A Social History of the Deccan, 1300–1761: Eight Indian Lives (The New Cambridge History of India)

Very well written. Up to date. Fascinating history. So glad he wrote it.

This splendid, authoritative book shines a light on a vast swathe of space and time in South India in a truly exemplary manner: through the prisms of individual lives that meaningfully characterize the various epochs and places involved. It is marvelously informative, integrative, and interesting -- and a paradigm of expository writing.Highly recommended for the general reader in world history, as well as for those particularly interested in Indian history.

I like history and, more importantly, I like the subaltern style of history-writing, which focuses not only on the nobility of a certain time but "small people" too. I really liked this book because it does a great job of capturing a wide spectrum of historical lives in the period covered by the book, not just kinds and chiefs.Case in point, I previously read History of the the Maratha People by Kinkaid, which deals with more-or-less the same geographic region covered by Eaton's book. However, Kinkaid's story telling follows a straight line path from one king to the next one. By contrast, Eaton's story telling jumps between kings and generals to poets and social revolutionaries. Along the way, Eaton does a great job of painting a picture of the culture and society of the time.

This is a study of a neglected part of India, the Deccan. Eaton covers the period from about 1300 to the 1700's in about 200 pages and does so through the study of the lives of eight outstanding individuals who stood at the centre of some of the key events of Deccani history.The first is the last Medieval Hindu king of coastal Andhra Pradesh, Pratapa Rudra (1289-1323) who heroically but in the end unsuccessfully resists the conquering armies of the Delhi Sultanate. The king commits suicide on his way to Delhi as a captive rather than endure the indignity of captivity. Conventionally seen as the time of the end of "Hindu" India and the beginning of "Muslim" rule, Eaton paints a picture of a more complex transition from an order based on regional States to one based on a Pan-Indian medieval empire that incorporates and co-opts into its power structure local Hindu elites.The second life is that of a sufi holy man Muhammad Gisu Daraz (1321-1422) who came with North Indian immigrants to the Deccan fleeing the ravages of Timurlane. He settles in one of the States formed in the Deccan during the break up of the Pan-Indian Delhi sultanate. He belongs to the Sufi tradition that weaves a distinctly subcontinental form of Islam, accommodating itself with the local environment and culture and confers spiritual legitimacy on newly established Muslim states in the Deccan.The next subject is Muhammad Gawan (1411-1481) a Persian immigrant who rises to prominence as the prime minister of Bidar, a Sultanate in the Deccan. Gawan represents Persian court culture that forms a common elite political culture through India, Iran and Timurid Central Asia. He also was once a merchant and presides over a vibrant international trade linking peninsular India with the Middle East and Central Asia. Perilously straddling the sometimes bitter divisions between immigrants from the West (Persia and Central Asia) and the "Deccanis" (Muslims of North Indian origin), Gawan is eventually executed on charges of treason trumped up by his Deccani opponents.The narrative then moves to sketch the life of Rama Raya (1484-1565), the great general of Vijayanagar and founder of its last dynasty, the Aravidus. The State he leads has established itself as the pre-eminent State in South India, arbitrating the affairs of the Sultanates to its north, and playing a game of divide and rule. The state shares in the Persianised court culture of the Muslim rulers to its north engaging in diplomatic relations with Central Asia and the newly arrived Portuguese. The Emperors of Vijayanagar style themselves as "Sultans among Hindu Rajas". Rama Raya in the end overreaches himself in antagonizing all of his northern neighbours and eventually, they unite to defeat him at the Battle of Talikota in 1565. Though Vijayanagar later came to be seen as Hindu bastion against Muslim encroachment, the reality was one of participation by Vijayanagar in the greater Islamic world sharing in its cultural norms and trade networks.The next life in the study is of Malik Ambar (1548-1626), an Ethiopian slave who rises to be a leader of the State of Ahmednagar. The study of Ambar's life highlights the institution of military slavery where African slaves were brought to India to serve as soldiers. Rulers unable to trust their own preferred to rely on slave armies. Sometimes, the slave-soldiers could and did obtain significant political power. Ambar successfully resists the rising power of the Mughals in Northern India. The descendants of African slave soldiers over time cease to maintain a distinct identity and eventually merge into Indian society, as did many others before them, such as the Greeks in ancient times.Next comes Tukaram (1608-1649), the great Marathi poet and saint. He preaches an equalitarian message that challenges Brahmin dominance of religious life. He appeals to the lower castes but in the end, Hindu orthodoxy engages with and brings the social forces he represents within its orbit. Tukaram's life spans the rise to dominance of the Marathas in central India - who eventually dominate the entire subcontinent until about the 1750s. Tukaram lives at a time of economic growth and social transformation that empowers groups outside the traditional power structure but Hindu orthodoxy absorbs the new actors - as it has done many times before.We are then shown the life of the rebel from Telengana, Papadu (d. 1710) who emerges from the margins of society to become a successful peasant bandit. So successful that the Mughal Emperor comes close to recognisng him as a delegate of imperial authority and incorporating him into the Imperial power structure. However, outraged local elites muster their forces and bring an end to Papadu and his rebellion. We see through Papadu's life the vibrant commerce of Early Modern India especially in the manufacture and sale of textiles which he is able to prey upon and nearly accumulate enough wealth and power to set himself up as a local raja of sorts.Tarabai ((1675-1761) is Queen of the Marathas and lives at a time when Maratha power peaks. Even the Mughal Emperor is eventually controlled by the Marathas but they themselves are not unified. Tarabai finds herself on the wrong side of two rival Maratha factions and spends the rest of her life in prison - from where she keenly observes events. Towards the end of her life, she notes that the "hatted ones" (ie Europeans) are different from other merchants in that while other merchants are left to their own devices, the power of kings backs the European merchants. With this observation, that narrative ends and the era of the "hatted ones" begins.Eaton's short book is an engaging survey of a neglected area of Medieval and Early Modern Indian history viewed through the lives of the eight subjects he chooses. The biographies in Eaton's study are canvases onto which he maps the developments that unfold during the period. They include the decline of Medieval Hindu kingdoms and the inability in the end of their elephant corps and massed infantry to deal with fast central Asian horsemen with powerful bows., a problem that Chinese, Persians, Arabs, Russians and Romans all faced at different times. We see the weaving of India into the Persianised political world in the life of Gawan, as well as the vibrant trade that underpinned that world. We also the indigenization of Muslims and turning them into "Indians" in lives of Gawan, Daraz and Ambar. Importantly, we see the mixing of Hindu and Muslim idioms and life in the Deccani Sultantes and Vijanynagar at a time when "Hindu" and "Muslim" were less clear cut and sharply differentiated political categories than what they became in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries.A feature of early modern Eurasia is the increasing ability of groups traditionally outside the power structures to challenge old aristocratic and clerical elites, such as the victory of the "common" classes in England and France against the King in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries respectively. In India, we see through Eaton's biographical sketches the rise of vernacular religious and linguistic traditions. Warfare previously dominated by martial elites now sees the entry into the fray of large numbers of peasants in Maharashtra defending their homeland, arguably anticipating the nineteenth century notion of the "nation at arms" . We see this through the life of the Maratha Queen Tarabai. We finally get a glimpse of the peculiar mercantilist modus operandi of Europeans again through Tarabai - that takes us into the next chapter of India's long history.The form chosen by Eaton is not the easiest way to tackle the writing of history. The key historical processes and trends can only be touched upon and perhaps some knowledge of the subject is required to get the most out of the book. However, the concept works well and allows for a vivid depiction of the period under the study - and perhaps represents part of a general trend of the return of biography as a genre for serious history writing after a long period of disfavor among historians.