The author's formidable reputation fails to redeem a string of mostly rehashed essays.

By Sanjay Subramanyam

AKBAR AND HIS INDIA
Edited by IRFAN HABIB
Oxford University Press, Pages: 315; Price: Rs 495

Irfan Habib is often described as "India's leading scholar of medieval Indian history". Any book published under his stewardship is almost bound to sell well, irrespective of its contents. A powerful figure who has long dominated history both in Aligarh Muslim University and the Indian History Congress, Habib initiated the project leading to the publication of this book while he was chairman of the Indian Council for Historical Research.

The book contains 18 articles whose average length is 15 pages, four "documents" of mixed value as an appendix and 10 book reviews. Publishing reviews of other people's books in an edited volume is an unusual practice. Particularly in a case like this where the purpose seems to be to congratulate friends and settle scores with enemies.

There is no doubt that the life and times of Jalaluddin Muhammed Akbar (1542-1605) are in need of fresh historical work. Habib has recently decried the decline in standards of medieval history writing in India. No one reads Persian as well as they used to, he says. But since 1970, only two scholars from Aligarh have edited Persian texts from the Mughal period in extenso. They are Muzaffar Alam and Azra Alvi, neither of whom find a place in this volume. Nor indeed do acknowledged masters of Persian such as Nazir Ahmed and I. Zilli, the latter being Habib's own colleague in Aligarh. Instead, we find 20 contributors of mixed quality, most of them close associates of Habib.

There are some innovative and insightful articles to be sure. Iqtidar Alam Khan's essay, which appeared earlier in Social Scientist, is one such. There are, of course, some errors here, notably in the understanding of Akbar's dealings with the Mahdawis. The author would have done well to follow a recent authoritative work on the subject by Derryl Maclean. But this could not be in view of the well-known (if at times, selective) xenophobia of Habib and his associates. Only one 'foreigner' is present in this collection and Pakistani scholars like Riazul Islam and Sajida Alvi find no place. While I cannot elaborate on the sole foreign contribution on Akbar's image as a patron of music by French scholar F. Delvoye, it is objectively one of the handful of innovative works in the collection. It is a pity that it has been arbitrarily truncated by Habib's heavy editorial hand. This, to the extent that acknowledgements to persons who are in the black books of the master have been deleted.

Among other useful contributions are Fatima Zehra Bilgrami's account, from regional Persian chronicles of the conquest of Sindh in the 1590s, Pushpa Prasad's essay on Akbar and the Jains, and Nadeem Rezqui's essay on Sikri. But, in contrast, a number of other essays merely rehash old material or are superficial attempts to engage in a debate for which the authors are ill-equipped. Athar Ali's 'reply' to Partha Chatterjee will bring a smile to the reader's lips. But a sigh is the more likely response to Shireen Moosvi's whiggish attempt to contrast science and superstition in the Mughal view of astronomy. How far we are from the sophisticated and nuanced discussion by Ottomanists of Ilm-i-rammal and Fal-nama texts. Has Moosvi ever heard of these materials or do her readings begin and end with the Akbar Nama and the Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri?

Habib's contribution to the volume are an essay that rehashes his earlier work on technology and a translation of three early farmans of Akbar. But where is that spirit of synthesis for which he is so celebrated? Where do 'Akbar studies' stand and why bring out such a volume? Since he does not really tell us, we may hazard two guesses. First, there was the need to re-assert the role of Akbar in a Nehruvian vision of history. Second, can it be that Akbar was to India in the 16th century what Habib is to medieval Indian history today? Is this then an undeclared homage to its editor?

Original Work

An Oxbridge scholar bucks the trend to reinvent Nehru.

THE IDEA OF INDIA
SUNIL KHILNANI
Hamish Hamilton, Pages: 200; Price: Rs 595

By Iqbal Masud

For writers on India and for the urban middle class, Nehru is rather like God -- you invent him for yourself or you reject him. Sunil Khilnani is a "Nehru inventor". In fact, he is more royalist than the King -- if that were possible. I remember reading an article in the Modern Review of Calcutta in the 1930s by the great Pandit in which he mocked himself. He disclosed to the readers that, when young, he was asked what he would like to be when he grew up. Nehru answered: "I want to be a king." His wish has been more than fulfilled in this book.

This is a rather original book. There is a chapter on cities, the like of which has been rarely attempted. There are too many generalisations here and some fall into traps. For instance, Khilnani mistakenly appropriates Bollywood to Nehruvism. Guru Dutt's Pyaasa and Kagaz Ke Phool were magnificent critiques of the Nehruvian Republic. Raj Kapoor's song-dance Mudh mudh ke na dekh in Shri 420 satirised the rise of the robber baron class which allied itself with Nehruvian brown sahebs. But when he comes to the domination of Mumbai by the ruling mafia and the Dubai mafia, he certainly scores. All the same, read this chapter with the Mumbai sections of The Moor's Last Sigh for a complete picture.

The book's excellence and limitation are most apparent in a description of the rise of religious nationalism. The elaboration of its origins from Veer Savarkar's Hindutva is the best brief account of this process that I have read. His criticism of this kind of exclusivism is also graceful and civilised. But these are not elements of the current religious nationalism. It is here that this book takes on the character of an Oxbridge dissertation.

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