[FlyingSnake]

The unwavering focus on the Mughal empire by the West, is a curious phenomenon. Is it because they built highly visible monuments like the Taj? Mughals didn’t even reach their zenith until 1680s and were vastly reduced by 1730s.

The Deccan Sultanates and Vijayanagara were more relevant to world history in the 16th Century India. The wonders of Bijapur, Golconda and Hampi would put 16th CE Delhi to shame.

[keiferski]

As someone that’s studied the Mughals quite a bit, but hasn’t studied Indian history more broadly as extensively, here are a few thoughts:

- the monuments are obvious points; the Taj Mahal is probably one of the few buildings that the average Western person has heard of

- there is more of a connection, or appears to be, with other empires that Westerners are more familiar with. For example, the Mughals were functionally descendants of the Mongols (indeed the word itself came from it). They also were roughly contemporaneous with the Ottomans during key historical periods, so their categorization as a “gunpowder empire” along with Iran is a known thing.

The prestige languages of all three of these empires was also highly Persianized, which maybe made them more accessible to the West, which was familiar with the Arabic alphabet and Islamic civilization for a longer period than with India. IIRC a lot of foundational Indian works weren’t really translated from Sanskrit to western languages until the mid 1800s.

That is how I myself started reading more about the Mughals: via being interested in the Ottomans.

- And finally there are a number of unique Mughal figures that have managed to become well-known in the West. Akbar, Shah Jahan, etc. I’m sure there were equally interesting people from other Indian empires but they don’t seem to be talked about as much.

[chimp_brain]

There are a lot of architectural marvels in India from Sun temple to Ajanta and Ellora caves and Kailasa Temple. I personally never understood why more was not written about them, very few know about them.

Mughals never ruled India for more than 200-300 years, and were challenged by many regional players including Maratha's.

India has far more to offer beyond Taj, and I would say if not more equally interesting architectural marvels like Kailasa temple.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kailasa_Temple,_Ellora

[fakedang]

Because ancient India was extremely bad at record keeping and maintaining written works (and the destruction of Nalanda university didn't help), and relied mostly on oral traditions to record history.

Compare that to the innumerable number of Chinese texts on nearly every topic from politics and history and governance to science and engineering (fun fact, the current Indian civil service was a product of the English civil service, which in turn was inspired by the Chinese one).

Compare that to the English, where you might even be able to find the exact amount of tax owed by some Yorkshire peasant in the 16th century.

Even the Indian and South East Asian monastic orders stuck to the oral tradition, in spite of writing material being significantly more abundant over the past millennia.

If you read the Baburnama, you'll even find him lamenting about India's poor record at tax keeping records and historical records relying on oral traditions, where the narrators are prone to exaggerations and embellishments.

Thankfully India's ancient temples are much more resilient than its books, which is why rock carvings themselves are also a rich source of Indian history. The Ashoka pillar in Mehrauli being a fine example (and in effect being a historical record in itself, which is how we know a lot about the Mauryas than some later kingdoms).

[bvan]

As someone interested in coinage, India is fascinating. Coins from the Sultanates and Mughal periods are just beautiful.

[keiferski]

Great to see a fellow numismatist! Old coins are on my bucket list of stuff to buy once I hit the lottery.

[bvan]

That’s great. I find the Sultanate coins, for example, are much more refined in terms of style relative to those minted Western Europe around the same time. For example: https://www.numismall.com/collections/bengal-sultanate-1203-....

[newyankee]

Actually there are many more interesting people in Indian history. From Chandragupta Maurya, Kanishka to even Shivaji and others. Mughals are overglorified if anything and their own primary texts are ignored in this process.

[FlyingSnake]

May I ask what kind of study did you do on the Mughals? What stands out the most for you?

Fun fact: They called themselves "Gurkhaniye" and not "Mughals". It was a term mostly popularized by rivals like Marathas (which is also an exonym)

[keiferski]

I mostly read a lot about Akbar, who was a fascinating figure. His “official biography” is really well written, as is his whole concept for creating a new religion:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akbarnama

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Din-i_Ilahi

[kranner]

The Gurkaniyan thing was true for Babur but I don’t think it was the case for later Mughals.

The poet Ghalib, who was the emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar’s contemporary, considered himself a descendant of the aristocracy and referred to himself as a “Mughal baccha” in a well-known quote (sourced from his letters, I believe).

[alephnerd]

Even the Mughal focus is superficial in nature. There just aren't many serious historians about Indian history in the West in the same manner that Sinology developed.

South Asia Studies in the West needs its John K Fairbanks, but that will not happen. Most India scholars who are decent end up returning to India where policymaking roles abound.

