Mistress of the Throne (The Mughal intrigues) (46 page)

M
istress of the Throne
is a work of fiction, but it’s rooted in actual history. Jahanara Begum was seventeen when her mother died and though there were numerous other wives whom Shah Jahan could have installed as the empress after Mumtaz Mahal’s death, he opted instead to elevate his daughter to such a prominent position. European travellers to Mughal India at the time write about Jahanara – her feud with Raushanara, her burning accident, and her role in trying to prevent bloodshed for the throne.

A picture emerged from all of these accounts of a very mature, level-headed individual who reluctantly accepted the role of empress and used it to benefit her family and her kingdom. As her family feud began to deepen, I was astonished to learn that Aurangzeb and Dara both revered Jahanara, even more than their own father, with whom Aurangzeb had a feud till his dying day.

The more I researched her, the more I began to realise that Jahanara was one of the greatest unsung heroines of Mughal India. Her contributions were greater than perhaps even her mother; she helped bring Shah Jahan out of his melancholy and helped supervise the building of the Taj as well as the city of Delhi, which today is the capital of India. Thus, she possessed her mother’s timely beauty and calm demeanour while also possessing her father’s sense of architecture.

Rumours of her incest with the king troubled me. However, as I delved deeper into the origins of such rumours what I found was that these were chronicled mainly by European travellers during
Aurangzeb’s reign and it remains suspect that perhaps the intention of such rumours was more to malign the deposed Shah Jahan than record actual events. Still, I found myself torn as to how to reconcile this disturbing rumour about a woman who seemed remarkable in every other way. I thus created a case of mistaken identity and used that as a way to describe this claim.

When one thinks of Mughal women, the names of Nur Jahan and Mumtaz Mahal are catapulted to the top. However, the character of Jahanara also deserves a prominent place alongside these two women.

Had Jahanara been born a man, she undoubtedly would have been the king after Shah Jahan. She possessed the intellect to rule and enjoyed the popularity to maintain a coalition. The weakening of the Mughal Empire and subsequent rise of the East India Company which led to almost two centuries of colonial hegemony would possibly have been avoided. Hence, it was Mughal India’s insistence on treating men with a more prominent place than qualified women that added to the eventual collapse of the kingdom.

The agonies of losing a parent at an early age, becoming a surrogate to younger siblings, and of never being able to marry are very human emotions. Thus, beyond the majestic pageantry of the Mughal times, Jahanara emerges as a very ordinary figure living under extraordinary circumstances.

It is a common fact that as per Emperor Akbar’s decree, no Mughal princess was allowed to marry. I thought hard about the torment this must have caused a young adolescent princess whose own parents shared a romance that was legendary even in its own time. When I learned that Aurangzeb had asked Jahanara to return to Delhi after Shah Jahan’s death and from that moment onward, princesses were being allowed to marry, I immediately wondered if Jahanara may have had a role in this policy reversal. Why would Aurangzeb, on his own, reverse the policy? What difference would it make to him? But to Jahanara, it would mean that she succeeded in preventing other princesses from living a celibate life. This made
more sense to me and I tried to capture this in my final pages of
Mistress of the Throne
.

Finally, I was moved to learn of how it was Jahanara that convinced Shah Jahan to write a letter granting Aurangzeb an apology. Even a non-vengeful individual would have scoffed at the thought of forgiving her captor and the murderer of her family. Yet, in offering Aurangzeb forgiveness, Jahanara once again tried to heal her family and the nation at large. This, I felt, was her greatest contribution to the Mughal era.

Whatever one may deduce from her life as depicted in this novel or in works of history, one fact is indisputable: she was more than just a queen. The majestic Chandni Chowk which today is the main avenue of commerce for Delhi, was designed by her; the Red Fort from where the annual Indian Independence day celebrations are launched, was her design; and Mughal princesses before her were not allowed to marry, but after her did and became mothers of prominent future kings. She never could marry, so she married the throne, devoting her whole life to preserving it. Nonetheless, somewhere along the path of history, her name was lost. Alas, we celebrate her life in this book and bestow on her the appropriate title,
Mistress of the Throne
.

A CONVERSATION WITH RUCHIR GUPTA

1. What made you write this book?

I was inspired to write this book when I began reading other works of historical fiction on the Mughals. I find this time period in Indian history very fascinating. This was one of India’s first pluralistic societies and the culture and opulence of the court was the thing of legends. The time period I write about was not explored much in contemporary literature. Though we knew the story of the Taj Mahal, the effect of Mumtaz Mahal’s untimely death on her children was never truly explored, and I felt that it would be interesting to explore how her children, Jahanara in particular, regained their footing and shaped India.

2. What part of
Mistress of the Throne
is fact and what part is fiction?

Mostly all of what you read is fact. There are some areas where I intentionally changed the facts to allow for better flow of the story and add more thrill to the characters. Specifically, Nur Jahan was not imprisoned in Agra, but instead several hundred miles away in Lahore. Thus, her involvement with shaping Aurangzeb is suspect, though it is difficult to assume that Aurangzeb’s imprisonment by her at a young age did not have some deleterious effect on his personality that ultimately shaped his character. The character of Gita is purely fictional and created to provide a background for Dara’s initial hatred for Aurangzeb. It also serves to anchor Dara’s
love for Hinduism on an intimate level. Manu was indeed a Hindu wife of Shah Jahan, but the poisoning incident as well as her interaction with other characters was purely fictional and again, meant to showcase the passions of Dara and Aurangzeb. All of the other major characters are rooted in actual history. The interactions I created were done in such a way that the characters
could
have interacted that way, but there is no proof to argue one way or the other.

3. How did you go about researching about the main protagonist, Jahanara?

There isn’t much written about Jahanara. I relied heavily on books from European travellers to India during that time. It is through them that we learn about the rumours of incest between her and the king, the burning incident, and the arrival of Gabriel Boughton to help her recover. It is also true that she was the closest child to the king and ultimately the Empress of India. Her conflict with Raushanara and Aurangzeb is also mentioned in both Mughal chronicles as well as European ones. Actual letters between Aurangzeb and his father were used and translated to serve as a basis for the letters contained in the book. Though not all letters are verbatim translations, I tried to preserve the tone and message of each letter in this book. For descriptive scenes showing the opulence, I used Mughal paintings and well as chronicles to describe the scene.

4. You show Jahanara having mystical powers that allow her to see what is happening in other places. Why did you do that?

I originally had written the book in the third person perspective, but my editor felt that writing from a first person perspective would allow the reader to connect more deeply with Jahanara. Thus, I was in a quandary as to how best to show what is happening outside of Jahanara’s immediate vicinity. We know from history that Jahanara and Dara were both members of a movement known as the Qadiriya order and members of this movement claimed to
have special telepathic powers. Thus, I gave Jahanara special powers that allowed her to see what was happening in other parts of the kingdom. Again, there is nothing in the recorded history to suggest she did
not
have such powers. I simply exercised poetic licence to give her these powers to allow for a better read.

5. Tell us about your writing process for a book such as this.

For any historical fiction book, I think research is key. My project begins with an initial interest in a character and then I do extensive research on that character, making an outline of the major events in that person’s life and the people he/she interacted with. If, after making this outline, I find that the person is indeed very fascinating and not enough has been written about them, I start writing the book. For each event in the outline, I write a chapter and this gives me my ‘skeleton’ for the book. I then link the skeleton with fictional material that allows me to make the events flow. For example, in this book there was a clear sense of intolerance and rage in Aurangzeb from a young age. There is also a documented history of him being imprisoned. Thus, I fictionalised his years of captivity as being abusive and leading to him becoming a pious, intolerant, vengeful adult.