South Asian History and Culture

ISSN: 1947-2498 (Print) 1947-2501 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rsac20

Fatehpur Sikri revisited, by Syed Ali Nadeem

Rezavi

Pratyay Nath

To cite this article: Pratyay Nath (2014) Fatehpur Sikri revisited, by Syed Ali Nadeem Rezavi,
South Asian History and Culture, 5:3, 389-393, DOI: 10.1080/19472498.2014.905332

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/19472498.2014.905332

Published online: 16 Apr 2014.

Submit your article to this journal

Article views: 85

View related articles

View Crossmark data

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at

https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=rsac20
 South Asian History and Culture 389

labour relations in an increasingly wage-based economy, which in turn came to impact

networks of circulation in nineteenth-century India.
While paying attention to the practices and techniques employed in acquiring knowledge
and facilitating communication, Sinha also allows space for gaps in networks of circulation,
which had the possibility of affecting the uses to which such knowledge might be put. This
was not necessarily a consequence of imperfect knowledge societies or weak institutions of
governance and infrastructure. It had a lot to do with deployment of circulatory networks and
regimes as well. Most significantly, the author employs communication as an analytic
category in exposing the interconnectedness of various colonial concerns. The success or
failure of communication technologies lay not in their introduction but in their implementa-
tion and application. More often than not, new lines and means of communication did not
open up new areas, but reinforced control over the pre-existing ones.
Traditionally, historiographies of colonial economy and communication systems have
highlighted the introduction of steam in early nineteenth-century India. While conceding the
significance of this technological development, Sinha draws out the centrality of road works,
bullock carts, ferry management and bridge construction in colonial policies of governance
and extraction (Chapter 6). Whereas, on the one hand, these mediums heralded the pre-steam
technological superiority of the eighteenth-century state, on the other, they also took off as
corollaries to the development of railway tracts and steamships in the nineteenth century,
supplementing and not lapsing before these new channels of communication.
More critically, despite emphasizing the need for a rounded approach to the study of
communication, Sinha himself fails to accord more than cursory attention to certain other
significant means of communication, namely the telegraph, postal lines, oceanic steam net-
works or even cross-country railways. This may qualify as stretched criticism though; these
are undeniably areas of great importance and they demand individual research dedicated to
them. In referring to the emerging grid of modern communication, the author alludes to their
role in building up the modern state structure, but fails to engage with the administrative
aspects of this relationship. Power and its implementation are never lineal and uncontested;
rather, it is negotiated through bureaucratic structures and institutions. Administrative his-
tories not only reveal tensions within the functioning of state institutions, but can also throw
light on hitherto unexplored aspects of social interaction and economic exchange.
The book reproduces some beautiful sketches and maps from the early nineteenth
century, reflecting the author’s emphasis on visual (and literary) representation of
knowledge in the colonial period.

Devyani Gupta
Faculty of History, University of Cambridge
Email: devyani.gupta24@gmail.com
© 2014, Devyani Gupta
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19472498.2014.905330

Fatehpur Sikri revisited, by Syed Ali Nadeem Rezavi, New Delhi, Oxford University
Press, 2013, 316 pp., Rs. 1395 (hardback), ISBN-10 019808403X.

The imperial city of Fatehpur Sikri was built 1571 onwards by the third Mughal emperor,
Jalaluddin Muhammad Akbar, as his new capital. Fourteen years later, it was abandoned
by the same sovereign, never to be used as a political centre again. Syed Ali Nadeem
390 Book reviews

