Europe–Mughal India–Muslim Asia: Circulation of Political Ideas and Instruments in Early Modern Times

Abstract

Contrary to what the Indocentrism that has long prevailed in the field of Mughal studies would tend to suggest, the empire founded by Babur cannot be reduced to an extractive machine feeding itself with agrarian surplus and working in quasi complete isolation from the rest of the early modern world. Quite to the opposite: the 17th century witnessed the development and diversification of the European presence in the subcontinent on an unprecedented scale as well as a significant increase in the exchanges with the West. Concurrently, and as may be seen from the multi-ethnic composition of the Mughal nobility, the empire attracted elites in search of employment from all over the Asian-Islamicate ecumene stretching from Istanbul to Aceh. And yet the impact of those multi-directional exchanges on the political genesis and evolution of the Mughal state is a question that has not been sufficiently addressed. While the Mughal-European relationship has long attracted the attention of specialists of economic history as well as historians interested in the Western perceptions of the Orient, the historiography dealing with the Mughal dynasty and its immediate neighbours and competitors (Safavids, Uzbeks, Ottomans) has largely confined itself to diplomatic studies of a traditional workmanship and to a handful of structuralist comparisons informed by the old orientalist paradigm. Recently, however, scholars such as Sanjay Subrahmanyam have reminded us of the highly competitive nature of early modern state building and, in order to reach a deeper understanding of the latter, have alerted us to the necessity of paying due attention to the processes of circulation, imitation or rejection of political models born out from this very inter-imperial rivalry. This appears all the more necessary in the case of the Mughal empire as historians have generally emphasized the influence of past rather than contemporary imperial experiments when trying to uncover the layers of its construction. With a view to filling that gap, the present article will therefore tackle two broad sets of interconnected questions. First, what was the political horizon of the Mughals, what did they know about the political experiments that took place in early modern Europe and Muslim Asia? Second, what were the elements of these experiments, if any, that were deemed adaptable in the Indian context? Answering these questions, one may hope to map out more clearly some of the highways and dead ends which ran across the political space of early modern Asia and Europe.