ASHA: Blast From The Past

Across the world, monuments stand as silent witnesses to the long and often complex histories of civilizations. They embody the artistic labour of generations and preserve the layered memories of societies that have risen, interacted, and transformed over centuries. When such monuments are destroyed, the act is rarely neutral. It is almost always a political gesture, an attempt to rewrite the past by obliterating its visible traces. The recent damage to historic sites in Iran during military strikes once again reminds us how vulnerable humanity’s cultural heritage remains to ideological aggression and militarized power. When viewed alongside two earlier acts of cultural vandalism, the demolition of the Babri Masjid in India in 1992 and the Taliban’s destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan in 2001, the disturbing parallels become unmistakable.

Iran possesses one of the most continuous and richly layered civilizational landscapes in the world. From Achaemenid ruins and Sasanian reliefs to Safavid mosques and Qajar palaces, its monuments reflect more than two millennia of cultural creativity. Structures such as the Golestan Palace in Tehran or the historic complexes of Isfahan represent not merely national symbols but global cultural treasures. Yet in contemporary geopolitical conflict, such heritage becomes dangerously exposed. Military strikes undertaken by powerful states in pursuit of strategic objectives frequently occur in or around historic urban centres, and the resulting shockwaves, fires, and structural damage do not distinguish between military installations and centuries-old monuments. Whether the destruction is intentional or dismissed as “collateral damage,” the effect remains the same: irreplaceable fragments of human history are placed at risk by the calculations of modern warfare. The willingness with which cultural landscapes are exposed to destruction reflects a troubling assumption—that the imperatives of military power can override the universal value of humanity’s heritage.

If wartime damage often occurs under the cloak of strategic necessity, the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan was a more nakedly ideological act. In March 2001, the Taliban regime deliberately dynamited two colossal sixth-century statues that had stood for over fourteen centuries in the Bamiyan valley. These statues were not merely religious icons; they were testimonies to Afghanistan’s historical role as a crossroads of civilizations along the Silk Road. The Taliban justified their destruction in the language of religious orthodoxy, claiming that the statues represented idolatry. Yet the ideological logic behind the act was unmistakable: the Buddhas embodied a plural and cosmopolitan past that the regime sought to erase. By reducing them to rubble, the Taliban attempted to eliminate visible reminders of a cultural history that did not conform to their rigid ideological worldview. The destruction therefore represented not simply iconoclasm but an attempt to obliterate historical memory itself.

A comparable impulse to reshape the past through the destruction of monuments was visible in the demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya on 6 December 1992. Built in the sixteenth century during the Mughal period, the mosque had stood for centuries as part of the architectural and historical landscape of North India. Yet in the late twentieth century it became the focal point of an aggressively mobilized political movement that sought to recast the monument as a symbol of historical grievance. Through sustained propaganda and mass mobilization, organizations associated with the ideology of Hindutva transformed the mosque into a political target. When a mobilized crowd demolished the structure in full public view, the act was celebrated by its perpetrators as the correction of history. What was in fact destroyed, however, was not merely a mosque but a historical monument that had borne witness to centuries of cultural coexistence in the subcontinent. The demolition marked the triumph of mythologized narratives over historical scholarship and unleashed waves of communal violence that scarred the social fabric of India.

Although the contexts differ: state-led military operations in Iran, ideological extremism in Afghanistan, and majoritarian mobilization in India, the underlying logic linking these acts of destruction is disturbingly similar. In each case, monuments become targets not because of their physical presence but because of the historical meanings they carry. Cultural heritage often embodies plural and layered pasts that resist simplistic narratives of identity. For ideological movements and militarized states alike, such complexity can be inconvenient. The destruction of monuments thus becomes a means of simplifying history, of erasing reminders of diversity, coexistence, and shared cultural inheritance.

There is also a profound hypocrisy in how such acts are justified. Those responsible frequently cloak themselves in the language of moral righteousness while committing acts that violate the most basic principles of cultural preservation. The Taliban claimed to defend religious purity while annihilating one of the world’s greatest artistic legacies. The mobs that demolished the Babri Masjid proclaimed historical justice while destroying a monument that had stood as part of India’s historical landscape for centuries. Powerful states conducting military strikes invoke strategic necessity while dismissing the damage inflicted upon historic sites as unfortunate collateral loss. In each case, rhetoric serves to mask what is fundamentally an act of cultural vandalism.

The losses inflicted by such acts are immeasurable. Monuments represent centuries of craftsmanship, artistic imagination, and collective memory. When they are destroyed, no reconstruction can restore the historical authenticity that has been lost. The Bamiyan Buddhas cannot be recreated in their original form; the Babri Masjid cannot be returned to the landscape of early modern India; and the damage inflicted upon Iranian heritage sites threatens a civilizational continuum that has endured for millennia. What disappears in such moments is not merely architecture but the tangible presence of history itself.

These episodes reveal a disturbing reality of the modern world: cultural heritage has increasingly become a battlefield upon which ideological and geopolitical struggles are waged. Instead of being protected as the shared inheritance of humanity, monuments are treated as expendable symbols within larger political agendas. The stones of Bamiyan, the ruins of Ayodhya, and the endangered heritage of Iran together remind us that the destruction of monuments is rarely accidental; it is almost always the product of deliberate human choices driven by power, ideology, or the desire to impose a singular narrative upon the past.

It is therefore imperative to condemn unequivocally all attempts to destroy cultural heritage, whether carried out in the name of religion, nationalism, or geopolitical domination. The deliberate targeting or reckless endangerment of historic monuments represents not only an attack upon a nation’s past but upon the cultural inheritance of humanity itself.

The Zionist-fascist aggression that places Iran’s historic sites in peril today must be condemned with the same moral clarity with which the world condemned the Taliban’s destruction of Bamiyan and the demolition of the Babri Masjid by the Hindutva goons. Cultural heritage belongs to all humankind, and any ideology or power that seeks to erase it stands condemned before history.

