Fashion has always excited me but what excites me more is the history of fashion. As a student of history, I have a habit of developing interest in everything that has a past. Clothes- a very integral part of fashion have a rich history which we must explore. Today, I’m going to introduce you to the clothing of the Mughal Era.
Mughals, for those of my readers who are unaware of these great dynasts, form a very important part of India’s history and even after so many years, continue to dominate its culture.
The Mughal clothing was characterized by luxurious styles and was made with muslin, silk, velvet and brocade.
 Elaborate patterns including dots, checks, and waves were used with colors from various dyes including cochineal, sulfate of iron, sulfate of copper and sulfate of antimony were used.

Men wore long and short robes and coats including the chogha (clothing), a long sleeved coat. A “pagri” (turban) was worn on the head and “patka”, an adorned sash, was worn on the waist. “Paijama” style pants were worn (leg coverings that gave the English word pajama). Other clothing types included: “peshwaz” style robes and “yalek” robes. Women wore “shalwar”, churidar”, “dhilja”, “garara”, and “farshi”. They wore much jewelry including earrings, nose jewelry, necklaces, bangles, belts, and anklets.

Pagri styles included: “Chau-goshia”, in four segments, the dome shaped “qubbedar”, “kashiti”, “dupalli”, embroidered “nukka dar”, and embroidered and velvet “mandil”. Shoe styles included jhuti”, “kafsh”, “charhvan”, “salim shahi” and “khurd nau” and were curved up at the front. Lucknow was known for its shoes and threading embroidery with gold and silver aughi during the era. Mughal emperor turbans usually had turban ornaments on them. They were made of gold and precious gems such as rubies, diamonds, emeralds and sapphire.

The Mughal period was one of the most popular eras of jewelry making, which is well-documented through chronicles and paintings. In fact the earlier Mughal paintings indicate that the era of Akbar’s reign gave anew life into the art, crafting a range of exotic designs. The Mughals contributed in almost all fields of development of jewelry. The use of jewelry was an integral part of the lifestyle, be it the king, men or women or even the king’s horse. Women were known to have as many as 8 complete sets of jewelry. Popular ornaments included two-inch-wide armlets worn above the elbows, bracelets or pearls at the wrist stacked high enough to impede access to the pulse, many rings (with the mirror ring worn on the right thumb customary for nearly all the inhabitants of the Zenana), strings of pearls (as many as 15 strings at a time), metal bands or strings of pearls at the bottom of their legs, and ornaments hanging in the middle of the head in the shape of star, sun, moon, or a flower.

Turban jewelry was considered a privilege of the Emperor. The constant change in the influences from Europe can be clearly witnessed in the design of the turban jewelry. Akbar stuck to Iranian trends of the time by keeping a feather plume upright at the very front of the turban. Jahangir initiated his own softer style with the weighed down plume with a large pearl. By the time of Aurangzeb, this form became more ubiquitous. Turbans were usually heavily set with jewels and fixed firmly with a gem set kalangi or aigrette. Some of the popular head ornaments worn by men were Jigha and Sarpatti, Sarpech, Kalgi, Mukut, Turra and Kalangi. Women also adorned a variety of head ornaments such as Binduli, Kotbiladar, Sekra, Siphul, Tikka and Jhumar. In addition to these, the braid ornaments constituted an important part of women’s head ornaments.

Ear ornaments were also quite popular during the Mughal times. Mughal paintings have represented earrings quite often. Ear ornaments were worn by both men and women. Mor-Bhanwar, Bali, Jhumkas, Kanphool and Pipal patra or papal patti are some of the known earrings from the period. Neck ornaments of different kinds of pearls and precious stones were worn by men and women. Some of the neck ornaments for men included Latkan, amala necklace as well as Mala. Neck ornaments formed an important part of jewelry of women also and included Guluband, Hans, Har and Hasuli. Nose ornaments were worn solely by women. It appears that nose ornaments appeared in India around the last part of the 16th century initiated by Mughals. The variety of nose ornaments worn by women during the Mughal times constituted phul, besar, laung, balu, nath and Phuli.
Owing to the relative isolation of the ladies in court, due to the Purdah, fashion in the early days of the empire adhered to traditional dress of Khurasan and Persia. In time, the social and diplomatic relationships between the Mughal Dynasty and the rest of India (Rajputana in particular), led to more exchange in accoutrements. Noble women in the court of Babur or Humayun would have begun their outfits with wide loose pants, painted or stripped. Their upper body was covered in loose garments fastened at the neck or with “V”-shaped necklines. Other articles of clothing included the Yalek: a tightly fitting nearly floor length vest, buttoned in the front, with the chest accentuated, in both short and long sleeve varieties.

