Just finished the book, EMPIRE OF THE MUGHALS - The Tainted Throne, by Alex Rutherford. A fascinated read. The writer has vividly captured images from late Medieval India, based on his outstanding historical research. Let me narrate a few from that era, sourced from several books including this one and rephrased in my own words.
One major source for the author was Sir Thomas Roe, the Englishman who arrived at Jehangir's Court with gifts from his Crown Royal. The Mogul Emperor of Hindustan received the British merchant well, by letting him pick his choice from his harem of 300 plus mistresses to shrug off his jaded nerves after a long ship sojourn from a distant land.
The Mughal Kings, Champion hypocrites they were, had no qualms about taking multiple wives and Concubines, yet they did not allow their sisters to marry. To become the SAALA of some one by marrying off their sisters, would make them inferior, something beneath the dignity of Mughal emperors. (Saala means wife's brother, but in Indian subcontinent often used in a derogatory context. An address of Saala can mean, the seducer of your sister).
It probably explains why a Mughal princess was once caught off guard by the guards, when an unknown male was seen inside her chamber in the middle of night. Chased by the guards, the man jumped off the the Agra Fort to be swallowed by the swirling waters of a flooded Yamuna. The princess pleaded her innocence, apparently to protect her honor from the wrath of her Royal brother. The so called intruder was never found.
Westerners were good at keeping notes and Sir Thomas Roe's Diary is a major source of interesting information for the author. Jehangir was fascinated by the global map shown to him by the English trader, the stories of the floral and fauna from the cool climes of a faraway land and the gifts he brought from his island nation. Thomas Roe wrote back to his King - the Royal English Crown is nothing compared to the wealth and power wielded by the Almighty Alamgir Jehangir, the Emperor of India.
The quest for this abundance saw Khushru, the 19 year old son of Jehangir to revolt against his father. The revolt was ruthlessly quelled. Jehangir jailed his son in Gwalior fort. Those who sided with his son met gory end. Their anus were carefully placed on protruding stakes, on which they sat and shat to slow, agonizing death.
Their bodies were left alone to rot, to be feasted by vultures, as the emperor personally inspected the bloody shit, literally to his satisfaction. He forced his son Khushru helplessly watch the painful shrieks of his supporters. He thought the sight of death and torture of his son's ardent supporters and generals, sitting on stakes, as blood and shit poured all over would prevent his son from attempting any further revolt.
So he thought, as it hardly curbed his son Khushru's ambition, who being an effective organizer, was on the verge of attempting another coup, to be spoiled yet again by his alert father. But still, Jehangir won't kill him. After all he was his own son, not his brother. But to finally put an end to his son's blind ambition, he ordered to make him blind.
Powerful men overpowered his son and poured over a high dose of opium laced water (anaesthesia of the time) down his throat. Khushru was drowsy from the effect of opium taking over him, while the Royal Hakims (doctors) stitched his eyelids, but never his ambition.
After his dad Jehangir's death, Khushu took off the sewn strings from his eyes. Still half blind from his long stint with stitched eyes, he declared himself as Emperor and fought with his brother Khurram (who later became Emperor Jahan, the builder of Taj Mahal).
Sah Jahan defeated his brother. When a chained Khushru was brought before his victorious brother, he yelled without remorse - in our Mughal tradition it's TAKHT YA TAKHTA (Crown or Coffin). You can kill me, not can never kill my ambition.
Sah Jahan's duly obliged his brother by sending him to Coffin, forever ending his ambition for the coveted crown. Unlike Jehangir, who after all was Khushru's father and only sealed his son's eye, Sah Sahan had no qualms about sending his brother to the gallows.
Also the fascinating story of Noor Jahan, whose husband was killed by Jehangir's order so that the King can make her his Begum (wife). She was a smart and shrewd woman, who unlike other Mughal queens was tom boyish, expert at shooting muskets and hunting tigers. She regularly fed her husband Jehangir with opium laced wine to keep him drunk and herself drunk with power.
The powerful, orthodox Mullahs of Delhi objected to this dominance of a woman, but she was too powerful for them. The Mullahs fell flat on her feet, a typical show of obeisance in Indian culture, to save themselves from public flogging.
And so many episodes of intrigue, Durbar politics, sycophancy and back stabbing when DALAALs (fixers) ruled the roost, filling in the gap between the ruler and the ruled. 400 years down the road, feudalism and throne worship still persists, albeit in the guise of democracy.
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