• Syed Ali Nadeem Rezavi

The study of technological developments in India between 800 and 1200 CE has been closely tied to broader historiographical debates about the character of early medieval Indian society and economy. Historians such as D. D. Kosambi, R. S. Sharma, B. D. Chattopadhyaya, Burton Stein, and Irfan Habib have approached the period from different perspectives, but they broadly agree that technological change must be examined within the larger processes of agrarian expansion, regional state formation, and the growth of artisanal production. Unlike the dramatic technological revolutions associated with early modern Europe, technological change in early medieval India was largely incremental and cumulative. Yet these gradual transformations played a significant role in expanding the productive capacity of the economy and integrating regional societies into wider networks of trade and exchange.

One of the most important technological foundations of early medieval economic change was the widespread use and refinement of iron technology, particularly in agricultural implements. The significance of iron in the agrarian expansion of the subcontinent had already been highlighted by D. D. Kosambi, who argued that the diffusion of iron tools facilitated the clearing of forests and the extension of cultivation into new regions. R. S. Sharma later developed this insight further in his influential work Indian Feudalism, where he linked the spread of iron ploughshares and axes to the establishment of new agrarian settlements, particularly in eastern India and the Deccan. According to Sharma, the proliferation of land grants to Brahmanas and religious institutions often led to the colonisation of forested areas, a process that depended materially upon the availability of iron tools for clearing land and cultivating heavy soils. The increasing use of iron ploughshares enabled cultivators to work dense alluvial soils more effectively, thereby expanding the agricultural frontier and increasing the production of surplus.

While Sharma interpreted these developments within a broader framework of feudalization and ruralisation, later historians such as B. D. Chattopadhyaya have emphasized the regional diversity of these processes. Chattopadhyaya has argued that the expansion of agrarian settlements was not simply a result of top-down land grants but also involved complex interactions between local communities, political authorities, and ecological conditions. Technological change—particularly the use of iron tools and improved cultivation techniques—played a crucial role in enabling these transformations. The spread of agriculture into forested and marginal regions fundamentally altered the landscape of early medieval India, contributing to the emergence of new villages, local markets, and regional political centres.

Closely connected with agrarian expansion were developments in irrigation technology, which allowed cultivators to stabilise agricultural production in environments subject to seasonal rainfall variability. Early medieval inscriptions and literary sources refer to several devices used for lifting water from wells and rivers. Among these was the araghatta, a mechanical water-lifting device consisting of a rotating wheel fitted with a chain of earthen pots that raised water from wells through continuous motion. The araghatta appears in both textual descriptions and iconographic representations and seems to have been widely used in northern India. Other water-lifting devices included the shaduf, a counterbalanced lever mechanism, and the charasa, a leather bucket raised by animal power. Such devices enabled irrigation from wells and small reservoirs and were particularly important in semi-arid regions where rainfall was unreliable.

In South India, irrigation technology reached a particularly sophisticated level during the period of the Chola dynasty. Large artificial tanks and reservoirs were constructed to collect monsoon water and distribute it to agricultural fields through canals and sluice systems. These irrigation works were often managed collectively by village assemblies, which organized the maintenance of embankments and the regulation of water distribution. Burton Stein has emphasized that such irrigation systems were central to the functioning of the Chola state and to the prosperity of the Kaveri delta. The technological complexity of these hydraulic systems illustrates the close relationship between engineering knowledge, local institutional organization, and agricultural production.

Metallurgical technology also reached notable levels of sophistication during the early medieval period. India had long possessed an advanced tradition of iron and steel production, and this expertise continued to flourish between the ninth and twelfth centuries. One of the most remarkable products of Indian metallurgy was crucible steel, commonly known as wootz steel. This high-carbon steel was produced by heating iron with carbonaceous materials in sealed crucibles, allowing the metal to absorb carbon and acquire exceptional hardness and flexibility. Wootz steel was widely exported to West Asia, where it became famous for its use in the manufacture of high-quality blades. Medieval Arabic writers frequently praised Indian steel for its superior quality, and the material eventually became associated with the celebrated Damascus swords of the Islamic world.

The production of such steel required considerable technical knowledge, including control over furnace temperatures, fuel composition, and cooling processes. As Irfan Habib has emphasized in his studies of medieval Indian technology, the manufacture of wootz steel demonstrates the existence of highly specialized metallurgical skills among Indian craftsmen. These techniques were transmitted through artisanal traditions and often remained confined to particular regions or communities.

Metalworking extended beyond iron and steel to include the production of copper and bronze objects. The casting of bronze sculptures in South India reached extraordinary levels of technical and artistic excellence during the Chola period. Using the lost-wax casting method, artisans produced bronze icons of remarkable elegance and precision. The creation of such sculptures required detailed knowledge of mould preparation, alloy composition, and casting techniques. These bronzes not only served religious purposes but also testify to the sophisticated metallurgical practices of early medieval India.

Another area in which technological skill was prominently displayed was architecture and construction, particularly in temple building. The early medieval centuries witnessed a remarkable proliferation of monumental temples across the subcontinent. Builders developed advanced techniques for quarrying, transporting, and shaping large stone blocks, as well as for constructing complex superstructures. The temples of Khajuraho, Bhubaneswar, and Thanjavur represent some of the most impressive examples of early medieval architecture.

The Brihadisvara temple at Thanjavur, constructed in the early eleventh century under Rajaraja I, stands as a striking example of engineering skill and architectural planning. Built largely of granite—a material not readily available in the immediate vicinity—the temple required the transport and assembly of massive stone blocks. Scholars have suggested that long earthen ramps may have been constructed to raise these blocks to the upper levels of the temple tower. Such projects required not only technical expertise but also the mobilization of large numbers of skilled artisans and labourers.

Technological developments were equally important in the sphere of textile production, which remained one of the most important sectors of the Indian economy. India had long been renowned for its cotton textiles, and early medieval artisans continued to refine the techniques of spinning, weaving, and dyeing. Vijaya Ramaswamy has shown that textile production relied upon highly specialized craft communities whose skills were transmitted through hereditary training. Indian artisans developed sophisticated dyeing techniques using vegetable dyes to produce textiles of vivid colours and intricate patterns. Techniques such as resist dyeing and block printing were widely practiced in western India, while weaving centres in Gujarat, Bengal, and the Deccan supplied both domestic markets and overseas trade.

