221. War of Succession: The Battle That Shook India (Ep 2)

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0:28Hello and welcome to Empire with me, Anita Arnans. And me, William Durrumpur. And in the last episode, we ended on a cliffhanger. Shah Jahan has got some terrible illness. He's in bed. He isn't being seen in public. And the rumors are spreading that a civil war is about to break out. The shopkeepers in Delhi are hunkering down. Rumors are flying around. Post messengers are taking messages down to the Deccan, over to Gujarat, to Bengal, that Shah Jahan is finally heading for his deathbed and a war is about to begin. Spies in the Red Fort are reporting developments in the city to each of Shah Jahan's four sons.

1:15And this is the moment of crisis that all these children have known will come at one point in their life. And everyone is now assuming that this is about to happen. The big succession struggle, the big war, the civil war between the different brothers is about to break out. Who, Supriya Gandhi, makes the first move? Well, I think they all spring into action. Again, you know, this is sort of a very complicated time. There's a chronicler who's attached to one of Shah Jahar's sons, Shudja, who's in Bengal, who says that the times are as agitated as these sort of curly, torturous ringlets of moon-faced beauties.

1:58That's quite an image. That is, yes. It's a fairly common image, but it does reflect the times. And Shuja, who was far away in Bengal, takes the opportunity to pronounce himself emperor, and he styles himself by all kinds of titles, including Alexander of the Age. And Alexander is important here, and we're going to get to that in a bit. This is a reference to Alexander the Great, who's remembered in Islamic law as Iskandar, the great conqueror. Absolutely. So Iskandar or Alexander is very, very important in the whole tradition of Persian literature from, you know, Nizami to Amir Khosrow and so on.

2:39And anyway, so Shuja is the son who's been settled in Bengal for a while. He's had this post as governor. He's away from the imperial center. And he thinks, well, you know, with the news of his father's illness, you know, it's sort of inevitable, you know, why not stake my claim to succession? It's far away, but Bengal is also very rich at this point, isn't it? It's the center of the textile industry, and it's quite a good place to be based and to make your fortune if you were so-minded. It's a very good place. It is very fertile. There's been a lot of settlement of forested land for agriculture, which then, of course, increases the wealth of that particular region, and it has been absorbed into the Mughal state.

3:23I feel like we haven't really done justice to poor old Shuja and the other brother, who is going to be quite, you know, they're going to be quite pivotal right now, Shuja and Murad. So, I mean, what were they like? I mean, we sort of spoke a while ago about the different attitude that Shah Jahan had, both to Dara Sukho, who he sort of coddles and keeps quite close to him, and micromanaging Aurangzeb, and Aurangzeb developing his own sort of shadow state and never doing anything that's good enough to please his father. Daddy issues. But what about the other two? How do they fit into this family?

3:52And what are they like? And what is their relationship with their father like? So one thing that we know about Shudja when he was much younger, was that Shudja was actually kind of taken away to be raised by his grandfather, Jahangir, and Jahangir's wife, Nurjaha. So he spent his early years being raised by them. Where he has the cutest ever picture of a Mughal baby painted of him. It's the greatest Mughal baby painter that Shudja looking like the most adorable six-month-old kid you've ever seen. It is a very cute picture. And actually, there are lovely pictures of, you know, a lot of Mughal babies during this Jahangir period, either with Shah Jahar, there's one of Darashukh playing with jewels sitting next to Shah Jahar.

4:37And then there's another one in that cot. And then there's another very cute one of Aurangzeb being held by Shah Jahar also. So yes, there are quite a few of them. So Shooja had that, you know, perhaps sort of unusual time, and he was very close to his grandfather. And then later on, he was actually known for his cultural patronage. So he had, you know, like poets and writers produce all kinds of literary works and other kinds of writings in his court. And he had a fair amount of, you know, independence in Bengal. So Shudja was very close to Jahangir and Nurjaha, having been raised by them. And then, of course, he's close in age to Dara Shukho.

5:16He's the second eldest son. He has spent a long time in this position in Bengal, enough to really get comfortable there, have his own little court, have a fair amount of independence from his father. He still, of course, has to carry out his father's orders, make visits to the imperial court and so on. Just like his father and his siblings, Dara Shukho and Jahanara. He even pays respects to Mullah Shah, who is Dara Shukho's Qadiri sort of Sufi spiritual teacher. He has his own Sufis whom he corresponds with. So he's really doing a lot of what Dara Shukho was doing, except that he's not doing this in the embrace of the imperial court.

