Look at it this way. Some people here in Britain have a similar view about the Romans. Personally I thought the mini-series “Rome” earlier this year was brilliant, and I’m really enjoying the “Ancient Rome” drama-documentary series currently on the BBC on Thursday nights. Reading about all that is fascinating too. Like the Mughal period, it all seems very glamorous and exciting. No doubt much of it really was, assuming you were on the “winning side” and had enough money and status yourself.

HOWEVER: You sure as hell wouldn’t want to be living under their rule. And, given the alternatives, I’m very glad that Roman imperial power in its original brutal form collapsed (might have been a different matter if they’d evolved into a more humane, humanitarian culture).

The same principle applies to the Mughal period, at least for me (and as a Sikh, you can guess what my viewpoint is on a number of matters involving that era). Maybe it’s the same for Dalrymple too — he loves the epic grandeur of it all, the larger-than-life figures, the sweeping events, the politics…..But it might have been a very different matter if he’d actually been a European person alive in those times, and subject to many of the regressive and/or power-driven ideas and attitudes of that age in the subcontinent (along with the developing racist attitudes back in Britain).

Having the luxury of looking back on that period as a 21st-century Western person, with 21st-century ideas and from a detached 21st-century perspective does put a different spin on things, after all

Yes…. except his supportive arguments for Hindutva in India: A Million Mutinies Now

“Well Naipaul is more articulate and he represents viewpoints that are often derided and mocked without being heard”

There’s a reason why some of the viewpoints he represents are mocked.

And just because he is articulate doesn’t mean what he has to say is sound.

I’m almost hesitant to ask you what you meant by the above statement, ie you agree with much of Naipal’s writings….?

P.S My RSS contact phoned me about this article i wrote for PP (they got the link from Sulekha forums!)… surprisingly they arent mad at me!

I have read his stuff, and he seems like a Mughal nostalgist, dreaming of reciting Urdu poetry at the foot of a Persian eunuch at the court of a Mughal prince in Old Delhi, as the muezzin wails the call to prayer and the harem is opened and he delights in some calligraphy as the personal ambassador of the English crown.

Alright, so the mughals built nice palaces, get over it, when you try to draw parallels between the fall of the Mughal empire and present day jihad, because of the loss of ‘Muslim Imperium’ you are overstretching yourself and talking big time bollocks, as Dalrymple seems to do sometimes.

BUT…..he is worth reading even when you disagree with his conclusions, nice research and local historical details, and despite his failures of judgment is an excellent writer.

Nay Jagdeep, you are insulting my Maratha ancestors. Mughal empire was virtually done for by 1740 (17 whole years before Plassey). It was Maratha Peshwas from Pune who called the shots. OFcourse the big fuck up in Panipat rendered them impotent tad too quickly… yet Marathas did defeat British once, in Wadgaon.

Available on Amazon here.

Yet another book to add to my ever-expanding shopping list, I guess

vikrant – i get my books from all over the place. online, bookshops and of course the public library.

*feeds Kismet’s dinner to the dog*

I think Kismet may be busy working! For once…

Clairwill, JFF, Sonia and other well-wishers:

I am missing Kismet desperately, I must say. Married life is not what I thought it would be at all. Clearly it is true after all that once you get married you stop talking…

*sigh*