The broken script : Delhi under the East India Company and the fall of the Mughal Dynasty 1803-1857

At the start of the nineteenth century, there was a Mughal emperor on the throne in Delhi, but the Mughal empire, in decline for almost a century, was practically gone. A new power had emerged--the British East India Company, which captured the Mughal capital in September 1803, becoming its de facto ruler. Swapna Liddle's book is an unprecedented study of the 'hybrid half-century' that followed--when the two regimes overlapped and Delhi was at the cusp of modernity, changing in profound ways. With a ground-level view of the workings of early British rule in India, The Broken Script describes in rich detail the complex tussle between the last two Mughal emperors and the East India Company, one wielding considerable symbolic authority, and the other a fast-growing military and political power. It is, above all, the story of the people of Delhi in this period, some already well known, such as the poet Ghalib, and others, like the mathematician Ram Chander, who are largely forgotten: the cultural and intellectual elite, business magnates, the old landed nobility and the exotic new ruling class--the British. Through them, it looks at the economic, social and cultural climate that evolved over six decades. It examines the great flowering of poetry in Urdu, even as attempts to use the language for scientific education faltered; the fascinating history of the Delhi College, and how it represented a radically new model for higher education in India; the rise of modern journalism in Urdu, and various printing presses and publications, exemplified by papers like the Dehli Urdu Akhbar; and the founding of remarkable institutions like the Archeological Society--all of which point to a fast-modernizing society that was being shaped to a significant extent by Western ideas and institutions, but was also rooted strongly in indigenous systems of thought and learning. The Revolt of 1857 and its aftermath violently disrupted this distinctive modernity. The book draws upon a variety of records--including Urdu poetry written after the revolt was brutally suppressed, proceedings of the trials conducted by the British, private letters and newspaper reports--for a nuanced examination of the events of 1857, challenging many commonly held and often simplistic assumptions. In the process, it details not only the destruction wreaked upon Delhi, but also strategies for survival and early attempts to rebuild and revive individual lives and institutions. Combining immaculate scholarship with extraordinary storytelling, Swapna Liddle has produced an outstanding book of narrative history--on a great city in transition, and on early modern India--that will be read and discussed for decades Title 5 Dedication 7 Contents 8 Map of Delhi 11 Mughal Emperors and Contenders to the Mughal Throne 12 British Officials in Charge of the Administration of Delhi 13 Introduction 14 PART ONE: Akbar II: The Beleaguered Emperor 16 1. A New Power 17 2. A New Emperor 22 3. The ‘House of Timur’ 26 4. Revisiting a Relationship 29 5. ‘The Abode of War’? 35 6. The British Power and the New Elite 38 7. Peace...and Strife 42 8. The Question of Succession 46 9. Exile 50 10. Charles Metcalfe as Resident 54 11. Keeping Up Appearances 59 12. The British Enclave 64 13. Cultural Crossover 68 PART TWO: Winds of Change 72 14. Increasing Economic Control 73 15. Removing the Mask 79 16. Marginalized 85 17. Domestic Strife, and Rammohan Roy 91 18. Re-ordering Spaces 96 19. Religious Identities 100 20. Not Business as Usual 108 21. Uncertain Relationships 113 22. The Fraser Assassination Case 119 PART THREE: Bahadur Shah Zafar: The People’s Emperor 127 23. The New Emperor and His Court 129 24. Challenges from Company and Family 134 25. George Thompson: Advocate of the Mughal Cause 140 26. Trouble in the Family 145 27. Two Royal Deaths 150 28. The People’s Emperor 157 29. Ties Old and New 162 30. Unity and Discord in the City 166 31. Assessing Foreign Rule 171 PART FOUR: A World of Poetry and Education 175 32. Languages of Culture 177 33. The World of Poetry 181 34. Education 185 35. The Government College 190 36. The Government College: Early Years 195 37. Upheaval and Reorganization 199 38. A New Paradigm for Education 203 39. The Translation Project, and its Limitations 208 40. Master Ram Chander and the Advancement of Learning 216 41. Print and Journalism 221 42. The Changing World of Poetry 228 43. New Worlds in Language 233 44. Questioning the Heritage of the Literary Tradition 240 45. New Preoccupations 246 PART FIVE: 1857 and Its Aftermath 253 46. 11 May 1857 254 47. Suspicion and Terror 261 48. The New Regime 266 49. War 272 50. A City Divided 277 51. A Cause to Fight For 282 52. A World Turned Upside Down 289 53. Nerves and Resources Stretched Thin 294 54. A City Destroyed 299 55. Leader of a ‘Muslim Conspiracy’ 303 56. The City Transformed 311 57. The Lament 317 Epilogue 326 Acknowledgements 333 Endnotes 361 Select Bibliography 402 Copyright 420 End Page 421