Maritime technology also played an important role in sustaining long-distance trade during the early medieval centuries. Indian shipbuilders constructed large ocean-going vessels capable of navigating the monsoon routes of the Indian Ocean. Many of these ships were built using the technique of sewn-plank construction, in which wooden planks were stitched together with coir ropes rather than fastened with metal nails. This technique allowed ships to remain flexible and resilient during long voyages. Knowledge of monsoon wind patterns enabled merchants to undertake regular voyages linking Indian ports with those of Southeast Asia, China, and the Middle East. Such maritime connections contributed significantly to the circulation of goods, technologies, and cultural influences across the Indian Ocean world.

Despite these achievements, historians have debated the broader implications of technological change during this period. R. S. Sharma once argued that the early medieval economy exhibited signs of decline in long-distance trade and urban activity, partly due to the rise of feudal structures. In contrast, scholars such as B. D. Chattopadhyaya and Irfan Habib have suggested that while certain regions may have experienced economic contraction, others witnessed significant growth and technological development. Habib has emphasized that technological innovations in medieval India were often gradual refinements within established craft traditions rather than sudden breakthroughs. The absence of large-scale mechanization should therefore not be interpreted as technological stagnation; rather, it reflects the specific social and economic conditions under which technology developed.

In conclusion, the centuries between 800 and 1200 CE witnessed significant technological developments in agriculture, irrigation, metallurgy, architecture, textiles, and maritime activity. These developments were closely connected to the expansion of agrarian production, the growth of craft industries, and the increasing integration of India into wider networks of trade and exchange. As historians such as Kosambi, Sharma, Chattopadhyaya, Stein, and Habib have demonstrated, technological change in early medieval India cannot be understood in isolation from the social structures and economic processes that shaped it. Instead, technology formed an integral part of the evolving relationship between society, environment, and production in early medieval South Asia.

References

Chattopadhyaya, B. D. The Making of Early Medieval India. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1994.

Habib, Irfan. Technology in Medieval India c. 650–1750. New Delhi: Tulika Books, 2008.

Habib, Irfan. Medieval India: The Study of a Civilization. New Delhi: National Book Trust, 2007.

Kosambi, D. D. An Introduction to the Study of Indian History. Bombay: Popular Prakashan, 1956.

Ramaswamy, Vijaya. Textiles and Weavers in Medieval South India. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1985.

Sharma, R. S. Indian Feudalism. New Delhi: Macmillan, 1980.

Stein, Burton. Peasant State and Society in Medieval South India. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1980.

Chaudhuri, K. N. Trade and Civilisation in the Indian Ocean. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985.

• Syed Ali Nadeem Rezavi

Muhammad taught humanity the path of justice;

Husain ensured that path would never perish.

Karbala as the DNA of Shiʿi Identity

Among the many historical events that have shaped the religious and emotional universe of Islam, few have exercised the enduring influence of the tragedy of Karbala. For the Shiʿa, Karbala is not merely an episode in early Islamic history; it is the central moral drama that defines their worldview, their ritual life, and their collective memory. To say that Karbala is the DNA of the Shias is therefore not merely a metaphorical flourish. It reflects the profound manner in which the narrative, symbolism, and ethical message of Karbala permeate Shiʿi theology, ritual practice, historical consciousness, and political imagination.

The Historical Moment

The event of Karbala occurred in 680 CE (61 AH) when Imam Ḥusayn ibn ʿAlī, the grandson of the Prophet Muḥammad, refused to acknowledge the legitimacy of the Umayyad ruler Yazid ibn Muʿāwiya. Ḥusain’s refusal was not a mere political rebellion but a moral protest against what he perceived as the corruption of the Islamic polity. Accompanied by a small group of family members and companions, he was surrounded by the forces of the Umayyad governor of Kufa on the plains of Karbala in present-day Iraq. On the tenth day of Muḥarram—ʿĀshūrāʾ—Ḥusain and his companions were killed after days of thirst and siege, while the surviving women and children were taken captive.

While the immediate historical significance of Karbala was limited in military or political terms, its symbolic power proved immense. The death of the Prophet’s grandson under such circumstances was perceived by many as a moral catastrophe for the Muslim community. Among the Shiʿa, however, the event came to represent the eternal struggle between justice and tyranny.

Karbala as Moral Archetype

For the Shiʿa, Karbala functions as a moral template that transcends time and place. Imam Ḥusayn is not remembered merely as a historical figure but as the embodiment of resistance against injustice. His stand is interpreted as a conscious act of martyrdom intended to preserve the ethical integrity of Islam. In Shiʿi devotional literature, this moment becomes the paradigmatic example of the Qurʾanic injunction to “enjoin good and forbid evil.”

Thus Karbala is not simply remembered, it is constantly reinterpreted. Every generation is invited to ask: who is the Ḥusain of our time, and who is the Yazid? The story becomes a moral grammar through which contemporary events are understood. This interpretive flexibility explains why the symbolism of Karbala has been invoked in various historical struggles, from medieval sectarian conflicts to modern political movements.

Ritual Memory and Collective Identity

If Karbala is the genetic code of Shiʿi identity, its rituals are the mechanisms through which that code is transmitted from generation to generation. The annual commemoration of Muḥarram, culminating in the rituals of ʿĀshūrāʾ and Arbaʿīn, constitutes one of the most elaborate cycles of religious mourning in the world.

Majālis (mourning assemblies), mars̱iya poetry, noha recitations, taʿziya passion plays, and processions serve not merely as acts of remembrance but as reenactments of the tragedy. Through these rituals, believers are emotionally and spiritually transported to Karbala. The participants become witnesses to the suffering of Ḥusain and his companions, and in doing so they renew their allegiance to his cause.

This ritualized memory creates a powerful sense of community. The Shiʿa across different cultures, whether in Iran, Iraq, South Asia, Lebanon, or the diaspora, share a common emotional vocabulary rooted in Karbala. The lamentations of Muḥarram thus function as a cultural and religious adhesive binding together disparate communities.

