Download PDF - St. Catherine's College

STUDENT PERSPECTIVESWilliam is amaster storyteller and hisbooks havedone a greatdeal topopularisehistory amongnon-historians.3William Dalrymple &Aadya5Post-talk book signingAadya Shukla(1996, DPhil, Computing) President of the Oxford Indian Society2007-2008, on writer and historian William Dalrymple’s visit to CatzON WEDNESDAY 11 JUNE 2008, despitethe Trinity Term exam rush, over 170students, academics and visitorsattended a talk at Catz by theinternationally renowned travelwriter and historian William Dalrymple.He discussed his latest book, The LastMughal: The Fall of a Dynasty, Delhi,1857, which is a dynamic narrative of thefinal flowering and violent end of the lastMughal imperial court of the BahadurShah Zafar II.During the lecture, which was organised by the OxfordIndian Society, William pieced together the story ofZafar – and the Great Mutiny that spelled his doom –from a trove of 20,000 documents known as the MutinyPapers. William’s mesmerising narrative, supported bya colourful slide-show, had the audience glued to theirseats for more than an hour. He discussed how Zafar,a man of discerning taste, a poet and calligrapherwho attracted artists and intellectuals to his court, wasreduced to ruling an empire that had ‘contracted to thewalls of the Red Fort of Delhi’. Zafar had the bad luck torule at the confluence of two historical currents: a surgein British power that left it suddenly in control of all ofIndia, and a wave of evangelism, inwhich English missionaries, with theconnivance of the British East IndiaCompany (EIC), posed a risingthreat to India’s Muslims and Hindus,including the Sepoy soldiers of theEIC. When the conflict came to a headover the use of cow and pig greaseon the Enfield rifles issued to theSepoy soldiers, the result was the1857 mutiny against the Raj.In the question-and-answer session that followed thetalk, which I chaired, William underlined resoundingparallels between what happened then and currentevents, where the United States finds itself the solesuperpower after the collapse of the Soviet Unionand is convinced that its gospel – democracy – isthe answer to present troubles in the Middle East.In concluding remarks, he said that we should notignore the lessons of history, adding that the mixtureof religion and politics always leads to unpleasantconsequences, as seen in countries like Afghanistan,Pakistan and Iraq. William loved the atmosphere at theCollege and interacting with an inquisitive audience atthe post-talk book-signing event.28/AADYA SHUKLA