable, thievish people thatlive in woods and desarts, little differing from beast.25

The European travellers of the period have also termed the

Mughal Emperor as a foreigner, both literally as well as

figuratively. Bernier underscored this alienation of the Mughals

when he wrote:

24 Account of William Hawkins, in Foster, Early Travels, 108; see109-111 for other such incidents. Also see, Letters of ThomasCoryat, in Hakluytus Posthumus or Purchas His Pilgrimes, Contayning a History ofthe World in Sea Voyages and Lande Travells by Englishmen and Others, 20 Vols.(Glasgow: James MacLehose and Sons, 1905), IV: 475 [Hereaftercited as Purchas, His Pilgrims]; Mundy, Travels, 127.

25 Account of William Finch, in William Foster, (ed.), Early Travelsin India 1583-1619 (New Delhi: Oriental Books Reprint Corporation,First Indian Edition, 1985), 154.

the Great Mogol is a foreigner in Hindoustan, a descendant ofTamerlan, . . . [who] overrun and conquered the Indies.Consequently, he finds himself in an hostile country, ornearly so; a country containing hundreds of Gentiles to oneMogol, or even to one Mahometan. To maintain himself in sucha country, in the midst of domestic and powerful enemies,and to be always prepared against any hostile movement onthe side of Persian or Usbec, he is under the necessity ofkeeping up numerous armies, even in the time of peace. Thesearmies are composed either of natives, such as Ragipous andPatans, or of genuine Mogols and people who, though lessesteemed, are called Mogols because white men, foreigners,and Mahometans. The court itself does not now consist, asoriginally, of real Mogols; but it is a medley of Usbecs,Persians, Arabs, and Turks, or descendants from all these people;known, as I said before, by the general appellation ofMogols. It should be added, however, that children of thethird, and fourth generation, who have the brown complexion,and the languid manner of this country of their nativity,are held in much less respect than new comers, and areseldom invested with official situations; they considerthemselves happy, if permitted to serve as private soldiersin the infantry or cavalry.26

Tavernier highlighted the foreign origin of the Mughals by

emphasising that the latter were white in complexion while the

native Indians were brown or olive coloured.27

The European travellers generally depicted Mughal Emperor in

negative colours. For Careri, Emperor Aurangzeb was a “great

Dissembler and Hypocrite, and never did as he said.”28 Coryat

26 Bernier, Travels, 209.27 Tavernier, Travels in India, I: 258.

wrote this incredible story that “Ecbar Shaugh had learned all

kind of Sorcery, who beeing once in a strange humour to Shew a

spectacle to his Nobles, brought forth his chiefest Queene, with

a Sword cut off her head, and after the same perceiving the

heaviness and sorrow of them, for the death of her (as they

thought) caused the head, by vertue of his Exocismes and

Conjunctions, to be set on againe, no signe ap pearing of any

stroke with his Sword.”29

Thomas Metcalf has explained that the notion of ‘Oriental

despotism’ had “enduring implications for the emerging Raj in

India,” as it carried with it the connotation that Asian

countries had no laws or property, and hence its peoples no

rights. Everything, in this view, derived solely from the will of

the despotic ruler, who could take back what he had granted.30

Some of the prominent colonial writers considered despotism as28 Thevenot and Careri, Indian Travels of Thevenot and Careri: Being the Third

Part of the Travels of M. De Thevenot into the Levant and the Third Part of a VoyageRound the World by Dr. John Francis Gemeli Careri, ed. Surendranath Sen (NewDelhi: National Archives of India, 1949), 217.

