Faithful Aurangzeb relied on many astrologers

To most of us, the Mughal story starts in the forenoon of April 21, 1526, when a corps of 12,000 defeated an army of one lakh in just four hours on the plains of Panipat.

- R. PRASANNAN

The history of India changed at that noon when Babur, a warlord from Fergana, prevailed over Ibrahim Lodi, the sultan of Delhi. But M.J. Akbar's After Me, Chaos starts the Mughal story two 'generations' later, with the birth of Babar's grandson Jalaluddin Muhammad Akbar. For two reasons.

The book opens with the first reason. The birth didn't happen exactly in the manner in which it was ordained by nature. A soothsayer—to use a pejorative word—intervened to alter what everyone thought was God's will. The royal astrologer, who decided that the queen's labour pain was occurring at an inauspicious hour, intervened in a hideous manner, and got the boy born at a time he willed!

The second reason is given at the end of the book—in the very last paragraph of the last chapter. Writes the author: “Both Babur and Humayun would have been forgotten even by the footnotes of history but for Akbar, a reflection of the dazzling light... of that Venus of fortune, the goddess Alanqua.” Yes, there wouldn't have been a Mughal empire, but for Akbar. Goddess Alanqua for a Muslim dynasty? Yes, a goddess of the 'pagan' eastern Turkic Khans, she was a virgin mother like Mary, but the Mughals took pride in tracing their heritage to her. “Alanqua was crucial to Akbar's cosmic identity,” writes the author. “Pride in this heritage was proclaimed in official history, and this was never denied or diluted by any successor, not even the friend of faith, Aurangzeb. For that matter, even Aurangzeb had astrologers in his court who told him when to enter a city, when to start a battle, and when to receive guests in the durbar.