Last Spring; The Lives and Times of the Great Mughals

by Abraham Eraly

MASSIVE BIOLOGICAL STUDIES, READS WELL.

Genres: History, India, Nonfiction

955 pages, Hardcover

First published May 1, 1997

About the author

Abraham Eraly is an Indian writer. He has written many acclaimed books on Indian history.

Reviews

[Suzannah Rowntree · Rating 4 out of 5]

In retrospect, choosing to scarf a 1000+ page book on Mughal history might not have been the most relaxing holiday activity, but also this was utterly fascinating. This is a tale of obscene wealth, court intrigue, and the high-stakes wars of succession that followed an emperor's death in which his sons faced the choice between annihilation and the throne. The first half of the book tells the story of the lives of the first 6 Mughal emperors (Babur, Humayun, Akbar, Jahangir, Shah Jahan, and Aurangzeb). The second half covers, in great and often gutwrenching detail, what life was like in Mughal India, where the 655 men at the top of everything owned over a quarter of the empire's wealth and everyone else either lived barely at subsistence level or pretended to do so in order to escape the rapacity of Mughal taxation, an economic disaster that Eraly argues (in conjunction with other cultural and religious factors) left both the Muslim ruling class and the vast Hindu population without either the means or the motivation to improve their lot or promote culture.

Eraly, an Indian scholar himself, is pretty unsparing of everyone in Mughal India even as he acknowledges their achievements. The only halfway likeable person in the book is Akbar, who at least used his fabulous wealth and obscene power to equalise the status of Hindus, stop child marriages and discourage sati. There's a huge cast of other characters ranging from the hapless (Humayun) to the joylessly ruthless (Aurangzeb) to the utterly incorrigible (Shivaji, the Maratha warlord, with his tiger's-claws and relentless backstabbery!) but it's almost impossible to view any of these people as much more than highly efficient robbers who made life hell for the poor people they ruled and plundered.

One doesn't like to point out the specks in other people's eyes without getting the planks out of one's own with regards to imperialism and colonialism, but this book really drove it home for me that medieval Asia was subject to imperialism and colonialism every bit as ghastly as that waged by Europeans in modern times. The fact that in places like India the European imperialism was overlaid on Muslim imperialism (according to Eraly, in Mughal India the ruling class was, with the exception of their Hindu Rajput warrior/retainers, basically identical with the Muslim population), should not lead to us into nostalgia for the older empires. I say this fully acknowledging that Mughals like Akbar did things I can thoroughly support and that Hindu rulers were no better, because the Muslim ruling class still systematically oppressed a vast swath of the world and considered it their God given right.

Despite Eraly's bleakly dystopian picture of Mughal India, the plot twist at the end of the book still caught me by surprise: Eraly calls the European domination of India "not merely inevitable but desirable" - less an endorsement of British imperialism than an indictment of what they found when they arrived. I happen to have both British and Muslim Indian ancestry, and as I write this, I try to imagine an alternative end to the story of the Mughals, an ending in which I can be proud of both sides of the family. So far, the solution eludes me.

[Naila · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very descriptive and interesting. What I didn't like was that there is very little info about the wives. Overall it is a must read.

[Sarthak Vora · Rating 4 out of 5]

After reading this book one is compelled to dwell deep and read more about Mughal emperor's lives. The author makes sure to give texture to the history of the great Mughal era with reasoning, it's not just a history book, it's much more.

[Anthony Segran · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very well written book and for the most part was sensational. Fantastic detail and given we had spent time in India on holiday I re-lived our journey all over again.

This book really piqued my interest in the History of India although there are many many facets to it. The latter part got a little too prescriptive but it was okay