The Taj Mahal – Part 2

Part 1 can be found here

In the second half of his argument, P N Oak attempts to substantively prove that the Taj Mahal was constructed as a Hindu temple/palace before it was co-opted by the Mughals. Oak forwards 2 main arguments to defend his theory:

The historical record and the architecture of the Taj Mahal proves that that it was a co-opted Hindu temple/palace,
The absence of decisive evidence to prove Oak’s claims is not reason enough to discount his argument, due to the “historical revisionism” (ironic, I know) on the part of both the Mughals and Indian academics afraid of the truth.

In my last post, I claimed that Oak’s writing was in practice a laundry list of generalisations, cherry-picked evidence, factual distortion and even outright Hindu supremacism. To a certain extent, I proved the existence of these traits in the first half of his argument. Unfortunately, these traits continue to resonate in the second half of his argument to a more pernicious degree than the first.

Part 2: The historical record

Oak first argues that the Taj Mahal was a forcefully co-opted Hindu temple/palace due to the ambiguities inherent in the historical record. For his argument, Oak primarily relies on the Badshahnama, a chronicle of Shah Jahan’s reign written by his court historian, Abdul Lahori. In describing the construction of the Taj Mahal, the Badshahnama describes the purchase of land from one of Shah Jahan’s vassals, the Rajput Raja Jai Singh of the Kingdom of Amber. The land housed one of the Raja’s mansions, which had been built by his great-grandfather and had remained in the Singh family until its purchase and (presumed) demolition by Shah Jahan in order to make way for the Taj Mahal[1]. As such, Oak argues that the Taj Mahal in its current form is in fact a modified version of the original Rajput palace, as it’s demolishment is not explicitly mentioned in the text. Moreover, Oak alleges that the forced co-option of a Hindu temple to serve as a Muslim mausoleum was in line with Shah Jahan’s oppressive and exploitative policy towards Hindus, thus lending further credence to his theory.

Debating the exact interpretation of the Badshahnama would prolong this post by a few thousand words. Whether the text was meant to be interpreted literally or with certain context-specific assumptions is an ongoing historical debate. However, established historians and architects alike have already offered the most direct rebuttal to Oak’s theory which proves that his interpretation of the Badshahnama is incorrect: If the Taj Mahal were in fact a co-opted, redecorated Hindu temple, the architectural style of the building as a whole would be primarily “Hindu”. However, this simply is not the case. As historians such as Dirk Collier and Ebba Koch have argued, Mughal structures such as the Taj Mahal reflect a uniquely “Mughal” architectural style that incorporates Hindu as well as Central Asian, Persian and Ottoman influences and traditions[2]. For example, the Taj Mahal incorporates hierarchical symbolism – a distinctively Hindu architectural style that highlights contrasting colours in order to distinguish the presence of different castes in the architecture of the building itself. However, the Taj Mahal also places a strict premium on preserving symmetry (which is evident to any visitor to the Taj Mahal complex) which is simply not present in a systematic and contiguous manner in Hindu temples of the era[3]. In response to this argument, Oak attempts to contrast the photos of the Taj Mahal with other Hindu temples in order to highlight their similarities, but that simply is not good enough. At best, these comparisons prove that the Taj Mahal’s architecture was imbued with “Hindu” characteristics – which does not disprove the main argument that the Taj Mahal was structure built from the ground up with a style that incorporated Hindu symbolism and motifs. For Oak to get away with his argument, he would have to prove that the Taj Mahal was entirely Hindu in its architectural makeup, which he has failed to do.

The more problematic aspect of this argument lies in the second assertion that Oak makes: that the forced appropriation of a Hindu temple was in line with Shah Jahan’s existing policy towards his Hindu subjects. Oak does not offer much analysis to back up his claim, and instead simply asserts that the “general Muslim usurping of tradition in India” and Shah Jahan’s desire to “impoverish wealthy Hindu families” give credence to him forcefully appropriating Jai Singh’s property. To put it another way, Oak does not really justify his interpretation of Shah Jahan’s policy towards his Hindu vassals beyond asserting that “the Mughals, being Muslims, must have naturally oppressed the Hindus”.

If we push past the generalisations, however, one would discover that Shah Jahan’s policies towards his Hindu subjects were a mixed bag. On one hand, the evidence suggests that on paper, Shah Jahan reversed the policies of religious tolerance towards Hindus by his grandfather, the famous Emperor Akbar. For example, he issued an edict in 1632 prohibiting the construction of new Hindu temples and ordering the demolishment of those currently being built[4]. Court customs were Islamicized and Hindus were forced to adhere to a dress code that segregated them from Muslim courtiers[5]. Similarly, hostile non-Islamic kingdoms that submitted to Shah Jahan were often forced to choose between Islam or the sword. However, it seems that some of these policies were half-heartedly enforced or were retracted after a while. For example, in 1645, the Mughal prince (and future emperor) Aurangzeb converted a Hindu temple constructed by a rich merchant, Shantidas Javeri, into a mosque[6]. However, Shah Jahan intervened in favour of Shantidas Javeri by ordering Aurangzeb to restore the temple and its plunder to the Hindu community in its entirety[7][8]. Similarly, Shah Jahan’s Hindu vassals were allowed to operate with relative freedom and continued to occupy numerous powerful posts in the Mughal bureaucracy by serving as governors and generals in Shah Jahan’s armies[9]. In fact, as I pointed out in my previous post, Aurangzeb famously attempted to obtain Rajput backing for his claim to the throne by promising to continue to respect their autonomy as vassals, which implies that Shah Jahan’s Hindu subjects were used to a similar level of independence while under his rule. As such, Shah Jahan’s “anti-Hindu” policy does not appear to be consistent in its application and enforcement, which to me is strong proof that Shah Jahan was not entirely “anti-Hindu”.

