Our topsy-turvy world: How India's recent pastis reflected in its today

The established political order seeing an upheaval as the country develops economically, a quantum leap in communications, power more intricately entwined with business, and a host of regional actors seeking to replicate their prowess at the national level. Is it the India of our times? No, this was how it was three centuries back in the 1700s.

In India as elsewhere, the past is never dead, or even remote, but continues to influence the present and the future in ways that we never imagine, said a panel of historians and art experts at a session titled "The World Turned Upside Down", on the opening day of the Jaipur Literature Festival 2018 on Thursday.

As acclaimed art historian B.N. Goswamy dwelt how the phrase recalled more the present time that the 18th century, but was apt and influential for both, especially the latter in terms of its cultural impact, ranging from Urdu poetry to Pahari painting to religious iconography.

Tracing the situation in the tumultous century, author and JLF Director William Dalrymple noted that it began with Mughal power seeingly entrenched until the death of the last of the Great Mughal, Aurangzeb, whose exit marked the release of pent-up fissiparious forces jockeying for influence.

Writer Uday Kulkarni highlighted how Northern and Western India became the arenas for political primacy as the Marathas rose from being guerrillas to empire-makers, fanning out from their traditional homelands to far across - in all directions - across the subcontinent.

On the other hand, Goswamy also stressed that all the upheavals did not inhibit cultural creativity, with Mir Taqi Mir lamenting the fate of his repeatedly ravished Delhi but finding generous patronage elsewhere while in the northern hills of what is now Himachal Pradesh, Pahari painting flourished in an ignored area where craftsmen like Nainsukh successfully wedded their training in Mughal miniatures to local motifs to form a new school of art.

Historian and writer Yashaswini Chandra supported the contention, citing the case of the Rajputs, who unlike the fledgling Afghans and Maratha dynasties, made full use of new alliances to embark on an artistic rennaissance as exemplified in the Nath paintings, which owe to the influence of Mewar's ruler Man Singh's religiosity and devotion to Shiva.

Academic Maya Jasanoff, who has written extensively on the global colonial experience in this period, sought to broaden the scope by bringing in the British, who along with surreptitious power grabs also sought to emulate the cultural grandeur of the Mughals and the successor courts, especially in Lucknow under the Nawabs. Dalrymple, whose "White Mughals" deals with this aspect of British going native with a vengeance, pointed out how this added more nuances to the existing culture.

She also pointed out, like Goswamy, the curious correspondences between India and then now, citing especially the new dynamics of powers and economics and the new 'disruptive' forms of communication, which underscores we can ignore historical parallels and the lessons we can learn from them.

(Vikas Datta can be contacted at vikas.d@ians.in)

--IANS

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