As you all know, the French Revolution was a long period of social and political upheaval in France and its various colonies which began in 1789 and ended in 1799 with the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte. A combination of social, economic, intellectual and political reasons led to this revolution.
Let us look at the causes of the revolution one by one.

1. BANKRUPTCY
   The very first reason for the outbreak of the revolution was the bankruptcy of the treasury. Under the French king Louis XVI, France had helped thirteen American colonies in gaining freedom from their common enemy- Britain. The French government had spent a lot of money on the war and had incurred a debt of over 2 billion livres. The treasury was being used up for paying back the loans which the government had taken and to maintain Louis XVI’s flamboyant and extravagant court at the palace of Versailles. Thus, to meet its regular expenses like maintaining the army, the court, the universities, running of government establishments etc, the government had to increase the taxes.
   Now, we first need to understand that the French society was divided into three estates or classes- the Clergy, the nobility and the peasantry. The first two estates enjoyed a lot of privileges which included exemption from paying taxes. Hence, now the entire tax burden was on the shoulders of the poor peasantry who did not even have the resources to afford a decent living. Thus, this new burden of paying increased taxes enraged them.
2. STRUGGLE TO SURVIVE
   The second reason which led to resentment amongst the French was the struggle they had to go through for survival. The population had increased from 23 million to about 28 million between 1715 and 1789. This led to an increase in the demand for bread but unfortunately, the production of grain did not grow in tandem with the rise in demand. Thus, the price of the bread rose rapidly.
   Now since the wages of the workers were fixed, they could not afford buying bread at increased prices which led to widespread hunger and malnutrition amongst the people and the economic gap between the rich and the poor also increased.
3. GROWING MIDDLE CLASS
   The third reason was the growth of a middle class. Throughout the 17th and the 18th century, there was a growth in the production of textiles and subsequent rise in overseas trade. Consequently, by the 18th century, a new middle class emerged which was engaged in this trade. The members of this class believed that no group in the society should be privileged by birth. Rather, a person’s social position must depend on his merit. Philosophers like John Locke and Rousseau put forward the idea of a society based on freedom and equality. Their ideas slowly became popular amongst the common people who would widely discuss their philosophies in salons and coffee houses.
4. ADMINISTRATIVE ISSUES
   The last reason was the inefficiency and corruption in the administration, which did not pay attention to the peasantry. Added to this was the injustice the third estate (which was essentially the peasantry) was facing because of its social position.
   Hence, all these reasons forced the people of France to attack the wealthy aristocratic class including the monarch.

Megaliths are very interesting to learn about. They are very intriguing and for the past many decades, historians have been trying to study them in greater detail to unravel the mysteries of the prehistoric times.

Imagine seeing huge blocks of stone in a particular pattern? Won’t you be excited to know who built them? What if I tell you that these structures were built by men and women who lived thousands and thousands of years before us?

If I ask you touch a stone, do you realise that that very block of stone was once touched, picked up and placed in that particular place by the prehistoric man! Isn’t that exciting! Come, let’s delve deeper into these structures.

Let’s deconstruct the term to understand what it means. ‘Mega’ is a Latin term meaning large and ‘lith’ means stone. So from the name itself you can guess that the term ‘Megalith has something to do with huge blocks of stone. Let us understand this further.

Why were Megaliths constructed?