29 “Observation of Thomas Coryat,” in Purchas, His Pilgrims, IV: 5.30 Metcalf, Ideologies of the Raj, 7. There is sufficient evidence to prove that Bernier’s ideas inspired Karl Marx to put forward the concept of an “Asiatic mode of production.” Tracy, “Asian Despotism,”259. Also see, Iqtidar Alam Khan, “Marx's Assessmentof the Islamic Tradition,” Social Scientist, 11 (May 1983): 8-9.

the bane of Indian society. Alexander Dow wrote in his History of

Hindostan that India was simultaneously “the seat of the greatest

empires,” and “the nurse of the most abject slaves.”31 According

to Charles Grant, “Despotism destroys the liberty of the

individual soul and so eliminates the source of virtue because

the man who is dependent on the will of another . . . thinks and

acts as a degraded being and fear necessarily becomes his grand

principle of action.”32 James Mill, in his History, attributed the

ills of Muslim Indian history to the despotic form of Indo-Muslim

government which, in his considered view, was “more inimical to

progress than anarchy itself.”33

Mughal Emperor and His Relations with the Subjects:

Indigenous Perspectives

This depiction of Mughal Emperor as the arbiter of life and

death of his subjects was based on a misconception of the nature

of the Mughal kingship and its relationship with its subjects.

The Mughal theory of kingship, which was inspired by the dual31 Alexander Dow, The History of Hindostan, Translated from the Persian, 3

vols. (London: John Murray, mdccxcii), I: iii; III: 421-22.32 Cited in Ainslie Thomas Embree, Charles Grant and British Rule in India (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1962), 73

33 James Mill, The History of British India, 10 vols. (London: Routledge/Thoemess, 1997, reprint of 1858 ed.), II: 325.

models of Perso-Islamic and Turco-Mongol ideologies, was put

forward by Abul Fazl.34 In an important passage of Ain-i Akbari, he

justified kingship and its attributes with reference to a social

contract between the ruler and the ruled. He wrote under the

title, riwa-i rozi (the maintenance of livelihood):

Since there is infinite diversity in the nature of men anddistractions internal and external daily increase, andheavy-footed greed travels post haste, and light- headedrage breaks its reins, where friendship in this demon-haunted waste of dishonour is rare, and justice lost toview, there is in sooth, no remedy for such a world ofconfusion but in autocracy and this panacea inadministration is attainable only in the majesty of justmonarchs. If a house or a quarter cannot be administeredwithout the sanctions of hope and fear of a sagacious ruler,how can the tumult of this world-nest of hornets be silencedsave by the authority of a vice-regent of Almighty power.

34 For a general discussion of classical Perso-Islamic politicaltheory and its adoption by medieval Muslims Empires, see,A.K.S. Lambton, “Quis custodiet custodies: Some Reflections onthe Persian Theory of Government,” Studia Islamica, 5 & 6 (1956):125-146 & 125-148. For Persian influence on the politics andculture of Mughal India, see, Said Amir Arjomand, “ TheSalience Of Political Ethic in the Spread of Persianate Islam,”Presidential Address To Third Biennial Convention on IranianStudies, The Association for the Study of PersianateSocieties, Tbilisi, Georgia 8-10 June 2007: 21-46. For adetailed study of Turco-Mongol legacy and its profoundinfluence on Mughal practices, see, Lisa Balabanlilar, “Lordsof the Auspicious Conjunction: Turco-Mongol Imperial Identityon the Subcontinent” Journal of World History, 18, no. 1 (2007): 1-39;and Iqtidar Alam Khan, “The Turko-Mongol Theory of Kingship,”Medieval India: A Miscellany (Bombay: Asia Publishing House, 1972),II: 8-18.

How in such a case can the property, lives, honour andreligion of people be protected, notwithstanding that somerecluses have imagined that this can be supernaturallyaccomplished, but a well-ordered administration has neverbeen effected without the aid of sovereign monarch.

He further proceeds to formulate that "The dues of sovereignty

(paranj-i jahanbani) have thus been set forth. The circulation of the

means of sustenance, thus, is seen to rest on the justice of

prudent monarchs and the integrity of conscientious dependent.”35

Abul Fazl also emphasised that “subjects are a trust from God.”

