Shambhavee Sharma

SAA M.A. 2nd Year

Royally present- the Mughals and their art in contemporary times and

popular culture.

It seems evident that, for various possible reasons, the Mughals feature very prominently in

myriad aspects of our (Indian) society, and not just in educational textbooks. From handbags,

pillows, comic strips and popular social media memes, to the clothes we wear, the food we eat

and the comportment we sometimes like to adopt, Mughal intricasies- whether factually accurate

or not- seem to have seeped into our lives, in all probability much to the chagrin of the powers

that be in the corridors of our political housing.

In this paper, I'd like to trace and highlight some of these aftertastes and reproductions of Mughal

lifestyle and art, accompaniments of remnants found scattered across Delhi and India in the form

of our monuments, each contributing to a sense of nostalgia and an unbeatable reality of Mughal

existence and their contribution to our present life and times. The receptacles of Mughal infusion

that I have chosen are popular culture and fashion.

In popular culture, cartoons or comics feature significantly as a mode of visual as well as textual

communication. In contemporary times, they have come to be a strong medium of political

commentary and humour. Interestingly, Aarthi Parthasarthy, a filmmker and artist based out of
Bangalore, has drawn comics in the same vein but using Mughal miniature paintings. She started

the project in 2014, releasing one issue every Friday, and its ensuing success ensured it a run of

more than a year.

The questions that arise are- how do Mughal miniatures feature in popular comic culture? And

why are they being chosen to do so, that too for political effect? What are the aesthetic, semantic,

iconographic and semiotic features, if any, that allow for politics and humour to be effected

through their use in these images and in the manner in which they have been appropriated? How

are the Mughals managing to be of relevance even today? How does art feature

anachronistically?

The series claims its 'motive' to be "...to tell stories of historical and contemporary angst."

Parthasarathy says that she was inspired by the creator of Watermark, David Malki, whose series

uses Victorian images as the pictorial base of his comics. The resultant spark egged her on to

"create a political webcomic that addresses social and feminist issues, but with an uniquely

Indian viewpoint", which is "similarly humorous but utterly Indian"(emphasis mine).

This purported "Indianness" of the comics is an interesting point from which to view the series-

the fact that aspects of Mughal legacy have been picked to represent an "utterly Indian" quality is

something that can be considered mutually contradictory. In the current political regime of

saffronization and attempts to link a pan-Indian identity to a unified 'Hindu' identity, the Mughal

history is under threat of being erased from books and public memory. In such a scenario,

Parthasarathy almost instinctively- possibly even before a cerebral, subversive motive spelled her

choice- chooses to access them. One can only conjecture at what specific features of Mughal art

came to its aid in this situation, that not only bolstered its case against the grain of a mainstream

politics of exclusion, but also towards an idea that was definitive of a nation and its quality
(posited in the indianness that Parthasarathy wants to access for her comics).

This Indianness wants to take into account not just the diversity of India in terms of its history,

religions, regions, cultures and art, but also its politics, fraught with problems of gender and

social (in)equality, religious fervour and debates over democracy. Thus, Parthasarathy's utterly

Indian comic talk about utterly Indian problems, via a "juxtaposition of these images, the opulent

settings with very social and feminist commentary". (Parthasarathy, interview). There is neither a

glorification of Mughal period just by using its art, nor a vilification of it in tandem with

mainstream right-wing politics. However, by the very act of using these miniature paintings,

Parthsarathy makes a claim on them as her very own, as her ancestory and heritage of sorts, the

comfort and said ownership of which makes her usage of them a concordant and obvious one.

The first and foremost technique, as well as mode of efficacy that Parthasarathy uses, is

juxtaposition. Colourful minature paintings are used- each special in its composition- and in a

manner that clearly indicates why it was chosen to deliver on the particular topic of that strip.

