Commerce and the CROWN

From Akbar's reforms to Aurangzeb's rivalries, Jagjeet Lally's Badshah, Bandar, Bazaar explores how politics, finance, and faith intertwined to shape the empire's fortunes

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Imagine you are the firstborn son of the Mughal badshah. Your forefathers grew a frontier principality into a mighty empire; this they achieved as much by cutting deals with the vanquished and creating a solid institutional base, as by their many glories on the battlefield. You want for nothing, the people are as happy as they'll ever be, money is flowing into the treasury, and life at court has become so magnificent that a steady stream of visitors come from every corner of the globe (and leave astonished). Sooner or later, all this could be yours.

Except not necessarily. Dynastic succession is actually an open contest. Firstborn sons do not automatically succeed their fathers to the Mughal throne: any of your kinsmen may make their bid for power. Fortunately, your uncles and cousins have little chance of success and probably won't try their luck, but this wasn't true in Babur and Humayun's days, when things were very different. You have known all this for as long as you can remember.

Perhaps you are eager to wear the crown, counting down the days until you can take what's rightfully yours—by force, if necessary. Or perhaps knowing you'll someday face your brothers in the open field is too great a torment; could they ever be convinced that you don't care to be king? Of course not, for you are both a rival and a mortal threat so long as you're alive. There's even an old saying that goes ya takht, ya takhta ('either the throne, or the funeral bier').