For him, the kingship was the composite of “a paternal love

towards his subjects,” “the priceless jewel of justice” and fair

play, and observance of sulh kul, “absolute peace,” without

discrimination.36 While listing the qualities of a monarch to

govern successfully, he included trust in God, prayer and

devotion, a large heart, and first and most important, a paternal

love for the people—the ideal ruler governs as a

father.37According to Muhammad Baqir, who wrote an important

political treatise for the guidance of Emperor Jahangir, “the

position of an empire is that of beauty and elegance. The more

lovers of a charming beloved there are, the more increased

splendour there is in her presence.”38 Emperor Aurangzeb in his

will to his heir recorded that “It is proper for the ruler of the

kingdom (i.e., my heir) to treat kindly the helpless servants . .

. Even if any manifest fault is committed by them, give them in

return for it gracious forgiveness and benign overlooking [of the

fault].”39 Even Tavernier and John Francis Careri had to

reluctantly concede that Shah Jehan “reign[ed] less an Emperor

over his subjects than as a father of a family over his house and

children.”40

Mughal Emperors, though posed as absolute monarch and “kept

almost all the threads of the administration in their own

hands,”41 yet there were clear cut constraints under which they

worked. The code of Islamic laws, known as shariah, though

disregarded at times by the Emperor, was the supreme law of the

land and it worked as a great check on his arbitrary powers.42 M.

Athar Ali, while referring to qazis’ independent powers to decide

cases according to sharia and thus to frame and interpret laws,

maintained that “however absolute, the state lacked the power to

legislate. The Tudor monarchy, with its control over Parliament

and its legislation, was thus surely far more absolute or

despotic than any Great Mughal.”43 M.N. Pearson has conceded that

“in no Muslim state was a ruler required or encouraged by the

shariah . . . to interfere extensively or intensively in the lives

of his subjects.”44 Notwithstanding the fact that the Emperor at

times found ways and means to disregard the Islamic law, there

35 Iqtidar Alam Khan has emphasised this point and provided thetranslation of this passage in his “Medieval Indian Notions ofSecular Statecraft in Retrospect,” Social Scientist, 14 (Jan.,1986): 8. This translation is quite different from Jarrett'stranslation. Cf. Ain-i Akbari, trans. H. Blochmann & H.S. Jarret, 3vols. bound in 2 ( reprint, Delhi: Low Price Publications, 2006[1927]), II: 54-55, 58-59. Athar Ali aptly remarks that thewords in which Abul Fazl describes riwa- i rozi recalls to one'smind Hobbes theory of social contract. Athar Ali, “Theories ofSovereignty in Islamic Thought in India”, published in theProceedings of the Indian History Congress, 1982, cited inIbid.

36 Abul Fazl wrote in relation to Kamran’s occupation of Kabul:“His Majesty Jahanbani’s [Humayun’s] heart was troubled, . . .by sympathy for the citizens and subjects, who are a trust fromthe Creator, and who should be tended not less carefully thanthe children.” Abul Fazl, Akbar Nama, trans. H. Beveridge, 3vols bound in 1 (reprint, Delhi: Low Price Publications, 2002[1902-1939] ), I: 499.

37 Abul Fazl, Ain-i-Akbari, I: 3. Also see, Stephen P. Blake, “ThePatrimonial-Bureaucratic Empire of the Mughals,” The Journal ofAsian Studies, 39 (Nov., 1979): 82.

38 Muhammad Baqir Najm-i-Sani, Mau’izah-i Jahangiri, tr. as Advice on theArt of Governance: Mau’izah-i Jahangiri of Muhammad Baqir Najm-i Sani, An Indo-Islamic Mirror for Princes, ed. & tr. Sajida Sultana Alvi (Albany:State University of New York, 1989), Persian Text, 174,Translation, 69. Harbans Mukhia has translated it thus: “theempire is like a beloved, beautiful and elegant, and has to bewon over and nurtured like a bride, with love.” The Mughals of India(Malden, Oxford, Victoria: Blackwell Publishing, 2004 (FirstIndian Reprint, 2005)), 56.

