Abstract
M
Does Akbar shine more when, instead of having to be compared with Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, he is put in contrast to Messers Modi and Shah? To the author of this very topical book, the answer is loud and clear: a resounding ‘yes’ (see especially pages 225–26, where the contrast between Akbar’s views and those of today’s official India is particularly brought out—but the contrast has references to it frequently elsewhere in the book as well).
Given this basic premise, Sharma’s book is not the kind of standard biography of Akbar that one would expect. He has read almost everything published on Akbar in English (except, I notice, Shireen Moosvi’s book Episodes in the Life of Akbar), including translations of Persian sources and papers in journals. Yet a reader looking for Akbar’s administrative measures (perhaps his major contribution to the stability of the Mughal Empire), or the philosophical basis for his policy of religious tolerance (sulh-i kul), or his views on social evils is apt to be disappointed. Yet one can say on Sharma’s behalf that he holds our interest right through, sometimes through even unexpected diversions. Thus a ‘tower of human heads’ after the second battle of Panipat (1556) leads him to a discourse on skull towers and impaled heads elsewhere at other times in the world (pp. 73–78); and a whole chapter (the last one, pp. 241–74) is devoted to how Akbar has been treated in the media, that is, in films and on TV.
Sharma’s attitude towards Akbar is devoid of hero-worship. In whatever he says about Akbar, he has usually adequate support of his sources. Nor does he omit to refer to Akbar’s frailties, when he finds them.
A few slips need correction. On p. 115, it should be noted that Bhagwan Das was the brother, not the father, of Akbar’s Kachhwaha wife. On p. 116, line 1, it should be ‘haft hazari’, not ‘sat hazari’; on p. 223, line 6 from the bottom, ‘classes’, not ‘clauses’; on p. 236, ‘shalghamkhor’, not shalgamkhor; and on p. 250, line 13, ‘kushti’, not ‘kashti’.
Finally, I have some reservations about the title chosen for the book. The initial words Allahu akbar, the official formula of invocation under Akbar (and under Jahangir and Shahjahan), suggest by their position that the word akbar in the invocation refers to Akbar as a person, a suggestion Akbar had indignantly rejected.
These comments apart, there is no doubt that Sharma has given us a timely and academically well-grounded book; and the larger readership it secures, the better it would serve the cause of history.