It was the same with how China Studies was treated in the West until the last 5 years - barely 15 years ago all China was in the western zeitgeist was Mao, the Great Wall, pollution, poverty, and ill-paid migrant workers.

> The Deccan Sultanates and Vijayanagara were more relevant to world history in the 16th Century India

It's not an either/or situation. There were a whole gamut of states all equally important.

[FlyingSnake]

True that. There is no interest in objectively studying history in India. It is just a tool to further the agendas of various parties involved.

[alephnerd]

Read what I wrote, and reread it again. I don't think you understood what I said.

What I'm positing is that the crux of the issue with the Western crop of South Asia is that it is hagiographic in nature, not quantitative.

My argument is an institutionalist and political economy approach to studying historical and contemporary South Asia solves most of the problem.

This was what John Fairbanks argued back in the 20th century that China studies needed to be quantitative and testable in nature, as he was an Intel officer posted in China during WW2. This was not the mainstream view on China studies and China history in the west until the late 2010s.

That said, anyone with this muscle isn't going to teach history in the West in 2026 unlike those who did something similar for China in the 1980s-2000s who made a new generation of China scholars who returned to China.

There is a new generation of India scholars who specialize in this (a number of whom trained under economists like Arvind Subramanian, Raghuram Rajan, etc) but most of these scholars either return to India to take positions at INIs and are thus not visible to Western academia) or (and this is the more common route) end up in the Policy space as the newer crop of IAS, NITI Aayog staffers, World Bank or IMF staffers, India-specific VC/PE, or India specific think tanks.

Edit: can't reply

> why is the academic work being done in Indian institutions so inaccessible in the US and the rest of the anglosphere

Because they publish in Economics journals and work on Political Economy, not "History". This is what the best South Asia scholars in America (eg. Subramanian, Varshney, Rajan) do as well.

It's the same with China scholars - the best ones are economists and are quantitative in nature.

Turns out the skills needed to understand the political economy of the Bengal Subah or the incentive structures of coinage reform in Qing China are also useful to craft economic policy for contemporary countries.

Why work in underfunded and frankly low impact history when you can actually affect change (and make good money and a career) in the various applications of Econ.

[derektank]

In your view, why is the academic work being done in Indian institutions so inaccessible in the US and the rest of the anglosphere? Naively, I would have assumed a lot of this work would be conducted in English, or at the very least translated into English for the sake of international conferences, journals, etc.

[alephnerd]

> why is the academic work being done in Indian institutions so inaccessible in the US and the rest of the anglosphere

Because they publish in Economics journals and work on Political Economy, not "History". This is what the best South Asia scholars in America (eg. Subramanian, Varshney, Rajan) do as well.

It's the same with China scholars - the best ones are economists and are quantitative in nature.

Turns out the skills needed to understand the political economy of the Bengal Subah or the incentive structures of coinage reform in Qing China are also useful to craft economic policy for contemporary countries.

Why work in underfunded and frankly low impact history departments when you can actually affect change (and make good money and a career) in the various applications of Econ.

[FlyingSnake]

Ignoring your snark, I'm in agreement with what you said. It is indeed a complex topic and I see no John Fairbanks like figure championing the cause.

[alephnerd]

There is a community of those kinds of scholars now, but most of them are generally affiliated with Econ departments (eg. Subramanian) or Business Schools (eg. Rajan) and when given the opportunity, leave academia to take an Indian government position at the WB, IMF, NITI Aayog, or a national or state level economic adviser like Krishnamurthy Subramanian or Nirupam Bajpai.

I knew one back at my Alma mater who if they decided to remain in academia probably would have become a tenure track India studies professor, but he was given an opportunity to directly work on FDI and Tech Policy at PMO which was more exiciting, had more impact, and opened more doors.

> Ignoring your snark

My bad, been a long week.

[FlyingSnake]

All good brother, we all are going through interesting times.

You seem to be in the arena and have skin in the game. Would love to read your blog on these topics.

[19f191ty]

One reason is financial. At its peak the Mughal empire was the largest economy in the world. Estimated to be about 25% of global GDP. That's close to the position US occupies in the modern world.

[unsignedchar]

Yes but both the Maurya and Gupta empires have been estimated to have reached over 30% in their time.

[tmule]

Estimates for the Maurya and Gupta periods are significantly more speculative than Mughal estimates. We have reasonably good tax and mint records for the Mughals, whereas Maurya/Gupta figures rely heavily on back-calculating from population density. Is this what kids in India are being taught these days?