were also some practical difficulties in enforcing his arbitrary

decrees. Ashin Das Gupta has aptly pointed out that “the tragedy

of the oriental despot was that he could be despotic if he chose,

but he was never a very effective ruler. . . Indian society

functioned at different levels and it was impossible to control

matters from a still centre.”45 M. N. Pearson in his study of

Gujarat has maintained that there were serious challenges to the

authority of a medieval monarch. One was the “difficult,

laborious, and dangerous nature of travel in India”. It was

considered a great achievement of Emperor Akbar when he took only

eleven days to cover 600 miles to reach Ahmedabad from Fatehpur

Sikri. Thus, “poor roads, periodic local disorder, reliance on

animals for transportation, and the difficult terrain of much of

Gujarat simply made close control from the center over much of

the state a physical impossibility.”46 The Mughals also did not

interfere in the village organization which, from the ancient

39 Hamid-ud-Din Khan Bahadur, Ahkam-i-Alamgiri, tr. J.N. Sarkar asAnecdotes of Aurangzeb, (Calcutta: M.C. Sarkar & Sons, Fourth ed.1963), 47. Emperor Aurangzeb wrote to his son, that “Theguardian ship of a people is the trust by God committed to mysons.” Letter of Aurangzeb to his son Kam Bukhsh, cited inElliot and Dowson, VII: 562-63.

40 Tavernier, Travels in India, I: 260; Careri, Indian Travels, 222.

days, functioned as autonomous unit without any disturbance from

the centralized agencies. And such villages comprised of over

seventy per cent of the population.47 Even records of the

European companies contradict the assertions of foreign

travellers. The correspondence between the company officials is

filled with complaints of local Mughal officers who often felt no

qualms in ignoring the express orders of the Emperor.48

It cannot be denied that some times Jahangir and other

Mughal Emperors indulged in cruel practices. However, it would

not be fair to draw generalizations from a few selective

incidents,49 which were everywhere the bane of personal rule. And

it would also not be fair to single out Emperor Jahangir in this

regard. Even Emperor Akbar who was generally considered to be an

enlightened monarch by the Europeans themselves was not immune

from such outburst of passion.50 If one could ignore a few

incidents of such nature, there was no doubt that “the Mughul

Empire built up a prestige for itself which was the outcome of

its respect for the needs and welfare of the people; if it had

not followed an enlightened policy of keeping the people

contented and happy, it would have succumbed earlier to its inner

tensions.”51 That was the reason that some scholars considered

the Mughal Emperor’s overall relation with its subjects as

paternalistic.52 Even Tavernier and John Francis Careri had to

reluctantly concede that Shah Jehan “reign[ed] less an Emperor

over his subjects than as a father of a family over his house and

children.”53 Thus European travellers’ assertion that Mughal

Emperors only looked up to their own pleasures with no interest

in public welfare was generally wide of the mark. Their own

description of caravanserais spread throughout Mughal India,

particularly in the North, negated their claims.54 In a recent

study of Emperor Jahangir, who was generally considered most fond

of pageantry and pleasure amongst Mughal Emperors, Lisa

Balabanlilar pointed out that he was the most mobile Emperor of

his family who “maintained a remarkably itinerant royal court

which traversed the empire for over half of his reign.”55 Even a

cursory glance at the daily routine of the Emperor, which every

Mughal Emperor from Akbar to Aurangzeb tenaciously maintained,

reveals that this charge cannot fairly be leveled against them.56

The Indigenous sources also provide ample evidence that sometimes

the Emperor looked to even the minor cares of his subjects. When

Shah Jahan, with his court, travelled from Agra to Lahore, the

chronicler reported that

His Majesty’s sense of justice and consideration for hissubjects induced him to order that the Bakhshi of the ahadiswith his archers should take charge of one side of the road,and the Mir-atish with his matchlock-men should guard the

41 I. H. Qureshi, The Administration of the Mughul Empire (Karachi:University of Karachi, 1966), 70.

42 Ibn Hasan asserted that the Mughal judicial system had beenorganized strictly on the lines envisaged by the traditionalMuslim political thinkers and was based on the Islamic code orshariah. He further wrote that “there is no scope forentertaining the ridiculous assertion of Terry that there wasno written law, or supporting the irresponsible remark ofBernier that the cane of the governor or the caprice of themonarch ruled the millions. The law bound the qazi, themagistrate and the king alike. The scope for a king’s capriceremained only in the method of punishment. Written plaints werepresented, written documents submitted, witnesses produced andcross-examined.” The Central Structure of the Mughal Empire and its PracticalWorking up to the Year 1657 (New Delhi: Radha Publications, 2001[1936/]), Ch. X: The Judicial System, 341.

