Twilight of the Moghuls

The events of the period between 1761 after the battle of Panipat and the anti-British uprising 1857 that led to the establishment of British sovereignty in India, were marked by power politics and intrigues. This period of the ‘Twilight of the Moghuls’ saw the corrosion of power of the descendants of the house of Timur, ultimately confirming their nominal authority to the areas in and around Delhi. Set against this background, Percival Spear has admirably described in all its grim detail the story of the Late Mughul Delhi which was intimately bound up with this drama. Starting his studies, with a sketch of the ‘Kingdom of Delhi’ between 1761 and 1803 when the kingdom went under the control of the Marathas until the British conquest, Percival Spear has tried to analyse the factors leading to the British domination. The second part of the book deals with the period between 1803 and 1857 and consists of three sections: the Mughuls and the British, the international life of the Mughul family, and the British administration of the Delhi territory. While the first two sections seek to show the intimate details of life of the period, the third describes Sir Charles Metcalfe’s ‘Delhi System’ which was the foundation of his reputation and shows ‘how that system had the defects of its virtues and how the desire for improvement led to harmful interference.’ The study is completed by the picture of Delhi during and immediately after 1857. The accounts given by Dr. Spear in these chapters are ‘brief and accurate’ and he approaches the story from a refreshingly new angle. In this rare penetration to the analysis of the character of Bahadur Shah, the last Mughul emperor, about whom he has written with sympathy and kindness, he is never swayed by over-enthusiasm in either defending him or the others connected with the fateful events of 1857. For this brilliantly documented account, Percival Spear has drawn from all the available sources. Thus, while for the first section of the book he has largely tried to analyze and coordinate the primary and secondary material, he has made use of the official records, parliamentary papers, diaries and memoirs and private papers for the second and the third section of the book dealing with Mughuls and the British, the British life in Delhi, the Colebrooke case, the Fraser murder and the 1857 uprising. Some of the materials have been used for the first time in this book. The reader will find in it much information and an interpretation at once sensitive and personal, giving life to a period too often buried under a mass of detail.