Parthasarathy talks about her process, which involves her selection of a miniature if it coincides

in some way with the ideas that have been circulating in her mind, about social conditions or

debates, for that week. For example, in the comic below-

This can be further elucidated by sampling the 'original' miniature from which the strip was born-
The composition of the painting lends itself to being adapted to express the creator's concurrent
ideas on hierarchy and upper class ignorance of it. This can be gathered through the hierarchy of

the man and woman's positions and postures, the woman's folded arms on the man in a doting

manner, the interior of the room suggesting luxury and immense wealth, while also hinting at the

cloistered life of the palace, its members protected from the 'real' suffering outside and ignorant

to it.

While most Royal Existentials strips focus on thriving issues of socio-political concern, quite a

large number are also occupied by a completely different, yet relevant (to contemporary society,

its needs as well as its discourses) concern- an existential one. How are philosophical exigencies

met with by centuries old art? Quite satisfactorily, it seems, for Parthsarathy has a plethora of

strips with existential sighs, questions and statements, and all manage to make a strong point on

account of the successful juxtaposition, as well as evoke laughter.

One reason for this success may be the presence in Mughal art of two kinds of subjects for
painting- scenes of war, chaos, or depicting the mighty populace of the empire with the one lone

king or noble at the top; and portraiture. The startling loneliness of Mughal portraits, whether

they use a monochromatic background or a vast landscape or wilderness, makes an ideal setting

for philosophical and existential musings. The following shall hopefully exemplify these two

scenarios-
Gender
inequality is broached or discussed in a considerable number of issues of the series.

Many Mughal miniatures which have women in them have scope of being read as structured

along lines of inequality, with the woman being lower on the runk or excluded from the main

fulcrum of activities. However, images are not the only way through which information has

passed down and contemporary generations formed their opinions on the Mughals. Ruby Lal in

her work on Princess' memoirs and the Mughal harem, reveals that history writing has been

careless in its treatment of evidence of life in the harem and in Mughal palace, ignoring detailed

memoirs and distorting facts on indecipherable basis. The result is a skewed and obscure idea of

the intricasies and the goings-on of the Mughal harem, which may also be the reason Mughals in

the popular imagination have figured as hedonists who considered women only as pleasure-

givers, and are thus associated with indulgence and sexism.

This might be a major reason that Mughal miniatures become material through which to tackle

and talk about gender inequality, sexism and feminism. The image of a woman in the Mughal

harem with speech bubbles that show her making an intelligent case for feminism, debating with

the king and saying "smash the patriarhy! Smash the monarchy!' becomes insidiously subversive

because of the prevalent idea of Mughal women, which frames them as comparatively silenced

members of the royal, monarchic life.

While the Mughal durbar most probably was a gendered domain- most paintings of the diwan-i-

khaas or diwan-i-aam show only men- Parthsarathy has bent that to her advantage by

appropriating their hypothetical conversation in a way that, whether it was true for that time or

not, is definitely true for ours.

The
NewIndianExpress writes about Royal Existentials as "...bridging the medieval-modern

divide by drawing on elements from both contexts, juxtaposing them as well as making

metatextual comments." There is a certain seamlessness and congrousness with which the

anachronistic image and the very contemporary content of the text go together. A meta-ness is

evident in many strips, eg. in fig. where the text comments on an incomplete portion of the

painting, or in one particular comic where one character is complaining about the speech that is

being forcibly superimposed on her; or, in its most nuanced and politicised form, in the following

one-
In the above, the text and the editing technicques in the artwork are a direct commentary on the

very contemporary event of a twitter movement called "#removemughalsfrombooks.

Parthasarathy used a token from that very time, deep in the past, intercepting her own flow in the

series, to make a comment in real time on an event happening at that very time. However, she

does it in a way that makes it both specific to the event while also detatched from it, such that at a

given time in the future, if one were to read the comic without knowledge of the twitter

movement, it would speak true to them even then given their own specific context. She says,

"While the incident is important...the insight is what is more universal and timeless. I try to write

in a way that gives the insight that quality- so that it is not dated or too rooted in a specific

Geography."

One can understand the potential of Mughal miniatures as base for comic strips also by using

quasi-theoretical frameworks given by Scott McCloud in his book Understanding Comics-

The Invisible Art, which do not amount to strictures in anyway (given the very nature of art and

of popular comic art), but can help grasp basic underlying features and tacitly accepted beliefs of

comics and their practitioners, respectively.