5:57He's doing it in the province of Bengal. And Murad is the youngest of these surviving sons of Shah Jahar and Mumtaz Mahal. I'm the youngest of four sons. I'm on Murad. You're team Murad, are you? You're on team Murad. Spoiler, not going to go well. Anyway, Karen, what was Murad like? Was he sort of the precocious baby of the family? What was his personality like? So we won't hear as much about Murad, but we do know that Murad, again, was very close to certain spiritual Sufi teachers, and he'd have correspondences with them, and they'd encourage him, to do the sorts of things that he wanted to do.

6:35But he was, like Shuja, decided to spring into action. So when he heard of his father's illness, he actually put to death one of his officials whom he thought was sympathetic to Dara Shuko. Oh, really? Just on the suspicion? Okay. Right. Gosh. Yes. And then he plunders a fort. He seizes a lot of money. And then he coronates himself as well. And he has a poet, a distinguished Iranian literate term, write this amazing long narrative poem about, it ends up being about the war of succession, but it also talks about how Murad coronated himself and there was sort of gold and diamonds everywhere. And he's in Gujarat in Western India.

7:16And so he is trying to raise money and troops to make his bid for the throne in the West. Shuja is already doing that in the Northeast. So already Darashuko is potentially facing a war on these two fronts. And then Aurangzeb sprints into action. Aurangzeb, he actually is a little more reserved. He doesn't sort of go ahead of himself and say, like, I'm the emperor now. Or have someone write poetry about what a great ruler he is. Yes, yes. And have like, you know, jewel scattering clouds and sort of flinging gold coins to the crowds and all of that. So he actually, he's much cleverer. And he's like, He keeps sending Shah Jahan a lot of letters and fruits and grapes and all kinds of things.

8:01He wants to find out a little more information. Shah Jahan has been using him as a sort of source of fruit for some time. As a source of fruit, yes. And sometimes this gives Shah Jahan opportunities to be very dissatisfied with him. The pomegranates aren't good enough. The muskmelons are old and rotten. Yes. And what Aurangze probably really remembers is that Shah Jahar accused him of pilfering these emperor's special mangoes that were really grown for the emperor. The name was sort of the emperor's choice. Padshahar mangoes. Yes, the Padshahar pasan. And of course, he retorts, reiterates that he had nothing to do with the loss of that delivery, but something that annoys Shah Jahar.

8:45I mean, this sort of banana and mango diplomacy is absolutely astonishing. This could drive a wedge between two people. I find that often at home here, actually. My boys often eat my favourite mangoes before I get a chance to eat it. And it is a cause of conflict in our household. Thoroughly excommunicated. Okay. You say that he sort of, he bides his time. But is he doing things secretly on the down low? Because from what you've painted a picture of Aurangzeb, he's smart. He's smart and he's a mover. So he may not seem to be doing anything, but is he under the water paddling away? Absolutely. Uth leaves.

9:17And he knows that it doesn't really make sense to fight multiple wars. I mean, if Aurangzeb crowned himself emperor, he'd then have to fight a war with Murad. He knew that Shah Jahan was still alive, so he'd have to fight the imperial forces. And he'd have to eliminate Shujar in Bengal. And he certainly wasn't prepared to do all of that, you know, not immediately. And in fact, he'd already had some kind of alliance with Shujar because they'd had a secret meeting, a meeting actually that was arranged by Jahanara, you know, without perhaps knowing the outcome. But she'd been trying, of course, to get the brothers to meet.

9:49And this was earlier when Shadrha was keeping all of them very busy with their assigned activities. And now what he does is he reaches out to Aurangzeb. He fixes on a plan, and then he reaches out to Murat, because both of them are sort of in the general sort of south. So they could possibly team up, they could pull their forces, and then they could march on Agra if they got there, and then face the imperial army together. So he puts his hand impression and his signature on this letter to prove that it's authentic. And he suggests to Murad that, you know, maybe we can pull forces. And, you know, maybe if we can decide that our friends will be our friends and our enemies will be our joint enemies.

10:33And then if we were to succeed, Murad would get all of the Western territories of the empire. Now, you know, this may seem unusual, but it actually wasn't completely impossible. And this is because the way the Mughals operated, you know, had a variety of influences. But there also was an earlier Central Asian tradition of kind of shared kingship or a sort of joint rulership. So it wasn't, you know, something that was completely out of the blue. And Murad goes for it. He bites the carrot. And Murad goes for it. Do you think Aurangzeb means it? Do you think he means it or he doesn't mean it at all?

