OF CABBAGES AND KINGS | The ‘Grand Mughals’ at London’s V&A: Of Tipu Sultan, Sufis & Some Surprises Too | Farrukh Dhondy

“There aren’t many Rubayii about ‘love’ --

Apart I suppose from words like ‘above’ --

There aren’t enough flattering rhymes to go

With that emotion when push comes to shove?

And yet, Bachchoo, your rhyming has to strain

As love has let you down, you must complain

You don’t always have to do it in rhyme

It can just be in prose -- a paean to pain?”

From The Rubaiyat of Dawn

The Victoria and Albert Museum in South Kensington, London, is a repository of history, art and objects for posterity. It also features expertly curated exhibitions of periods of history, of innovation, art, fashion… etc.

One exhibit that has always drawn my attention is Tipu Sultan’s tiger holding a British East India company soldier, one of Arthur Wellesley’s troops, in its jaws.

Even in the nineteenth century, the V&A didn’t censor displays of Indian triumph over British colonialism. Perhaps it was because visitors would know that Tipu was boastful, and in the end was beaten by the man who was to subsequently defeat Napoleon at Waterloo. Or maybe they just bravely thought that all dramatic displays had their place and to hell with nationalistic sensitivities or concerns?

Memorably, in 2012, the V&A had an exhibition on Indian maharajas and their royal courts. It was about the flamboyant displays of the principle and better-endowed (er … in territory) maharajas who held their titular “kingdoms” through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries before Independence from Britain in 1947. The exhibition had a vast array of photographs and paintings of royal processions with elephants, of parades of elaborately-dressed troops in the pay of the maharajas and displays of thrones and “authority”. There were of course several depictions of these potentates meeting with British royalty such as the brother of King Edward VII and then King George V, who visited India in 1911-1912.

The exhibition’s curators presented all the pomp, but none of the circumstance. The V&A exhibition connived to present the maharajas as real kings. They didn’t say anywhere that they were powerless puppets of the British Raj, licensed to maintain ceremonial armies and directed in their policies by the agents of the Raj, resident and all-powerful in every state. When India gained its Independence from the Raj in 1947, these ridiculous “potentates” were deprived of their thrones by the great Congress politician Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and told to accept large pensions and go quietly. No mention in the exhibition.

Curation or decoration?

Last week I saw at the V&A an exhibition called “The Grand Mughals”. It doesn’t feature the history of the Mughal dynasty’s conquest and rule in India. It is a display of the art, artistic objects, armaments, jewellery and architectural triumphs of the reigns of Akbar, Jehangir and Shah Jahan. There is scant mention of Babur, Humayun and then of Aurangzeb.

I was startled to see what I didn’t know -- that in the reign of Akbar and Jehangir there were “Mughal miniature” paintings from the annals of the Sufi poet Amir Khusrau. There were also miniatures made of Rustam, the Zoroastrian pre-Muslim Persian hero from the Shahnama of Firdausi.

And yes, there were miniatures of scenes, commissioned by these emperors, depicting characters and action from the Ramayan. There is a “miniature”, among several others, which depicts the scene from Sita’s story, where she mistakenly believes that Hanuman, who approaches her in exile, is Ravan in disguise.

There is a “portrait” of the Sufi saint Moinuddin Chishti of Ajmer, who lived centuries before this depiction, presumably from the inspired imagination of the artist. Then there is the portrait of a Muslim being instructed in piety by a Brahmin.

After Portuguese Jesuits arrived in India during Jehangir’s reign, the Hindu and Muslim artists are depicted in the miniature scenes from the Bible and Christian lore.

These were surprises. That there is a stately portrait of the young emperor Aurangzeb was not. The exhibition has no section beyond that of the artists of Shah Jahan’s reign. Is this because the previous sections, devoted to the work arising from the dedicated patronage of Akbar, Jehangir and Shah Jahan, is essentially full of human figures and portraiture, whereas the puritanical Islam that Aurangzeb embraced forbids the depiction of human forms? (Only asking, yaar!)

One is, gentle reader, aware of the fact that there is a movement to erase the name of Aurangzeb from existing avenues in New Delhi and to demolish a mosque he supposedly built over the site of a Hindu temple in Varanasi. Yes, history is written by the victors and any ideology opposed to Aurangzeb’s tyrannical reign would want him erased from it.

He did execute Sikh gurus after imprisoning his father and murdering his brothers. So, not a very nice dude? The record of his deeds should in no sense be erased from history -- but glorifying memorials and street names? Are there any monuments to Judas in the Vatican?

Perusing the glorious art in this V&A display, it was natural to wonder where these artefacts and paintings came from. Perhaps, and most logically, they were borrowed in great part, from Indian museums and collections?

The entire display, in a single collection, appears as a proud part of Indian history. There is in the exhibits not a hint or trace of Mughal political triumphalism. The exhibition should be seen as a whole in India -- but perhaps with the portrait of Aurangzeb “cancelled”.