The Colonial Project and Preservation of Heritage: Akbar’s Tomb

Article Written By EIH Researcher And Writer

Barnak Das

The greatest of the Mughal emperors, Akbar, is buried in his majestic mausoleum, the Bihistabad or, as it is more popularly known, the Akbar’s tomb in Sikandra, 12 kilometres north-west of Agra. The construction of this grand burial complex had been initiated just two years before Akbar passed away in 1605. It was finished in 1613  by his only surviving son, Salim, or as the world would know him, Emperor Jahangir. The Bihistabad is an impressive example of hybrid Indo-Persian architecture, making it one of the most beautiful mausoleums in the Indian subcontinent. But more than that, the monument is a source of political legitimacy, symbolising Mughal kingship, for it housed the remains of India’s greatest emperor, Akbar. This was the reason which made it a target for the rebellious Jats of Bharatpur in 1688, during Aurangazeb’s reign. Under Raja Ram, the Jats laid siege to the tomb of Akbar and succeeded in ransacking and plundering it of its treasury and jewels. The plundering and pillaging by the Jats severely damaged the monument. Some minarets were destroyed, the outside wall was broken, and the inside inlay decoration on tiles was set on fire. The tomb’s condition worsened further in the coming decades by the collapse of the Mughal empire and the political chaos that followed it.

Fast forward two centuries and we arrive in the year 1843. By then, the English East India Company had taken over most of India. The same year, in October, the people in London came across a strange article. The article was published in a reputed English newspaper, Illustrated London News, it was titled: “Sale of the Mogol Sultan Akber’s Palace at the East India Docks.” The article introduced the English readers to the ‘degradation’ and  ‘ruin’ of the mausoleum and the loss of its original splendour over three centuries of ignorance. It directly blamed the unwise, uneducated Indian rulers who refused to spend any money for the upkeep of the architectural marvel. It was aimed to show Indians do not value their heritage the same as the Brits do. The sale of the Mogol Sultan Akbers’s palace was thus aimed in preserving the valued artistic and cultural heritage of the loot that the East India Company acquired, ex-situ, in Britain, as otherwise, it would fall into ruin if left in the hands of Indians. This sale included inlaid marble panels and window screens of carved red sandstone or terracotta. All of them were removed from the monument for the purpose of auctioning them.

This is not surprising if we consider that the many British officials in South-Asia and China were funded by the loot of the conquered forts, palaces and royal treasuries. The term ‘loot’ appeared in the English dictionaries as early as the year 1788 from the Hindi term ‘lut’, meaning thievery or pillage. In the two hundred years of colonial rule in India a wealth of uncountable amount was looted by the British. But this wealth was not always money, it was also objects that were heritage of community, a crucial part of their identity. For the British public back in London there was no way to identify the artefacts and antiquities bought as loot. Take the example of the sale of architectural fragments from the Agra fort and Akbar’s tomb. The propaganda spread by the British media made the auctioneers see themselves not as ‘looting’ the heritage of India, but rather ‘saving’ Akbar’s palace from complete erosion and erasure from existence by buying its fragments.

For the East India Company, the motivation for colonising India was quite simple, to earn money, to make profit. But things changed after 1857 following the Sepoy Mutiny when the British Crown directly took over the Indian territories held before the Company. This led to a major shift in the ideology of governance along with the outlook on India’s rich cultural heritage. Previously, the East India Company employees had looted tremendous amounts of Indian artefacts to either sell them or keep them as collections. But this was all about to change. The rapid surge industrialisation had swept across from England to mainland Europe. By the middle of the 18th century there took place robust debates on deciding whether to preserve old structures as heritage or demolish them to make space for factories. This led to formation of organisations such as the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, the National Trust etc. Keeping in pace, the Archaeological Survey of India was established in the year 1862. It is interesting to note here that the ASI was the first ‘official’ body of preservation under government as the later Society for the Protection of Ancient  Building (1877) and the National Trust (1895) were set up as private organisations funded by philanthropists and common citizens. That makes ASI, a colonial institution, older than its British peers in the initiative of preserving heritage. Certainly just legal jurisprudence, medicine and urban planning, India served as a colonial laboratory for the experiments of heritage management. In other ways it went in parallel with the ideology of the colonial project as a ‘civilising mission.’

This was a significant development for heritage and its preservation in India. The British now focused on preserving cultural tangible heritage in-situ rather than its looting and import into the mother-colony of Britain. The new attitude can be understood by the words of the Governor General of India, Lord Curzon, when he said that the dangers of India’s cultural heritage were the native public who had little regard for their own cultural heritage, the despotic rulers of India who mutilated and destroyed religious and cultural  monuments that were alien and, the previous inexcusable actions of the Company soldiers and officials who looted Indian antiquities to gain riches. Curzon helped in passing the Ancient Monuments Preservation Act in 1904 which still serves as a policy for the protection of tangible heritage in India.

But the question arises why would the colonial government spend in preserving and protecting the heritage of a culture which had no connection to their own? The answer is because it provided the perfect ground through which the colonisers can display their civility over the colonised. The former, an alien people, unfamiliar to the traditions and culture of its colony, yet modern and benevolent enough to preserve it unlike the latter, who despite being connected to the  land and its heritage is ignorant, uneducated and uncivilised to maintain it. The reason was also because the monuments were the connecting link between the pre-colonial history of the country with the rule of its colonial masters. Preserving them was important as they helped in the cultural appropriation of the great sovereigns of the past to the current government. If the Mughals had patronised art and culture by building impressive tombs, gardens and forts, the British had displayed a similar cultural awareness in preserving those impressive monuments.

We return back to where we started, the Bihistabad or Akbar’s tomb. The monument was extensively repaired and restored by the British government in the year 1905, just after the passing of the Ancient Monuments Preservation Act and on the eve of the visit of the Prince of Wales. Curzon justified his expenditure on  the repair by the following words:

— Since I came to India we have spent upon repairs at Agra  alone a sum of between £40,000 and £50,000. Every rupee  has been an offering of reverence to the past and a gift of  recovered beauty to the future; …..it will take some three or four years more to  complete the task, and then Agra will be given back to the  world, a pearl of great price.

It is clear that the shift of colonial outlook towards India’s heritage was now complete. From the sale of architectural fragments by the Company in 1843 to the extensive project of repairing and restoring it in 1905, as Mrinalini Rajagolan puts it, cultural heritage transformed from colonial loot to colonial trophy.

References

Curzon, George Nathaniel, Lord Curzon in India: Being a Selection From his Speeches as Viceroy and Governor-General of India, 1898-1905 (London: MacMillan and Co., Ltd. 1906), 199.

The Illustrated London News, October 28, 1843, 288.

Rajagopalan, Mrinalini. “From loot to trophy.”