11:11Not at all, as we will see. No. We'll have to wait and see. But the fact is, he's doing that at the same time, playing nice with Murad, saying, yeah, yeah, we'll share. Sharing is caring, brother. We'll do it fine. But he's also, isn't he making moves to try and recruit some people who were once loyal to Dara Shukko as well? I mean, he's on manoeuvres big time. He's trying to charm the Rajasthanis, in particular. So he's trying to charm the Rajputs. And he's been on the Rajputs charm offensive for a while. You know, he's been sending them like beautiful diamonds and sort of nice gifts and all of that.

11:47Because being in the Deccan, he has access to the diamond mines, of course. He has access to the diamonds, yes, of course. That's a handy little gift to be able to hand out. Yes. I mean, he doesn't have access to as much as he would want. But, you know, that comes later during his reign. He also writes a very nice letter to Rana Raj Singh, who is a prominent Rajput. Which of the kingdoms is he associated with? Mewar. And in this letter, he actually, he says, you know, because rulers are shadows of God, he's going to follow his ancestors and ensure that people of different schools of thought and of variegated religious hues are cradled in security and tranquility and pass their days in repose.

12:30That's certainly like Trump at the last election going to Detroit and appearing on stage with all the Muslim leaders, isn't it? It's the very opposite of what he's actually going to do. Trump's case was more ironic and insincere, I think. Ornok Saeb has actually had very good relationships with Rajputs throughout. You know, it's not as though, you know, he's sort of… He's knocked down a few temples in Gujarat, hasn't he, as a young man? He knocked down a temple that was connected to a prominent Jain merchant called Shantidas, who had good relations with the Mughal court. The interesting thing is, well, eventually the temple was rebuilt, and Aurangzeb still continues to have relationships with Shantidas.

13:09This is the complex thing about Aurangzeb. Almost anything you say about him can be upended or re-examined, and all are comfortable assumptions about him being this sort of nasty bigot. Darth Vader of history. The Darth Vader of the Mughal Empire. You can always find evidence that he's done something slightly less wicked at another time. Well, the thing is, I'm just more interested in Shantidas. Oh, yes, you knocked down my temple, but we'll still manage a friendship of sorts. I mean, that to me is intriguing. Shantidas, of course, is lending money, is procuring jewels. And there are times when, you know, Dara Shukhu and Shah Jahar are annoyed with him.

13:46They don't like the quality of the gems that he's provided and so on. So it's a contractual sort of business relationship, and there are ups and downs in these relationships, of course. And of course, with Aurangzeb, is that he's around for a very, very long time. So we're going to see different phases, and we're going to see complexity, and we're going to see sort of change and sort of evolution in all of these phases. But Supriya, I mean, very bluntly, you don't buy the idea of Aurangzeb, which is, I suppose, very common in India today, that he's this fire-breathing bigot who goes around destroying temples and hates Hindus.

14:23So Aurangzeb does destroy temples. Shah Jahar has also destroyed temples. Shah Jahar destroyed a lot of unfinished temples that weren't quite built yet in Banaras soon after he comes to power. And he's doing this because it shows the Rajputs, many of whom had influence in Banaras and had ties to Banaras and patronized temples there and so on. It shows them that he's the leader. It's a way of asserting authority. It's not a permanent feature of his rule, but it was certainly an action of his early on. So Aurangzeb certainly wasn't sort of unique in destroying temples. Certainly, destroying temples wasn't the only thing he did.

15:04He also had relationships with a whole variety of Hindu religious figures. This crucially is seen at this point when it isn't what you'd expect. You don't see all the Hindus supporting Dharashukho and all the Fundo, sort of Beardy, Mullas supporting Aurangzeb. In actual fact, as many Hindus support Aurangzeb as Dharas. Yes. So again, this is something that's in flux. You know, at this point, when war of succession hasn't begun yet, it's looming and each side is sort of gearing up. He's trying to get Rana Raj Singh on his side, he has been cultivating another really important Rajput who's actually currently with Dara right now and with Dara's son right now.