McCloud says, "Generally speaking, the more is said with words, the more the pictures can be

freed to go exploring and vice versa. " Going by this little tenet in the book, the "strips"- which in

their raw form are text-less paintings steeped in an old context- offer periscopic freedom to the

creator in terms of text. He further says, "When pictures carry the weight of clarity in a scene,

they free words to explore a wider area...When a scene shows you all you "need" to know...the

latitide for scripting grows enormously". It can be justifiably asserted that Mughal miniatures,

especially the ones Parthasarathy uses, do 'carry the weight of clarity' on account of their style
and object of depiction. This necessitates a note on this 'kind' of minatures that Parthsarathy

generally uses. In the miniatures she picks, more often than not, one moment of time is frozen, as

if someone posed for it. She rarely uses paintings which depict, say, a chaotic scene of war. But

she does not work with any of the well-known, now easily recognisable Mughal painting from

the zenith of its artistic achievements. Thus, those paintings which have a continuous narrative

embedded in them, or multiple independent things happening simultaneously, are either not

chosen by her or not available to her.

The Mughal period's focus on physicality is another important aspect in considering what makes

it amenable to appropriation as a comic strip. The development in portriture aside, Mughal

painting is remarkable for its acutely observed and impeccably executed postures and dynamic

figures, their movements almost coming to life. While, as observed earlier, Parthasarathy's choice

of miniatures is not from the high and mighty of Mughal painting, an influence on it can

definitely be discerned. The nuances and even idiosyncrasies of Mughal physicality contribute

significantly in creating humour.

No conversation on Indian visual culture of comic books is complete without at least a mention

of Amar Chitra Katha (henceforth ACK). In the history of popular culture in India, ACK deeply

informed comic culture and reading material at a time, especially among young adults,

adoloscents and children. In an interview to The Hindu, Parthasarathy says, "I got a lot of my

sense of history through Amar Chitra Katha and Tintin."

In her book India's Immortal Comic books- Gods, Kings, and Other Heroes, Karline McLain

writes about how figures from history and mythology have been chosen as subjects of the comic

books and dealt with in a manner that was alligned with and reasserted dominant Hindu beliefs,

especially that of supremacy of Hinduism over other religions in India. She informs that stories of
Mughal rulers were introduced to lend a 'secular' voice to the series, which was in response to

criticisms advanced by non right-wing thinkers on the religious and partisan nature of the series.

Headlining the chapter "Muslims as Secular Heroes and Zealous Villains", McLain writes that

although Muslim figures in the form of Mughal rulers were introduced, they were projected in a

certain way. For eg., Akbar was shown as a tolerant, inclusivist ruler, Aurangzeb as a merciless

tyrant who killed Hindus and Shah Jahan as a 'great lover', and in general they were considered

'invaders', occupying a 'binary portrayal' of secular as well as anti-Hindu rulers.

McLain criticises this induction, saying that the 'same formula' was used in these series' as in the

previous mythological tales of gods vs. demons, where gods like Krishna and Rama would

supress demons 'like Putana, Tataka and Ravana'. This would result in a type-casting that created

superimpositions of the semantic and symbolic aspects of the previous celestial-versions over the

later. McLain also talks about the approach to women in the comics, and an iconic image of an

'Indian' woman that is attempted to be formed via the visual and literary text of the series. She

says that through comics such as Shakuntala, Padmini, Shiva Parvati, Saviti, nala Damyanti etc.,

a definition of the Indian woman was sought to be formed, wherein she was ever gentle,

submissive, loyal, an ideal wife and mother, voluptuous and devourable, yet 'pure' and chaste'.

The only exception was Razia Sultan.