So what would be the best reconciliation of these seemingly contradictory religious policies? In my opinion, Shah Jahan’s religious policies appear to have been driven by the need to placate different groups in Mughal society. The initial edicts suppressing the practice of Hinduism could have been enacted on paper and enforced to a degree to placate the powerful Muslim imams and vassals who desired for the Mughal Empire to become more “Islamic” in character after the tolerant regimes of Akbar and Jahangir[10]. The enforcement of Islamic customs in court would have left a strong impression on the imams and courtiers in the Mughal capital, and the initial wave of destruction would have solidified their approval of Shah Jahan. However, if these policies intruded on the Shah’s powerful Hindu vassals or influential merchant communities, they would simply not be enforced. This in part explains the subservience of the Shah’s Rajput vassals: under Shah Jahan, the Rajputs continued to provide tax and levies for the Mughal armies, while serving in the imperial army as generals and commanders[11]. Unlike under Shah Jahan’s successor Emperor Aurangzeb, who provoked a Rajput revolt by clamping down on the religious liberties and powers of his Hindu vassals[12], Rajput leaders such as Jai Singh remained largely loyal to the Mughal state under Shah Jahan. Similarly, Hindu merchants continued to bankroll Shah Jahan’s expensive campaigns in the Deccan and even his military campaigns against Hindu opponents, and only cut off credit to the Mughal state once Aurangzeb materially infringed on their religious liberty and freedom of action[13]. Therefore, we can say with reasonable certainty that Shah Jahan’s religious policies may have appeared potent on paper so as to pander to his orthodox Muslim base but were probably restricted in practice so as to retain the support of the powerful Hindu merchants and vassals kings that the Mughal state heavily relied on.

This takes us back to the original question: is it possible for the Taj Mahal to have been forcefully converted from a Hindu temple into a Muslim mausoleum if we set aside the architectural evidence to the contrary? From my argument above, I believe that the possibility for this is minute. From the evidence that I have put forward, the forceful co-option the property of a Hindu king appears to be at odds with the principle of Shah Jahan’s policy towards his vassals. As such, Oak’s argument alleging the hostile takeover of a Hindu temple does not really stand.

Part 3: Evidence is overrated

In one of my points in my previous post regarding the Taj Mahal, I elaborated on why Oak’s arguments rub me the wrong way. Let us take for example the argument that we just discussed: Oak does not bother to provide even a cursory analysis regarding Shah Jahan’s religious policies, and instead merely panders towards the stereotype of the “evil Hindu-hating Muslim” with assertions that belong more so on a far-right Hindu supremacist website than on a serious historical text. However, the final claim that he makes to salvage his argument in his book trumps the fallacies, generalisations and poor argumentation that he has made thus far.

In the penultimate chapter of his book, Oak attempts to pre-empt professional critique, particularly with regards to his lack of positive evidence towards his theories. In response, Oak argues that the presence of decisive evidence in favour of his theory is not necessary, because “murderers and cheats (have been) convicted around the world on the basis of negative evidence”, with the “tell-tale details (evidence proving their actions) being discovered later”. In addition, Oak alleges that his theory can only be proven with negative evidence due to the burial of evidence and historical revisionism exercised by Mughal authorities and an “embarrassed” Indian government.

From Oak’s argument, it becomes apparent that he has failed to understand the concept of “proof” – in both the context of criminal justice and historical discourse. For one, Oak is literally making the argument that a conclusion derived from negative evidence i.e. that event A must have taken place entirely because event B did not is valid logic, when it just is not true. Setting aside the rather obvious miscarriage of justice that Oak refers to in attempting to justify his logic, disproving an opposing narrative does not automatically justify ones’ version of events, as history is not a zero-sum game. Historical events and narratives are not taken as proof just because they are “the best explanations available”, but because they are the “best explanations available that are backed by historical proof”. Disproving an established theory explaining the existence of humans in pre-historic America, for example, does not automatically legitimise me to claim that aliens populated America with human beings, regardless of how plausible (yet unsubstantiated) the argument may be. In the same fashion, disproving the established narrative about the Taj Mahal does not automatically legitimise the counter-narrative of a co-opted Hindu temple, as much as it does not allow me to claim that the Taj Mahal was built by aliens instead. An alternative historical theory must be proven with positive historical evidence and logic if it is to occupy the space of a disproven, mainstream theory, which is a notion that Oak is unable to grasp.

Oak also has not credibly demonstrated why, or how Mughal authorities and modern Indian governments have suppressed the “truth” so much so that his argument can only be proven through “negative evidence”. To Oak’s credit, revisionism on the part of the Mughals is a fair assumption, yet his explanation of how such revisionism could have materialised is really problematic. On the one hand, he alleges that the hatred that Shah Jahan demonstrated for Hinduism led to the desecration of Hindu temples and the destruction of proof (such as Hindu artefacts) that would have proven the Taj Mahal’s true origin. Yet, Oak somehow rationalises that Shah Jahan’s “fanatical hatred for Hindu motifs” did not lead to the complete burial of Hindu symbols left over such as the “trident pinnacle”, as the “Muslims of those times did not know how to repair the crack (left over)”. Unfortunately for Oak, simplistic racist pandering and assertions do not count as proper analysis, and to that end, his argument detailing the revisionist tendencies of the Mughals is flawed and unconvincing.

Oak then turns to Indian academics and historians, and accuses them (along with Western academics) of historical revisionism due to their reluctance to deal with “a considerable professional loss of face and embarrassment” with the revelation of the truth. He singles out Western academics in particular and accuses them of being overly sentimental and “following a centuries old tradition of lustily alluding to Shah Jahan as the creator of the Taj”. In a typical Oak-esque tradition he backs up his arguments with racist assertions, claiming that the average Western visitor’s “mental calibre must be rated much below that of an average Indian” due to their “sentimentalism about sexual love”, thus reducing their reliability as academics. Abject racism aside, Oak has made one seriously flawed assertion: he conflates historians into one monolithic entity, with the assumption that all historians must defend, or are somehow invested in preserving the established historical narrative. The truth of the matter is that historians often disagree – even in the case of supposedly clear-cut cases like the Taj Mahal. Historian Wayne Begley, for example, argued in 1979 that the architecture of the Taj Mahal was deliberately designed so as to aggrandise Shah Jahan as a regal emperor capable of mirroring Paradise, and thus should not be taken as a mausoleum at face value[14]. In fact, historians are incentivised on numerous fronts to challenge the established narrative as far as possible. For one, simply agreeing with the status quo with no value-add whatsoever does not differentiate a historian or provide a “breakthrough” for one to advance their academic career. Academic journals are not likely to publish accounts that simply rehash what previous authors have said, thus providing a financial incentive for historians to challenge the norm as far as possible. As such, Oak’s claim to this regard is not really believable. He has not really provided tangible evidence of historians deliberately toeing the established historical narrative in the face of credible alternative theories (i.e. anything apart from Oak’s logic) and has ignored the historians who have credibly questioned the status quo due to the wealth of incentives that historians possess to do so in the first place. Thus, in my opinion, his claims of a “coverup” by mainstream academics simply does not hold true, and as such, does not justify him relying on “negative evidence” to prove his point.