Rezavi’s new book offers a fresh insight into this city. Notwithstanding several excellent
monographs and edited volumes, the urban history of South Asia has been significantly
limited in its scope until now, especially for the precolonial period. Of the limited
attention that city spaces have received, port cities have claimed a greater share than
inland ones. Hamida Khatoon Naqvi and Gavin Hambly have thrown light on the general
urban milieu and urban economies in early modern North India, but by virtue of having
done surveys of multiple towns and cities, they have not been able to undertake detailed
analysis of individual urban formations. The present study of Fatehpur Sikri is therefore a
welcome contribution.
At the same time, the importance of the volume spills beyond the domain of urban
history. In line with a hegemonic tradition of Mughal studies, the present author looks
upon the Mughal state as a sophisticated, absolutist, centralized and bureaucratic one,
which managed vast resources from all sectors of the economy with significant efficiency.
Based on this understanding, he counters the conclusions of the only other major work on
a Mughal capital city – Stephen Blake’s Shahjahanabad. Through an in-depth analysis of
the Mughal capital in Delhi, Blake substantiated his hypothesis of the Mughal Empire
being a decentralized patrimonial-bureaucratic one. Rezavi’s analysis of the Mughal city
of Fatehpur Sikri highlights the centralizing tendencies of the very same state. At a time
when contributions by historians like Farhat Hasan and Munis Faruqui are highlighting
the limitations of Mughal absolutism and centralization, the present work brings the
centralized model back into the picture. This makes Rezavi’s intervention significant
among existing studies of the Mughal state as well.
The book is also important due to the way it brings together information collected
from a variety of sources – archaeological data, field surveys and textual sources as well
as visual material. Archaeological material has hardly been used in writing histories of
medieval social formations, one of the notable exceptions being the works of Jean
Deloche on military fortifications of South India. However, Deloche’s works primarily
make use of archaeological data, material ruins and field surveys, and limited use of
textual or pictorial primary material. Rezavi’s present volume makes a seminal contribu-
tion regarding the use of a diverse range of sources. Among textual materials, information
has been culled from diverse works – texts produced by the Mughal political centre, like
those by Abul Fazl and Arif Qandahari, those produced at the margins of Mughal political
society like the histories of the mullah Abdul Qadir Badauni, accounts and letters of
foreign travellers like the Portuguese missionaries Anthony Monserrate and Francis
Henriques, who spent some time in Fatehpur Sikri as Akbar’s guests, as well as the
memoirs of travellers like William Finch and Joseph Tieffenthaler, who happened to pass
through the city after it had been abandoned as a Mughal capital. Rezavi also uses
miniature paintings produced at the Mughal court during Akbar’s reign. These have
been specifically helpful in identifying different buildings and in showing the kinds of
labourers and supervisors involved in the construction. Rezavi has also studied the
physical structures of Fatehpur Sikri and its surroundings with care and has used archae-
ological findings, many of which were brought out by excavations undertaken by him.
Through a rigorous process of cross-referencing across this diverse range of sources,
Rezavi has succeeded in producing a rich and textured work on a complicated subject.
Providing the reader with a survey of the existing works on the city by way of
introduction, the first chapter of the book investigates the kind of town that Sikri was
before Akbar decided to build his imperial city there. Through a survey of archaeological
material, Rezavi traces the history of the city back to the Painted Grey Ware (PGW)
period through the Sunga and Kushana times. He shows how after an eventual period of
 South Asian History and Culture 391

