Category History

“Tryst with Destiny” was a speech delivered by Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of independent India, to the Indian Constituent Assembly in The Parliament, on the eve of India’s Independence, towards midnight on 14 August 1947. It spoke on the aspects that transcend India’s history.

At the dawn of history India started on her unending quest, and trackless centuries are filled with her striving and the grandeur of her successes and her failures. Through good and ill fortune alike she has never lost sight of that quest or forgotten the ideals which gave her strength. We end today a period of ill fortune and India discovers herself again. The achievement we celebrate today is but a step, an opening of opportunity, to the greater triumphs and achievements that await us.

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 In Amritsar the news that prominent Indian leaders had been arrested and banished from that city sparked violent protests on April 10, in which soldiers fired upon civilians, buildings were looted and burned, and angry mobs killed several foreign nationals and severely beat a Christian missionary. A force of several dozen troops commanded by Brig. Gen. Reginald Edward Harry Dyer was given the task of restoring order. Among the measures taken was a ban on public gatherings.

On the afternoon of April 13, a crowd of at least 10,000 men, women, and children gathered in the Jallianwala Bagh, which was nearly completely enclosed by walls and had only one exit. It is not clear how many people there were protesters who were defying the ban on public meetings and how many had come to the city from the surrounding region to celebrate Baisakhi, a spring festival. Dyer and his soldiers arrived and sealed off the exit. Without warning, the troops opened fire on the crowd, reportedly shooting hundreds of rounds until they ran out of ammunition. It is not certain how many died in the bloodbath, but, according to one official report, an estimated 379 people were killed, and about 1,200 more were wounded. 

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Sultana Chand Bibi (1550–1599 CE), was an Indian Muslim regent and warrior. She acted as the Regent of Bijapur (1580–90) and Regent of Ahmednagar (in current day Maharashtra) (1596–99). Chand Bibi is best known for defending Ahmednagar against the Mughal forces of Emperor Akbar in 1595.

Chand Bibi was the daughter of Hussain Nizam Shah I of Ahmednagar, and the sister of Burhan Nizam Shah II, the Sultan of Ahmednagar. She knew many languages, including Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Marathi and Kannada. She played sitar, and painting flowers was her hobby.

Chand Bibi took the leadership in Ahmednagar and defended the Ahmednagar fort successfully. Later, Shah Murad sent an envoy to Chand Bibi, offering to raise the siege in return for the cession of Berar. Chand Bibi’s troops were suffering from famine. In 1596, she decided to make peace by ceding Berar to Murad, who retreated.

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We all love the story of Anarkali, that beautiful dancing girl in the court of Akbar the Great, who was allegedly buried alive by the emperor for having the audacity of falling in love with his son Saleem, later to be named Jahangir, the heir to the Mughal throne of India.

 The story of Anarkali and her alleged lover Saleem is now part of a subcontinental legend, and to try to change the story of the ‘eternal lovers’ would be an uphill task. 

 Everyone scoffed at the idea of her being buried alive, and that is where the ‘original’ story has to be told. The real name of Anarkali was Nadira Begum, a girl of Turkmen origin, she was a ‘kaneez’ in the harem of the emperor. Of the hundreds of women in the great Mughal harem in Lahore, she stood out for her beauty. Her complexion was red like a “pomegranate” in full bloom, and it was because of her flushing red complexion that the emperor himself named her Anarkali and announced it in court.

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Mumtaz Mahal was born as Arjumand Banu on 27 April 1593 in Agra to Abu’l-Hasan Asaf Khan and his wife Diwanji Begum, the daughter of a Persian noble, Khwaja Ghias-ud-din of Qazvin. Asaf Khan was a wealthy Persian noble who held high office in the Mughal Empire. His family had come to India impoverished in 1577, when his father Mirza Ghias Beg (popularly known by his title of I’timad-ud-Daulah), was taken into the service of Emperor Akbar in Agra.

Mumtaz was Nur Jahan’s niece and was married to Shah Jahan when she was 19.  They were, however, married five years after the year of their betrothal on 30 April 1612 in Agra. The marriage was a love-match. After their wedding celebrations, Shah Jahan, “finding her in appearance and character elect among all the women of the time”, gave her the title “Mumtaz Mahal” Begum (“the Exalted One of the Palace”). During the intervening years between their betrothal and marriage, Shah Jahan had married his first wife, Princess Kandahari Begum in 1609 and in 1617, after marrying Mumtaz, took a third wife, Izz-un-Nissa Begum (titled Akbarabadi Mahal), the daughter of a prominent Mughal courtier. According to the official court historians, both the marriages were political alliances.

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Mariam-uz-Zamani was a wife of the Mughal emperor Akbar. She has also been referred to by several other names, including Hira Kunwari, Harkha Bai and Jodha Bai.

Born a Hindu-Rajput princess, in 1562, Mariam-uz-Zamani was offered in marriage to Akbar by her father, Raja Bharmal of Amber. The wedding, held in Sambhar, was a political one and was a sign of complete submission of her father to his imperial overlord. Her marriage to Akbar led to a gradual shift in his religious and social policy. She is widely regarded in modern Indian historiography as exemplifying Akbar’s and the Mughal’s tolerance of religious differences and their inclusive policies within an expanding multi-ethnic and multi-denominational empire.

Mariam-uz-Zamani was born in 1542, the daughter of Raja Bharmal of Amber by his wife Rani Champavati, daughter of Rao Ganga Solanki. Her paternal grandparents were Raja Prithviraj Singh I and Apurva Devi, a daughter of Rao Lunkaran of Bikaner.

Her birth name is unknown. ‘Mariam-uz-Zamani’ was in fact a title bestowed on her by Akbar on the occasion of their son Jahangir’s birth.

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