SAWANEH is an Arabic word and a plural. Singular is saniha, which means event, incident or accident. In Urdu, sawaneh also means biography and is often used as in the compound sawaneh-i-hayat, meaning ‘life events’.
So, when Mirza Ahmad Akhtar Gorgani (1840-1910), grandson of the last Mughal Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar (1775-1862), wrote Sawaneh-i-Dehli, he meant to narrate biography of Delhi — the magnificent city that had been the capital of his forefathers for centuries.
Sawaneh-i-Dehli, a slim volume in Urdu, was first published from Delhi in 1894. Later on, Marghoob Abedi edited it and the new edition was published by Delhi’s Urdu Academy in 1987. Now it has been translated into English. Ather Farouqui, secretary general of Anjuman Taraqqi-i-Urdu Hind, Delhi, has rendered it into English. The English translation, published under the title Sawaneh-i-Dehli: Biography of Delhi, has just been published by Roli Books, Delhi. The book was formally launched in the last week of May in Delhi with a book-signing event.
Surprisingly, the just-published Indian book arrived at my desk last week — though it had to be routed through a third country as normal postal services between India and Pakistan remain suspended. Exchange of books and magazines between the two counties is almost completely halted and writers and intellectuals have to rely on someone travelling to a third country who then posts the printed material to its ultimate destination. Some use an international courier, but it is prohibitively expensive.
As mentioned by Ather Farouqui in his introductory note, born in Red Fort in 1840, Mirza Ahmad Akhtar Gorgani, the author, was the eldest son of Muhammad Dara Bakht Miran Shah (1790-1849), who was Bahadur Shah Zafar’s eldest son and the then crown prince. Details of author Mirza Gorgani’s life are rarely found, so Farouqui has quoted Hakeem Zill-ur-Rahman who has given a biographic outline of the author. According to him, Mirza Ahmad Akhtar Gorgani had to go underground for fear of his life as British had mounted retribution against the former royal family and their supporters. Mirza Gorgani lived a peripatetic life and practised medicine, ultimately settling down in Kairana in Western UP, quotes Farouqui as written by Hakeem Zill-ur-Rahman.
But Farouqui does not agree with the idea of a former Mughal prince living incognito in Kairana, a town about 100 kilometres from Delhi, without a nod from the British. He says that the legend had it that only after Mirza Gorgani’s death was it revealed through a secret document that he was a prince. It appears that it is a concocted story, says Farouqui and adds that “it is unlikely that anyone close to the family of Bahadur Shah Zafar could remain incognito in Kairana after 1857”, since Kairana is about 30 km from Meerut, a cantonment known to be the first to rise against the British in 1857.
Mirza Ahmed Akhtar Gorgani’s other works in Urdu and Persian including Qarabadeen-i-Sultani (Delhi, 1889). Qarabadeen means pharmacopeia, or the book detailing the medicinal qualities of drugs and their effects. His other books, such as Tazkirat-ul-Fuqara, are on Sufism and Sufis.
Ather Farouqui was not quite satisfied with the 1987 edition and for translation he somehow obtained facsimile of 1894 edition, which is quite rare. He had been concerned about the authenticity of the account of events as narrated in the book so he consulted some experts on history of Delhi and only after following their suggestions did he decide to go into print. So this translation is quite authentic and the endnotes by Farouqui that clarify some errors and myths lend more credibility to work.
As mentioned in the preface by Mirza Gorgani, the book was aimed at making his sons aware of historical events that took place in Delhi. But some of the events or dates may need correction, as the author himself has apologised for the inaccuracies. Farouqui has corrected the errors and clarified some misconceptions. What makes the book more worthwhile is the fact that the author was a Mughal prince and he has narrated some little-known pieces of information.
The first chapter describes the history of Delhi. The other chapters give account of Muslim monarchs who ruled Delhi; Muslim rule from 1192 to 1759; Delhi’s decline; and the years of construction of Delhi’s historical monuments. In the last chapter the British rulers are mentioned. Surprisingly, the Mughal prince is all praise for the British and the book ends with the line “now peace prevails all over the country”.
It proves that Ather Farouqui’s surmise that a former Mughal prince could not possibly live in hiding unless approved by the British. Farouqui has painstakingly corrected some errors.
One feels that a corrected and updated version of Sawaneh-i-Dehli in Urdu also needs to be published.
Published in Dawn, June 12th, 2023
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