This is the comic culture that Parthsarathy had been exposed to. Seen in this lens, Parthasarthy's

series, itself among a whole new crop of comic work whose creators can be linked to ACK at

some point in their lives (in that they had read it in their formative years, been influenced by it

and its aesthetics etc.),can be seen as a direct response to ACK's particular nationalistic, patriotic

and religion-tinged comic tradition. The work as a whole becomes a meta-comic commentary-

while it critiques the social structures the royal Mughals bring with them, it also accesses them to
oppose the context that ACK, as India's 'first' and most well-known, almost defining comic series,

brings with it. Not only at the outset but even in its details, it is directly oppostitional to ACK in

many ways- Parthasarthy does not draw the Mughal miniature she uses, she does not recreate

them from her imagnation and apprpriate them in conscious or sub-conscious ways; rather, she

picks up pre-existing and extant images that fit with her vision and superimposes only text on

them.

Royal Existentials also digresses from conventional comic traditions by the disharmony between

the pictures and associated text. This disharmony would be according to our sensiblites that have

been shaped by an exposure to various contexts- historical, artistic, aesthetic. While ACK's

comics would have a concordant image-text binding that would have allowed it to lend itself to

Derrida's deconstruction, in the case of Royal Existentials the text itself becomes deconstructive-

it deconstructs the image.

Parthsarathy, in collaboration with Chaitanya Krishnan, uses interventions offered by modern

technology to create added effects, thereby enhancing the effectiveness of the strip and creating

humour. Some methods that they use for this are GIFs (Graphics Interchange Format), editing

technicques such as adding colour to the background or effacing colour from the painting as can

be seen in the "Erasure" issue mentioned above. This is an example of the unique way in which

Mughal era paintings are interacting with contemporary art, creativity and technology and

creating a new aesthetic of stand alone work.

Here's a link to all the GIFs created in the course of the series-

http://gallery.wacom.com/gallery/26116753/Royal-Existentials-Animated-GIFs

FASHION

The other region in which Mughal art and times feature is fashion. Collections by designers such

as Pankaj-Nidhi, Shyamal-Bhumika, Ashima-Leena etc., take inspiration from Mughal jewellery

and clothing traditions- or whatever is their impression of it- and declare their work as a

derivation of that.

For eg., in Shyamal and Bhumika's "Indo-Mughal" collection, the 'patka' can be seen featuring in

a broader version of it (below), and without cloth hanging from a knot. Almost all Mughal

paintings show nobles and members of royalty sporting a patka.

The book All About Shoes- Footwear Through The Ages, (by Bata Shoe organisation), says

in the time of the Mughals, followers of Islam, shoes would be made keeping in mind that they

must be easily removeable (as entry to a mosque would require that). Keeping in mind this

concern for practicality and comparing it to the present appropriation of Mughal design, one can

get an idea of the meaning behind items of wear in contemporary times, and how aesthetics and

convenience are negotiated in creating a product of commerce.

This meaning can also be explicated and explored by what Anne Faren, one of the organisers of an

exhibition calledd Beyond Garment (in collaboration with Western Australian Museum and Perth

fashion festival), says- "Today the fashion accessory is developing into a singular artefact, a

vector of both identity and perception. We have a need to express ourselves through the

adornment of the body, using garment, accessories and manipulation of our bodies. All contribute

significantly to the narrative that we communicate about ourselves." Peter J. Fowler, in his
book The Past in Contemporary Society: Then, Now says, "To dress up seems a natural urge,

indulged in from childhood and nothing more than a physical expression of personal fantasy, of

wishing, but perhaps not too seriously, to be someone else." Here we see the ontology of identity

ambiguously oscillating between the self and an other.

Another disigner duo, Ashima-Leena, uses Mughal influence to create something entirely new

and contemporary, out of their own unique sensibility. Talking about their collection 'Mehr-un-

nissa', they say, "...there is so much to take inspiration...from the Mughal era, be it their

architecture, apparels or ornaments. Their luxurious styles, elaborate patterns, with very detailed

and intricate embroidery created a very classic look. Thinking of history, Mughal aesthetics come

naturally to my mind. Movies like Mughal-e- Azam, Pakeezah and Umrao Jaan left an impact on

my mind. And that was my inspiration for ‘Mehr-un-Nissa’". Their stylistic attempts are distinct

in that they are clealy not meant to emulate or re-create the Mughal wardrobe verbatim thereby

presenting to the consumers some sort of 'living history'. Peter J. Fowler says, "'Living History' is

an impossible concept; therefore any attempt to realise it is bound to produce a fraud." Instead,

their work is a very conscious result and assertion of a unique interaction of the Mughal past with

the contemporary reality, creating something which is a bit of both but all of neither.