abandonment, the area came under the control of the Sikarwar Rajputs, who lent the town
the name ‘Sikri’. Several mosques and other structures from the times of the sultans of
Delhi and the reign of Babur are then studied to show the kind of town Fatehpur Sikri was
in its pre-Akbar days. The second chapter follows in the footsteps of Satish Davar and
Athar Abbas Rizvi, and demonstrates how the entire town was planned after the standard
layout of the Mughal imperial encampment. It also shows how the city was divided into
eight functional sections by the roads connecting the eight gates of the city, and thereby
concurs with earlier conclusions of Attilio Petruccioli. Through a study of texts and
miniature paintings, it also discusses the kinds of skilled and unskilled labourers, as
well as their supervisory corps, who were involved in the construction of the city. The
third chapter demonstrates, primarily by studying Akbari chronicles, how the city was not
built all at once, as is assumed sometimes, but in phases over the 1571–1580 decade.
The four subsequent chapters describe the morphology of the city in great detail, with
reference to the official city, its residential and commercial areas and its gardens. Through
painstaking research, the author ventures into determining the exact functions of the
buildings and identifying all the major structures of the ‘official city’, like the daulat-
khana (the imperial palace), the khalwatkada-i-khas (the imperial chambers), the khwab-
gah (the imperial resting quarters), the haramsara (the residence of the emperor’s wives),
the ibadatkhana (the house of worship) and the daftarkhana (secretariat). He also
indicates the location of the various animal stables. Almost all of these structures, together
comprising the political heart of Fatehpur Sikri, were located on top of the ridge that lies
at the centre of the city. Using archaeological findings, he then proceeds to study the
localities where the nobility, the bureaucrats and smaller officers resided, and in the
process, throws valuable light on areas so far left unexplored. He locates residences of
the kitchen superintendent, the animal superintendent and the superintendent of the Hathi
Pol sarai. Rezavi also identifies the locations and layouts of the five markets of the city
that provided the population with its daily requirements. He also locates 29 gardens in and
around the city, of which only three were well known till now and divides them into four
different types depending on their designs and functions. The eighth chapter takes up the
question of the supply of water to the city. The author describes in detail how, in addition
to a huge lake which was the most important source of water for the city, Fatehpur was
also provided with a large number of hauzes (tanks), chahs (wells), baolis (stepped wells)
to keep the imperial capital well-watered. While previous works mostly concentrated on
the ‘official city’, Rezavi breaks new ground with his insightful analysis of the various
types of buildings outside it as well. Without these residences of the political elite and the
bureaucracy, the water works and the gardens, the city could barely have been functional.
By bringing them within the purview of his study, he renders a certain fullness to our
conceptualization of this Mughal capital.
In 1585, Fatehpur Sikri’s life as an imperial capital ended when Akbar left the city to
march towards the north-western frontier of his empire. After this, Lahore and Agra
served as the Mughal capital cities one after the other. In explaining this shift of Mughal
capital, a water crisis that had allegedly engulfed the city has been cited by several earlier
historians. Along with this, the shift of the political centre, with all its patronage networks,
away from the city also supposedly led to its eventual decay and desertion. Rezavi
challenges both these propositions in his ninth chapter. He first shows how there is
evidence of the fact that the supply of water had not been threatened at the time when
Akbar moved out of the city, and even for long afterwards. After this, he demonstrates
how, despite ceasing to be an administrative centre of prime importance, by the early-
seventeenth century Fatehpur re-emerged as a thriving commercial centre trading briskly
392 Book reviews

in locally produced indigo. On the basis of this, he asserts that while the offices and
residences of the Mughal administrators and bureaucrats may well have faced ruin after
these men departed along with the sovereign, there was no mass exodus away from the
city. He also cites repeated visits to Fatehpur Sikri by Jahangir and Shah Jahan, in course
of the seventeenth century, to question the view that the shift of the imperial capital away
from the city meant its ‘abandonment’ by the Mughals. The tenth chapter takes a closer
look at some of the wall paintings in certain buildings inside the imperial city. It looks into
how, by drawing upon Islamicized Chinese styles, Persian painting traditions and
Christian iconography, these paintings were made to fulfil a variety of purposes, ranging
from beautification with floral and geometric patterns to conveying elements of the
imperial ideology to the ruling elite through metaphorical images. The last chapter
investigates the identity of some of the builders involved in the construction of Akbar’s
dar us-saltanat. It does so by studying marks, symbols and signatures left behind by these
builders on different documents and on parts of the buildings.
There are two appendices to the book. The first underlines the broad architectural
features and eclectic aesthetic inspirations of this capital city, and points out how they
created a distinct architectural vocabulary for the dynasty under the auspices of a highly
ambitious sovereign. The second delves into the very pertinent question regarding the
‘conservation and preservation’ of the city since the mid-nineteenth century till the present
day. He points out how, over the last two decades, ‘there were instances of willful
tampering as well as attempts to change the character of the buildings’ (218) on the
part of several conservation projects. In light of the arguments supporting this observation,
the book ends by questioning the role of the Archaeological Survey of India as an
impartial and efficient preserver and conservator of Indian monuments.
Having said this, it needs to be pointed out that there are at least two related issues which
have been subjected to considerable historiographical churning in recent years and which the
present book could perhaps have engaged with. The first of these issues is how Mughal
imperial ideology and political visions were expressed through built spaces. In recent years,
the issue of Mughal political ideology has been a major focus in the works of Harbans
Mukhia, Muzaffar Alam, Stephen Dale, Rosalind O’Hanlon and Lisa Balabanlilar. More
specifically, linking imperial ideology and physical spaces, Ebba Koch has written at length
on how this state produced complex architectural pieces, loaded with intended meanings and
political subtexts for its inhabitants and visitors. The architectural complex at hand – Fatehpur
Sikri – is no ordinary city. It is a complex urban political space built by an ambitious monarch
at a time when he had already conquered larger parts of North India and was extending his
authority beyond it. As such, it would have been pertinent had the author thrown some light on
the ways in which the architecture of Fatehpur Sikri was used by the Mughal state as a vehicle
to articulate a specific political language.
The second is the question raised by recent historiography about incessant royal mobility,
and in that context, the relationship of imperial power with stationary locations like Fatehpur
Sikri. Drawing upon Stephen Blake’s estimation of the amount of time Mughal emperors
spent in itinerant camps, Jos Gommans has suggested that constant mobility, for hunting,
pilgrimage or leading campaigns, was used by the Mughal emperors as a means of ruling and
an effective way of exercising power. Inspired by the work of Thomas Allsen, Lisa
Balabanlilar has studied the political functions of the royal hunt in particular. Through these
suggestions, these scholars have imaginatively connected the South Asian dynasty with other
(post-) nomadic dynasties of medieval and early modern Eurasia. Charles Melville has already
shown how royal mobility was effectively used by sovereigns of different Persian dynasties.
In the light of these recent interventions, one needs to revise the conventional understanding
 South Asian History and Culture 393