15:45Aurangzeb has been cultivating ties with him also for a long time. And Jai Singh has a little bit of a falling out with Dara Shukho. Dara Shukho is getting his son married to a Rajput as well. So they're all trying to cultivate the Rajputs. So all of this is like a whirlpool of preparation. Who makes the first move and when does it all kick off? Aurangzeb and Murad pull their armies and they go to this place in central India. And actually, they're facing a Rajput at this point. They're facing just one Singh. Who is from what we would call the Jodhpur Maharaja family. And he is, again, representing the imperial army.

16:23He's team Dara Shuko, right. He's representing Shah Jahan and Dara Shuko. He's team Dara. And there's another general, Qasim Khan, who's kind of also team Dara and team Shah Jahat. And they're trying to monitor the, I mean, because there's only a few crossing places, aren't there? And you have to cross these rivers. And so armies can wait at the forwards. At the crossing and wait and just cut people down as they try and cross. So what happens then, Seprie? Where does the imperial army go? So Murad and Aurangzeb actually make quick work of them. They send them off. They send them packing. There's a battle.

17:00Yes, it's a battle. And Murad is jubilant. And he actually writes to his Sufi teacher, because he's in touch with him, he's getting his spiritual guidance, just as Dara Shukur was getting the spiritual guidance of his own Sufi teacher, Mullah Shah, when he was going into battle and all of that. And this is when Jahanara tries to step in. And she gets a letter delivered to Aurangzeb. And in this letter, of course, she talks about the importance of filial duty, that you shouldn't go against your father. It's a horrible thing. It's against religion to do that. And then your elder brother too, she says, is like your father, and you shouldn't go against him either.

17:43This wasn't the first rebellion, but it was certainly, we see now a concerted effort that is being led by Aurangzeb against his father and brother. Can I revisit somebody who we've taken our eye off? Because the last time we saw him, he was in bed in pain, in agony, not feeling very well at all. And that was Shah Jahar. Sort of rumors of his demise are very premature. Does he rally and wake up amidst this turmoil? Where is he while all this is going on? So he does rally and he's very dependent on Jahanara and on Dara Shukor. I think he's in a weakened, enfeebled state. But he's alert to this. He can see what his other children are doing and he can't like it one little bit.

18:23No. And, you know, of course, he had rebelled against his father and now he has, you know, three of his children rebelling against him. Do we have any sort of first person accounts of what he threatens his wayward children who are threatening him? What does he say about them? What does he want to do to them? because, as you say, he's done it before. So I wonder whether that teaches him a little bit of, you know what, if I speak softly or if I just tell them to snap into line, I can learn from what was done to me and maybe this can go a different way. Well, I think he actually tries to reconcile.

18:55No doubt, Jahanara is writing with his blessings and trying to get Aurangzeb to change his mind. They're focusing on Aurangzeb at this point. And is there a sense of panic in the Red fort as Shah Jahan and Dara sitting and these two armies are coming up the spine of India, moving ever further northwards, threatening now Agra. Absolutely. Because, you know, again, the imperial army has been defeated. You have Murad and Aurangzeb swiftly moving. And that's why they're not sort of issuing a threat at first. They are actually asking for a kind of reconciliation and sort of persuasion. And They're saying that it's the holy month of Ramzan that's coming up, and you shouldn't spill the blood of other Muslims during this time.

19:41And why not just pause and write down your grievances, and then maybe we'll see how to address them and how to help you. We're about to head into a break, but we have now Aurangzeb has got into Madhya Pradesh. He's with his brother Murad. The two hostile armies have united. They have managed to cross the various rivers blocking their path. They've defeated the imperial army and panic is growing in Agra. Dara Shuko is about to leave the Red Fort and face his brothers in battle. More after the break.

20:25Welcome back. So we left it with Dara marching out of the Red Fort in Agra. with the imperial armies. His father's rallied a bit, his health is better, and he's now anxiously waiting the outcome of the battle. And Dara lines up his troops quite near Agra, isn't it, Supriya? Where is Samugar, this famous battle? Samugar is this area that's quite near Agra, where Dara Shukho and Shah Jahan are based. And actually, I must add that there's also action in Bengal. But one of the people who's actually helping Dara's young son, Suleiman Shukot, to sort of lead the armies there, is another Rajput, Mirza Raja Jaising.