Taking stock

In conclusion, I believe that I have dealt with the bulk of Oak’s claims regard the origin of the Taj Mahal. In my earlier post, I proved that Oak’s issues with the established narrative are not credible, and that his alternative “theory” simply does not stand on its own. His excuses for his argumentative and evidentiary gaps similarly do not hold up to reason and logic, and as such, should not be used to justify the assertions, generalisations and racist pandering which forms the core of most of his arguments. Oak’s theory is thus only useful as a reminder of the divisive and dishonest nature of historical revisionism, which must be avoided at all costs. At the same time, however, the academic community should not dismiss such claims without proper debate. Regardless of the inevitable headaches and face-palms that such theories invoke, such arguments can only be put to rest once they have been laid bare for public judgement and ridicule. A single historical critique is not enough to put Oak’s theories to rest, considering the extent of their proliferation in Indian politics and society at large. However, a decisive initiative by historians to set the record straight in the societies that they inhabit would be a start towards a world where our understanding of the past is not coloured by disingenuous introspection in the present.

References:

[1] Collier, D. (2016). The Great Mughals and their India. New Delhi, India: Hay House India.

[2] Koch, E. (2005). The Taj Mahal: Architecture, Symbolism, And Urban Significance. Muqarnas Online,22(1), 128-149. doi:10.1163/22118993-90000087

[3] Lowry, G. D. (1987). Humayuns Tomb: Form, Function, and Meaning in Early Mughal Architecture. Muqarnas,4, 133-148. doi:10.2307/1523100

[4] Richards, J. F. (1995). Shah Jahan 1628–1658. The Mughal Empire,119-150. doi:10.1017/cbo9780511584060.009

[5] Collier, D. (2016). The Great Mughals and their India. New Delhi, India: Hay House India.

[6] Mehta, M. (1991). Indian Merchants and Entrepreneurs in Historical Perspective. Delhi: Academic Foundation, 91-113

[7] Thevenot, C. (2012). Jean de Thévenot: Grand voyageur oriental, premier ethnologue français, révélateur du café à la Cour de France. Saint-Denis: Édilivre.

[8] The source for this incident was a European traveler by the name of Jean de Thévenot, who probably heard a recollection of the event at the court of Emperor Aurangzeb in the 1660s. The reliability of this source is thus questionable as Thévenot may have heard an exaggerated or distorted version of the incident. However, the fact that Thévenot heard about an event which censured Aurangzeb at his own court indicates that the story of the attempted conversion was true, at least in its outcome. While the details of the event itself could still be exaggerated, I thus do not think that Thévenot fabricated the event or the way it played out.

[9] Wee, M. V. (1988). Semi-imperial polity and service aristocracy. Dialectical Anthropology,13(3), 209-225. doi:10.1007/bf00253916

[10] Chandra, S. (2007). History of Medieval India: 800-1700. New Delhi: Orient BlackSwan.

[11] Aksan, V. H., Zürcher, E. J., & Roy, K. (2013). Fighting for a living: A comparative history of military labour 1500 – 2000. Amsterdam: Amsterdam Univ. Press.

[12] Faruqui, M. D. (2008). At Empires End: The Nizam, Hyderabad and Eighteenth-Century India. Modern Asian Studies,43(01), 5. doi:10.1017/s0026749x07003290

[13] Leonard, K. (1979). The ‘Great Firm’ Theory of the Decline of the Mughal Empire. Comparative Studies in Society and History, 21, 151-167. Retrieved February 21, 2018.

[14] Begley, W. E. (1979). The Myth of the Taj Mahal and a New Theory of Its Symbolic Meaning. The Art Bulletin,61(1), 7. doi:10.2307/3049862

The Taj Mahal – Part 1

Writing this post was really weird and frustrating: I must have scrapped 3 or 4 full-length drafts, each focusing on a different nuance of my intended subject before I finally arrived at this one. I had initially intended to write about revisionist claims regarding the Taj Mahal – a generic rebuttal against the underlying principles of said claims. Nothing too glamorous or fancy, just a straightforward analysis of why they are wrong, yet garner so much support (much like my previous post on the stabbed-in-the-back myth). However, as I explored the claims made by supremacist politicians and revisionist authors, one text stood out as the epitome of everything I despise about revisionist history. Indian author P N Oak’s book, “The Taj Mahal is a Temple Palace”, is pretty much what the name suggests, an alternative theory claiming that the Taj Mahal was an appropriated Hindu temple rather than a Muslim mausoleum constructed from ground up. Now don’t get me wrong – challenging orthodox historical opinions is a necessary facet of historical discourse. Oak’s book, however, is the exact opposite – it’s neither “historical”, nor is it a “discourse” in so much as it is a laundry list of inaccuracies and misrepresentations. The generalizations, cherry-picked evidence, factual distortion and outright Hindu supremacism that Oak purveys under the veneer of “challenging the orthodox view” is a mockery to the discipline that I have come to love and appreciate. This post will thus be my rebuttal against his theories, and the reasoning behind the conclusions that I have reached.

To provide some background: I am sure that most of us know about the Taj Mahal. Per the widely accepted historical record, the Taj Mahal was commissioned by Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan as a tomb for his favourite wife, Mumtaz Mahal. The Mughal Empire that he ruled was founded by a warlord called Babur, who expanded into India after conflicts with other Uzbek warlords drove him from Central Asia. Under successive emperors, the Mughal Empire held dominion over most of Central and Northern India from 1526 to 1857. Shah Jahan was the 5^th Mughal emperor and ruled from 1628 to 1658.

The greatest extent of the Mughal Empire during the reign of Emperor Aurangzeb (1658-1707)

The opposition to the widely accepted historical narrative about the Taj Mahal was articulated by Oak in around 1965. As described in the introduction, he advanced the theory that the Taj Mahal was a Hindu temple seized by the Mughals and converted into a tomb. His theory quickly gained traction amongst Hindu nationalist circles, which have recently taken to denouncing the Taj Mahal as a coopted Hindu temple. Even some politicians (mostly of the nationalist Bhartiya Janta Party) have given official sanction to his theories[1].

To those who have not read Oak’s book, here’s a summary of how he arrives at his thesis. He first argues that Shah Jahan could not have possibly built the Taj Mahal, due to his chaotic rule and his inherent “lack of soft feelings”. In fact, he argues that Mughals could not have built anything due to the ineptitude and corruption that characterized their rule. As such, Oak believes that its much more plausible for the Taj Mahal to be a Hindu temple, due to the prevalence of Hindu motifs in the architecture of the structure and the history of the land on which the structure was built. Oak concludes by admitting that the evidence for his theory isn’t decisive but pins the blame for that on a mix of “the Mughals fabricating history and burying evidence of the temple’s presence”, “foreign revisionism”, and even suppression by the Indian government.

Oh boy. This is going to be a long one.