[chimp_brain]

Mughal empire was collection of many wealthy provinces, which were wealthy even before Mughals. After assuming power most Mughal ruler did nothing but wasted wealth on countless vanity projects, unlike Europeans where rulers still funded exploration and innovation.

[19f191ty]

Accurate username

[SilverElfin]

I’m not an expert on Asian history but I feel like there isn’t a focus on the Mughal empire by the West. This history is just not well known. The way India was covered in school classes (at least in America) was that Britain came into India, colonized the country, oppressed Indians, and then Gandhi resisted without violence, which somehow led to the British leaving, but they split up India on their way out into India + Pakistan.

But it seems like India was not ruled by Indians (Hindus?) even before European colonization. Aren’t these previous Mughal rulers and the people before them also colonizers then, if they weren’t indigenous Indians / Hindus? Why aren’t they also discussed that way? When did Indians rule India then - was it in the first millennium?

To me, this is all basically outside of the public’s common knowledge and focus in the West.

[chimp_brain]

It's again complex, yes to some extent Mughals were colonisers but they eventually simply wanted to rule. It's not discussed because most history before 11th-13th century was systematically wiped out over centuries.

Pakistan and Afghanistan have little to minorities or even the memory of past left, but that's mostly what happens with cultural imperialism. There were Hindus / Bhuddist or Zorastrian in those areas, now there are none. Infact India have more Zorastrians than modern day Iran, many fled to India around 16th Century escaping similar cultural imperialism.

[sheepscreek]

My very personal take (which can be completely wrong) is that few dynasties were comparable to the vastness of Mughals in this particular era. All the Indian princely states were a lot smaller by comparison, in this time period at least. One that stands out to me is The Sikh Empire 1799–1849 that managed to rule much of North India + current day Afghanistan and Pakistan but for a relatively short period of time. The British East India company were a challenging force to beat, some allied with them which stunted their own ambitions, others like the Sikh Empire lost to them eventually.

[FlyingSnake]

I have nothing against Mughals, they had a great impact on the subcontinent history esp during 17th century. However the center of gravity was the Indian Ocean Spice trade network which was the South. This is what the Portuguese and various EICs wanted to connect to. We have records of the vast riches of these Deccan cities from these travelers.

> few dynasties were comparable to the vastness of Mughals

The Mauryas perhaps ruled a much larger area than Mughals. Khalji, Tughlaqs, Satvahanas, and Marathas also ruled over vast landscapes, but they are not much known outside India.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maratha_Empire#/media/File:Ind...

[ultratalk]

Yeah, the south was one of the most economically prosperous regions in the Indian subcontinent at the time. They were the centres of the spice trade, and a lot of colonial interest began there first. Because of the trade networks, a lot of outside cultural influence was part of the area's history. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all came to the Malabar and Konkan coast just a few decades or tens of decades after they starting gaining traction in the Levant and other Middle-Eastern areas. In fact, Islam's first contact with the Indian subcontinent was on the Malabar coast and near it [0]. Colonial trading posts were set up in cities on the Malabar coast like Kochi [1] first, before they were set up in the North. In fact, after he died, Vasco da Gama was buried in a church in Kochi, Kerala, for many years before his son dug him up and took him back to Portugal [2]. My point is, a lot of stuff happened outside of the Gangetic Plains area, and not much is known about it in contemporary Western historical discourse.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_in_India#Early_history_o...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Emmanuel

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasco_da_Gama#Death

[umeshunni]

> the south was one of the most economically prosperous regions in the Indian subcontinent at the time.

Still is, tbh

[anon291]

The marathas were much larger and in a lot of ways a lot more interesting than the Mughals for a variety of reasons. The fact that you believe that that Indian princely states were smaller is... Bizarre and ahistoric. England's rule over India only became a sure thing when England defeated the Marathas. Until then it was just piecemeal colonization. The fact that you are discussing the Raj without mention of the Marathas underscores the very concern that was brought up that Indian history is highly editorialized

Part of the reason is that -- in the popular Western imagining -- India really refers to the Gangetic plain. Any book on India mainly attributes Gangetic culture to 'India' whole completely ignoring the south, west, east and north east all of which have unique cultural traits.

As someone of Indian ethnicity, this was extremely confusing to me because when we read about Indian history in books and people would ask me, I would literally have no idea. My particular ethnic group lived along the coast of the western ghats and greatly valued the ocean and seafaring... Almost completely the opposite of the Gangetic peoples. This bias is prevalent everywhere because, despite these individual cultures having enough population to be a country in their own right. They are marginalized by popular history.

[sifar]

When Duke Wellington was asked what was his most difficult battle, he mentioned the Battle of Assaye. He said he found the Maratha troops equal to the European military . His horse was killed under him and he was lucky to live through the battle.

