The Great Mughals: was it really paradise?

 

The carpet described in this exhibition as “The Ilchester carpet” ... but what has Ilchester got to do with it? It is Mughal in origin. 

The slogan (by a famous Persian poet) “If there is paradise on Earth, this is it”, is used to describe The Great Mughals exhibition (V&A, London): we are invited to see the period as an earthly paradise of tranquillity and beauty. We hear recorded sound of fountains and birds singing. We see object after object of spectacular wealth – jewellery, carpets, ironware, decorative weapons (not intended to be used in anger), as well as illuminated manuscripts, clothes, and paintings. But it turns out, not that you would learn this from the exhibition, that the three Mughals (Akbar, Shah Jahan, and Jahangir) who form the focus of this exhibition were perhaps not so great after all.

Clearly the V&A thought they were great, and that was sufficient. But everything was presented as an example of conspicuous consumption, and (at least walking round the exhibition) it was never clear where all this money came from, and whether the rulers spent it wisely. It looks like they had huge amounts of it, and spent it lavishly. As far as I could see, the paintings  (including the illustrated manuscripts) and the architecture were magnificent, and the textiles (hangings, clothes, and carpets) had wonderful detailed designs, but I wasn’t in a position to judge the many other objects on display (jewellery, ironware, glassware). It looked, well, expensive. Our criteria today are rather different to that of the 17th century.

What the exhibition didn’t tell me was:

• How none of the items I could see in the exhibition are actually held today in India? Does India have any collection of its own history?
• Where did the money come from to pay for all this stuff at the time of its creation?
• Were the Mughals (in 1066 and all that parlance) good kings or bad kings?
• More about the artistic quality of the items exhibited. What makes Mughal art distinctive?
• More about the various styles that the Mughals incorporated – not just the occasional (and easily identified) links to European art, but art of other Asian regions, plus more about what was being produced before the Mughals conquered the north of India.
• More about the Taj Mahal, rather than just a running video with dramatic shots of the building at sunrise and sunset

The catalogue, although lavishly illustrated, like the exhibition itself, answered few if any of these questions. The historical presentation is minimal – for example, the story of how Akbar reconquered much of North India is reduced to two sentences:

In 1556 the control of Hindustan by Babur’s descendants was precarious. Yet by 1571 Akbar’s territory could reasonably be described as an empire.  [Catalogue, p35]

It sounds like magic, and presented in this way, it is. You feel that there is probably more that could be said. In stark contrast, standard historical accounts of the period describe many years of warfare often with the family fighting among themselves. From the history books, Akbar doesn’t appear to be the nicest of rulers. He came to power aged only 13, and the de facto regent, Maham Anga,

overplayed her hand by promoting her own son, the ambitious Adham Khan, who in 1562 recklessly assassinated the kingdom’s leading minister of state. This so enraged the nineteen-year-old Akbar that, although the youth was his own foster-brother, he threw him over a palace balcony to his death. [Eaton, p180]

The contest to win control after Akbar’s death is described as “a bloody, fratricidal contest” [Eaton, p235]

As for Jahangir, after his son Khusrau fomented a rebellion, Khusrau’s supporters “were impaled along both sides of a road, while their miserable leader was placed on an elephant and mockingly made to receive his supporters’ ‘homage’ as they writhed in agony.” When Khusrau rebelled again, Jahangir partially blinded him. [Eaton, p204]. Jahangir’s end was not so illustrious, either:

in the last five years of his life, from 1622 to his death in 1627, the emperor became so incapacitated by drink and opium that Nur Jahan [his wife] took many administrative matters into her own hands. [Eaton, India in the Persianate Age, 2019]

That is not the image depicted by this exhibition.  

Catalogue

I had hoped that the catalogue would give me some more answers, but I was disappointed in this respect. The catalogue comprises three parts, one for each reign: Akbar, Jahangir, and Shah Jahan. Each part has a very short general introduction by Susan Stronge, followed by much shorter and more detailed essays on individual works or genres (coins, Chinese porcelain). That leaves the catalogue, and the exhibition, short on historical background; perhaps 5% of the text is historical background. The curator, Susan Stronge, recently edited a publication on jewellery from India, so it is to be expected that she would have an interest in this aspect.

Like the exhibition, the catalogue seems to exist in an art-historical bubble, seemingly independent of politics, economics, and the wider social context. This show could have been a much more educational experience; we no longer look at artefacts and just admire the beauty, however stunning they may look. We ask questions.

Rajeev Kinra, in the introduction, stresses the non-sectarian nature of Mughal rule in India (he uses the term Hindustan to mean the northern part of India ruled by the Mughals). All religions were tolerated as long as they promoted the Mughal empire. I’m not so sure; Guru Arjun, one of the early Sikh leaders, was put death by Jahangir, and Guru Hargobind, his successor, was imprisoned for seven years. I don’t think I will be looking to the “great” Moghuls for guidance on how to run an empire any time soon.