Karbala in Shiʿi Theology

The theological significance of Karbala lies in its connection to the doctrine of Imamate. In Shiʿi belief, the Imams are not merely political leaders but divinely guided authorities who safeguard the true interpretation of Islam. The martyrdom of Imam Ḥusain therefore represents the suffering of legitimate authority at the hands of illegitimate power.

Over centuries, Shiʿi scholars developed a rich theology of martyrdom centred on Karbala. The martyrdom of Ḥusain is understood as redemptive in a spiritual sense: his sacrifice awakened the conscience of the Muslim community and ensured that tyranny would never go unchallenged. This idea is captured in the famous maxim often attributed to Shiʿi devotional tradition: “Every day is ʿĀshūrāʾ and every land is Karbala.”

Cultural and Literary Expressions

The narrative of Karbala has generated an immense literary and artistic tradition. Persian, Arabic, and Urdu literatures are replete with elegiac poetry commemorating the tragedy. The mars̱iya tradition of Lucknow, perfected by poets such as Mir Anis and Mirza Dabeer, elevated the story of Karbala into one of the most sophisticated forms of classical Urdu poetry.

Similarly, the dramatic performances of taʿziya in Iran and South Asia transformed the narrative into a form of sacred theatre. Visual arts, calligraphy, and shrine architecture, especially at Karbala and Najaf, have also been profoundly shaped by this tradition. Through these mediums, the story of Ḥusayn has been woven into the cultural fabric of Shiʿi societies.

Karbala and Political Consciousness

Karbala has also played a significant role in shaping Shiʿi political thought. The symbolism of resistance embodied in Imam Ḥusain has frequently been invoked during periods of oppression. In modern times, the Iranian Revolution of 1979 famously mobilized the imagery of Karbala, portraying the struggle against tyranny as a reenactment of Ḥusain’s stand against Yazid.

Yet the political interpretation of Karbala is not uniform. For many believers, the lesson of Karbala lies not in revolutionary activism but in moral steadfastness and spiritual resistance. The event thus accommodates a spectrum of interpretations ranging from quietist piety to militant opposition.

Conclusion

To describe Karbala as the DNA of the Shiʿa is to recognize that it functions as the foundational code from which Shiʿi identity derives its meaning. It shapes theology through the doctrine of martyrdom, ritual through the commemorations of Muḥarram, literature through elegiac poetry, and politics through the symbolism of resistance.

More than a historical memory, Karbala is a living narrative. It provides a moral compass that continues to guide the ethical and spiritual life of Shiʿi communities across the world. Through centuries of repetition in ritual, poetry, and collective memory, the message of Imam Husain: resistance to injustice and fidelity to truth, remains embedded in the very cultural and spiritual genome of the Shiʿa.

“Muharram is the month in which justice rose up against oppression, and truth confronted falsehood.”

• Ayatollah Khomeini

• Syed Ali Nadeem Rezavi

Culture has been one of the most central and debated concepts in the social sciences, history, and anthropology, used to explain how human societies organise life, produce meaning, and transmit values across generations. At its most comprehensive level, culture refers to the socially acquired ways of life of a group of people, their beliefs, customs, norms, values, knowledge systems, institutions, artistic expressions, and everyday practices. It is not biologically inherited but learned and shared. This holistic understanding was classically articulated by EB Tylor , who defined culture as “that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.” Tylor’s definition has remained influential because it captures culture as an integrated totality rather than a set of isolated traits.

Culture manifests itself in both material and non-material forms. Material culture refers to tangible objects produced and used by human beings, ie., tools, technologies, buildings, monuments, clothing, utensils, books, machines, and works of art. Roads, dams, temples, mosques, forts, factories, railways, and digital devices all belong to this sphere. In the Indian context, historians have shown how material culture reveals patterns of production, power, and social organisation: from Harappan urban planning and Mauryan pillars to Mughal architecture and colonial infrastructure. Yet material culture is never merely physical. A monument such as the Taj Mahal is not only marble and geometry but also an expression of imperial authority, aesthetic sensibility, religious symbolism, and historical memory. Thus, material culture is always embedded in non-material meanings.

Non-material culture consists of abstract elements such as beliefs, values, norms, customs, language, symbols, emotions, and ideas. Religion, kinship, caste, moral codes, rituals, festivals, and social institutions belong to this realm. Sociologist Emili Durkheim conceptualised such shared beliefs and practices as the collective conscience, arguing that they bind individuals into a moral community and provide social cohesion. In India, this insight has been particularly useful in understanding the social role of ritual, pilgrimage, festivals, and collective religious practices, which function not only as expressions of faith but also as mechanisms of social integration.

Cultural heritage refers to those aspects of culture that societies value and consciously preserve. It may be tangible, viz. monuments, manuscripts, artefacts, historic buildings, or intangible, such as oral traditions, music, dance, rituals, festivals, local knowledge systems, and traditional skills. Indian scholars and institutions have long emphasised the importance of intangible heritage, especially in a society where much cultural transmission historically occurred through oral traditions rather than written texts. Folk songs, epics, storytelling traditions, craft knowledge, and culinary practices are crucial repositories of historical experience and social memory.

Culture is also deeply shaped by social hierarchy and power. Distinctions between elite or “high” culture and popular or folk culture reflect unequal access to education, leisure, and cultural capital. Classical music, courtly literature, and fine arts have often been associated with elites, while folk traditions, oral epics, and local rituals have been rooted in everyday life. In the Indian context, scholars such as NK Bose highlighted how popular and folk cultures are not residual or inferior forms but dynamic systems that adapt creatively to social change, often mediating between tradition and modernity.

Critical perspectives have drawn attention to the relationship between culture and material conditions. Karl Marx argued that culture forms part of the ideological superstructure shaped by economic relations. This insight was powerfully adapted to Indian history by DD Kosambi, who viewed culture as a product of historical material conditions and social formations. Kosambi demonstrated how religious forms, myths, and cultural practices in India could be historically analysed in relation to changes in modes of production, class relations, and social structure. His work marked a decisive shift away from viewing Indian culture as timeless or purely spiritual, grounding it instead in historical processes.