Part 1 – The bad, bad Mughals

To forward his first argument, Oak argues that the Mughals were bad at pretty much everything – their conduct as rulers, their management of financial affairs, and even at being moral human beings. He writes that Shah Jahan’s reign in particular was a period of chaos, so much so that nothing could have plausibly been built. To back this claim, Oak points to the war of succession between Shah Jahan’s sons that took place after his illness in 1658, and thus claims that “if (his) reign had been the golden period that it is wrongly described to have been, such utter chaos and countrywide rebellion would never have erupted when he fell ill”. Therefore, Oak alleges that the Mughal Empire simply did not have the capacity to foot the bill for the Taj Mahal, let alone to function as a stable empire.

There are several problems with this theory. For one, Oak uses a conflict over succession at the end of Shah Jahan’s rule as evidence for “endemic problems” during his tenure. However, Oak does not show how a war of succession, a conflict motivated by political rivalry and a dispute over the throne, proves the endemic economic problems that he alleges of Mughal rule. In fact, even kingdoms (relatively) unmarred by economic problems were prone to wars of succession due to the ambition and rivalry amongst claimants. Alexander the Great’s empire, for example, fragmented as he died without designating a successor amongst the myriad of claimants in his court. More recently, the Spanish war of succession from 1701 to 1714 occurred due to the competing claims of Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I and the French King Louis XIV. The element of socioeconomic misrule simply does not explain a conflict over who gets the throne – Oak would be hard pressed to say that Louis XIV pressed his claim over Spain to remedy an ailing economy, or that Alexander’s ministers went to war to alleviate social problems. The proof for an economic dimension also isn’t present in the cases that Shah Jahan’s sons presented in order to gain support for their individual claims to the throne. In a letter to the Raja of Mewar (a Mughal vassal), for example, Prince Aurangzeb (one of the claimants) asks for the Raja’s support by promising to not interfere in Mewarese internal affairs if he were to seize the throne[2]. The letter is oriented around promising autonomy and safeguarding sovereignty – and does not make any mention of improving the economy or restoring order, which we would have expected if the conflict was triggered by socioeconomic grievances. Thus, if we take the Mughal war of succession as an indicator for the status of Mughal rule under Shah Jahan, we can only reasonably conclude that political rivalry and intrigue was rife amongst the emperor’s sons – but we cannot infer the character of his rule from this conflict alone

What then was the nature of Mughal rule? Let’s focus on the economic state of India under the Mughals. I will not be providing a full analysis of India’s economy, as there are a large variety of factors that influenced economic development and expansion during the Mughal era. However, since Oak is insinuating the incapability of the Mughal state to operate coherently, I will explicitly focus on the role that Mughal emperors played in India’s economic development, for better or for worse. And from the evidence that we currently possess, the former appears to more likely than the latter – India’s economy as a whole improved while under Mughal rule, partly due to the implementation of various reforms by Mughal emperors which facilitated the expansion of India’s agricultural and manufacturing sectors. For example, emperor Sher Shah Suri (1538-1545) implemented a uniform currency[3] and started a series of agricultural reforms that were furthered by his successors, such as the construction of state-funded irrigation systems that boosted agricultural output[4]. Similarly, under emperor Akbar (1556-1605), the Mughal state provided tax breaks to farmers that expanded their cultivated land[5]. As a result, per-capita agricultural output in the Mughal Empire (in the 17^th century at least) was higher than that of Europe[6]. These improvements were also registered in manufacturing. By the 18^th century, Mughal India accounted for 25% of the worlds industrial production[7] due to a variety of economic initiatives enacted by various Mughal rulers. The emperors Jahangir (1605-1627) and Shah Jahan, for example, financed textile workshops under the kharkhana system, where workers and craftsmen (much like their agricultural counterparts) operated with relative stability[8]. As a result, the textile industry flourished, so much so that textile imports from India constituted a staggering 95% of British imports from Asia in the late 17^th Century[9]. Overall, the weight of evidence we have thus suggests that the Mughal economy (at least up until the death of Shah Jahan and the formative years of his successor) was doing fairly well.

India occupied a significant portion of the world’s GDP during the Mughal era

To Oak’s credit, Shah Jahan can be blamed for a number of economically unsound policies. His campaigns against the Deccan kingdoms, the Safavid dynasty and the Portuguese combined with his exorbitant building projects led to a substantial increase in taxation. In the long term, excessive taxation prevailed under Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb, (his successor) which provided the impetus for peasant unrest and rebellion towards the end of his rule[10]. The financial burdens of Shah Jahan’s wars (which were furthered by Aurangzeb) also alienated influential Indian merchants and bankers, thus laying the groundwork for the economic decline of the Mughals in the latter half of Aurangzeb’s rule[11]. However, it would be ridiculous to suggest that the Mughal economy under Shah Jahan was inherently nonfunctional. After all, from all the examples that have been detailed in the earlier paragraph, it becomes apparent that the Mughal economy was still flourishing during the period of Shah Jahan’s reign (The mid 17^th Century). Hence, we can plausibly say that Shah Jahan’s economic blunders had a long-term effect, which came to light alongside other political conflicts during the reigns of his successors. However, the evidence we have about the Mughal economy does not back Oak’s claims about the chaos and corruption during Shah Jahan’s reign.

But here’s the biggest problem. None of this comes out in Oak’s text – nothing regarding the evaluation of the Mughal economy, or perhaps a nuanced analysis of Shah Jahan’s economic policies. Rather, what we get are sweeping statements, such as “had (Shah Jahan’s) rule been wise and benevolent the news of his illness would have evoked a touching response from his subjects. Far from that even his own sons rose in open revolt – what greater indictment could there be of his misrule!”. Oak does not bother to qualify his analysis of the Mughals, instead relying on nice-sounding statements that belong in a fable more so than a serious historical text. What exactly is a “wise and benevolent” ruler? In what manner did the Mughal Empire’s success depend on the personality on its leaders? Were Shah Jahan’s tax collectors, bureaucrats, vassals and merchants (the people most responsible for the collection of revenue for the Imperial treasury) really that reliant on the “wise-ness” and “benevolence” of their leader? These are major assumptions behind Oak’s thesis, none of which are given a solid justification or are backed by evidence. Therefore, we can credibly say that Oak’s claim regarding the Mughals not possessing the financial resources to construct monuments like the Taj Mahal is thoroughly baseless.

