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Sons of Babur: A
Play in Search of India
Starting with a group of history students at a university, one of whom wants to write a play about "What it means to be Indian", the play brings alive Bahadur Shah Zafar on the stage, who takes this student in his hallucination right back to Babur to show how they related to Hindustan. History is revisited from the first Mughal Emperor to the last in search of personal and national identity. Inspired by the celebration of 150th anniversary of 1857, the play gives a central place to Bahadur Shah Zafar, the leader of India’s first war of independence whose arrest marked the conquest of India by the British and one who pined for his "home" in India in his famous lyrics while imprisoned in Rangoon. The play advocates an inclusive identity for India and specifically focuses on the relationship of Hindus and Muslims. The play has virtually every who’s who of the Mughal history and quite understandably, Emperor Akbar gets an extended focus while the author disapproves exclusionary politics of Aurangzeb who dies as an unhappy and broken man. The vision of the play is articulated in Akbar’s words when he tells the Mullah, "The Sovereign of Hindustan is duty-bound to become a bridge between the Muslims and the Hindus of the land. Both are equally our subjects and our responsibility ... . Mullah, the ‘them’ and ‘us’ have no place in our world." An element of spirituality and mysticism is added to virtually all the Mughal rulers to stress the similarities between Hinduism and Islam. Raja Jai Singh tells Aurangzeb, "Prince Dara Shikoh believed ... the Vedas and Upnishads have the same spirit as the Quran, that the ruh or soul in Islam is no different from the atma of Hinduism." The play also repeatedly brings into focus Sufism, and the Sufi clarifies many doubts of young Rudranshu Mitra as he tells him: "Our God and your God is one and to Him are we all surrendered. The soul finds life in the love of knowledge. What does it have to do with the strife of religion?" Advocating the bridging of the divide between the Hindus and the Muslims, the play projects an optimistic vision of a pluralist, inclusive India, a place of confluence of faiths and people. In between are interspersed brief scenes of personal crisis and ordeals which humanise these royal personages such as Babar’s agony on Humayun’s illness, Akbar’s visits to various shrines to seek an heir, and so on. Past is often revisited to understand the present and recourse to history to evoke the sentiments of national unity at the times of communal crisis has been common in the recent past. For example, in the mid-80s, during communal tension in Punjab, Sant Singh Sekhon wrote plays based on Sikh political history, such as Banda Bahadar and Vadda Ghallughara, recounting the glorious traditions of the Sikhs, depicting scenes of harmony between the Hindus and the Sikhs and warning against divisive forces. Sons of Babur also reconstructs history to suit the contemporary needs. It situates Mughal history in the current debates on self, community, nationhood, and on democracy which has become a "noisy business" where "each speaks differently ... so many languages; so many aspirations: each for their own". At another level, the play joins the oeuvre of postcolonial drama, rewriting history to take up the issue of identity both at the individual or community’s level and at the national level asserting the marginalised "self othered" by the mainstream, and re-examining the discourse of the nation. One is also reminded of several plays based on the Komagata Maru incident of 1914, when 376 immigrants were not allowed to disembark in Vancouver and were forced to return under the threat of fire after the agonising ordeal of more than two months. While Harcharan Singh and Ajmer Rhode’s Punjabi plays, both titled Kamagata Maru, look at the Sikh identity in Canada, the acclaimed Canadian playwright Sharon Pollock’s play The Kamagata Maru Incident revisits history to raise issues about the identity of Canadian nation. Structured in the traditional form of five acts, with a large cast of more than 60 characters, Sons of Babur, however, needs major editing to make it stageable and to carry this dramatic dialogue on significant contemporary issues to a live audience.
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A
debut play by a Union Minister and dedicated to Congress president
Sonia Gandhi may make one approach it with a bit of scepticism. But as
one reads on, one finds it a serious engagement with several pressing
contemporary issues, with some very gripping scenes. Emerging from
some unfortunate happenings in the last nearly two decades, including
Ayodhaya and Gujarat, and from his own experiences of dealing with
complex questions of identity, communalism and a composite culture,
Salman Khurshid’s play takes a fresh look at the idea of India or
Indian identity. Translating the pejorative "Babur ki Aulad",
used by those stressing an exclusive notion of Indian culture or
identity into the positive "Sons of Babur", the play deals
with the role of the Mughal Empire in the development of the modern
idea of India.