At the same time, interpretive approaches have emphasised culture as a system of meaning. Clifford Geertz described culture as webs of significance through which human beings make sense of the world. In the Indian context, scholars such as AK Ramanujan extended this interpretive sensitivity to folklore, oral traditions, and classical texts, showing how multiple cultural logics coexist and how meanings shift across contexts, regions, and languages. Ramanujan’s work underscored the plurality and layered nature of Indian culture, where “many pasts” and “many traditions” operate simultaneously.

A key analytical distinction in sociological thought is between ideal culture and real culture. Ideal culture consists of norms, values, and ideals that a society holds up as goals, articulated in religious doctrines, moral codes, constitutions, and textbooks. Real culture refers to actual practices in everyday life. In India, this distinction has been particularly useful in understanding religion and social reform. Sociologist MN Srinivas, through concepts such as Sanskritisation and dominant caste, showed how ideals derived from textual or elite traditions are selectively adopted, adapted, or negotiated in lived social practice. The gap between ideal prescriptions and social realities thus becomes a key site for historical and sociological analysis.

Culture in India has also been examined historically through its long-term continuities and transformations. Historian Romila Thapar has emphasised that Indian culture cannot be understood as a monolithic or unchanging entity. Instead, it has been shaped by historical interactions, debates, contestations, and reinterpretations—whether in religious traditions, political ideologies, or social institutions. Similarly, Irfan Habib has drawn attention to the material and social bases of cultural forms, linking intellectual and cultural developments to agrarian structures, state formation, and class relations.

When applied to India, therefore, culture cannot be reduced to a single set of values or practices. Indian culture represents a vast, plural, and evolving civilisational continuum shaped by regional diversity, linguistic plurality, religious traditions, and historical encounters. From Kashmir to Kanyakumari and from Kutch to Arunachal Pradesh, each region and community articulates culture differently through food habits, dress, rituals, festivals, art forms, and social norms. Culture here is best understood not as a fixed essence but as a historically produced and continuously negotiated way of life.

Culture is not merely a list of customs that people consciously follow. It is deeply internalised through socialisation from birth and shapes modes of thinking, perception, and emotional response. This is why cultural dispositions often persist even when people migrate or live outside their place of origin. Ultimately, culture operates at two interrelated levels: the level of everyday lived practices that give continuity to social life, and the level of higher cultural achievements like art, literature, philosophy, science, and architecture, that reflect a society’s intellectual and creative capacities. Together, these dimensions make culture a living, dynamic system through which human societies, including India’s richly diverse society, understand themselves and the world around them.

Indian historians working within a materialist and social-historical framework, most notably RS Sharma,BNS Yadav, and DN Jha, have argued that the emergence and consolidation of feudal social relations in early-medieval India (c. 600–1200 CE) brought about deep and long-lasting transformations in Indian culture. These changes were not merely political or economic but penetrated religious life, social organisation, ideology, and everyday cultural practices.

Central to their interpretation is the argument that the growth of land grants to brahmanas, temples, and secular intermediaries fundamentally altered the material basis of society. As land revenue was increasingly alienated from the peasantry and transferred to feudatories, villages became more self-sufficient, markets declined in many regions, and social relations grew more localised and hierarchical. This economic decentralisation produced what R. S. Sharma described as a “ruralisation” of Indian society, and this shift had significant cultural consequences.

One of the most visible cultural changes was the enhancement of brahmanical ideology and ritual dominance. As land grants endowed brahmanas with economic power, they also strengthened the authority of Sanskritic norms, ritual practices, and textual traditions. Sharma and D. N. Jha both emphasised that this period witnessed the consolidation of caste hierarchies, the sharpening of social inequalities, and the increased marginalisation of lower castes and untouchable groups. Cultural practices increasingly reflected graded inequality: access to education, religious knowledge, and prestigious rituals became more restricted, while ideas of purity and pollution were more rigidly enforced.

Feudalism also reshaped religious culture. The decline of urban centres and long-distance trade reduced the social base of heterodox traditions such as Buddhism and Jainism in many regions. In their place, Puranic Hinduism, devotional cults, and temple-centred worship expanded. Sharma argued that temples functioned not only as religious centres but also as economic and cultural institutions, controlling land, labour, and surplus. Temple rituals, festivals, and myths reinforced feudal values such as loyalty, hierarchy, and divine sanction of social order. Kings were increasingly portrayed as divinely ordained protectors of dharma, mirroring the hierarchical relations of feudal society.

Another major cultural transformation lay in the shift from a relatively open, urban-based culture to a more closed, localised village culture. B. N. S. Yadav, in particular, stressed that early-medieval culture became regionally segmented. With weakened inter-regional exchange, cultural life became more dependent on local elites and landed intermediaries. This encouraged the growth of regional languages and literatures, even as Sanskrit retained its prestige as the language of authority and sacred knowledge. Thus, feudalism simultaneously strengthened classical Sanskritic culture and fostered vernacular traditions tied to local power structures.

Feudal social relations also influenced intellectual and literary culture. Sharma and D. N. Jha both noted a relative decline in scientific and rational traditions that had flourished in earlier periods, accompanied by a greater emphasis on religious texts, commentaries, genealogies, and mytho-historical narratives. The composition of Puranas, dynastic chronicles, and religious commentaries reflected the cultural needs of a feudal society: legitimising land rights, lineage claims, and social privileges. Knowledge became more conservative and repetitive, often reinforcing existing hierarchies rather than questioning them.

Cultural attitudes towards labour and production also changed. In earlier periods, artisans and traders had occupied an important place in urban culture. Under feudalism, as Sharma argued, manual labour was increasingly devalued in ideological terms, even though it remained central to production. The cultural prestige of the peasantry and artisans declined, while rent-receiving elites, the brahmanas, landlords, and feudatories, were elevated. This ideological devaluation of labour found expression in texts that glorified land ownership and ritual status rather than productive work.

D. N. Jha further pointed out that feudal culture reinforced patriarchal norms. Women’s roles became more tightly regulated, especially within elite households, and practices such as child marriage and restrictions on women’s mobility gained stronger ideological support. Cultural ideals increasingly emphasised female chastity, obedience, and domesticity, reflecting the concerns of landed, lineage-based elites anxious about inheritance and social control.