Oak then argues that even if the Mughals had a functioning economy, the Taj Mahal could not have been built as a monument because he was “lacking in soft feelings”. Here, Oak is pretty much appealing to the reader’s emotions. Surely a tyrant like Shah Jahan could not have possibly appreciated art, or valued architecture enough to commission the building of massive monuments? The problem is that this is the sum of Oak’s logic to further this argument. Shah Jahan did carry out several questionable acts, such as murdering rivals within his family when he ascended to the throne[12]. However, Oak does not prove the correlation between the atrocities of an emperor and said emperor’s architectural patronage or appreciation. In fact, the historical record shows that this correlation may not be entirely accurate. The Mongol Khans, for example, were not well known for their appreciation of human rights (to put it mildly). Yet, leaders like Kublai Khan and Ogedei Khan were well known patrons of religion, arts and the sciences[13], with numerous academies and schools personally commissioned by official decree. Even Adolf Hitler was regarded by his chief architect, Albert Speer, as a connoisseur of architecture with an eye for commissioning monuments that glorified his rule[14]. As such, Oak’s argument simply is not good enough for me. His attempt at linking Shah Jahan’s “lack of soft feelings” to his (in)ability to commission the Taj Mahal is at best a statement that may sound intuitive but is disproved almost immediately with proper analysis.

Now if you have read my post up until this point, you must surely be wondering how much worse Oak could get. Not to worry – he definitely does; in his last argument against the Mughals, Oak claims that even if the Mughals had the resources and the motivation (on Shah Jahan’s part) to build the Taj Mahal, they were “not refined enough” to design and construct such a monument from scratch. He argues that “with the start of the Muslim invasions (of India), education and training in all arts (in Muslim regions) came to a dead halt”, thus preventing any subsequent Muslim kingdom from developing architectural and artistic sensibilities. To back this assertion, Oak further claims that every instance of “Islamic” art and architecture in Asia was created by “Indian Kshatriyas (members of the Hindu warrior caste) who ruled West Asia”, whose collapse spelled the permanent end for “the pursuit of art and education” – leaving Muslim warlords to claim ownership of their works, without constructing any of their own. According to Oak, the Islamic kingdoms that emerged from the Hindus’ collapse soon turned to “plundering the riches of India”, where their warmongering and brutal conduct inhibited their “artistic sensibilities” even further. Thus, Oak argues that the Mughals could not have possibly been trained in the arts due to their inherent “unrefined-ness” and barbarity.

The problem with this argument is that Oak establishes yet another binary, this time pertaining to the history of West Asia. He pretty much argues that in the past (he does not specify the exact time frame), Hindus ruled the Middle East and all was good. As a result of their (unexplained) fall, however, the Middle East plunged into a purgatorial era, which incentivised Muslim conquerors to ransack India. But this is not corroborated at all – and it simply does not make logical sense. According to Oak, the Middle East descended into anarchy and turmoil after the downfall of the ruling Hindu kingdoms. However, what would then explain the existence of the Abbasid Caliphate, for example, which was responsible for facilitating the Golden Age of Islam[15]? Why did our mysterious Indian rulers fall and why are they not referred to in any source that we have that talks about the history of the Middle East? These questions are not answered yet are assumed to be the truth by Oak as he argues against the Mughal’s flair for architecture, or their supposed unrefined-ness. Honestly, I could go in detail about each of his claims regarding the supposed “Hindu” history of the Middle East and show how that is systematically wrong. But to any unbiased reader, it should become obvious that from the weight of evidence we have about the history of that region and the utter lack of supporting detail offered by Oak, his claims should be disregarded as poorly conceived fiction.

According to Oak, this region was *somehow* ruled by Hindus in the past

The bigger issue with this argument is that Oak is forwarding a simplistic theory about the Mughals. He lumps every incursion by every Muslim king into India together, to prove that every “Muslim marauder” invaded India with the intention of plunder and destruction. To Oak, therefore, every “Muslim” king is guilty of the inherent destructiveness and unrefined-ness that he alleges of other historical Islamic kingdoms. This is bad reasoning – and is in a sense factually inaccurate as well. Shah Jahan’s ancestor, the warlord Babur, may have started his campaign in India by plundering and raiding Hindu territories. However, in the long-term Babur and his descendants settled down to govern their conquered domains, as evidenced through their economic policies and reforms which indicates a Mughal governance more nuanced than what Oak claims. Even if we give Oak some leeway by accepting his historical fiction as fact, his theory just does not hold up once we discard the generalisations that form the premise of his argument.

Therefore, in my opinion, none of Oak’s arguments regarding the inability of the Mughal Empire during Shah Jahan hold any weight. The Mughal Empire during his rule was almost certainly not a hotbed of fiscal incompetence, empty treasuries or the wanton chaos that Oak alleges. His subsequent arguments alleging architectural incompetence and a sadistic emperor lack even the most basic of evidence needed to qualify his claims as a historical argument. Therefore, if we look back at his overall thesis, Oak has not sufficiently proved as to why we should discount the current narrative placing the Mughals as the builders of the Taj Mahal – and on this ground alone, his arguments should be discounted. But for the sake of the argument, I will go into greater depth into how the Taj Mahal is definitely not a redecorated Hindu temple in my next post.

References:

[1] How Hindu Nationalists Politicized the Taj Mahal. (2017, November 27). The Atlantic. Retrieved from https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/11/taj-mahal-india-hindu-nationalism/546374//

[2] Khan, I. A. (2001, January). State in the Mughal India: Re-Examining the Myths of a Counter-Vision. Social Scientist, 29(1/2), 32-32. doi:10.2307/3518271

[3] Ali, M. A. (1978). Towards an interpretation of the Mughal Empire. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain & Ireland, 110(01), 38-49. doi:10.1017/s0035869x00134215

[4] An Atlas and Survey of South Asian History. (1995). 100. doi:10.4324/9781315706429

[5] Kozlowski, G. (1995). Imperial Authority, Benefactions and Endowments (Awqāf) in Mughal India. Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 38(3), 355-370. doi:10.1163/1568520952600425

[6] Suneja, V. (2000). Understanding Business: A Multidimensional Approach to the Market Economy. Psychology Press, 13. Retrieved February 21, 2018.

[7] Parthasarathi, P. (n.d.). Historical Issues Of Deindustrialization In Nineteenth-Century South India. How India Clothed the World: The World of South Asian Textiles, 1500-1850, 415-436. doi:10.1163/ej.9789004176539.i-490.115

[8] Khan, H. A. (2015). Artisans, Sufis, shrines: colonial architecture in nineteenth-century Punjab. London: I.B. Tauris.