43 Athar Ali, “Political Structures of the Islamic Orient in theSixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries,” Medieval India I: Researches in theHistory of India, 1200-1750, ed. Irfan Habib (Delhi: Oxford UniversityPress, 1999), 130.

44 M. N. Pearson, Merchants and Rulers in Gujarat: The Response to thePortuguese in the Sixteenth Century (Berkeley: University of CaliforniaPress, 1976), 150-151. At another place, the same author wrotethat “None of the many normative lists of the duties of aruler, whether caliph or sultan, require him to interfere inthe everyday lives and occupations of his subjects.” M. N.Pearson, “Pre-modern Muslim Political Systems,” Journal of theAmerican Oriental Society, 102 (Jan. - Mar., 1982): 56.

45 Ashin Das Gupta. The World of the Indian Ocean Merchant 1500-1800:Collected Essays of Ashin Das Gupta. Comp. Uma Das Gupta (New Delhi:Oxford University Press, 2001), 283.

other, so that the growing crops should not be trampledunder foot by the followers of the royal train. As, however,damage might be caused, daroghas, mushrifs and amins wereappointed to examine and report on the extent of themischief, so that raiyats and jagirdars under 1000, might becompensated for the individual loss they had sustained.57

Though sometimes, the monarchs asserted the right of divine

kingship and claimed sacerdotal and spiritual powers to them,58

it was also a fact that in practice, the Emperor was dependent on

the powerful classes for maintaining his rule. Ishtiaq Hussain

Qureshi has rightly pointed out that “the Mughul emperors were

dependent for the success of their policies upon the cooperation

of the politically active classes. In turn, these classes could

not be isolated from the opinions and feelings of the people in

general, in so far as they were articulate.”59 In fact, the

Mughal administrative system was based on a “complex matrix of

ties of loyalty and interest between the amirs and the46 Pearson. Merchants and Rulers in Gujarat, 150-151. For details on themode and method of travel, see Khursheed Mustafa, “Travel inMughal India,” Medieval India Quarterly, III (January & April, 1958):270-284.

47 Hasan, Central Structure of the Mughal Empire, 309. 48 Tracy, “Asian Despotism,”268-69. Hawkins, though vehementlyprojected the Mughal Emperor as absolute master of hissubjects, himself recorded that he was deprived of his goods bythe Governor of Surat and despite the explicit orders of theEmperor, he was unable to get them back. Hawkins’ Account inFoster, Early Travels, 87-88.

emperor.”60 In this way, the scope for monarch’s absolute or

arbitrary powers was fairly limited.