Taken together, the works of Sharma, Yadav, and Jha suggest that Indian feudalism produced a culture marked by hierarchy, localisation, ritualism, and ideological conservatism. Culture during this period increasingly served to legitimise unequal social relations, sanctify land control, and naturalise caste and gender hierarchies. At the same time, it also generated rich regional traditions, devotional practices, and vernacular literatures that would shape Indian culture for centuries to come. Thus, feudalism did not simply arrest cultural development; it restructured culture in accordance with new material and social realities, leaving a deep imprint on the subcontinent’s historical trajectory.

• Syed Ali Nadeem Rezavi

Dara Shukoh occupies a singular and paradoxical position in Mughal history. He has attracted a remarkably diverse historiography, shaped as much by historians’ intellectual predispositions as by the politically mediated nature of Mughal sources. Early colonial and nationalist writers, most notably Sir Jadunath Sarkar, framed Dara through a stark moral opposition with Aurangzeb, portraying him as a tolerant, humanistic, almost proto-secular prince tragically eliminated by religious orthodoxy. This binary, though influential, flattened the political realities of Mughal succession and transformed Dara into a symbolic counter-figure rather than a historically situated actor. A crucial corrective was offered by Kalika Ranjan Qanungo, who rejected romanticisation and insisted on judging Dara as a political figure. Qanungo acknowledged Dara’s intellectual sincerity and cultural brilliance but emphasised his lack of administrative training, military competence, and political tact. For him, Dara’s failure stemmed not from religious heterodoxy but from an inability to convert cultural authority into political power. Later scholarship, especially that of M Athar Ali, shifted attention to the structural logic of Mughal politics—factional alignments, noble interests, command over resources—rather than personal belief. More recent cultural-intellectual studies by Supriya Gandhi have further nuanced this picture by situating Dara within Mughal traditions of knowledge production, translation, spiritual kingship, and elite piety. Taken together, these approaches move us away from moral binaries and toward an understanding of Dara Shukoh as a historically grounded prince whose intellectual ambitions collided with the unforgiving constraints of early modern imperial power.

As the eldest son and acknowledged heir-apparent of Emperor Shahjahan, Dara enjoyed unparalleled paternal favour. Yet this intimacy proved politically debilitating. Though appointed subahdar of Punjab and Allahabad, he governed these provinces largely through deputies and remained mostly at court, thereby missing the sustained provincial and military apprenticeship traditionally expected of Mughal princes. Qanungo was particularly sharp on this point: Dara, shielded from adversity, never acquired the discipline of command or the capacity to negotiate power under pressure. Unlike Aurangzeb, whose long tenures in the Deccan forged military authority and noble alliances, Dara remained dependent on imperial favour rather than personal networks. Temperamentally reflective and intellectually inclined, he was ill-suited to the aggressive calculus of succession politics. Compounding this was an arrogance born of privilege; Dara repeatedly alienated senior nobles such as Mirza Raja Jai Singh, Shaista Khan, and Khalilullah Khan by humiliating them and disregarding courtly norms. For example, he would derogatorily call Jai Singh as “Dakhini Bandar”. In a polity where kingship depended on managing egos and forging consensus among elites, such behaviour proved fatal.

In stark contrast to these political limitations stood the coherence and ambition of Dara’s intellectual and spiritual vision. His intellectual world was anchored in Qadiri Sufism. Introduced by Shah Jahan to the celebrated mystic Miyan Mir, Dara later became a devoted disciple of Mulla Shah Badakhshi. While Sufi devotion was not uncommon in the Mughal household—Jahanara Begum shared similar inclinations—Dara alone sought to systematise and textualise mystical experience. His works, including Safinat-ul-Auliya and Sakinat-ul-Auliya, compiled hagiographical and doctrinal material on Sufi saints and traced chains of spiritual authority; Risala-i Haqqnuma explored metaphysical truth and ethical conduct; and Hasanat-ul-Arifin assembled aphoristic sayings of Sufi masters. These were serious intellectual interventions, not ornamental exercises in piety. Yet, as Qanungo perceptively observed, Dara confused spiritual authority with political legitimacy, assuming that metaphysical depth could compensate for deficiencies in administration and military command.

This intellectual ambition reached its most original expression in Dara’s comparative theological works, above all Majmaʿ-ul-Baḥrain (“The Confluence of the Two Seas”). Far from being a plea for vague tolerance, the text is a sustained metaphysical argument that Sufi notions of divine unity (tawḥīd) and Vedantic concepts of ultimate reality (brahman) converge at a deeper, esoteric level. Dara approached Hinduism not as a collection of popular rituals but as a philosophical tradition whose highest articulation lay in the Upanishads. He consistently distinguished between external religious forms and inner truth, arguing that conflict arose when surface practices were mistaken for ultimate meaning. His engagement with Hinduism was thus elite, text-centred, and philosophical rather than devotional or populist. Importantly, Majmaʿ-ul-Baḥrain did not advocate the fusion of religions; it sought instead to reveal a shared mystical grammar underlying distinct traditions.

This vision culminated in Dara’s Persian translation of the Upanishads, titled Sirr-i Akbar (“The Greatest Secret”). In the introduction, Dara advanced his most daring claim: that the Qur’anic Kitab al-Maknun, the “Hidden Book,” referred to in Islamic scripture, was none other than the Upanishads. To Dara, these texts contained the primordial articulation of monotheism, later reaffirmed and clarified by Islam. The project was explicitly pedagogical and imperial. By translating the Upanishads into Persian, Dara sought to make them accessible to Muslim scholars and integrate Indian metaphysics into the Persianate intellectual world of the Mughal elite. As Supriya Gandhi has shown, translation in the Mughal context functioned as a mode of sovereignty, a way of claiming India’s intellectual past and embedding Mughal authority more deeply in the subcontinent.