Maybe, the fate of Europe and that of India would have been different if he hadn't that day.

[newyankee]

Also when discussing Mughals the most important elephant in the room is ignored. Their intention to totally Islamise India. But this is more about Indian history being editorialised by few communists and others as they hate the notion of a caste system filled India and prefer the Mughal & British rule in their sanitised version. The historic animosity in different groups exists and persists to this day and is reflected in these perspectives. The atrocities of Mughals are not only glossed over, they are completely whitewashed, especially their demolition of 1000s of temples, subjugation of native population and many other crimes are painted as something normal in their time when reality is much more complicated. This is to not even speak of the over romanticisation of Taj Mahal as something 'Indian' while ignoring numerous other architecture that still survives to this day. When pointed out that many mosques were built on top of temples whose basement still survives to this day that part of history is conveniently ignored.

[anon291]

The British and Mughals were fine with the caste system. Caste is a pan Indian social phenomenon found even amongst Muslims and Christians (and Jews) of the subcontinent, as well as the dharmic religions. I agree that there's a bizarre desire to only acknolwedge the Islamic empires, but I'm not sure it's about caste.

Britain in particular was completely into the caste system and made huge lists of which caste ought to fill which roles in its government.

All of this is problematic of course. However while its fairly easy to criticize England in the Indian context, it is bizarrely difficult to criticize the Mughals because some people are offended should anyone in their religion ever be criticized

[g8oz]

>>Their intention to totally Islamise India.

Given their military superiority during their zenith, if they really wanted to do that, they could have. But we didn't see that happen even within their core territories.

[chimp_brain]

That's nuanced, they were always challenged every few decades, from Marathas to Ahoms in North East. Fighting with all Hindu princely state instead of making them ally would've surely might have been counter productive. While it was their intention to Islamise, and many did, but it was impossible without an extremely cultural backlash that they also feared.

[g8oz]

Again even within their "safe" core territories we don't see an organized ongoing program of mass coerced conversion. So the point is - they weren't trying to totally Islamicize India and whether you believe that's because they didn't care to or they were afraid to due to political calculation doesn't really make a difference.

Remember, most Indians who converted did so due to the influence of wandering Sufi mystics who were regarded with suspicion by the court-aligned clerics.

[jhbadger]

There were also financial reasons not to, just as there were with the Ottoman Empire in Eastern Europe -- Islamic law says that no Muslim can be taxed more than a non-Muslim so non-Muslims were handy to have around because they could be taxed more.

[anon291]

like arguing Hitler could have killed all the Jews but was nice enough to let some escape

[g8oz]

This is a silly analogy, and ahistorical to boot.

[alephnerd]

The Marathas, the Bengal Subah, Durrani's Afghanistan, the Hyderabad Sultanate, the Konbaung Empire, Mysore, and Thanjvur were contemporaries similar or larger in scope and size than the Sikh Empire.

And this is OP's point.

Most "India History" in the West has an extremely colonial British bias which only concentrated on Delhi and unpartitioned Punjab.

[oa335]

I think it’s because they were they were the dominant power at the point when westerners began dominating the area. We see a similar fascination with Aztec, Iroquois, etc. westerners (or really all audiences of history) need to sense their presence in the story, even if it’s “just around the corner”.

[ButlerianJihad]

The Mughals are known to me in two ways: even as a child, I heard the moniker “mogul” as a wealthy person who specializes in some industry or service. Most prominent is “Media Mogul” such as Ted Turner. A pundit on television or writing a newspaper article would often apply it.

Secondly, cuisine. At least one seminal Indian cookbook I owned had a section devoted to Mughal dishes and explaining how the Empire influenced the culture insofar as what people were permitted to eat, and what foods/ingredients were made available. The Muslim Mughal diet contrasts with the Hindu dishes, and the seafood of the coasts and Goa presents another dimension.

[throwup238]

I think it traces back to Henry Avery and his capture of the Mughal treasure fleet [1]. It inspired an entire oral/print tradition and social zeitgeist in England (and the rest of Europe) which IMO directly led to an entire generation of privateers like Woodes Rogers and tied into the whole golden age of piracy, an endless source of drama for fiction authors.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capture_of_the_Grand_Mughal_Fl...

[dartharva]

They were the last "Big" Empire in the subcontinent before the British Raj. The EIC inherited a lot of Mughal-standard bureaucracy in the territories they took over, despite the territories themselves belonging to Sultanates distinct from the Mughal. The Crown kept the same alive too. Traces of Mughal administrative vocabulary are found to this day in Modern India's legalese.