The Mughal state’s way to let people live, work and thrive

Jagjeet Lally’s ‘Badshah, Bandar, Bazaar’ is written for a lay audience, unafraid of complexity and interpretation and comfortable with storytelling.

What history is fit to write? Over the past decade or so, it’s a question that has generated a great deal of noise and very little light. Much of the clamour has centred on Mughal history, which must, ideally, be eradicated; failing which, the Mughals must be shown up as monsters. (I met a teacher recently who was wryly concerned she might invite trouble if she took her students to an exhibition on the Taj Mahal.)