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42 of 42 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
"The light has gone out of India. The land is lampless.", August 12, 2007
A great strength of 'The Last Mughal: The Fall of a Dynasty: Delhi, 1857' by William Dalrymple (White Mughals: Love and Betrayal in Eighteenth-Century India) is its use not only of more familiar British sources, but also many Indian (Urdu and Persian) sources on one of pivotal events in the history of both India and the British Empire, the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857 or the First War of Indian Independence as it is also sometimes called.
Dalrymple describes his excitement at discovering some 20,000 Persian and Urdu documents in the Indian national Archives. A particularly important source was the 'Dihli Urdu Akhbar' a principal Urdu newspaper that continued to publish during the revolt. These sources allow Dalrymple to give voice to the Indian as well the British point of view.
In 1857 the sepoys of the British Raj's Bengal Army mutinied (the reasons are explored in the book, but were at least partly due to a clash of newly arrived Christian evangelicals and adherents of Islam and Hindu). What began as mutiny became something larger at least in part because the Mughal Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar II endorsed it.
Dalrymple centers his telling of the tale on Zafar, the man destined to become the last Mughal emperor. By 1857 the Mughal Emperor possessed no real tangible power and was nothing more than the King of Delhi as he was derisively called. An aesthete himself, Zafar was singularly well-suited to his role as head of a court that elevated culture, poetry in particular, but wholly unsuited by temperament and age (he was 82 years old) to a role as leader of an armed revolt.
Delhi before 1857 was a remarkably tolerant mix of Hindu and Islam - roughly a 50/50 split - in part because of Zafar's manner of ruling. Zafar's acceptance of a titular leadership in the revolt meant that both Muslims and Hindi rallied to the cause. That symbolic role, however, was about all Zafar brought to the war.
The revolt began to flounder almost immediately due a lack of proper direction and discipline. The Sepoy regiments each acted independently and allowed a much smaller British force (ostensibly come to lay siege to the city) to survive repeated but serial attacks. The early stages of the revolt also saw horrific slaughter of noncombatant and unarmed British residents.
Eventually the British took the city and the revenge they took is described by Dalrymple in bloody detail. The killings were nothing short of mass murder and heartily endorsed by nearly every Britisher with any knowledge of it (William Howard Russell was one exception). Men who had lost family in the initial outbreak were allowed to massacre at will for months - Theo Metcalfe is the most notable example. Those locals not killed were left homeless and starving.
The British executed nearly the entire Mughal royal family and would have done so for Zafar, but for the promise that his life would be spared if he surrendered. It was a promise that the British determined they were bound to keep even though they didn't like it much.
One supposes this example represents Victorian attitudes about rectitude that the British somehow held in their heads at the same time that they authored unspeakable murdering sprees. In a somewhat lighter example, Dalrymple quotes a British soldier's letter written to his mum on the eve of battle in which the youth expresses his fear that engaging in the fight may cause him to swear!
As stated at the outset the rich sources give 'The Last Mughal: The Fall of a Dynasty: Delhi, 1857' its strength, but Dalrymple's over-reliance on the raw materials makes the book drag to its conclusion. For the last 100+ pages, Dalrymple sometimes gives over the narrative to his primary sources as page after page consists substantially of quotes from letters, reports, or memoirs. Dalrymple also spends only the briefest time placing the events of 1857 in a larger historical framework.
Nonetheless, the book is a triumph of research and offers that rarity in historical writing, the truly fresh perspective. Dalrymple gives voice to the Indian perspective of the fall of Delhi. As the great court poet Ghalib so poignantly expressed it, "The light has gone out of India. The land is lampless."
Highly recommended.
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81 of 87 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
"The further backward you look...., March 19, 2007
....the further forward you can see." This is what Sir Winston Churchill said when talking about the relevance of history to one's current circumstance.
I cannot help but recall these words, after reading William Dalrymple's brilliant
"The Last Mughal".
William Dalrymple's latest book uses Bahadur Shah Zafar, the last emperor of the Mughal dynasty, to recreate the vibrant city of Delhi, in the 1850's. A culturally diverse, almost cosmopolitan city, of which Bahadur Shah Zafar, was the mere figurehead. A city which epitomized,the India of the Mughals, where the Hindus and Muslims co-existed peacefully. In fact a rich culture and social fabric existed due to this pluralistic co-existence.
The mutiny of 1857 proved to be the fall of the Mughal Dynasty, and the end of this vibrant way of life.
