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Revisiting the "silver age"

Having captured the lives of the ordinary people of Delhi at the extraordinary historical moment of the Revolt of 1857, William Dalrymple believes that Indians should come to terms with their past, says Mandira Nayar.

It might litter practically every street corner in the city, but history in India is usually dead: dusty, full of tedious detail and very serious. But now William Dalrymple has decided to do what has very rarely been attempted in India -- concentrate on the `story' bit. In his latest work, "The Last Mughal -- The Fall of a Dynasty Delhi, 1857", Dalrymple has managed to make history come alive. Far away from the stuffy confines of elitist academic discussion, his books are full of living, breathing and often messy characters. And Bahadur Shah Zafar, the distinguished poet king, remains no different. "It is not a biography,'' he says firmly. "I don't deal with the first 70 years of his life. It is a portrait of Zafar's Delhi and then its apocalyptical destruction later. This is an extraordinary moment in history. It is not a golden age of culture, like that of Shahjahan. There were no forts being built, nor the Taj Mahal. But 1830 to 1850 is an age when the greatest Urdu poets lived. The madarsas were translating science and mathematics into Urdu and Persian. Two of the finest schools of art were at their peak. It is the age of Ghalib and Zauq. It is like what 20 years of Queen Elizabeth's reign was to English poetry and drama. It might not be a golden age, but it was definitely a silver age,'' he reels off. His book then is the story of this brief moment. And recreating it in extraordinary detail, he captures Delhi and its ordinary people trapped in a crucial upheaval in history. "Savarkar talks about Mangal Pandey as the hero of this uprising. But he was just a sideshow of the 1.67 lakh sepoys who rose up. At least 1 lakh of them went to Delhi. There were more headed there before they got deflected. It is a very important moment, but there is no book about Delhi in this period,'' he says. Ask him the obvious question then, and he says: "My feeling is that upper caste Hindus feel slightly uncomfortable about sepoys who were essentially upper castes but chose to put a Muslim king back on the throne. I have no evidence to support this, but I feel that might be a reason why people are uncomfortable.'' Using material -- "The Mutiny Papers" -- that had been saved by the British for the worst possible reasons, he brings the Capital and one of the heroes of 1857 back into the limelight. "Gold-dust'' for social historians, he says, it has the story of dhobis, courtesans and other regular people in the city. "I have spent four years and just skimmed the surface. There is material enough for 300 Ph.D.s. But till date not one has been done. One of the reasons could be the language. Even if you read an Urdu paper everyday, you would need a microscope to read this. It is like doing a crossword puzzle,'' he explains. Breaking new ground in a way, these papers, which had been used for only specialized studies till now -- but captured the lives of the people in this era -- are now finally moving to more ordinary readers. I hope that this book will bring back Delhi into the centre of this event. It was the Capital of Hindustan, which saw one of the largest uprisings in the 19th century. I also hope to make this into an archive, whose worth is incalculable,'' he says. While his books might be reaching out to people who usually stay far from history, Dalrymple feels it is important for Indians busy caught up with the future to look back at their past.

"Indians feel that freedom of speech is for journalism. But freedom of speech is not only about the present, it should permeate into all layers of life. You should be able to talk about Shivaji and his poor administration and Subhash Bose and debate whether he is still alive,'' he says. With figures in history always kept at a distance, like the movie "Lage Raho Munnabhai'' has shown in its filmy way with Gandhi, it is time to make them real again. "The middle class must read history. Otherwise, there will be historical myths. Like the Qutub Minar is a Vishnu observatory or that the Taj Mahal was an ancient temple. What is that? It is little green men and crop circles. It is important to take them off their pedestals and make them alive,'' he says.

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