They claim that they try to 'recreate' an essense of Mughal royalty in their Mughal-inspired label,

'without relying upon redundant elements'. 'Innovation' seems to be of prime importance in their

approach and aesthetics, which is also corroborated by their work. They use brocades, pastels,

colours like gold, fuchsia, peacock green, midnight blue etc. in their attempt to capture the

essence of a Mughal asthetic. They say, "We always use rich fabrics like silks and brocades, the

silhouettes like farshi pyjamas and rich embroideries like zardozi and salma sitara which truly

symbolise Mughal inspiration in every outfit we create...Women who wear Ashima Leena are
those who not only believe in a timeless classic fashion, but also in sophistication and

elegance."
Rhea Singh, daughter of Leena Singh and successor to the label, says, "When you look at

designers from Kolkata, you can immediately spot their aesthetic. For our brand, we shall focus

on Mughal-influenced techniques and styles, vignettes of which will be repeated in all our future

collections." This shows how the 'Mughal' is being appropriated as personal heritage without

regional specificity. The clamour to have a root and an established aesthteic to source from, and

thus gain cultural capital, can be seen here. By linking temselves to the Mughals, they are aiming

for this cultural capital, ensured by the time-tested legacy laid down by the mughal rule, and

adding legitimacy and depth to their creations, which is solidified and layered further by the

contemporary reach and connect.

Herbaut Blau suggests that fashion's relationship with history is one which adds to it

overwhelmingly and forms a substantial part of its contemporary ontology. In his book Nothing

in Itself: Complexions of Fashion, Blau says, "If (names of certain designers)...continue to be

among our most imaginative designers it's largely because of a stylish attentiveness to history,

unexhausted by invention, whose capacities seem to grow when arrested by the past. Fashion is
invention, but with whatever airy imaginings or punkish audacities, a form of retrospection,

maybe rubbing against the grain of history, and emptied of substance without it."

This idea of a seamless coalition of history and creativity can also be seen in Vinay Bahl's essay

"Shifting boundaries of 'Nativity' and 'Modernity' in South Asian Women's Clothes", where he

says that while a plethora of forces contribute to the creation of a particular dress code or style of

a region- local, historical, social, economic, political, colonial and international- and can be

historically explained, they cannot deny the role of human agency, creativity, imagination etc. in

the creation. Putting Ashima-Leena's creations into these perspectives, the act of accessing a past

seems a most natural and obvious act, even inevitable, for the functioning of an industry that

traverses a locus of commerce, market economy, the'fundamental' need of dressing up, aesthetics

and performativity (performance of an identity). It also directly follows that there is the

possibility of this contempo-Mughal fashioned clothing becoming a dominant dress code of this

time.

With history, the idea of 'pastness' also comes in. The questions that the contemporary presence of

Mughal aesthetics give rise to can be dealt with using the idea of a past that still holds meaning for a

present- in the form of desire, aspiration, nostalgia, conscious rejection etc. Peter J. Fowler in his The

Past in Contemporary Society: Then, Now helps to establish this 'pastness' especially with regard

to its reverberations in the present. Calling ours a 'heritage-consuming society', which often treats

heritage as commodity, he says, "All this activity, far from illuminating the past, is actually saying

something profound and poignant about the present...Nostalgia, nevertheless, is one of the most

powerful motives for contemporary uses of the past."

This nostalgia is deemed fastened with personal notions, such as those of comfort, especially in

this fast-paced world where existential crisis seems a potent threat lurking around the corner (as
glimpsed in Parthsarathy's recurrent existential-themed comic issues). Fowler says, "Often they

speak (collections), maybe in a small, quiet voice, of craftsmanship, even of a different and better

scale of moral and social values; and though such meaning may be read into them rather than be

explicit, they characteristically provide for hassled lives little oases of calm and contemplation in

their 'other-ageness', in their seeming permanence as a unique collection fashioned in a personal

image."

