City and emperor: the Mughal practice

The Mughals had a grand if chequered record on the subcontinent, one in which brilliance and mediocrity both featured. They arrived from central Asia to the north-west in 1526 when Emperor Babur used superior military technology and tactics to conquer northern India.

Over the following century, during the 1600s, succeeding Mughal emperors con­solidated their position, promoted development and conquered more territory to the east and also the south, into the Deccan.⁴ Akbar’s grandson, Shah Jahan (literally Ruler of the World), was a grand visionary responsible for building the Taj Mahal in Agra as well as a whole new city, Shahjahanabad, now known as Old Delhi. The mystique of the Mughals, the grandeur of their cities and empire, and the persona of the emperor all were estab­lished or reaffirmed over the course of the century. The emperors who followed in the eighteenth century proved less capable (or perhaps less fortunate) than their predecessors, and the fortunes of the dynasty and the empire declined dramatically. Surprisingly, the Mughal mystique, an aura that surrounded the lineage and the emperor (Padshah), did not entirely dissipate.

Cities, or at least the capital city, were important in the play of power on the sub­continent and in the demonstration of sovereignty. While in one sense whoever controlled the capital city controlled the country, in another sense wherever the ruler went, there lay the capital. In the highly centralised structure that was the Mughal Empire, the emperor stood at the apex controlling the administration, and so the seat of government, the capital city, was wherever he was. When, for instance, emperors went out on military campaigns that might last years, they took with them all their administrative apparatus and governed from their encampments. Inevitably the army and its accompanying baggage were immense. When it marched it did so along an extensive front, possibly as much as 2.5 kilometres wide. The French traveller Francois Bernier pointed out that perhaps between 300,000 and 400,000 people moved along with the emperor. They were not only soldiers. As he put it:

The multitude is prodigious and almost incredible. The whole population of Delhi, the capital city, is in fact collected in the camp, because deriving its employment and maintenance from the court and army, it has no alternative but to follow them in their march or to perish from want during their absence.⁵

With the emperor went the camp followers who made up all the functioning parts of such a city, obviously administrators and the different ranks of the military, but also servants, traders, merchants, artisans, craftspeople and workers of all kinds.

When the Mughals were not on the move, their capitals were conventional cities. Though they spent time in Lahore and in Kashmir, the first emperors favoured Agra or Delhi. They lay about 200 kilometres apart, both located on the banks of the river Yamuna, a major tributary of the Ganges, and strategically situated so as to control key routes across the Punjab and into the Gangetic valley. At various times over the centuries, earlier dynasties had established their capitals in the region and the Mughals continued the pattern. After using Agra as his capital, Akbar also built a grand new city, Fathepur Sikri, some 37 kilometres from Agra in 1569. It remained the capital until 1586 when he aban­doned it—probably because it lacked adequate water—and moved to Delhi. However, Akbar was not the only Mughal to embark on city-building. In the following century Shah Jahan constructed another grand capital, Shahjahanabad, completed around 1648, a walled city with the large Red Fort at one end beside the river. The emperor’s palace was located in the fort and looked over the river. A wide avenue, Chandni Chowk, stretched from the main gate of the fort straight through the city; another went to the great mosque, the Jamma Masjid. The city was planned in such a way as to allow the emperor to go in procession on his elephants through it, showing himself to his subjects, reminding them of his presence and reinforcing their loyalty. That this capital city was very much the emperor’s is evident in the attention given to its layout and particularly the relationship of the fort with the rest of the buildings, all subordinated to the fort/palace, the emperor’s place. When first built, Old Delhi provided a clear illustration of the unity of emperor and city, and ensured the continuity of the mystique of the emperor. The city as a collective symbol encompassed the king, his dynasty and the kingdom itself.

There existed other urban settlements of course throughout India. Though they did not have the imprint of the emperor they nevertheless formed a necessary and important part of the empire. Such cities and towns often played overlapping roles and functions. The mix was most apparent in Delhi or Agra where the myriad requirements of the emperor and court meant the presence of many different workers, artisans and functionaries. Outside the capital, towns and cities might have a dominant function, a particular occupational specialisation or an economic activity that gave each place a specific character even if other activities also occurred.⁶ Among the types of settlements were small townships (qasbah) located at the cross points of one or other of the numerous land or river trading routes that intersected northern India.⁷ Another type was the religious or pilgrimage centre like Varanasi (Benares), though it also was an important centre for the production of textiles. Other townships might concentrate on manufacturing and marketing goods or act as markets for agrarian produce. Urban centres varied in size—some not much more than local markets or district administrative towns, others significantly larger trading posts and others still regional administrative headquarters or the seat of local nobility.

Significantly, most towns and fortifications were located inland. Few major towns lay along the coast, the most prominent being Surat on the west coast, a leading commercial hub and centre for the export of trade goods, especially cloth and textiles from the wealthy and productive Gujarat region. As a land-based power, the Mughals paid relatively little attention to India’s extended coastline or its seaward defence and perceived little need to do so except in the case of Surat, the site of pitched land battles during its dominant years. Major military threats would likely come by land from the northwest, as historically had been the case with a string of conquerors of which the Mughals were the latest.

Thus the smaller townships represented necessary elements in the structure of Mughal administration and economic productivity. In regard to the Mughal capital the benefits were significantly different in that they involved a focus on defining and legitimating the position of the emperor. Specifically the ability to mobilise the population of the capital and take them on months-long military campaigns had distinct tactical advantages in warfare situations and enabled the processes of a centralised government to continue relatively unimpeded. The custom of building new capitals—real stone-and-mortar physical cities—helped in the glorifying of the monarch and his reign. And of course all the symbolic parts—royal city, royal monarch and royal territory—united and fed into potent notions of the aura of power and position.