Empire at a crossroads

Thirty years into Shah Jahan’s reign, as his empire descends into intrigue and civil war, two real-life European travellers, Venetian Niccolao Manucci and French Francois Bernier, find themselves mixed up in the battle. Sudhir Kakar’s novel follows a conceit straight out of Salman Rushdie’s Enchantress of Florence (which also featured Manucci), presenting not one but two viewpoints on the Mughal court. Manucci and Bernier take turns narrating events, often contradicting or correcting each other.

The two physicians have a mutual antipathy, so it’s just as well that they end up ranged on different sides of the tussle for the Peacock Throne. Manucci, a more exuberant personality, serves under the generous if self-absorbed Dara Shikoh. The more supercilious Bernier becomes part of the retinue of Danishmand Khan, Shah Jahan’s foreign minister, who eventually sends him to Aurangzeb’s camp to observe matters. Kakar uses these two alternating accounts to outline the crossroads at which the empire finds itself, oscillating between Dara’s brand of Sufism (which incorporates some dubious astrology) and Aurangzeb’s austerely Sunni Islamism.

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