21:11And Jaising is waiting to see what's going to happen. He's sort of stalling a little bit. So we have the ambivalent, vacillating Jaising trying to handle Suja in Bengal. We have the imperial army already defeated in central India. And now there is this looming battle that's in Samogar because Aurangzeb has paid no heed to his sister's entreaties and her desire to have a peaceful reconciliation. And he's pressing on. Now, our old friend Manucci, who at this stage is part of Dara's army or claims to be an artillery man and to be present at the battle. He says that Aurangzeb is already sending bribes and missives to all of Dara's generals, and that he's waging this sort of brilliant intelligence campaign, splitting and dividing the loyalties of Dara's troops.

22:09He even describes various soldiers crossing the battlefield before the battle begins. So, Manucci at this time, he was quite young, Barely 20. Handsome young Italian man, Anita, very much your sort of… Oh, well, thank you. That's great. I hadn't looked him up, but thank you for the official image. These things are important, Supriya. What can I tell you? This is all part of history. And so he was supposedly operating artillery. It wasn't unusual for the Mughals to hire European artillery experts. They had hired some to sort of help with the Kandahar campaign. There was a general impression that Europeans were better at cannon, weren't there?

22:44There was a Ferengi Pura outside Delhi, which was entirely the habitations of European artillerymen. Yes, Ferengi meaning sort of, you know, foreigners. So, Ferengi Pura would be, you know, the foreigner enclave, foreigner-ville. Yes. So, not all foreigners, but sort of Europeans, you know, Franks and so on. So, Manucci was supposedly recruited into the army, yes, and it's quite plausible that he was. And he did notice people trickling into Aurangzeb's camp before the war had started. Poor Dara. All these people sort of stabbing him in the back. And he may not even know how many people are skulking in and talking to his enemies.

23:21So, I mean, the writing seems to be on the wall for Dara. But I mean, how does it actually happen? Well, I think the Imperial Army did have a lot of prominent people. They arrayed themselves in this battle formation. There's a wonderful picture of the battle, isn't there, which you reproduce in your book, of these two leaders or the elephants surrounded by this wall of cannon and armies with the space in between and clouds of gunpowder rising in the air as the cannons fire their first volleys. Yes, it's a picture of the battle. And, you know, it seems to me to be the kind of picture painting that was sponsored by the winning side.

24:03Crucially, what we see is Dara getting down from his elephant, which Minucci says was the moment which everything begins to go wrong. Everything's looking okay. But according to Minucci, Aurangzeb has spies in Dara's army. And they persuade him to get off his elephant and to get onto a horse and to charge Aurangzeb. And this is actually a treachery. This is a clever ruse that Aurangzeb has. Yes, as long as he's on his elephant, he's seen as being in control. He's visible. But the fact, by mere fact of tricking him and saying, you know what, you're less exposed on a horse, they're actually making it look as though he's not in charge anymore.

24:44I mean, it's dark ops, it's black ops, but it's very effective, isn't it? Yes, they clearly seem to have a plan because you do have this very impressive army that is sort of, again, arrayed in this splendid formation and then they start firing and then they don't actually receive anything in response. And then they try again. And again, there's just this very tepid response. They're sort of wondering, what is actually going on? And of course, this was a ruse. It was a ruse to kind of play with them psychologically and eventually, of course, destabilize Dara as the leader. I have to say that we've been rude on this podcast and the previous episode about Manucci, and we've questioned his credentials as a harem doctor.

25:28But his sort of psychological portrait of the Battle of Samugar with Aurangzeb running the dark ops and the clever intelligence operations reads quite plausibly to me. Do you buy it, Supriya, or are you skeptical? I mean, he does position himself as an eyewitness observer and, you know, as someone who was actually sort of in the battle. So, I mean, it's definitely an interesting perspective. It's not the only perspective, but it's a perspective that one adds to, again, this whole kaleidoscope of other perspectives, because we have people who are supporting Murad and kind of, you know, for whom Murad is sort of the center and, you know, this person who crowned himself emperor.

26:10And then we have others who are supporting Shujar. We have then Shah Jahar's historians who then are writing retrospective accounts sort of as things are unfolding before them. So it's a very interesting time, you know, when it comes to history writing. But in this kaleidoscope, the one picture that is clear is, you know, Dara is not seen and therefore his troops, the discipline starts ebbing first of all and then melting, then disintegrating altogether. They can see that the elephant is empty. They think he's been killed or something's gone desperately wrong. Yes. Well, you know, in Minochi's account, it's sort of Khalilullah Khan who is really sort of this, you know, the pivot, the person who is really responsible for getting Dara to dismount for him as elephant and sort of see what's happening because, you know, why isn't the enemy firing back?