Historiography Mughal India

The question of gender has greatly enriched the historiography of the Mughal Empire by
providing a more nuanced understanding of the diverse experiences of men and women
during the Mughal period. Before the inclusion of gender as a category of analysis, much of
the historical scholarship on the Mughal Empire focused on the political and military
activities of the emperors and elites, largely ignoring the lives and experiences of women,
who were relegated to the domestic sphere.
However, recent scholarship has highlighted the significant contributions of women to the
Mughal Empire, both in the domestic sphere and in the public realm. For example, women
played important roles in the Mughal court, serving as patrons of the arts and literature, and
some even held positions of political power. Additionally, gender analysis has helped to
reveal how the Mughal Empire's policies and institutions impacted men and women
differently, and how gender intersected with other social identities such as class and religion.
Furthermore, by focusing on gender, historians have also shed light on the experiences of
non-elite women, who have often been overlooked in traditional historical accounts. This has
led to a greater understanding of the diversity of women's experiences during the Mughal
period, including those of peasant women, artisans, and slaves.
Overall, the inclusion of gender as a category of analysis has greatly enriched our
understanding of the Mughal Empire, allowing us to move beyond a narrow focus on political
and military history and to gain a more holistic view of the society and culture of the period.
Ruby Lal has noted that there has been a lack of documentation about the domestic life of the
Mughal Empire. However, it is important to recognize that both Mughal men and women
played a significant role in producing heirs, establishing new traditions, creating imperial
genealogies and rituals, and governing the empire. This marginalization of women from the
Mughal historiography is not unique to the East, as Bonnie G. Smith highlights the fate of
early practitioners of gender history in the West. In the West, prestigious professional history
focusing on weighty political topics was reserved for men, while women who wrote about the
past were deemed amateurish and superficial. Similarly, the biographies of Mughal women
were not seen as serious mainstream histories and were primarily focused on bringing women
to life rather than being considered an essential part of understanding Mughal history.
Consequently, little is known about the crucial role royal women played in the Mughal world,
imperial designs, and the monarchy's creation. Therefore, it is essential to investigate the lives
and conditions of Mughal women to gain a comprehensive understanding of the empire.
In 1967, Rekha Misra made an early attempt to shed light on the role of women in the
Mughal Empire through her work titled "Women in Mughal India." Her study primarily
focused on aristocratic women during the reigns of the grand Mughals and covered various
topics such as commercial engagements, education, artistic talents, construction and
supervision of buildings, charities, and the organization of marriages. Misra also analyzed the
representation of women in imperial records and narratives of European travelers. Her work
consisted of biographical sketches of royal women. Another noteworthy work on Mughal
women is Renuka Nath's biographical sketches, which included a broader range of female
characters than Misra's. Leslie Peirce's work on the Ottoman Harem and Ellison Findly's
study on Nur Jahan are also important contributions to the field. However, there have also
been works that have depicted the private life and the harem as a caricatured arena of fixed
behavioral patterns, unchanging and unmediated sexual and physical pleasure, and a static
"feminine" domain that is difficult to comprehend historically, as noted by Lal. Lal through
her work has tried to debunk this popular notion.
It is worth noting that there have been exceptions to the focus on biographical sketches and
social history in the study of Mughal women. Scholars such as Tapan Ray Chaudhuri have
explored the social life during the reigns of Akbar and Jahangir in Bengal. Additionally,
Muzaffar Alam's work in the Persian language has paved the way for new research into
Mughal practices and culture. Alam emphasized the importance of the Persian language,
which became the official language under Akbar's reign, in shaping Mughal society. In
addition to the works focusing on biographical sketches and social history, some scholars
have paid attention to mainstream social history. For example, Stephen Dale's work on
Babur's autobiography and poetry, and Monica Juneja's work on art and architectural history.
Rosalind O'Hanlon and Stephen Blake have explored the familial affairs and domestic life of
the Mughals, with O'Hanlon examining Akbar's projection as a universal monarch and the
construction of imperial masculinity. She highlighted the development of patriarchal power in
the 16th and 17th centuries and called for a rethinking of both pre-modern and modern Indian
society and politics. However, despite their focus on the imperial household as the crucial
domain for constructing images of other realms, they have not paid attention to the activities,
relationships, or identities of the inhabitants of the household
Lal's critique of the use of binary oppositions in the study of pre and early modern Islamic
societies highlights the limitations of relying on such simplistic categorizations. While
feminist scholars have criticized the strict division between public and private life, they have
still often employed a binary way of thinking that is not sensitive to the nuances and
complexities of social, cultural, and historical contexts. Lal argues that the concepts of public
and private are historically contingent and culturally specific, and their meanings and forms
can vary across time and space.
Scholars like Michelle Rosaldo, Louise Lamphere, and Rayna Reiter have attempted to
challenge the opposition between domestic and public spheres, emphasizing their socially
constructed, fluid, and changeable nature. However, as Lal notes, the issue of cultural,
historical, and sexual specificity remains relevant in the debate on the public-private spheres.