These were primarily burial sites or were constructed to commemorate something- for memories. There are various types of Megaliths found at such burial sites or commemorative sites. By erecting a huge piece of stone at the particular site it was easier to spot it. Just the way you see a gravestone with epitaphs on it in graveyards, similarly, a megalith acted a marker for the site.

Types of Megaliths

The burial sites contain actual burial remains such as dolmenoid cists (box-shaped stone burial chambers), cairn circles (stone circles with defined peripheries) and capstones (distinctive mushroom-shaped burial chambers found mainly in Kerala). The urn which contained the burial remains was made of terracotta. The commemorative or the memorial sites include Menhirs which are tall erect stones. Thus, these stone structures are the ones which tell us about the Megalithic culture which lasted from the Neolithic Age upto the early historical period which is 2500 BC to 200 AD. In India, archaeologists trace the majority of the megaliths to the Iron Age (1500 BC to 500 BC), though some sites precede the Iron Age, extending up to 2000 BC.

Where can we find these?

Megaliths are spread across the Indian subcontinent, though the bulk of them are found in peninsular India, concentrated in the states of Maharashtra (mainly in Vidarbha), Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.

Even today, a living megalithic culture endures among some tribes such as the Gonds of central India and the Khasis of Meghalaya.

There were several waves of migration from 70000 BC to 40000 BC. Consequently, there are four linguistic groups in India: Austro-Asiatic (the oldest), Tibeto-Burman, Dravidian and Indo-Aryan (the most recent). As megalithic societies were preliterate that means their linguistic origins are difficult to trace, the racial or ethnic origins of the megalithic people are difficult to understand.

Extensive research has been conducted on the mortuary practices, belief systems and political economy of megalithic people which has revealed that they can be given credit for the rise of the ‘political economy’ which means a proper structured political system and an economy was put in place by the megalithic people for the very first time. This of course is just an assumption made by historians since we do not have any written evidence to support this.

Megalithic people carried out agricultural activity in both the Rabi and Kharif seasons. A large variety of grains such as rice, wheat, millet, barley lentil, black gram, horse gram, common pea, pigeon pea and Indian jujube have been recovered from habitations.

The very idea of burying the dead along with burial goods indicates strong belief in life after death and possibly rebirth among megalithic people. The respect accorded to the buried individual ensured that the grave and the goods contained within were not harmed or subjected to vandalism and theft. Paddy husk has been found in burial sites, further proof of the megalithic peoples’ commitment towards ensuring their dead a comfortable afterlife. They also believed in some idea of a soul.

The living megalithic culture in India provides strong hints regarding the belief systems of prehistoric megalithic people. “The Gond people believe in life after death, they believe that every human being has two souls: the life spirit and the shadow. The life spirit goes to ‘bada devta’ but the shadow still stays in the village after the erection of stone memorial. Gond people believe that the first and foremost duty of the shadow spirit is to watch over the moral behavior of the people and punish those who go against the tribal law,” says S. Mendaly on the living megalithic culture of the Gonds of Nuaparha in Odisha. Interestingly, the popular Indian belief in the evil eye—buri nazar in Hindi—may be a legacy of the megalithic age.

Understanding the structure of Megaliths

Building of the Megaliths, its shape, the placement of stone and the process of construction also says a lot about the society. The construction of megaliths was a massive endeavour, requiring the active involvement of the community. A very noted historian called Mendaly has made very important observations about the Megalithic society of the Gonds and I’ll be quoting him- “They invite their relatives and friends from other villages and other castes, and erect the memorial stone in a burial complex or ‘matha’. After that a sheep or goat is to be slaughtered in honour of the deceased, and its meat eaten at the feast, but before that they offer this meat to their village deity and their ancestors. They believe that the animals killed in this occasion are supposed to become the property of the deceased in the spirit world and there is the belief that if this ceremony is not organized then they face serious problems throughout the year.”