[9] Bowen, H. V. (2004). Bullion for goods: European and Indian merchants in the Indian Ocean trade, 1500–1800. The Economic History Review, 57(4), 800-801. doi:10.1111/j.1468-0289.2004.00295_27.x

[10] Malik, J. (2010). Islam in South Asia: A Short History . Journal of Islamic Studies, 22(1), 93-95. doi:10.1093/jis/etq069

[11] Leonard, K. (1979). The ‘Great Firm’ Theory of the Decline of the Mughal Empire. Comparative Studies in Society and History, 21, 151-167. Retrieved February 21, 2018.

[12] Findly, E. B. (2001). Nur Jahan: empress of Mughal India. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

[13] Raina, R. (1993). Frozen in Time: Ancient Skills of the Mongols. India International Centre Quarterly, 20(3), 79-94. Retrieved February 22, 2018.

[14] Speer, A. (1970). Inside the Third Reich.

[15] Brentjes, S., & Morrison, R. (2010). The New Cambridge History of Islam

“Stabbed in the back”

Many people know General Erich Ludendorff as one of the main antagonists in the film Wonder Woman. He was portrayed as being ruthless and sadistic, not just to his foes but also to his own German colleagues and subordinates. Ludendorff romanticises war and claims that it betters humanity, leading to Diana Prince even believing him to be the literal God of War. However, the movie ends on a positive note, with Ludendorff and the God of War himself being defeated by Diana, leading to the end of World War I.

The reality, however, is more sobering. After the end of the war, Ludendorff returned to Germany where he became the forefront architect of what’s now known as the “stab-in-the-back myth”. In essence it was a theory that blamed Germany’s defeat in World War I on striking workers and Revolutionary Republicans at home. It advanced the claim that Germany could have won the war militarily, but was forced into a humiliating treaty by a backstabbing, traitorous civilian leadership backed by perfidious communists and Jews. The myth was soon picked up by right wing newspapers and political groups, and was even touted by a Weimar government investigation in 1919 as the official reason for Germany’s defeat.

The extent of Allied territorial gains during the Hundred Days Offensive

Rather obviously, this notion was firmly divested from reality. German forces had attempted a last-ditch offensive in the Western Front in early 1918, only to be forced to a standstill by June. From August till October, the German front line was decisively penetrated during the Hundred Days Offensive, which ultimately compelled the German leadership to end the war. Even though the Allies hadn’t reached Germany proper (the German front line was in France and Belgium, as seen above), the German army was in a headlong retreat. On the home front, the British naval blockade of Germany had led to shortages in necessary staples such as grain, potatoes and meat, leading to widespread civilian malnutrition and riots. Bearing these facts in mind, it is hard to imagine a scenario where Germany would have been able to win the war even if revolution and labor strikes had not taken place.

For men like Ludendorff, however, the stab-in-the-back myth was perfect, due to the immense power that they held during the war. In 1916, General Erich von Falkenhayn was sacked as Chief of the German General Staff, and was replaced by Field Marshal Paul von Hindenberg and Ludendorff. In theory, the Hindenberg-Ludendorff duo reported to the Kaiser and could be checked on by the civilian Reichstag, or parliament. However, as the Kaiser delegated more and more power to the military, Hindenberg and Ludendorff became de-facto military dictators, capable of directing economic policy and replacing civilian leaders to suit their interests. The Hindenberg Programme, or the total mobilisation of Germany’s economy towards the war effort, was dictated purely by Ludendroff and Hindenberg, and was soon given legislative justification through the Auxiliary Services Act of 1916 by a compliant Reichstag. In another incident, Ludendorff and Hindenberg were able to compel the Kaiser to agree to unrestricted submarine warfare, even though leading civilian leaders such as Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg vociferously argued against the proposal.

With the war resulting in a humiliating German surrender, many in Germany were looking for someone to blame. Hindenberg and Ludendorff would have been an inviting target, particularly due to their de-facto wartime control of the country’s economy, military and political scene. The stab-in-the-back myth, however, offered an easy way out for Ludendorff. It enabled him to shift the blame to the civilian leadership and “traitors” on the home front, while elevating his own prestige as the commander of a superior German army that could have secured victory.

An Austrian postcard in 1919 illustrating the “stab-in-the-back” myth by depicting a Jew (literally) backstabbing a front line soldier

At this point, some of you may be thinking: How is this possible? How could rational citizens discard evidence and logic, and accept lies and falsehood? The answer is that the myth offered more than just a way out for Ludendorff. To many Germans humiliated by defeat and the Treaty of Versailles, it offered a seducing, alternative explanation of reality. It claimed that Germany could have won – and should have won, were it not for the pernicious few. It exonerated soldiers and commanders, and heaped the blame on groups already unpopular in German society, such as Weimar Republic leaders, communists and Jews. In so doing, the stab-in-the-back myth was welcomed by many as it was a confirmation of their own subtle (or not so subtle) prejudices and biases. As such, the myth found a willing audience in many Germans, and would soon become the core platform of many right-wing parties during the Weimar era such as the Nazi party.

The story of the “stab-in-the-back” myth in Germany has a lot of parallels today. The German myth centered around explaining away the shame of defeat, while modern myths seek to paint defeated movements in a better “moral” light, such as those in America regarding the Confederacy (which emerged in response to plans by local officials to remove monuments honouring Confederate generals in the town of Charlottesville, Virginia). In so doing, these modern myths are similar in principle. Justifying the Confederacy’s reasons to secede could also be categorised as an attempt to negate the shame of its eventual defeat by touting the “righteous reasons” for its existence, particularly in areas in America where the Confederacy is still viewed with high regard.

Many people today may claim that it’s not a big deal – much like in Wonder Woman, the clearly visible “bad guys” have been defeated, with Confederate monuments coming down all across America. However, it is the sentiments that linger that could make the situation worse in the long term, much like the “stab-in-the-back” myth and it’s use by Adolf Hitler to garner popular support. These emotions must thus be engaged with in order to bring about a genuine degree of closure with regards to a society’s history, in order to empower it to move on in the present.

Indian Revisionist History – the story of Prithvi Raj Chauhan

So the impetus for this post came from what seems to be a copy-paste comment circulating on right wing nationalist Indian forums:

https://www.change.org/p/bring-back-king-prithviraj-chauhan-s-remains-from-afghanistan

Yes – even a petition was created to raise awareness for that comment. Scrutinise it, however, and you’ll find a trove of false, revisionist history being peddled as “fact”.

