Oct 13 2024 to Oct 13 2024 6:30 p.m.

EVENT HAS ENDED

Where

Bangalore International Centre

7 4th Main Rd, Stage 2, Domlur 560071

Event Description

Professor Satish Chandra was one of the first historians to shift our attention from the emperors of the Mughal Empire to its people. Drawing upon his works, this lecture highlights the contribution of common people in the formation of the empire. It does this by focusing on two groups that played important roles in the domain of warfare. Firstly, it investigates the vast numbers of mercenaries and armed peasants who served as foot soldiers in the armies. They served as guards, swordsmen, gunners, and archers. Secondly, it studies the pioneers, carpenters, stone-cutters, boatmen, and other workers who toiled in the domain of military logistics. They built roads, constructed bridges, dug tunnels, and looked after the war animals in the course of campaigns. It argues that the participation of vast numbers of common people in these two capacities was key to the functioning of the empire. This implies that the empire was not an elite project created only by emperors, noblemen, and courtiers. Rather, it was a broad-based political entity that rested on the work and involvement of vast sections of the South Asian population.

About Prof. Satish Chandra

Prof. Satish Chandra (1922 – 2017) was a leading authority on Medieval Indian History. In a career spanning nearly 40 years, Prof. Chandra taught history at Allahabad University, Aligarh Muslim University, Delhi University, Rajasthan University, and finally the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), where along with S. Gopal, Bipin Chandra, and Romila Thapar he co-founded the Centre for Historical Studies. In between, from 1972 to 1980 he was first Vice Chairman and then the Chairman of the University Grants Commission. In 1985, along with intellectuals like Prof. Nurul Hasan and marine biologist Dr. Zahoor Qasim, he founded the Society for Indian Ocean Studies which, among other activities, brings out the quarterly Journal for Indian Ocean Studies. Son of Sir Sita Ram, India’s first High Commissioner to Pakistan (1947-48), Prof. Chandra has, along with some other JNU historians, been said to have been a ‘left-leaning historian’ who espoused the Marxist approach to history, and one whose early experiences helped bridge the intellectual gap in interpreting medieval Indian history and modern times.

Speaker

Pratyay Nath Associate Professor of History, Ashoka University

Dr. Pratyay Nath is an Associate Professor of History, at Ashoka University. He is a historian of early modern South Asia, with a focus on the Mughal Empire. He works at the intersection of environmental history, military history, imperial history, and the history of kingship. He is the author of the book Climate of Conquest: War, Environment, and Empire in Mughal North India (Oxford University Press, 2019) and co-editor of The Early Modern in South Asia: Querying Modernity, Periodization, and History (Cambridge University Press, 2022). Nath is one of the editors of The Medieval History Journal. His current projects include co-editing a volume on the history of the horse in South Asia for Cambridge University Press. He writes in English and Bangla and lives in New Delhi and Calcutta.