The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company

by William Dalrymple

Delhi in 1737 had around 2 million inhabitants. Larger than London and Paris combined, it was still the most prosperous and magnificent city between Ottoman Istanbul and imperial Edo (Tokyo). As the Empire fell apart around it, it hung like an overripe mango, huge and inviting, yet clearly in decay, ready to fall and disintegrate. Despite growing intrigue, dissension and revolt, the Emperor still ruled from the Red Fort over a vast territory. His court was the school of manners for the whole region, as well as the major centre for the Indo-Islamic arts. Visitors invariably regarded it as the greatest and most sophisticated city in South Asia: ‘Shahjahanabad was perfectly brilliant and heavily populated,’ wrote the traveller Murtaza Husain, who saw the city in 1731. ‘In the evening one could not move one gaz [yard] in Chandni Chowk or the Chowk of Sa’adullah Khan because of the great crowds of people.’ The courtier and intellectual Anand Ram Mukhlis described the city as being ‘like a cage of tumultuous nightingales’.118 According to the Mughal poet Hatim, Delhi is not a city but a rose Garden, Even its wastelands are more pleasing than an orchard. Shy, beautiful women are the bloom of its bazaars, Every corner adorned with greenery and elegant cypress trees.119 Ruling this rich, vulnerable empire was the effete Emperor Muhammad Shah – called Rangila, or Colourful, the Merry-Maker. He was an aesthete, much given to wearing ladies’ peshwaz and shoes embroidered with pearls; ...