A city forever in transition

This work describes in rich detail the complex tussle between the last two Mughal emperors and the East India Company, a clash that changed Delhi forever.

At the start of the 19th century, the East India Company had made deep inroads into the socio-political milieu of the country and was, with every passing year, consolidating its position in India. It was around the same time that the mighty Mughal empire with its seat of power in the city of Shahjahanabad (now Delhi) was virtually on its way out. Chronicling the political upheavals of the country from 1803-1857, Swapna Liddle predominantly traces the events that led to the unseating of one empire and the crowning of the other.

By defeating the Marathas in the battle of Patparganj in September 1803, the Britishers became the de facto rulers of the city with the Mughal emperor Shah Alam II returning to the palace in Delhi after a long exile in Bihar. Shah Alam II died in the year 1806 and was succeeded by his oldest son Akbar, who ascended the throne as Akbar II. It was in this period that the British sowed the seeds of complete indifference on part of the princes and people of India towards the Mughal throne. The emperor in the palace was a mere symbol of power but it was the British who actually called the shots in the city.

The age-old royal traditions of the Mughal empire of receiving ‘Nazars’ and giving ‘Khilats’, which somehow established the writ of the emperor, were slowly being eroded. At the heart of this tussle were two important issues that defined the Mughal-British relations: the augmentation of the emperor's stipend and his right to appoint his successor. The British only needed the emperor as a prop to legitimise their position in India.

Destiny Delhi

Swapna Liddle gives a microscopic view of a period in the history of Delhi that defined the destiny of the city and which had tremendous consequences for the people living in it. The fortunes of the people in the city had declined with the fall in the fortunes of the empire. The mercantile class, mostly composed of Hindus and Jains, fared better. Their growing economic status found an outlet in the construction activity going on in the city. This included houses, but more significantly temples, of which several were built in the 18th century. The palace intrigues and the tussle of inheritance for the seat of the emperor has been vividly described in the book. The major role played in the decision-making processes in the palace was always that of a British resident posted there. He acted as a channel between the British government with its centre of power in Calcutta and the emperor in Delhi.

As far as relations with the palace were concerned, there was a continuous shifting of the balance of power in favour of the Company, and an erosion of the emperor's dignity as well as independence. Charles Metcalfe, who was the resident at the time, was committed to wiping out what he thought was a hollow pretence of sovereignty, which the deluded Mughals stubbornly clung to and the British government unnecessarily encouraged.

It was also the time when the great poets were living around in the city and Liddle talks of Ghalib as an essential fixture in Bahadur Shah Zafar’s court. Ghalib received a hereditary pension from the British and also enjoyed the right of being included in the British durbars and was given a khilat. Ghalib was perceptive enough to see that the Mughal court was on its way out and it is said that he cynically distanced himself from the fort even while he earned his living from it.

The last Mughal Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar’s coronation happened in the middle of the night, while the body of his father, Akbar II still lay unburied. He was a polite, cultured man, a poet, who wrote Urdu and Persian poetry under the takhallus 'Zafar'. Though his writ ran only within the walls of the fort, Bahadur Shah presided over his tiny realm with all the dignity he could muster from his grand heritage.

No matter how much opposition Zafar faced from his own family, or from the government, he held a special place in the hearts of the people of Delhi, and this relationship continued till the events of 1857 that put the last nail in the coffin of the Mughal empire in India.

With a ground-level view of the workings of early British rule in India, The Broken Script describes in rich detail the complex tussle between the last two Mughal emperors and the East India Company, the former wielding a considerable symbolic authority, and the latter a fast-growing military and political power in India. With an eclectic scholarship and impressive storytelling, the author tells the story of a great city in perpetual transition.