The European travellers imported this notion of foreignness

of Mughal emperors from the West, though it was totally alien to

the ambience of seventeenth century Mughal India where “conquest

constituted its own legitimation.” And this was not restricted to

India alone as it was “characteristic of much of the ancient and

medieval world, until the arrival of nineteenth- and twentieth-

centuries colonialism.”61 Another important fact was that the

Mughals who came from Central Asia, in course of time, became

assimilated in the Indian milieu. When Babur first conquered

India, he bitterly complained of the Indian climate, lack of

beautiful gardens and fruits,62 but four generations later when

Shahjahan sent Prince Murad, alongwith high officials of the

court, to conquer Balkh, the Indian army returned after some

times. In the words of Abdul Hamid Lahori, “Many of amirs and

mansabdars who were with the prince concurred in this

unreasonable desire [to return]. Natural love of home, a

preference for the ways and customs of Hindustan, a dislike of

the people and the manners of Balkh, and the rigours of the

climate, all conduced to this desire.”63 Inayat Khan, another

court historian, related that when the Emperor demanded to know

the reason of his son’s return, the Prince replied that he could

not bear the cold; he and his nobles “were dreading the hardship

of passing a winter in that clime.”64

The European travellers misconceived the concept of private

property in India. As they were “accustomed to a feudal structure

of society, they could not but think in terms of that

organisation. Since all land in their own countries was held by

the king, they regarded the Mughal Emperor as the proprietor of

every acre of land.”65 This contention is not borne out by the

evidence preserved in the primary sources. Abul Fazl, while

describing the events surrounding Humayun’s siege of Kabul,

contrasted the behaviour of Humayun and Kamran and emphasised on

the unlawful seizure of property by the latter.66 In Ain, he

related that “in all cultivated areas, the possessors of property

are numerous, and they hold their lands by ancestral descent.” He

then went on to justify the levying of tax on this land by

stating that “just monarchs exact not more than is necessary to

effect their purpose and stain not their hands with avarice.”67

When Jahangir came to the throne, he promulgated twelve decrees

and one of which clearly stated that “When any one dies in the

realm, be he infidel or Muslim, his property was to be turned

over to the heirs, and no one was to interfere therein. If there

49 Prasad while evaluating the evidence provided by Hawkinscommented that “in his enumeration of the various cruel deedsof that monarch [Jahangir] he does not evince any objectivity,nor is his description of Jahangir’s character a reasonablyfair-minded treatment.” Ram Chandra Prasad, Early English Travellers inIndia: A Study in the Travel Literature of the Elizabethan and Jacobean Periods withParticular Reference to India (Delhi: Motilal Banarsi Dass, 1965), 120-21.

50 Asad Beg, an indigenous writer, records that one eveningEmperor Akbar became so enraged at delay in lightening of lampsat his court that he ordered the lamplighter to be thrown fromthe tower. Wikaya-I Asad Beg, in Elliot and Dowson, VI: 164-65. Itwould be interesting to note that a historian of Aurangzeb’sreign mentions it in particular that the Emperor never issuesorders of death under the dictates of anger and passion.Muhammad Bakhtawar Khan, Mirat al-Alam: Tarikh-i-Aurangzeb, ed. SajidaS. Alvi (Lahore: Research Society of Pakistan, 1979), I: 386.

52 Stephen P. Blake in one of his important articles, has termedthe Mughal Empire as ‘Patrimonial Bureaucratic Empire.” See,idem, “The Patrimonial-Bureaucratic Empire of the Mughals,” TheJournal of Asian Studies, 39 (Nov., 1979): 77-94. According to theauthor, Emperor Akbar “gave the patrimonial-bureaucratic empirein India its most systematic, fully developed, and clearlyarticulated form” (82).

53 Tavernier, Travels in India, I: 260; Careri, Indian Travels, 222.51 Qureshi, Administration of the Mughul Empire, 251.54 In 1615, two Englishmen, Steel and Crowther, while makingtheir way from Agra to Lahore wrote that “Every six coss,there are serais built by the king or some great man, which addgreatly to the beauty of the road, are very convenient for theaccommodation of travellers, and serve to perpetuate the memory

was no heir, an overseer and bailiff would be appointed

separately to record and dispose of the property so that the

value might be spent on licit expenditures. . .” 68 In the

similar vein, when Shah Jahan came to know that the land near

Agra where he planned to build the Taj Mahal belonged to Raja Jai

Singh, the Rajput ally of the Mughals, he did not even agree to

accept it as a present from the Raja. The court historian, Inayat

Khan, related: “His majesty, with that scrupulousness so

of their founders.” Steel and Crowther, ‘Journey,’ 208, citedin Stephen F. Dale, Indian Merchants and Eurasian Trade, 1600-1750(Cambridge Studies in Islamic Civilization; Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1994), 35-36. For description ofcaravanserais, see, Pietro Della Valle, The Travels of Pietro Della Valle inIndia, trans. from Italian by G. Havers, ed. Edward Grey, 2 Vols.(London: The Hakluyt Society, 1892; Reprint, New Delhi: AsianEducational Services, 1991), I: 95, 101; Tavernier, Travels inIndia, I: 72, 123; Terry’s Account in Early Travellers, 311.