Dalrymple, researched this book for over 4 years and accessed sources, which were until now, never used to narrate the history of those seminal times. "The Mutiny Papers", which were found on the shelves of National Archives of India, detailed through "great unwieldy mountains of chits, pleas, orders, petitions, complaints, receipts, rolls of attendance and lists of casualties...notes from spies of dubious reliability and letters from eloping lovers...", a very uniquely Indian point of view and perspective. An important voice, which until now has been missing in the retelling of the "Sepoys Mutiny".
For me as an Indian, it is very important to understand this point of view. To know about my true cultural heritage, about strands of my identity which were sundered by the British, along their (in)famous "Divide and Rule" policy.
Consider this, most of the history books, have been written by the British in some form...so the opinions I have formed, and the perspectives I have, have been developed by the "British" outlook and essentially the Victorian take on history.
I think, India as a society is richer due to the Mughals and despite the popular opinion and recorded history (who wrote it, you guessed it right...the British !!), they went out of their way to ensure a secular society and a safe environment, for Hindu religion, culture and arts to flourish. In fact as mentioned in the book, the only thing Zafar was decisive about in those trying times was his "refusal to alienate his Hindu subjects by subscribing to the demands of the jihadis."
Did you know for instance that most of the Indian intellectuals of the late 19th century and the early 20th century, were schooled in madrassas, including people like Raja Rammohan Roy...The madrassas, were considered to provide well rounded education, not just math and science, but also the humanities, eastern philosophy and the arts...it was only due to the rising influence of Christianity in India, in the late 19th century and the drive for conversions, which lead the madrassas to reinforce the study of Islam in their curriculum, and for them to increasingly move along the path of fundamentalism.
It is due to all this and also because of an extremely evocative account of 1857 skirmishes, that this book is a must read.
You owe it yourself, as a citizen of the world, living in a these troubled times terrorized by religious fundamentalism.
As Sir Churchill, prophesied, it will only help us look "further forward."
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23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Dalrymple tackles the complexities of the Mutiny with ease, July 21, 2007
For those few carping reviewers among us, this is not a history of the Mughal Empire, nor is it a history of the Sepoy Mutiny as a whole. Nor is it (even though Zafar is the main figure through the entire narrative) biography. What it is, is an examination of Delhi, the last bastion of the Mughal dynasty & basically a self-contained entity unto itself, suddenly & unexpectedly found itself at the center of one of the most vicious conflicts in the history of the Subcontinent.
In his preface, Dalrymple observes that studies of the Mutiny assume "two parallel streams of historiography," using different (but predominantly English) sources. Dalrymple has attempted to bring together all of these sources as well as the largely neglected non-English sources. With these resources in hand, the Mutiny assumes a new, far more complex appearance than before. Far from being a simple conflict between natives & colonial overlords, it becomes apparent that this actually was a six-sided (seven sides, if one includes the bandits in the countryside) conflict. The assorted factions, even those presumably on the same side, oftentimes had precious little common ground, and for the rebelling side, this frequent lack of unity ultimately spelled doom to the uprising.
Caught in the middle of the tumult of rebellion & upheaval are the residents of Delhi & the decrepit Emperor, embroiled in a war they neither desired nor invited. Dalrymple has precious little sympathy for either the British or the rebels, both of whom committed unforgiveable atrocities throughout, but he clearly feels the pain of the Emperor & the Delhiwallahs, caught in a no-win situation.
Some of Dalrymple's critics accuse him (disingenously, I believe) of taking a romanticized view of the Mughals & viewing their ultimate downfall as a tragedy. Don't forget, they say, the Mughals were ruthless conquerers also. To this I would say, remember that the Mughal in question is Bahadur Shah II, not Babur. If you want of a survey of the Mughals as ruthless conquerers, then perhaps a biography of Babur or Humayun would be in order. I would also point out that it is perhaps more fair to say that Dalrymple sees two tragedies resulting from this affair: the destruction of Delhi & its culture, and the religious radicalization following the final assertion of power by Britain over the Subcontinent.
Dalrymple also points out that there are more than a few parallels between then & now. It is worth noting that a belief system becoming radicalized as the result of foreign incursion is nothing new. The British exploited this radicalization as they pursued a "divide & rule" strategy in India, but even the Raj lasted less than a century. Despite their best efforts, the British ultimately had to withdraw. Hmmm.
All in all, a superb effort. Despite the tremendous amount of detail, the narrative flows with ease, and this proved to be a very lively read. Nowhere does the narrative bog down. While accessible, it is nonetheless serious history. Should he choose to do so, Dalrymple could well be on his way to becoming one of the preminent historians of this period.
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