The Politics of ‘Becoming’ a Mirza: Shifting Masculine Norms and Gender Binary in the Mughal Society

in Making the ‘Woman’: Discourses of Gender in 18th-19th Century India, 

eds Sutapa Dutta and Shivangini Tandon, London & NY: Routledge, 2024

Abstract: The late 17th and early 18th century advice manuals–the Mirzanamas–defined mirzai or gentlemanliness as a befitting masculine ideal for Mughal imperial servants. Scholars have observed a significant shift in this ideal as the earlier emphasis on martial valour and hereditary service gave way to gentlemanly connoisseurship. Notably, the new prototype appeared to be constructed in opposition to femininity, specifically by equating mirza-hood to being mirza-khan or mirza-beg, but more importantly, to not being mirzada-khanum or mirzada-begum. Much scholarly attention has been paid to the figure of the mirza. However, it is crucial to recognize the disdain in the manuals for certain non-mirzas. This raises questions about the targeted group and the use of shaming tactics based on effeminacy. Furthermore, one of the Mirzanamas emerges as a notable satire on the established masculine archetype, prompting an exploration of the ways in which the text mocks the ideal. By addressing these questions, the chapter primarily concentrates on how in the shifting of the Mughal norms of masculinity, the gender binary was brought into play and was, as a result, reaffirmed.

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Pre-Modern Cosmopolitanism: A Challenge to Ladakh’s “Tibetanness”

in Mapping India. Transitions and Transformations: 18th-19th Century, 

eds Sutapa Dutta and Nilanjana Mukherjee, London & NY: Routledge, 2020

Abstract: Based on a primary argument that cosmopolitanism, popularly associated with the modernity of globalisation, was in fact very much a part of the pre-modern past of some communities, this chapter is inspired by the work of Jacqueline H. Fewkes. Fewkes, who argues that the existence of an Arghun community in Ladakh was in the form of a cosmopolitan elite through intermarriage and relationships to commercial goods during the 19th and early 20th centuries, provides a possible framework for identifying similar cosmopolitanism during the 18th and early 19th centuries. Taking the travel accounts of Ippolito Desideri, William Moorcroft and George Trebeck as my primary sources, therefore, in this chapter, I not only argue in favour of the existence of such cosmopolitanism during the 18th and the early 19th centuries but also discuss how it acted as a challenge to Ladakh’s supposed ‘Tibetanness’, or Tibetan identity. This stereotyped identity is associated primarily with Buddhism, particularly the form followed in Tibet – the Vajrayana, but as Janet Rizvi also believes, there is so much more to Ladakh than this ‘Tibetanness’. The chapter, thus, attempts to highlight how the existence of ‘pre-modern cosmopolitanism’, which took the form of various influences, led to the modification of this Tibetanness throughout the 15th to the early 19th centuries.

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