55 Lisa Balabanlilar, “The Emperor Jahangir and the Pursuit ofPleasure,” Journal of Royal Asiatic Society, 19 (2009): 173. For theMughal mobility and its uses, see, Jos Gommans, Mughal Warfare:Indian Frontiers and High Roads to Empire,1500-1700 (London: Routledge,2002), 99-111.

56 For the daily routine of the Emperor, see, Intikhab-I Jahangir-Shahi,in Elliot and Dowson, VI: 449-50. Also see, Abul Fazl, Ain, 162-65.

57 Abdul Hamid Lahori, Badshah- Namah, ed. Mawlawi Kabir al-DinAhmad and Abd al-Rahim 2 Vols. (Calcutta: Asiatic Society ofBengal, (Bibliotheca Indica Series) 1867-68), I: Part II, 4-5.Also see, for a similar occurrence, Inayat Khan, Shah Jahan-Nama,in Elliot and Dowson, VII: 96.

requisite in worldly transactions, conferred on him in exchange a

splendid mansion out of imperial properties.”69

Most of the later historians have dismissed this claim of

European travellers that the Emperor owned the entire landed

property of India as having no validity. I. H. Qureshi referred58 Abul Fazl wrote that “royalty is a light emanating from Godand a ray from the sun.” Ain, I: iii. And “Kingship is a giftof God, and is not bestowed till many thousand good qualitieshave been gathered together in an individual.” Akbar Nama, II:285. In connection with Prince Khusrau’s revolt and hispartisans, Jahangir wrote that “They were unaware of the factthat the rule of empire is not something that can be carriedout by a couple of weak-minded individuals. Whom does the All-Giving Creator consider worthy of this magnificent office? Andupon whose capable shoulders has He draped this robe ofoffice?” Nur-ud-Din Jahangir, The Jahangirnama: Memoirs of Jahangir,Emperor of India, tr., ed. & ann. Wheeler M. Thackston (Washington,D. C.: Smithsonian Institution, 1999), 48.

59 Qureshi, Administration of the Mughul Empire, 36. A recent study alsoconcluded that “the local socio-political institutions wereintegrated with imperial sovereignty, working as necessaryadjuncts to the system of rule. Consequently, the powers of theMughal state were limited in spatial and functional terms by‘the internal resistance of its own circuits.’ ” Farhat Hasan,State and Locality in Mughal India: Power Relations in Western India, c. 1572-1730(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 126.

60 J. F. Richards, “The Formation of Imperial Authority underAkbar and Jahangir,” in Kingship and Authority in South Asia, ed. J. F.Richards (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998), 288. Thisconcept that the Emperor should develop intimate relationshipwith his imperial retinue in order to tie them to the thronecould be traced back to Babur’s advice to his descendants. See,Stephen Dale, The Garden of the Eight Paradises: Babur and the Culture ofEmpire in Central Asia, Afghanistan and India (1483–1530) (Leiden: Brill,2004), 182.

to Islamic law and the customary practices of the times to

disprove the European travellers’ thesis. He believed that land

revenue was merely a tax and not a rent; and land could be

bought, sold, mortgaged or inherited, like any other movable

property.70 However, some other historians believed that the

concept of property in India was different and far more complex

than that of Europe. Irfan Habib pointed out that “there was no

exclusive right of property vesting in anyone; instead the system

contained a network of transferable rights and obligations, with

different claimants (the king or his assignee; the zamindar; and,

finally the peasant) to differently defined shares in the produce

from the same land.”71 However, whether the nature of property

was fixed or fluid, it would be totally erroneous to claim that

the Emperor was the exclusive proprietor of all land in India.