The range of iron artefacts recovered from the burials indicate that the megalithic people practised a wide range of occupations and included carpenters, cobblers, bamboo craftsmen, lapidaries engaged in gemstone work, blacksmiths, coppersmiths and goldsmiths, proof of complex social organization. Beads made of various semi-precious stones and steatite( If you have studied about the Indus Valley Civilisation, you must have come across this stone. Do check out its pictures on the internet. It’s a beautiful stone) have also been found. Bronze figurines of animals like buffaloes, goats, tigers, elephants and antelopes have been recovered from inside urn burials at the site of Adichanallur in the Tirunelveli district of Tamil Nadu.

To understand where exactly does the Megalithic society stand in terms of India’s historical narrative let us look at what Korisettar has to say- ‘’Megalithism indicates the developments of a second urbanization, a chieftain society or chiefdoms, as reflected in monumental architecture as well as other aspects: surplus being generated, multiple crops including cash crops and horticultural crops, mineral, stones. Essentially, the emergence of Megalithic period marks the beginning of second urbanization in various parts of India beyond what was covered by Indus Valley Civilization.” 

The Sangam literature also has something to say about the Megaliths. The poems included in the literature describe the way burials were made thus giving historians some literary clue about the Megalithic society.

As a student of history, i feel this a question which most of us have had at some point and it needs to be addressed now. Whether or not can we call the revolt of 1857 the first war of independence? Now, there are two viewpoints to this. I will introduce both the ideas to you all and then you can do your research to come to a well informed conclusion.

NOT A WAR OF INDEPENDENCE

VD Savarkar was among the first to call it a war of independence. Many of his contemporaries as well as later scholars have disagreed with him. It is argued that it was neither the first nor a war and nor was it a struggle for independence.

It was not the first such uprising because it was preceded by numerous tribal and peasant revolts at local level. The Santhal revolt preceded the Sepoy mutiny by two years. Pazzhasi Raja, a chieftain in the Malabar region of what is now Kerala, struggled against the British from 1793 till his death in 1805. These are, but two examples of armed rebellion against the East India Company’s rule.

It is also misleading to call it a war. In reality, history records the events as a series of localised battles, with little or no coordination among the mutineers spread across cantonments. Moreover, the revolt was restricted to the Bengal Army. The Bombay and Madras Armies remained largely unaffected.

The most inappropriate aspect however, is the argument that the mutiny was for independence. In fact, the Indian chiefs who joined in the mutiny primarily did so over personal grievances. Nana Sahib, who led the rebellion in Kanpur, was aggrieved because the British were cutting off his pension. Rani Lakshmibai, of Jhansi was mainly concerned that her adopted son be recognised as the ruler of Jhansi (under British suzerainty). Similarly, Begum Hazrat Mahal of Lucknow lent support to the mutineers in order protect the interests of her young son Birjis Qadir. Kunwar Singh, who led the revolt at Arrah, was motivated by his desire to protect his Zamindari rights.

In fact, this diversity of interests ensured that there was no unity of purpose among the leaders of the mutiny. This was a major reason for the failure of the revolt. While the Indian protagonists had widely varying interests, the East India Company fought with the sole objective of self preservation in a land where they were hopelessly outnumbered.

It would be more appropriate to remember the mutiny as one among many events that shaped the events of the next century.

WAR OF INDEPENDENCE

The Nationalist historians have a different story to tell. According to them the fact that Hindus and Muslims came together to fight against British oppression proves that it was the first war of independence. The Revolt was not successful but well it was the first every armed struggle of such a huge impact by the Indians against the British. Even though it did not necessarily lead to freedom from the British, it made the Indians realize that they could overpower the British and establish their independent rule.

The mutiny took place in 1857 and exactly 90 years later, in 1947 India did gain independence and we must not forget that after 1857, Indians never stopped their struggle for freedom and continued to fight against the British oppression. Thus we must not in any way undermine the events of 1857.

The amount of damage inflicted upon the British by the sepoys was enough to scare them off. This was the first time when the British realised that their Raj was not going to last forever and a very strong message was put across by the Indians.

The mutiny was magnificent display of Indian unity, power and might.

Thus, with this we can answer the question raised. I would request you all to read more and analyse the mutiny in greater detail and come up with your own unique answer.