Of course, this past is also configured in the present to define and redefine the past- often in

accordance with what the present wants it to be. Here, the past clearly becomes prey to the needs

of modernity to have roots that they imagine they must have. Fowler- "After all, a very proper

function of the past now is psychological, impressionistically reinforcing in a self- perpetuating

cycle popular expectation of what the visible, tangible past ought to be."

In fashion, Mughal presence has clear ostentatious significations as well. In "From Zenana to

cinema: The impact of royal aesthetics on Bollywood film", Angma Dey Jhala writes that while

the presence of the influence of zenana and courtly culture of pre-Independence India in popular

culture betrays a 'longing for the past', it also is a clear assertion and display of 'India's present

day prosperity'. She says that this backtracking to these manganimous old royal cultures of India

showcases "both the institutions of India's past as well as her current buoyancy and dynamic

fiscal growth as a potential leader in a post-Cold War economic and geopolitical climate".

Tenors and shades of crass consumerism are explicit in the figurations of these reclamations. In

the book, Fowler gives the example of contemporary sport to show how, in order to feed it's

increasingly commercial nature, it is going back to its history and 'peddling its traditions', saying

that "as more and more sport goes commercial, so the tendency inceases to look back to the good

old days of the amateur and to use the past and its virtues as promotional material in the
contemporary, competitive world of sponsorship, TV deals and professionalism."

Given our current landscape- especially in a city like Delhi- with its juxtaposition of modern

architecture- glass-bound houses, offices and some crumbling buildings- and extant Mughal

architecture of lofty tomb-domes, lush gardens and deep baolis, the Mughals anyway feature with

consistency in our visual vocabulary and territorial imagination. Just as 'right next to Humayun's

tomb' is a legimitate directive, proving our unhesitant claim over these monuments, a 'Mughal'-

inspired garment, fashioned for this age, also cherishes in its folds the same terms of endearment

and conditions of avowal. As Fowler says, "Such figures from the past...are particulary

commemorable when they were, or can be, linked to a particular place, a past landscape and

preferably one recognisably surviving ino the present". (Ibid.) This bringing into present of the

Mughals is phenomenon that can be seen through through the lens of history, historiography,

nostalgia, cultural capital, politics, subversion, commerce, humour, entertainment, aesthetics and

creativity. They- the Mughals- mean myriad ideas to us- ideas that have been formed by many

sources that are around us or have 'come down to us'. Some of these find expression in mediums

such as have been explored in this paper. Through these the Mughals yet survive in poly- and

meta-morphous ways, enlivened in the flux of creativity and production, weaving their paths

along and across the domes that still retain the impressions left by their creators centuries ago.

CITATIONS:

1. McCloud, Scott, and Mark Martin. Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. (New York,

NY: William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, 2014).

2. Fowler, P. J. The past In Contemporary Society: Then, Now. (London: Routledge, 2001).

3. Blau, Herbert. Nothing In Itself: Complexions of Fashion. (Bloomington (Ind.): Indiana

University Press, 1999).

4. Jhala, Angma Dey. "From Zenana to cinema: The impact of royal aesthetics on Bollywood

film." In Popular Culture in a Globalised India, 139-53. (Oxon: Routledge, 2009).

5. McLain, Karline. "Muslims as Secular Heroes and Zealous Villains". In Immortal Comic books-

Gods, Kings, and Other Heroes, 141-170. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2009).

6. McLain, Karline. "Long-Suffering Wives and Self-Sacrificing Queens." In Immortal Comic

books- Gods, Kings, and Other Heroes, 52-86. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2009).

7. Faren, Anne . "Beyond Garment." Western Australian Museum.

http://museum.wa.gov.au/beyond-garment/essays/index.html#beyond-garment.

8. Chatterjee, Arundhati. "Royal Existentials: A parallel between opulent monarchic societies and

the modern world". November 26, 2014. http://www.hindustantimes.com/art-and-culture/royal-

existentials-a-parallel-between-opulent-mo narchic-societies-and-the-modern-world/story-

8h7UCPlWLQCOPs3QSzG10O.html

9. Royal Existentials. http://www.royalexistentials.com/