Conclusion

One may point out that this notion of ‘Oriental Despot’

being the master of his subjects’ life and property, so zealously

and perhaps purposefully popularised by European travellers of

the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, was in fact “an outcome

of their attitudes towards their own countries rather than the

real practices of the Orient.” It rather fulfilled their

psychological need because “they needed the East as a negative

model.” However, this stereotype of ‘Oriental despotism’

“influenced European thought so profoundly that some scholars

regard it as the very core of the Oriental state.”72 Thomas

Metcalf shared this view when he referred to the utility of this

concept for the Europeans:

The model of ‘despotism’ thus helped Europeans definethemselves in European terms by making clear what they werenot, or rather were not meant to be. . . . Part of the cost

61 Harbans Mukhia contrasted it with later day colonialism andwrote: “Modern colonialism has altered the very meaning ofconquest, with governance of land and its people, now on behalfof, and primarily for the economic benefit of a community ofpeople inhabiting a far-off land. It stands in contrast withconquest in the medieval world when the victor either returnedhome taking such plunder with him as he could gather after abattle or two, or settled down in the vanquished land,submerging his and his group’ identity in it to becomeinseparable from it. There are very few inhabited patches ofland on our earth devoid of such merger between the ‘conqueror’and the ‘conquered’ through history.” The Mughals of India (Malden,Oxford, Victoria: Blackwell Publishing, 2004 (First IndianReprint, 2005)), 2.

62 For the description and comments on India, see Zaheer-ud-DinMuhammad Babur, Babur-Nama: Memoirs of Babur, tran. A.S. Beveridge,2 vols. bound in 1 (1921; reprint, Delhi: Low PricePublications, 2003), 480-519.

63 Abdul Hamid Lahori, Badshah- Nama, II: 490. Such notable umaraas Ali Mardan Khan, Shaikh Farid, Zulfiqar Khan and many othershad accompanied the prince. See for details, Ibid., 482-90.

64 Inayat Khan, Shah Jahan Nama, 356.

of European liberty was to be a distorted imagining of thenature of non-European societies.73

The fact of the matter was that neither the political theory nor

the practical realities nor the political considerations of the

time empowered the oriental monarch to become the absolute master

of his subjects’ life.

Thus, it may be pointed that though conceding that European

travellers often provided important information on political

matters thereby filling significant gaps left in indigenous

sources, this paper argues that the problems arise when they

attempt to frame this information, which is not always correct,

into some kind of judgements. This leads to generalized

inappropriate and inapt conclusions about the nature of Mughal

government. In these judgmental remarks, their portrayals have

largely been influenced by their own peculiar view of kingship as

it evolved in the contemporary Europe. This research article

contends that these travellers generally failed to comprehend the

idea of Mughal kingship and the Emperor’s relationship with his

subjects.

65 Y. Krishan, “European Travellers in Mughal India: AnAppreciation,” Islamic Culture, XXI No. 3 (July 1947): 218.

66 Abul Fazl, Akbarnama, I: 502. According to Stephen F. Dale, AbulFazl’s description laid down the “normative conduct for Islamicrulers regarding private property.” Indian Merchants and EurasianTrade, 1600-1750 (Cambridge Studies in Islamic Civilization)(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 34.

67 Abul Fazl, Ain-i-Akbari, II: 55-56.70 For a detailed discussion, see Qureshi, Administration of the Mughul

Empire, Appendix B: The Ownership of Agricultural Holdings, 281-294.

71 Irfan Habib, The Agrarian System of Mughal India, 1556-1707 (New Delhi:Oxford University Press, 2nd revised ed. 1999[1963] (OxfordIndia Paperbacks, Sixth impression, 2006)), 134-35. For adetailed discussion on the issue, see Chap. IV, Part I:Agrarian Property; the Peasant and the Land, 123-134.

72 Eugenia Vanina, Ideas and Society in India from the Sixteenth to the EighteenthCenturies (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1996), 20.

73 Metcalf, Ideologies of the Raj, 7.68 Jahangir, Nur-ud-Din, The Jahangirnama: Memoirs of Jahangir, Emperor of

India, tr., ed. & ann. Wheeler M. Thackston (Washington, D. C.:Smithsonian Institution, 1999), 26.

69 W.E. Begley and Z.A. Desai, eds., The Shah Jahan Nama of ‘Inayat Khan(Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1990), 73-74. Also see, R.Nath, “Mughul Farmans on the Land of the Taj Mahal,” Journal of thePakistan Historical Society, 37 (April, 1989), 99-114.