of the Mughal state as a sedentary agrarian bureaucratic polity, whose power emanated
primarily from stationary fortified strongholds. The present book would have been even
richer had the author engaged with the question as to how the Mughals, with all this emphasis
on royal mobility, also created sophisticated imperial urban spaces like Fatehpur Sikri. In fact,
the first index of the book does raise the question very briefly, and argues strongly how the city
of Fatehpur Sikri was modelled after an imperial encampment, but does not go directly into
the connections of royal mobility with the exercise of imperial power and its seeming
contradictions with stationary cities.
This is not to take away from the fact that the present book is an excellent piece of
much-needed investigation in the life of a complex urban space. The presence of 33
figures, 51 site-maps and eight plates has made the book extremely thorough and
illustrative in its treatment, and equally accessible to both the trained researcher and the
uninitiated enthusiast. Along with its insightful analysis, it stands out for gathering
information from different types of sources, which have probably been used together
for the first time with such definitive mastery.

Pratyay Nath
Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi
Email: pratyay.history@gmail.com
© 2014, Pratyay Nath
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19472498.2014.905332

The history of the book in South Asia, edited by Francesca Orsini, Farnham, Surrey,
Ashgate, 2013, 589 pp., £170 (hardback), ISBN 978-1-4094-3784-0

Over the past decade and a half, several national book history projects have come to
fruition. One thinks of the multi-volume Cambridge History of the Book in Britain series,
and in its wake, histories of the book in America, Canada and Australia. In 2004, Sydney
Shep regarded this phenomenon with amused concern: ‘As national projects are nearing
completion and new publications hit the bookshelves with ever increasing speed, every-
one is asking the same question: what next? More of the same, bringing other countries
and continents such as India, Africa, South America “into the fold”…? Or, a comparative
perspective, launching national histories into the international arena? Or, something
different; in fact, something startlingly different? Agitation is mounting.’1
Nearly a decade has passed since Shep’s thoughtful reflections on the transnational
turn in book history, but the question of national – or supra-national – book histories is
still a live ticket, despite frequently expressed concerns about the limitations of the nation-
state as the key organizer of book history narratives. While the largely monoglot anglo-
phone world lent itself with more ease to national book history projects, such has not been
the case with other parts of the world with equally rich histories of script and print. No
doubt, the chief stumbling block is the lack of well-organized archival sources, but
linguistic diversity is a close second. The Indian subcontinent, for instance, is home to
more languages than anywhere else in the world. The number of mother tongues in India
is over 1500, of which 24 are spoken by a million or more people.
How does one even begin to organize the history of such a region? Is it to be
conceived along linguistic lines? But that is to overlook the fact that at least several
languages invariably overlap anywhere in the region – in colonial Bengal, for instance, the