To provide some context for this comment, Prithvi Raj Chauhan was an Indian king who ruled parts of north-western India in the late 12th century. His rule was marked by conflicts against neighbouring Hindu kingdoms as well as against Sultan Muhammad of Ghor. The Ghors, or the Ghurid Dynasty, ruled a predominantly Islamic kingdom stretching from modern day Iran to north-western India at its apex. In 1191 and 1192, the Ghurids clashed with Chauhan’s forces in the 1st and 2nd battles of Tarain. The first battle ended with a Ghurid defeat and withdrawal, while the second resulted in a decisive Ghurid victory. The 2nd battle of Tarain also led to the vassalization of Chauhan’s former kingdom by the Ghurids.

–Rant begins (the italicised bits are from the offending source)

According to reports, it is now a part of the tradition in Afghanistan that those who pay visit to the tomb of Mohammad Ghori first disrespect the grave of pridhvi raj chauhan by stamping and jumping on the place, where the Indian emperor’s mortal remains are buried. The inscription on the tomb reads: “Here lies the Kafer king of Delhi.”

It’s very telling if the first claim made in any historical post is inaccurate. It shows that on a very basic level, the post doesn’t really have any substantial, contemporary impetus that warrants a proper discussion. And that is pretty much the case here: There are no substantiated claims of Chauhan’s mysterious Afghan grave. The only sources that echo this claim are a few far right blogs and websites which parrot Sher Singh Rana’s assertion of a heavily abused grave in Afghanistan.

For some context, Rana is a politician who was convicted of the vendetta-related murder of politician Phoolan Devi in 2014. It is fairly easy to see why someone like Rana has an obvious incentive to distort the truth, or to straight up falsify his observations in order to garner public support. Between him and the lack of credible, archaeological evidence, I’d say that Chauhan’s grave probably does not exist in the exaggerated manner depicted.

Prithvi Raj defeated Ghori (In the first battle of Tarain in 1191) and captured him.
Ghori begged Prithvi for mercy and release. Prithviraj’s ministers advised against pardoning the aggressor. However, the chivalrous and valiant Prithviraj respectfully released the vanquished Ghori.

The comment then tries to depict a fairly clichéd comparison between Chauhan and Muhammad of Ghor. Chauhan is often portrayed as the paragon of virtue, and a righteous defender of the Hindu faith who held back an “evil, immoral” Muhammad. A lot of sources also tend to refer to him as the “last Hindu King” – invoking a portrayal of him as the last bastion against a flood of Islamic conquerors. To begin with, this narrative isn’t even grounded in factual accuracy. Muhammad was never captured, only to be released by a kind, chivalrous Chauhan. It can be difficult to glean the truth from the various biased and dramatized sources of that era, but none of them support that narrative. The capture of a major Muslim ruler would have been widely reported – and it just isn’t there.

As a prisoner in afganistan Prithvi Raj haughtily looked straight into the Ghoris eyes. On this Ghori made Prithvi blind. Even after loss of his sight, he did not lose courage. He along with his poet friend Chand Bardai killed Ghori through blind archery and then stabbed themselves to put a chivalrous life to an end.

There are a lot of other inaccuracies in this comment I’d have liked to deal with properly. But the biggest problem with this comment is the history surrounding Chauhan’s demise. We know for a fact that Chauhan did not kill Muhammad – the sources that we have access to pinpoint Muhammad’s death years later. The “blind archery contest” and ritualistic suicide are blatant exaggeration, once again not backed up by any credible source. Rather, we now know that Chauhan was to originally be reinstated as a vassal lord under Muhammad. We don’t know what happened that led to Chauhan’s eventual execution – but we do know that his son, Govindaraja IV, was appointed as a vassal ruler over Chauhan’s former kingdom (in Chauhan’s place). In all likelihood, the Ghurid Sultan didn’t simply torture and kill Chauhan just because he looked him in his eye, as Chauhan fit into the Sultan’s plan for governing a subjugated, Hindu-majority region. Maybe Chauhan tried to rebel, or he took his own life – we do not know.

A common thread in my post has been the refrain “we don’t know”. But that’s the thing about history – we may not know what happened to the fullest extent. Historians fill in this gap by logically interpreting the few sources we have access to. The problem with this comment – and with many other revisionist comments, is that a falsified version of history is inserted into the current gaps in our knowledge. It is a version of history that panders to a toxic public sentiment seeking to blame India’s historical weakness entirely on “evil foreigners” who circumvented “good and virtuous” Hindu rulers with their immorality and heresy. To me, it is a version of history that puts our unique and fascinating history to shame, and is at the very least a betrayal of what it means to be Indian.

Foundation Stories

Every culture and society has its own understanding of its origins. These tend to be conceptualised in a myth, or a founding legend, which provides the justification for a society’s existence and its current form. In India, for example, this takes place in the form of the legendary emperor Bharata, who (allegedly) conquered all of India. These founding legends tend to resonate very strongly with any society decades or even centuries after its original “founding”.

Therefore, it is not surprising if we observe that many of these founding legends tend to be heavily biased (to lightly put it). Good values, divine intervention and heroic characters perfect in every way are common themes of most founding stories. The emperor Bharata was said to have “counted the teeth of lions and tigers” for fun as a child, and soon grew up to be a virtuous and pious ruler. Similarly, the image of the brave, adventurous conquistador forging a new future in the New World has become a core tenet of Spanish mythos. In this case, the legend of the conquistador represented a new era of Spanish dominance and superiority in the 15^th century – a new beginning for Spanish identity.

However, there is one interesting exception: Rome. The story of the founding of Rome is a far cry from “moral righteousness”, or the heroically virtuous figures in Indian and Spanish literature. According to Roman legend, Romulus and Remus were twins who were left by a stream (which in itself is another complicated story that we will not go into). After an interesting childhood involving a nurturing she-wolf and an adoptive farmer, the twins decided to establish a village on the banks of the river Tiber, in Central Italy, at around 700BC. However, the twins had a disagreement on the precise location of their new settlement: Romulus preferred one site, while Remus preferred another (We don’t know why). The dispute escalated, and Romulus killed Remus when he jumped over fortifications that Romulus was constructing at his site.

And it doesn’t get better: Romulus made it known that his settlement was to be a refuge for anyone who wanted to join – even including those cast out by other Italian cities such as criminals and murderers. However, he faced a problem: the riff raff he attracted were all male. To resolve the scarcity of the opposite sex, Romulus invited residents of neighbouring cities for a huge celebration in the new, growing settlement of Rome. At a certain point during the festival, Romulus gave a prearranged signal, upon which his men seized the wives and daughters of his guests and claimed them as their own. When his disgruntled guests declared war Romulus and his men, with divine help from the god Jupiter, forced them back and in so doing secured a stable position for their new settlement.

