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5 - A Jagirdar’s Lament

An Indo-Persian Historian’s Appeal to the British Empire

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 September 2022

Robert Travers
Affiliation:
Cornell University, New York
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Summary

Sayyid Ghulam Husain Khan Tabataba’i (b. 1727) is best known as the author of the most comprehensive Persian history of eighteenth century India – the Siyar-ul-muta’akhkhirin. This chapter situates Ghulam Husain’s well-known history in the context his much less well-known political career as a late Mughal official and landholder (jagirdar). It argues that this history, sometimes read as a precociously ‘anti-colonial’ text, also constituted a kind of petition of appeal, a form of legal self-representation, designed both to defend Ghulam Husain’s family landholdings (jagirs) in Bihar as a form of hereditary property, and more broadly to persuade the East India Company government to restore the once-great Mughal system of intizam, or proper order, including Mughal practices of responsive and consultative rulership.Ghulam Husain’s history gives a petitioner’s-eye view of the Company state, showing how state-oriented late Mughal elites turned to the Company government after the destruction of the nawabi regime in an effort to secure their rights and status – drawing on the historical memory and documentary record of Mughal practices of legal entitlement.

Type
Chapter
Information
Empires of Complaints
Mughal Law and the Making of British India, 1765–1793
, pp. 205 - 240
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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  • A Jagirdar’s Lament
  • Robert Travers, Cornell University, New York
  • Book: Empires of Complaints
  • Online publication: 08 September 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009127882.009
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  • A Jagirdar’s Lament
  • Robert Travers, Cornell University, New York
  • Book: Empires of Complaints
  • Online publication: 08 September 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009127882.009
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • A Jagirdar’s Lament
  • Robert Travers, Cornell University, New York
  • Book: Empires of Complaints
  • Online publication: 08 September 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009127882.009
Available formats
×