The Last Mughal

Written by William Dalrymple

Published in 2006

As in The White Mughals, Dalrymple revisits colonial India to uncover the complexities of the relationships between the British, Muslims and Hindus that have been masked by ideology-driven historical writings. He proves as in The White Mughals that the lines between communities and cultures were not as hard as they are imagined to be. The uprising was not as imagined a purely Mughal-Muslim affair. It was in fact started by sepoys of the British army, most of whom were Hindus, who voluntarily headed towards Delhi without any prior contact with Zafar. They felt that the Mughals were the rightful rulers and the British the usurpers. Zafar in fact was quite an unwilling participant in the rebellion as he was old and effete and had made peace with his limited power. His court was the epitome of tolerance and multiculturalism and throughout the uprising, Zafar served as a mediator between the Hindus and Muslims in Delhi and in the mutinying sepoys. Later of course, the British painted the rebellion as a Muslim conspiracy and Zafar became the scapegoat for the rebellion. Overlooked were the British missteps that led to the initial mutinies (aggressive proselytization, the pig and cow fat cartridges and so on) and also Hindu complicity in the uprising.

Overall, a very illuminating and nuanced book. It was a real pleasure to follow history not just panoramically but through the lives of individuals, both on the British and the rebels' sides. It conveyed the full human impact of the conflict – the starvation, the massacres on both sides, the wretchedness of existence, the brutality of war and revenge – all the more vividly. Quite brilliant.

After reading the book, I must confess, I have become quite a fan of Bahadur Shah Zafar. An ineffective statesman and commander he may have been, but he was nonetheless a sensitive, large-hearted, refined and secular personality, one of the few in nineteenth century India.

White Mughals

Written by William Dalrymple

Published in 2002.

This book is a must read! It is about late 18th and early 19th century India. Dalrymple describes the earlier colonial encounter between the British and the Indians. The two people mingled – surprisingly enough – on equal footing and with mutual respect. Numerous Britons adopted Muslim and Hindu culture to a huge degree. They kept many Indian concubines and many even had loving and longlasting marriages with Indian women. We do not hear or read much about this early colonial encounter because our opinion of colonization is entirely coloured by post-1857 encounters when the British were firmly masters of India and when they had stopped viewing Indian civilization with wonder and respect rather than disgust and disdain. To me, this 18th century trend seems like the reverse of contemporary South Asian migration to the West, where the immigrants inevitably assimilate into Western culture.

And do not fear, it is not written like a history textbook. It is actually structured around the love story of James Achilles Kirkpatrick and a Hyderabadi noblewoman Khair un Nissa. Their love story happens when the older attitudes towards India are giving way to the modern colonial approach, which is partly responsible for the story's tragic end. It is, once again, a must read. Borrow it from Lamont! I am going to try and get my hands on Dalrymple's other book: The Last Mughal, I think it is called.