A large portion of this story does seem like enemy propaganda, designed to vilify the Romans and their aggressive behaviour. In fact, many of the underlying themes of this story, such as civil conflict, kinslaying, as well as belligerence against foreign cities are common points of contention held against Rome. If this were the case, we would expect a more whitewashed version of this tale from Roman writers and leaders. However, even Roman sources from multiple time periods repeat this story when talking about the origins of Rome. At best, we have an “alternative” version of Rome’s founding: The famous Aeneid, which talks about the Trojan hero Aeneas who travelled to Italy following the Trojan War to become the ancestor of the Romans. But even that has been worked in to reconcile with the story of Remus and Romulus. This foundation story isn’t propaganda – it is genuinely what Romans believed to be the story of their forefathers. Were the Romans glorifying the violent manner of their origin? Could they – as many of their ancient enemies so vehemently claim – really be inherently savage and aggressive?

To draw that conclusion, however, one would have to adopt an inflexible view of foundation stories. Founding myths are created by societies as a projection of their own values and ideals. Roman writers could thus be projecting their own, contemporary concerns into their interpretation of their origins. For example, the famous historian Livy frequently criticized Rome’s aggressive foreign expansion, and wrote much of his work during the civil conflict and Roman-on-Roman bloodletting in the 1^st Century BC. With this context in mind, Livy’s work on the founding of Rome suddenly makes sense: it was a parallel to his “present”. With all likelihood, Roman writers could have consciously or unconsciously framed their past with the issues that formed their contemporary surroundings.

On a slightly more positive note, this also explains the diversity of Romulus’ people. Rome’s founding story is also unique in that its original citizens are not homogenous or monolithic. The narrative of ethnic “purity”, prevalent in many other founding myths, just isn’t present. In fact, Roman writers are fairly open about the imperfect nature (to put it lightly) of their ancestors. This is once again no surprise: Rome was famously multicultural for its time (not by ours of course). Roman citizenship was often granted to conquered territories as a means for pacifying and integrating their populations. By the reign of the Emperor Caracalla in 212 AD, almost every free individual residing in a Roman Empire stretching from Spain to Turkey was likely to be a Roman citizen. No other classical civilisation can claim this merit, particularly because Roman citizenship wasn’t just titular, but also denoted legal protection and the right to vote (in a limited form). Therefore, it is not surprising that Roman writers projected the multicultural nature of their contemporary societies into their past.

This theory is obviously not bullet-proof, as it does have its weaknesses. It would be a stretch for us to assume that the story of Romulus and Remus is a direct translation of the concerns that Roman writers hundreds of years later grappled with. Livy and Cicero obviously did not spontaneously think of the same founding story: the legend of the founders of Rome predated their lives, and was more likely preserved through oral tradition before being solidified in text. There is, however, no way for us to gauge oral traditions in say the 5th Century BC – and as a result, we have no way of knowing if the oral tradition was different before it was articulated textually. Perhaps Romans in the 5^th Century had different concerns, and thus, had a different version of Romulus and Remus. Maybe it wasn’t as gory and violent, and maybe it was more akin to the more traditional founding myths that we are familiar with – we may never know.

To me, the story of Rome’s founding is poignant as it shows us that there is a lot of history in our myths. Our mythical ancestors probably did not exist – but in their portrayal, we may be able to find out more about our societies at different points in our past. Perhaps we should take a look back at the legends taught to us and wonder – if there are biases of our own that we have unconsciously projected onto our ancestors.

Introductions

The formation of this blog was the culmination of a number of aborted attempts that initially started over a year back. As a history student, I loved reading and critiquing the theories and analyses of historians, yet I could never quite muster the initiative (beyond school work and monologues to my friends) to really articulate what I had to offer to the field. However, here I am, and hopefully this attempt will be a lasting one.

So what exactly will this blog be focused on? This won’t really be a site with well researched, articulate research essays, or extensively analytical articles. Nor will it be focused on a specific time period in great detail. Rather, I’ll be writing about whatever’s on my mind, be it about a battle in 216BC, or a treaty in 1648. As long as it’s about history – it’s gonna make its way here.

This, however, begs the question: What is history? Is it merely about dates and numbers, or about grand narratives and calamity? Is it enough to merely know that an event happened – to catalogue it and leave it at that? Many people do think it as such – in fact, it would be more often that not the first thing said by people after realising that I’d be studying history in university. (The following statement, of course, would be whether I’d be able to get a job).

But history is not about facts and numbers. It has never been about that. For ancient historians such as Tacitus and Herodotus, history was about a narrative. In fact, the Greek word for history, “historia”, literally means “a narrative”, or a story. Granted, early historians tended to stretch the “narrative” at the expense of factual accuracy – as many an exasperated reader of Livy will observe. But the core premise still stands: the study of history is about constructing a narrative (preferably, a logical and factually grounded one) for people to understand and to distil into their everyday lives and decision making. It’s about trying to understand the key assumptions that our status quo relies on, as a basis for our decisions which are contingent on our present realities. It may sound like fluff, but many pertinent issues today are very much influenced by the past.

Take for instance the decision by Cicero in 63BC to summarily execute arrested supporters of his opponent, Lucius Sergius Catilina, without trial. Cataline and his supporters were allegedly planning to “burn down Rome”, and in the process, overthrow Cicero’s consularship. When Cicero’s proposal was introduced to the Roman Senate, fierce debate ensued about the legality of such an unprecedented measure. The supporters arrested were Roman citizens – an execution without a proper trial would be a violation of their rights as Roman citizens, as many senators argued. However, others argued that Catiline’s conspiracy to torch Rome necessitated a state of emergency, in which the normal civil rights of Roman citizens should be waived in order to uphold national security. In the end, Cicero’s motion won, and he was acclaimed a hero for saving the state – yet, he was exiled in 58BC by political opponents who used his proposal to foster opposition against him.

Many of these concepts are relevant to us today – the tension between upholding national security and preserving human rights is a topic that is fiercely debated in parliaments all over the world. It’s a topic shaped by modern instances of terrorism and definitions of human rights, but it is one that is inherently rooted in the central concepts articulated by Roman senators in 63BC. We can only begin to understand why we may value national security over human rights, after studying the first recorded instance in which that consciously happened in Ancient Rome.

This goes back to the title of the blog: historia populi, or (badly translated), the history of the people. History is not just about facts and dates. Nor is it a field of study that belongs solely in academia, with the discussion and debate of grand theories and analyses with little public interest. Rather, the history that we should look at is the history of the people: a record propelled by human characteristics and emotions. It should be a story about human tendencies, and how their interactions have shaped our present. It should be a narrative, which can be understood and related to by everyone, because it is at its core, an analysis of what it means to be human.

– Haersh