Moreover, universal categories can be problematic, as Carole Pateman has pointed out in her
critique of the origins of modern political regimes and the relationship between public and
private domains. Pateman argues that the original social contract was a sexual one that
established patriarchy, a challenge to the conventional wisdom on the subject.
Overall, Lal's critique highlights the need for a more nuanced and contextualized
understanding of social categories and concepts in the study of pre and early modern Islamic
societies. It also underscores the importance of feminist scholarship in challenging and
rethinking conventional historical narratives and categories.
Scholars studying non-western societies questioned how the concepts of public and private
life, domesticity, and intimate communities would apply to different cultural and historical
contexts. They also questioned whether Western paradigms were relevant to the study of non-
Western societies. Cynthia Nelson's work is significant in this context. She has looked at the
pastoral and sedentary societies of the middle east and has suggested that the domestic
concerns of women here are majorly political and women could be seen negotiating with the
existing social order.
Lila Abu Lughod and Leslie Pierce's work challenge the idea that non-western societies can
be understood through the lens of public and private spheres. Abu Lughod's study of Bedouin
women's poetry shows that they were not confined to domestic roles and expressed dissent
through cultural forms. Pierce's work on the Ottoman harem suggests that distinctions based
on privilege, sacredness, and profanity were more relevant than gender-based public/private
dichotomies. Dina Khoury's work on Mosul, a part of Ottoman Iraq during the 18th and 19th
centuries, is also significant. She used court records to understand the significance of the
domestic sphere for women from various social classes. Her research revealed that the
dichotomy between public and private life is more a reflection of modern sensibilities than
the reality of early modern times. Lal has argued that in the study of the lives of Mughal men
and women, it becomes evident that the public and private domains were originally different
aspects of the same courtly life. The private domain closely intersected and spilled over into
the public sphere. The private was never completely segregated or restricted.
As the British colonized the subcontinent, they began to impose their interpretations of Indian
civilization. They used the sensuality of women, luxury, pleasure, and indolence as a sign of a
dehistoricized world. In late 19th-century colonial writings, the Mughal harem was portrayed
as a symbol of a degraded society governed by the vices of lust, immorality, and wealth.
Elliot and Dowson, in their work, used analogies such as the king being sunk in sloth and
debauchery, officers being chief robbers and usurers, eunuchs reveling in the spoils of
plundered provinces, and the sensuality and drunkenness of the tyrants.
Colonial historians like Mill and Elphinstone have not discussed the topic of women and the
Mughal harem in detail. They have only made passing references to project Mughal women
as nonentities who exist only for the pleasure of men, except for Nur Jahan. Instead, they
have focused on the debaucheries of the emperor, such as Shah Jahan's affair with his
daughter Jahanara. Colonial histories have been written in a public affairs mode and paid
little attention to the role and status of women. They only mention the subordination of
women to emphasize the supposedly barbaric nature of Eastern civilization.
Foreign writers and accounts discussing the Indian civilization can be traced back to the
contemporaries of the Mughal emperors. Father Monserrate, who lived during Akbar's reign,
wrote an important account describing how Akbar appointed his mother Hamida Banu
Begum as the governor of Delhi while he went to quell a rebellion and enthrone his half-
brother Mirza Hakim as the ruler of Hindustan. Monserrate also mentioned a hajj pilgrimage
organized by Akbar's aunt, Gulbadan Banu Begum, indicating the power held by senior
women in the Mughal family. However, both Monserrate and Lane Pool emphasized the large
number of wives in Akbar's harem, portraying the East as barbaric, while overlooking the
political alliances that many of these marriages served to cement Akbar's position in the
subcontinent according to Lal.
Ralph Fitch was an English merchant who lived during the reign of Akbar. He expressed
amazement at the attire and adornments of women from Daman and commented on the
practice of sati. He portrayed Indian society in European terms. In the era of Jahangir, Pietro
Della Valle, a Dutch personality, noted the differences in dress between Muslim and Hindu
women. He also wrote about Nur Jahan and confirmed her power in the court. He mentioned
that she did not want to live in the harem with female slaves as it was beneath her dignity.
Like Fitch, Della Valle also referred to sati.
During the same period, two other foreigners named William Hawkins and Thomas Roe also
observed the Mughal harem. According to them, the harem was calm, restrained, and
moderate, unlike the exaggerated accounts given by later writers. They mentioned how
Jahangir spent his leisure time with the women of the harem and commented on his indulgent
behavior. However, the role of women was incidental to the larger narrative, and they were
seen only as small parts of the emperor's routine. The focus was on the empire, and women
were not given much attention in the larger discourse.
There is more lucrative writing on women and the harem from the reign of Jahangir as we see
the works of Bernier and Manucci are also coming up now.