Aligarh from the archives

The city's multiple origin stories reveal the richness of its past and its place in history

Aligarh: The City That Outlasted Empires

By Atif Syed

Published by John Murray

310 pages ₹799

 

To come from a place and never return to it often encourages one to remain connected to it in some ways, mostly through stories. That may have compelled Texas-based Atif Syed to turn towards the city in which he grew up: Aligarh.

 

 Mr Syed notes in the Preface of Aligarh: The City That Outlasted Empires that Aligarh is a “tapestry of memories, mysteries, and overlooked narratives.” To tie these neglected narratives, he found one thread: The city’s present in conversation with its past.

 

In “The Origins of a City,” he rescues Aligarh from an erstwhile fluid landscape, to record how it came to be named Koil or Kol. The first legend is that of Balaram, Krishna’s elder brother, who killed a “demon named Kol at this site”, which ties well with the origin story of the “Achleshwar Mahadev temple in Aligarh.”

 

 

The other is from the reign of Dor Rajputs. Raja Budh Sen, on his way from Jalali to Delhi, “stopped to dismount by a jhil”. A fox appeared out of nowhere and started barking at him, making the ruler’s advisors note that “the soil itself must have a rare quality that could grant strength and vigour even to a humble fox”. The Raja then named it after the jhil, Kol. The other two are related to the tribes of Kolis (known for their weaving skills) and a locally-produced indigo called “Cole”, which the English traveller William Finch observed during Emperor Jahangir’s reign.

 

These multiple origin stories signal the richness of stories around Aligarh and its place in the recorded past, encouraging readers to expect more from the book. However, what follows is a mere archival, dry record of the city. It may appeal to a dedicated researcher or a historian, but not a layperson. There are, however, redemptive exceptions.

 

One of them is the chapter “The Age of the Great Mughals”, which moves between the past and present; for example, at Shaikh Ghuran’s invitation, Emperor Babur visited Koil in 1527. Ghuran, whose lineage could be traced “directly to Shamsul Arfin Shah Jamal, the highly venerated saint of Aligarh”, had “established a bazaar in Aligarh, known as Babri Mandi” for this visit, which still exists. But a palace that he built, Hammam, was “demolished in 1861” by order of the colonial authorities.

 

In an insightful thread, Mr Syed provides an account of how a group of troublemakers—a Poruch Rajput, Aniruddha Singh; the Raja of Mendu (a town in Hathras), and Nand Rai—challenged Aurangzeb by building a small mud fort, but no details are known of how Aurangzeb dealt with the rebellion. For lay readers, the evolution of the site now known as the “Aath Khambe wale Baba”, which continues “to attract pilgrims and devotees” would have been interesting.

 

However, “Two Powers, One Fortress: Marathas and the French Alliance (1785–1803)”, and the interlude that follows next, proved to be an absorbing read for me. As someone from Aligarh, I had heard of several names, but nothing inspired me much to know more about Aligarh’s French connection.

 

The way Mr Syed has documented the French families of Aligarh — the Derridons, Pedrons, and Pueches — is laudable. Here’s a connecting thread for the history buffs: George Puech (b. 1 December 1823), who wrote under the pseudonym “Shor”, credited his “Nana”, Francois Gotlieb Koine (aka “Farasu”), for “nurturing his passion for Urdu poetry.” Farasu was in fact someone who had “built his reputation at Begum Samru’s court in Sardhana in Meerut.”

 

In some ways, Puech’s legacy, “forming friendships with thousands across Hindu, Muslim, and Christian communities”, inform Aligarh’s present, though every now and then attempts are made to malign the city’s syncretic character. In the chapter in which Mr Syed explores the Aligarh Movement, it becomes clear that the modern-day foundations laid by Sir Syed Ahmad Khan were more tolerant than what current opinion suggests.

 

While it can be argued that Mr Syed’s book could have been improved by a personal angle, such as Zeyad Masroor Khan’s City on Fire, it wasn’t clearly the direction the book was set to take. But it definitely needed a narrative engine because there are immensely valuable connections the author has discovered, which he just failed to make more accessible for his readers. But this book will surely inspire others to construct their own Koil narratives.

 

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The reviewer is a New Delhi-based writer and culture critic