Dara’s pluralism must be distinguished carefully from Akbar’s doctrine of ṣulḥ-i kul. Akbar’s ṣulḥ-i kul was primarily political and administrative, a principle of universal peace designed to stabilise empire and secure loyalty across religious communities. Dara’s version, by contrast, was metaphysical and intellectual. It did not emerge from the necessities of governance but from a conviction that all true religions shared a single esoteric core. Where Akbar tolerated difference to rule effectively, Dara sought to interpret difference away at the level of ultimate truth. Further, Akbar’s sulh e kul was a rejection of religion, Dara’s sulh e kul was belief that there is truth in all religions. This distinction is crucial, for it reveals why Dara’s vision, however sophisticated, lacked the institutional mechanisms that made Akbar’s policy durable.

Dara’s conception of sovereignty extended beyond texts into culture, art, and architecture. He was a passionate patron of music, painting, and calligraphy, arts viewed with suspicion by Aurangzeb. The celebrated Dara Shukoh Album, presented to his wife Nadira Banu Begum, reveals him not merely as a patron but as an aesthete of remarkable sophistication; its later defacement and anonymisation after his execution mirror his systematic erasure from official memory.

Architecturally, Dara commissioned the tomb of Nadira Banu in Lahore, the shrine of Miyan Mir, the Dara Shukoh Library in Delhi, the Akhun Mulla Shah Mosque, and the Pari Mahal complex in Srinagar—structures that embody a synthesis of Persianate form, local traditions, and spiritual symbolism, reflecting his belief that architecture could serve as a medium of ethical and metaphysical expression.

Contrary to later assumptions, Dara’s engagement with Hindu, Sufi, and even Jesuit traditions was not exceptional within Mughal practice. Akbar, Jahangir, and Shah Jahan had all patronised non-Islamic scholars and ascetics. Qanungo was emphatic that religion was not the decisive factor in Dara’s downfall; the charge of kufr functioned largely as a post-facto political justification. What doomed Dara was his failure to command armies, build durable noble alliances, and inspire confidence in moments of crisis. Aurangzeb’s subsequent erasure of Dara from chronicles and the uncertainty surrounding his burial site underscore the politics of memory, yet even Aurangzeb complicates the stereotype of sectarian vengeance by arranging marriages between his children and Dara’s descendants and maintaining certain Sufi affiliations himself.

Dara Shukoh thus represents not a martyr to tolerance but a failed experiment in metaphysical kingship. He imagined a Mughal sovereignty grounded in spiritual insight, philosophical synthesis, and cultural refinement. As Qanungo perceptively argued, such ideals could enrich empire but could not sustain it. In a polity where authority rested on military command, revenue extraction, and elite consensus, Dara’s intellectual capital proved insufficient. His enduring significance lies not in what he ruled, but in what he attempted to imagine: an empire in which Islam and Hinduism were not merely accommodated but philosophically reconciled. That this vision failed tells us less about its nobility than about the unforgiving logic of early modern imperial power.

• Syed Ali Nadeem Rezavi

The historical relationship between India and Afghanistan must be approached as a history of shared spaces rather than of bounded territories. Long before the emergence of modern political borders, Afghanistan functioned as India’s principal north-western gateway, linking the subcontinent with Central Asia, Iran, and the Mediterranean world. The Hindu Kush was never an absolute barrier; instead, its passes—Khyber, Bolan, and Gomal—structured movement and exchange. Ancient Indian geographical imagination conceptualised this zone as part of the Uttarāpatha, the northern route of commerce and communication, suggesting a spatial order defined by circulation rather than enclosure.

This connectivity was already firmly in place in the ancient period. Regions corresponding to present-day eastern Afghanistan and north-western Pakistan—above all Gandhāra—were deeply embedded in the political and cultural world of early India. Gandhāra, with centres such as Taxila, functioned as a major intellectual and commercial hub, where Vedic, Buddhist, Iranian, and Hellenistic traditions intersected. The incorporation of Afghanistan into the Mauryan Empire in the third century BCE marked a decisive moment in this shared history. Ashokan inscriptions discovered at Kandahar, composed in Greek and Aramaic, reveal both the reach of imperial authority and the cosmopolitan character of the Indo-Afghan region. These inscriptions also indicate that Afghanistan lay at the crossroads of multiple cultural worlds, rather than on the margins of any one of them.

In the centuries following the Mauryas, the Indo-Afghan space became a crucial segment of the trans-Asian trading network conventionally described as the Silk Road. While often imagined as a single route, the Silk Road consisted of multiple, intersecting corridors, many of which passed through Afghanistan, linking India to Bactria, Sogdiana, China, and the Iranian plateau. Afghan cities such as Balkh, Bamiyan, and Kapisa emerged as nodal points where Indian merchants, Central Asian traders, and itinerant monks converged. Through these routes flowed not only silk and spices, but also ideas, artistic forms, technologies, and religious traditions.

The Indo-Greek, Indo-Scythian, and Kushan polities ruled across Afghanistan and north India as a single political and economic continuum, reinforcing these connections. Under the Kushans in particular, Afghanistan occupied a central place in a vast empire that stretched from the Gangetic plains to Central Asia. Buddhist monasteries along the Silk Road—most famously at Bamiyan—were sustained by Indian patronage and merchant wealth, and they played a decisive role in transmitting Buddhism from India into Central Asia and China. As scholars such as Romila Thapar have noted, these developments challenge later civilisational boundaries by revealing an ancient world in which Afghanistan was integral to India’s religious and commercial life.

These ancient patterns of movement and exchange laid the groundwork for the medieval and early modern Indo-Afghan relationship. Dynasties that later ruled India—the Ghaznavids, Ghurids, and Timurids—emerged from Afghan and Trans-Oxanian contexts already shaped by centuries of interaction with the subcontinent. The Indo-Persian political culture that developed from the thirteenth century onwards drew upon this inherited geography of routes, markets, and shared cultural idioms. Historians such as Irfan Habib and Muzaffar Alam have emphasised that the political vocabulary and administrative practices of medieval India cannot be understood without recognising Afghanistan’s role as a connective zone rather than a point of rupture.

This longue durée of integration reached its most structured and explicit form under the Mughal Empire. The Mughal state itself was born out of the Indo-Afghan corridor, and Afghanistan lay at the heart of its political geography. For Babur, Kabul was his watan, a homeland that anchored his claims to legitimacy and sovereignty.

The medieval and early modern periods intensified these connections, culminating in the Mughal era, when Afghanistan assumed a position of extraordinary centrality in the political imagination and administrative structure of the Indian empire. The Mughal state itself was born out of the Indo-Afghan corridor. As pointed out above, Kabul was not a frontier possession but Babur’s watan, imbued with emotional, strategic, and cultural significance. Babur’s repeated oscillation between Kabul and Hindustan, described vividly in the Baburnama, reveals a political geography in which the Hindu Kush did not divide worlds but linked them. Kabul functioned as the hinge between Central Asian Timurid traditions and the Indian environment into which Babur inserted himself after 1526.

Under his successor Humayun too, control over Afghanistan, particularly Kabul and Qandahar, was essential to Mughal survival. The Afghan zone provided not only military manpower but also legitimacy rooted in Timurid and Chinggisid traditions. Humayun’s exile in Iran and subsequent return to India via Qandahar and Kabul further reinforced the role of Afghanistan as a political bridge rather than a periphery. Stephen Dale and Ali Anooshahr have convincingly shown that early Mughal sovereignty was transregional in character, resting on the ability to mobilise resources and loyalties across Central Asia, Afghanistan, and northern India.

This pattern continued and stabilised under Akbar. Kabul was incorporated as a suba within the Mughal administrative system, its governors often drawn from the highest ranks of the nobility. Far from being marginal, the province occupied a privileged position in the imperial hierarchy, frequently assigned to princes or trusted grandees. Akbar’s policy towards Afghan tribes was not merely coercive but integrative; Afghan nobles were absorbed into the mansabdari system and deployed across the empire. Iqtidar Alam Khan and M Athar Ali’s works on Mughal nobility demonstrate the extent to which Afghans remained a vital component of the imperial elite well into the seventeenth century.

Under the early Mughal rulers, the transregional sovereignty was institutionalised. Kabul not only became a Mughal suba, but was frequently entrusted to princes or senior nobles, reflecting its privileged status within the imperial order. Control over Kabul and Qandahar was vital not merely for defence but for maintaining access to the wider Central Asian world. The long contest with the Safavids over Qandahar underscores how deeply Mughal India remained embedded in an Indo-Afghan-Iranian geopolitical system. These struggles were accompanied by sustained diplomatic and cultural exchange, reinforcing a shared political culture across the region.

Social and economic ties further bound Mughal India and Afghanistan together. Afghan merchants operated extensively in Indian cities, while Indian traders from Punjab and Multan were active across Afghan markets, continuing commercial patterns that can be traced back to ancient Silk Road exchanges. Afghan soldiers, scholars, and Sufi figures circulated freely within the empire, sustaining what Richard Eaton and Nile Green have described as a mobile Indo-Persian cultural sphere. Afghanistan thus remained integral to the everyday functioning of Mughal India, not merely to its frontier defence.

The strategic importance of Afghanistan lay not only in its manpower but also in its role as the empire’s first line of defence against Central Asian and Iranian powers. The long contest with the Safavids over Qandahar illustrates this clearly. For the Mughals, Qandahar was less a distant fortress than a keystone of imperial security, linking Kabul to the Indus plains. The repeated transfer of Qandahar between the Mughals and Safavids during the seventeenth century underscores how deeply the city was embedded in the geopolitics of both India and Iran. Muzaffar Alam has shown that these conflicts were accompanied by intense diplomatic exchanges and cultural negotiations, further binding the Indo-Afghan-Iranian world.

Economically and socially, Mughal India and Afghanistan were closely intertwined. Afghan merchants operated extensively in Indian cities such as Lahore, Delhi, Agra, and Burhanpur, while Indian traders—particularly from Punjab and Multan—maintained commercial networks in Kabul and beyond. Afghan soldiers, clerics, and Sufis circulated freely across the empire, contributing to what Richard Eaton and Nile Green have described as a shared Indo-Persian cultural sphere. Afghanistan thus remained integral to the everyday functioning of Mughal India, not merely to its high politics.

The later Mughal period did not sever these ties, even as imperial authority weakened. On the contrary, Afghanistan re-emerged as a decisive force in Indian politics in the eighteenth century. The invasion of India by Nadir Shah in 1739, culminating in the sack of Delhi, dramatically exposed the fragility of Mughal power. Yet Nadir Shah’s march into India followed long-established routes through Afghanistan, routes that had historically bound the two regions together. His intervention was not an aberration but a reminder of Afghanistan’s enduring role as the north-western axis of Indian politics.

In the aftermath of Nadir Shah’s death, his Afghan general Ahmad Shah Abdali—also known as Ahmad Shah Durrani—carried this legacy forward. Abdali’s repeated invasions of India, including the decisive Battle of Panipat in 1761, were not merely acts of external aggression but the assertion of a political order that once again spanned Afghanistan and northern India. The Durrani Empire, with its base in Kandahar and Kabul and its reach into Punjab and Delhi, echoed earlier patterns of Indo-Afghan imperial integration. As recent scholarship has noted, Abdali operated within a political culture familiar to Mughal elites, drawing upon shared norms of kingship, military organisation, and revenue extraction.

The Mughal period thus reveals the Indo-Afghan relationship at its most intimate and complex. Afghanistan was simultaneously homeland, province, military reservoir, and strategic buffer for the Mughal Empire. Its cities and passes structured the rhythms of imperial expansion, defence, and collapse. The later colonial transformation of this region into a rigid frontier, culminating in the Durand Line in 1893, represents a sharp rupture from this older history of fluidity and interdependence.

In conclusion, the Mughal experience compels us to rethink India–Afghanistan relations beyond the language of invasion or foreignness. From Babur’s Kabul to Abdali’s Panipat, Afghanistan was not outside Indian history but one of its constitutive spaces. Recovering this shared past allows us to see the Indo-Afghan world as a connected historical zone, fractured only recently by colonial boundary-making and modern geopolitics, and invites a reassessment of South Asia’s place within wider Eurasian historical processes.

• Syed Ali Nadeem Rezavi